ANTI-SYSTEMS DESIGNER
Hey! I'm Rakan Assaf, a Systems Designer specializing in creating engaging and memorable experiences, using technical and math driven game design that stays true to design theory.
While elite game experiences emerge from systems, I believe players should notice the experiences and not the systems behind them. I refer to this philosophy as Anti-Systems Design.
Most Recently: Game Design Intern @ Thoughtfish
Top Inspirations: BioShock 2, Celeste, Stardew Valley, GTA San Andreas, Rockman 4 Minus Infinity, Football Manager, Hades, Yu-Kai Chou's Octalysis.
ABOUT ME
Hey, I'm Rak. I got into Game Dev in 2013 after my friend in 4th grade introduced me to Game Maker. Since then, I got into Game Design and got a thing for making games with daring, memorable experiences.
My first success was in 2018, when my demo, Fat Ninja, reached 500 downloads in a month. Years later in 2022, my Minecraft server, MARSCRAFT, blew up and entered global top 200 lists, and I'm now looking to see what big moment will come next.
Outside of games, I'm a fan of music, film, chess and Liverpool FC, and I credit football so often for inspiring my design philosophy.
I'm currently a gap year student based in Berlin, Germany. Feel free to look around and see what I've been cooking over the past year :)
SKILLS
PRIMARY
- GAME DESIGN: design theory, experience curation, motivation curves, power fantasy pacing, efficiently designing for depth, game juice & expressiveness
- MATHS: Economy design, engineering systems around formulas, spreadsheet modeling, math literacy, probabilities & statistics, balancing
- SYSTEMS THINKING: Technical design, mechanical analysis, habit loops, incorporating experience, feedback loops, predicting player behaviors & strategies, designing for edge cases
MY TOOLBOX
- Unity
- GameMaker
- Miro
- Trello
- MS Excel
- Google Docs
- Godot
- Figma
- Aseprite
- Jira
CORE SKILLS
- Systemic thinking
- Problem solving
- Feedback + Data Analysis
- Documentation
- Scrum/Agile
ALT SKILLS
- Programming/VisScripting
- Pixel Art
- Social Media (check out MARSCRAFT!)
- Market Analysis