Four Years Shipping Games
Let's build games — Tal Scheffer, gameplay programmer and game designer
Gameplay Programmer · Game Designer
BSc Computer Science (Game Engineering) graduate of Newcastle University. I build the systems underneath games: combat, procedural generation, and the editor tools that let designers stop waiting on a programmer.
Shipped · Collaboration with artist, playable on itch.io · 2025
Below
A night-lit narrative platformer about being lost, and the strangers who talk you through it: no combat, no fail state, nothing to fall back on but the conversation.
Shipped · Steam demo live · 2023–2026
A Tale of Sand and Bone
"You play as Shai, a fallen warrior bound to a vengeful spirit, climbing and fighting your way to claim vengeance against the gods."
University project · 2023
Duck Game
A collaborative 2D platformer where you can call your ducklings to fall in behind you on demand, trailing you from sunlit forest canopies into a glowing underground cave.
Newcastle · Inclusivity Game Jam · Nov 2023
The Interview
The piece explores how identity influences experience. Players walk to a job interview as three different characters; each encounters the same environment, but their journey differs based on who they are.
Solo · Unity
Truffle Keeper
An action-survival loop: gather and build out a walled camp, craft weapons at a bench, then spend a Truffle economy at a wandering merchant NPC, with a tamed companion fighting alongside you.
About
A short summary about me
I've spent 4 years building games more ambitious than a solo or small-team project has any business attempting: a procedurally generated roguelite with a full combat suite, and a systems-heavy life-sim that tries to make you feel something through the mechanics, not the story.
My design sense comes from playing games, not studying them, Project Zomboid, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Ark are the ones I keep going back to. I can still back a decision up with the theory when it's needed, I just don't start there.
In 2025 I facilitated Newcastle University's student game jams, helping teams scope an idea down to something they could actually finish, then debugging it with them when it didn't work.
- Education
- Newcastle University
BSc Computer Science (Game Engineering)
2023–2026 - Languages
- C#, Python, Java
- Unity
- Unity 2022.3 / Unity 6, Editor tooling, ScriptableObjects, Addressables, Input System, Cinemachine, URP, Tilemaps
- Architecture
- VContainer / Zenject, R3, UniTask, VitalRouter, LitMotion, Odin Inspector, object pooling, state machines