Technical Gameplay Designer

Jack G Hopkins

Gameplay Designer specializing in implementing design into Unreal Engine. Highly adept at collaborating across disciplines; bridging the gap between engineering, art, and production. Proven track record of shipping maps, features, and DLCs.


Based in Cambridge, UK. Currently a Gameplay Designer at World Makers.

Download CV →
Jack Hopkins

Career

Experience

Four years of professional game dev experience and one year of serious hobby-ing.

Top Skills

Design
Technical

Cross-Discipline Leadership

Communicating design vision across art, engineering and production, including coordination of local and international outsourcing teams.

Technical Design

Prototyping through to feature ownership across the full design-to-release pipeline — including DLC, maps, balancing passes, and live service content.

Player Research & Feedback

Coordinating playtesting and community feedback loops, and feeding the results back into data-informed iteration.

Unreal Engine 5

Blueprint visual scripting, the Gameplay Ability System, custom tooling and profiling across full production cycles.

Jan 2025 — Present

Gameplay Designer

World Makers

World Makers, Cambridge

  • Project lead on multiple DLCs, maps, game features, balancing passes and season pass content, including work on Deceit 2.
  • Working on MVX: London, an original massive-scale PvE shooter currently in development. I was involved in designing the macro gameplay loop mission system, the creature spawning system, creature design, and designed and implemented individual missions.
  • Led and communicated creative and design vision across all disciplines — art, engineering and production — coordinating both local and international outsourcing teams while contributing hands-on to implementation.
  • Ensured designs stayed within technical and time requirements for the team while still introducing and delivering unique game experiences to the playerbase.
  • Conducted genre research for a new unannounced project, identifying and proposing suitable micro and macro gameplay loops to inform the design direction.
  • Presented updates to players in both live and scripted formats.
Unreal Engine 5 Live Service Cross-Discipline Leadership
Working at World Makers, reviewing a build in Unreal Engine with a teammate
At World Makers, Cambridge

Oct 2022 — Jan 2025

Graduate Gameplay Programmer

World Makers, Cambridge

  • Programmed primarily in visual scripting across all areas of gameplay, including architecture, networking, tooling, profiling and Unreal Engine specific plugins like the Gameplay Ability System.
  • Took designer-authored features from prototype to polished release across multiple releases.
  • Coordinated and curated feedback directly from long-time players and playtesters to inform future design decisions.
  • Implemented level blockouts across multiple disciplines using Unreal Engine tools to guide and align creative teams.
Blueprint Gameplay Ability System Tooling

Jun 2019 — Oct 2020

Founder & Artist

Astral Dawn Studios

Astral Dawn Studios, Windsor

  • Self-directed development in Unity with two other founders. Developed a demo with a public release.
  • Created multiple devlogs for marketing and discussing design decisions, plus tutorials on animating in Unity.
Unity Indie Dev Art Direction
See related project work →
Dodo walking animation — Maria from Dodo Alone by Astral Dawn Studios
Pixel animation from Dodo Alone — Astral Dawn Studios

Selected Work

Projects

A mix of studio work and personal projects — from co-founding an indie studio to game jams built in 48 hours flat. Each one taught me something different about scope, collaboration, or just finishing what you start.

Professional Credits · World Makers

Shipped and in-development work

Shipped

Deceit 2

A shipped, live-service social deduction horror game, where I worked as a Gameplay Designer at World Makers. The clips below are a sample of recent gameplay from official and community channels.

Live Service Social Deduction

Deceit 2 — Gameplay

Twitch

View VOD on Twitch →

Deceit 2 — Gameplay

In Development

MVX: London

An original massive-scale PvE shooter, currently in development at World Makers' Cambridge studio. Set in a full-scale recreation of London, it's built around large-scale multiplayer encounters, dense crowds, and a richly simulated, reactive city — pushing the scale and physicality of multiplayer gameplay beyond typical match-based shooters.

I was involved in designing the macro gameplay loop mission system, the creature spawning system, and creature design, and I designed and implemented individual missions.

Unreal Engine 5 Mission Design Systems Design
Visit playmvx.com →
MVX London — massive-scale PvE shooter set in London, in development at World Makers

Co-Founded · 2019–2020

Astral Dawn Studios

An indie studio I started with two friends, working in Unity. We began with Astral Dawn, an ambitious JRPG — and learned the hard way that the scope was too broad for a three-person team. We shelved it and built Dodo Alone instead: a smaller, sharper 2D platformer about the extinction of the dodo, which we took to a public demo release.

I led art direction and self-directed development alongside the founders, and produced devlogs and Unity animation tutorials to bring the community along with us.

Unity Art Direction Devlogs
Watch more devlogs →

Game Jams

Background

Education

A Master's in Games Engineering gave me the technical foundation — C++, real-time systems, and a dissertation in procedural animation. Before that, a self-directed research project in sixth form was where I first learned to actually finish a piece of design work.

Sep 2018 — Jun 2022

Newcastle University

Master of Computing, Games Engineering — First Class Honours

First Class

An MEng focused on C++, with a networking module, a Master's dissertation on procedural animation using Unreal Engine, and a separate Bachelor's dissertation on procedural city generation.

Dissertation & coursework highlights

Procedural animation in Unreal Engine — mannequin walking with procedural limb placement

Master's Dissertation · Unreal Engine

Procedural Animation

Implemented automated limb placement, ragdoll, partial physical animation and animation blending, researching rigid body algorithms including Featherstone's method. Built primarily in Blueprint with Unreal's Control Rig. Final grade: 88%.
GitHub →
Procedural city generation from a colour-coded layout diagram in Unity

Bachelor's Dissertation · C# / Unity

Procedural City Generation with Flood Fill Algorithms

Researched generating settlements from a colour-coded layout diagram, enabling fast city creation without a necessary drop in quality — useful for both mock-ups and starting points for a full city.
GitHub →
Screwball Scramble — 3D physics game in C++ with a ball navigating obstacles

Advanced Game Technologies · C++

Screwball Scramble

A digital version of the classic mechanical game, implementing collision detection and resolution, menus, SFX and state-based AI, built on a base OpenGL render setup.
GitHub →
An Afternoon With The Queen — pixel art queen character from the Godot game

Game Development · C# / Godot

An Afternoon With The Queen

A from-scratch build of "Ultimate Noughts and Crosses," played across multiple interwoven boards, with unbeatable AI opponents using Minimax and Alpha-Beta Pruning.
Play on itch.io →

Off Duty

Personal

Jack Hopkins playing rugby

Hey there, I'm Jack!

For as long as I can remember I've loved building things. Whether that's bridges for quad bikes on my grandfather's farm in British Columbia, or YouTube videos of me and my mates playing SMITE.

Growing up in Windsor, I became fascinated with video games and eventually decided that's what I wanted to make. From art to music to design to programming, I've dabbled in all of it, both as a hobby and professionally, albeit to different degrees.

As a citizen of the UK, Canada and the USA, I also have the right to work in each country.

If I sound like somebody you'd like to hire, reach out via the details below!

Let's talk

Contact

Open to new opportunities in technical and gameplay design. The fastest way to reach me is email — happy to send over a full CV, references, or build samples on request.

Email jackghopkins@gmail.com → Phone +44 7492 987987 → LinkedIn /in/jackghopkins → GitHub @JackGHopkins →
Based in Cambridge, UK