Ruben Quaedvlieg
Technical Game Designer
- 3 years of project experience
- Specialising in combat & player systems
- Unreal Engine 5 - NL
Main Projects
Technical Designer · Combat
This Sheriff Sucks!
Turn-based combat set in a slapstick western town, with real-time parry and dodge inputs taking heavy inspiration from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Team Size
- 16
- Duration
- 8 weeks
- Genre
- Turn-based combat
Responsibilities
- Parry & dodge: implemented both windows, giving the player something to do on the enemy's turn.
- Skill design: designed the player and enemy skills that shipped, from research through to implementation.
- Turn order & damage: handled turn-order processing and damage logic, with support from the programmers.
- Animation implementation: imported animations into Unreal and set them up as montages driven through sequencers.
- Built on my own plugin: the combat base came from my Year 2 Block B turn-based template.
Game trailer for itch.io release
Solo Developer
Turn-Based Combat Plugin
A reusable UE5 plugin that recreates the Persona 5 combat loop: encounter triggers, elemental weaknesses and follow-up turns, wired to a CommonUI menu stack.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Team Size
- Solo
- Duration
- 8 weeks
- Type
- Combat plugin
Responsibilities
- Encounter flow: designed trigger handling and turn-order resolution.
- Weakness system: elemental weakness and follow-up turn rules driven from data tables.
- CommonUI menus: built the combat UI on a CommonUI activatable widget stack.
- Data-driven content: new characters and skills need no Blueprint work.
Weakness hit into follow-up turn, UE5
Technical Designer · Combat
Unchained Melody
A 3D action adventure proof of fun, heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Borrowing the hunting horn, you combine attacks with your flutesword to queue up notes, then perform melodies in and out of combat that affect enemies and obstacles. Built to prove the core loop before full production.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Team Size
- 4
- Scope
- Proof of fun
- Genre
- Action adventure
Responsibilities
- Melody system: Blueprint component that stores and recognises notes from player input, detects when a melody has been played, and keeps adding new melodies to the database cheap.
- Blueprint interfaces: one interface handling the melody logic for every object or actor that implements it.
- Freestyle mode: Blueprint component extending note recognition outside combat, so melodies work for exploration and interacting with the level.
Golem boss fight, Unreal Engine 5
Other Projects
Riftbound
2025 · Team project
First-year team production where I owned the feature specification documents and was in charge of Producer. I was responsible for enemy AI as well.
Impresster
2026 · 48h jam
Made for BUAS game jam. A short game where you play as a jester impressing various townfolk! I was responsible for helping with the minigames, setdressing and bug fixing.
About Me
- Dutch · Breda, Netherlands
- rubenzylom@gmail.com
- linkedin.com/in/ruben-quaedvlieg
I am a technical game designer specialising in combat encounter/design and player systems, currently studying Creative Media and Game Technologies at Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Across three years of team productions I have built character controllers, turn-based battle systems, parry and dodge timing windows, and gameplay feel of camera, characters and controllers. I care most about the moment-to-moment feel of a game, reinforcing player experiences with modular systems that feel good for the player; with a preferred love for (Action) Combat related systems.
Before my studies at Breda university I finished a software development study with a specialization in game design in Unity in my last 2 years, working for clients at internships in web design and serious learning games.
Outside of coursework I build combat prototypes for fun, most recently a reusable Persona 5 style battle plugin for Unreal Engine 5. I love playing games that incentivize player agency and skill expression and taking inspiration from these systems, researching into why it works and applying similar systems as a inspiration for my own projects.
I am looking for a technical or systems design role in the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe around September 2027
Skills
Software
- Unreal Engine 5
- Unity
- Photoshop
- Figma
- Miro
- Office Suite
Design
- Combat systems
- Character controllers
- Turn-based systems
- Frame data & timing windows
- Systems & tooling design
- Feature specifications
- Statetrees/ Animation state machines
- Playtesting & iteration
Scripting
- Blueprints
- C++ (integration, debugging)
- C#
- Data tables & data assets
- Editor tooling
People
- Feature ownership
- Scrum & Agile
- Production & planning
- Design reviews
- Client communication
Languages
- Dutch : native
- English : fluent
- Spanish : fluent