Ethan Bruins

I'm a Game Programmer with over 5 years experience. I specialize in Gameplay and Editor scripting, mainly in C#.


Portfolio



First major game credit

I was responsible for programming the core gameplay mechanics, as well as helping create tools to increase productivity in the project.

Visit the games website


Game Submission for the GameDev.tv Game Jam. Made over 10 days

I was responsible for programming everything but the UI in this project.

Source code is available here


This game was created for the Mix and Game Jam 2020

Our team consisted of 2 Artists and 2 Coders

I scripted the introduction, character movement and throwing, as well as the end scenario.

You can play the game on itch.io


This game was created for the Game Makers Toolkit Game Jam 2020

Our team consisted of 2 coders and 1 artist

I worked on the vehicle physics and controls. And helped with setting up the duck feet

You can play the game on itch.io

We ranked 285th out of 5,418 entries for Originality


This is for an un-named project currently in development. The idea is to have different shaped rooms and generate a map that has no overlap. Took about 1 month to get in a good place

Created in 48 hours. I was the only coder. We wanted to produce a cute horror game taking in some memories from our past. We created a game where you have a power source and need to recharge at plug sockets. The player needs to find the keys to escape via the window.

Little idea I was playing around with where you can throw the text you type, at things.




This is for an un-named project currently in development. The idea is to have different shaped rooms and generate a map that has no overlap. Took about 1 month to get in a good place

Created in 4 days for Community Game Jam. Team consisted of 3 programmers, 1 artist and 1 sound engineer.

I was responsible for scripting the Inventory and Shop systems. I also helped create the shader for the screen transitions.

This projects source code can be found on Github


This project was created entirely by me in 4 days for Weekly Game Jam 110. I had been wanting to make a game with a grapple hook mechanic, so used this time to make a puzzle platformer version.


The game was created as part of a 4 day game jam at my University. Our team consisted of 2 coders and 2 artists.

I was responsible for:

  • Player Controller
  • Getting switch controllers to work nicely with Unity
  • Gameloop mechanics
  • Getting 8 players working via 2 screens
  • This game ended up winning the Student vote for Best Game


    This was created as part of my Final Major project during my 3rd year of University. This tool was used to create puzzles in the game These Lands.

    During this project, I learnt a lot about editor scripting and have used the knowledge in future projects

    Within the itch.io page, you can find videos explaining the tools and puzzles.


    This game was created in conjunction with VR Puzzle Tools. I was responsible for all programming and Unity implementation.

    This game is a VR Adventure Puzzle game built in Unity. It has had over 1,500 downloads on itch after being put into a Black Lives Matter Bundle. On Steam, the game has sold over 100 units.

    The final mark I recieved for this game was 95/100


    Bongo Beat Down was created for Global Game Jam 2019.

    I had been wanting to make games with alternative controllers, so i convinced my team to use the N64 Donkey Kongas as our controller of choice.

    I was responsible for:

  • Getting the Input working correctly in Unity
  • Creating a Bongo bashing mini-game
  • Helping rig the characters in Unity
  • Setting up the Game Flow
  • Our team consisted of 2 coders, 1 artist, 1 designer and 1 sound engineer

    Tweets from the weekend:


    Draumskrok is a first person rogue like game, controlled by your voice.

    Use commands such as move, reload, shoot and stop to make your way through the level.

    This game can be played entirely with your microphone, or can be played with a combination of the WASD keys and your microphone

    This game was created in 4 days for the Solent Winter Game Jam. The theme was dreams

    I was the sole programming on this project. I utilized a speech api to convert speech to interactions in game



    This was created for a DirectX 11 assignment at University. We were tasked with creating a playable demo around the DirectX 11 API.

    Github repository: https://github.com/Westerveld/Directx11-Demo


    This game was created as part of a Game Design Module at University. It's a 1v1 game where you play as ragdoll monkeys swinging from branch to branch, trying to pick up as many bananas as possible. I was responsible for:

  • Swinging Mechanics
  • Banana Pickups
  • End screen cutscene
  • All of the Art except for a couple of pieces of UI


  • This game was created in 4 days for the Solent MegaJam, going from the theme; "Mans best friend".

    The idea is to reach the top of the statue within your turn. Once you have done so, you can then make the tower bigger by changing the pose of your dog to make it harder for the other player



    This article was created with Josh Naylor while working at Unity Technologies. We were asked to give a tutorial on importing assets into Unity.

    The article can be read here.



    While working at Unity, I produced this blog post to highlight the 2D features within Cinemachine. I created the project from scratch to show off the features that i talked about in the blog post.

    While working on this blog, I coordinated with the Cinemachine team to ensure information was correct at time of publishing.

    While making this project I was able to experiment with using various types of cameras.

    I also used the same project at Unite Berlin 2018 for a mini-booth talk on Cinemachine 2D.

    You can read the blog here.



    While on in my internship at Unity, I had decided I wanted to look into procedural generation within the editor.

    I started focusing on procedural 2D levels and created this project. I then turned that project into a 2 part blog post.

    This first blog post focused on top layer generation using procedural generation methods like Random Walk and Perlin Noise.

    The second blog post focuesd on cave generation using algorithms such as Random Walk, Cellular Automata and Perlin Noise

    Part 1

    Part 2



    Created a project that uses the Unity Tilemap system to procedural generate maps. Was made public on the Unity Technologies GitHub

    Algorithms included:

    • Perlin Noise
    • Random Walk
    • Cellular Automata
    • Directional Tunnel

    Was later used in a two part blog post

    Access the source code



    On June 2nd and 3rd 2018, Playing Field hosted an event at the Unity offices.

    The idea was to have kids learn about the games industry and then design a game for a bunch of developers to make. I was on a team with about 8 other people creating a Game for a kid named Sam.

    His idea was to have a game where you can play as a Monkey and a Pig. The pig would be on the back of the monkey allowing you to interchange between the two characters.

    A spaceman had crash landed on your planet, and you needed to help him find the pieces of his rocket so that he would take you on a vacation.

    I was responsible for the art of all the characters, as well as the player controller and camera movements. The programming was done in C# and the game was created in Unity.

    This game isn't available for download, but you can watch a video of it here.



    Created at Global Game Jam 2018 in Hamar.

    When creating this game we had the theme Transmission.

    This game was created in 48 hours.  My focus was on the gameplay mechanics and the transitions between screens. The game was created in Unity using C# for programming.

    Avaliable on

  • Itch.io
  • Google Play
  • Github (Source Code)
  • Programming by:

    Art by:

    Sound Effects by:

    Background Music by:



    This game was created in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 39

    The art was created by James Redler.

    The code was created by me (Ethan Bruins).

    The base idea was to create a platformer where you use energy to get around.

    I used some of my experience working at Unity while creating this project as I had decided to use the inbuilt Tilemap system. I also used the sprite mask system.



    Created for a University module in 2nd year. Ending up receiving a first for the project.

    For the assignment we were given part of a Renderer and Shaders for PS4. We then had to add to the Renderer and Shaders to make it fit our needs.

    We also had to create a game from scratch. I chose to do a game based on pong with a few additions. These additions are:

    • Trail Renderer
    • Particle Effects
    • Simple AI
    • Controller Vibration - (for when the ball hits the players paddle)
    • Changing of the Controllers LED Color depending on which side of the screen the ball was on

    This project was created in C++ with Playstation 4 API.

    Video playthrough



    This game was originally created for the Solent Games Jam in February/March. It was originally created in 5 days.

    This game won the following awards:

  • Best Game (Student Vote)
  • Best Art (Tutor Vote)
  • Best Audio (Tutor Vote)
  • We later had James Redler, redo the art and create an awesome 6ft roller banner for the game.

    This game was shown at the 2017 Southampton Game Festival. Showing this game at the Game Festival gave me good experience at presenting one of my games to the general public.

    We had lots of feedback which was nice to have, but decided not to continue this project as we didn't see it going anywhere.



    This game was created for my Gameplay and Game Design module at Southampton Solent University in 2nd year.

    I received a first for this project

    games concept was as follows:

      Your size matters, when you are big you do more damage but move slower. When you are small you do less damage but move faster
      Size can be increased using power ups or by killing enemy ships.

    This project had a wave system for spawning the enemies in. It also had a local leaderboard where players could submit their score.

    I created all the assets for this project so i decided to keep the amount of assets needed to a minimum.

    Video playthrough



    Lagerloaf is a local multiplayer game created in 4 days by a team of 4.

    This game won Best Programming and Most Fun!

    The games idea was to have a multiplayer doodle jump game with powerups. I was responsible for the player controllers. This game was made in Unity.

    GitHub Repository



    The original idea behind this game was to make a 1v1 snake game with AI, but due to time constraints we decided to change it to be a local 1v1 game.

    We received positive feedback from this game, but i have a couple of things I would of done better:

      The pathing system for the catapillars didnt go off a grid, and instead went of 0.1 intervals in world space. This obviously made the game slightly harder than intended
      The obstacle and fruit spawning was also quite bad. The game would sometimes spawn both objects on top of each other, making the fruit impossible to pick up. This could of been fixed by making the objects do a radius check to see if it would overlap with another object.

    Created for Ludum Dare 35.

    Art by James Redler

    Video Playthrough



    The idea behind this game was to take the theme for the GGJ and create something different.

    We went really abstract on the theme and made a resource management simulator game.

    I learnt a lot about the UI in Unity during this project.

    This was my first time going to Global Game Jam, and I loved every minute of it.

    Created for Global Game Jam 2016

    Video Playthrough



    Experience

    Senior Gameplay Programmer

    Working on all coding aspects, but focusing on gameplay for the highly anticipated game, Undisputed. Working alongside Artists and Designers to implement new features into the game. Liasing with the QA department to fix bugs in the game.

    August 2020 - ongoing

    Content QA for Learn

    Unity Technologies

    Providing QA for content that is uploaded to https://learn.unity.com/. Responsibilities include; organizing my time between different priorities using JIRA, maintaining our learner content throughout the year, moderating live learning sessions. Day to day involves testing content within the Unity Editor, checking in with Producers and staying up to date with the engine.

    October 2019 - July 2020

    Student Ambassador

    Unity Technologies

    Organised workshops and Game Jams at my University while being supported by Unity Technologies. Was given the opportunity to attend GDC on a scholarship from Unity during this time.

    July 2018 - October 2019

    Technical Evangelist Intern

    Unity Technologies

    As a year placement I was a member of the EMEA Technical Evangelism team at Unity Technologies. I attended and spoke at many conferences such as Gamescom and Paris Games Week where I performed live demonstrations of the editor to a technical audience. As well as lots of field work, I contributed to the Unity Blog and YouTube channel to drive developer adoption of the new 2D tools at the time. While doing this, I liaised with various teams in different time zones (Marketing in Copenhagen, 2D Development team in Singapore and Online Content team in Berlin).

    July 2017 - June 2018

    Education

    Solent University

    BSc Computer Games (Software Development) with Placement

    First Class with Honors

    Subjects included:

  • C++
  • Unity C#
  • C# .NET
  • Game Design
  • September 2015 - June 2019

    Skills

    Programming Languages & Tools
    • Gameplay Programming
    • Unity Editor Scripting
    • Unity
    • Git/Plastic SCM
    • C++
    • Agile Development & Scrum

    Interests

    Apart from programming, I enjoy spending time being outdoors. I tend to stay active by taking my dog for walks daily. On the weekend, we explore new areas together. When I can, I enjoy snowboarding down mountains.

    I thoroughly enjoy testing out new recipes and can normally be found baking bread on the weekends. I also enjoy playing games of both the board and video variety.


    Awards & Certifications

    • Best Game (Student Vote) - Solent Game Jam 2019
    • Search for a Star - Rising Star Code Finalist 2018
    • Best Game (Student Vote), Solent Easter Game Jam 2017
    • Best Programming(Student and Tutor vote) Solent Winter Game Jam 2017
    • Best Programming and Most Fun Game - Solent Autumn Game Jam 2016
    • Letter of Commedation - Hampshire Constabulary - 2016