NIYAZ BADAR / PORTFOLIO
Niyaz Badar
TECHNICAL GAME DESIGNER
Hello
I am a passionate and pragmatic technical game designer who is eager to immerse myself in the industry and showcase my knowledge of game design principles. With a foundational skill set and experience in level design, environment design, and gameplay design, as well as a strong technical backbone from my educational background in computer science engineering, I'm looking for an opportunity to contribute to the magical process of game development by designing and developing tools for my fellow game designers and artists to help make their workflow simpler and faster.
SOFTWARE
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Unreal Engine 5
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Unity
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Godot
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Blender
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Photoshop
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Microsoft Office Suite
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Krita
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Audacity
SKILLS
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Game Design
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Technical Design
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Systems Design
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C++
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C#
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Version Control
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Level Design
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Blueprints
PERSONAL PROJECTS
I worked as part of a small team to develop an item-checking game titled “Bear with Me”. During development, my core responsibilities included level design, lighting, scene composition, audio tech and design, and background animations. During the project's development, I created a robust and easy-to-use audio system using Blueprints' functions library, which enabled me to work on audio updates in parallel to my co-designers without needing to check out their individual blueprints. This game was selected to represent my university at Games Republic 2026.
Here is a brief of what I contributed to:
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Audio Tool: A comprehensive audio library and tool using a blueprint function library for my co-designers to implement audio in their systems much more easily. This also allowed me to edit the audio based on testing without the need to reserve any of the systems implementing audio. This greatly aided the collaborative experience.
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Audio Design: I sourced and edited the audio using Audacity to better fit the game's overall aesthetics.
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Level Design: Given the importance of space in the project, I analysed and designed a confined space for the gameplay to take place, which perfectly integrated and distributed all the necessary gameplay systems in the level. I further designed the level background space to give the player a complete feedback of the environment.
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Various Smaller Technical Systems: I also contributed to the design and implementation of several smaller systems to help us deliver a more complete experience for players. This included implementing an animated background with randomised cloud scrolling and sequential aeroplanes taking off. I also developed the backend tools to calculate and store points based on various possible actions a player takes.
Table Top Rally is an arcade driving sandbox showcasing my technical capabilities in designing and refining complex systems into a simple and intuitive player experience. The project’s technical design excellence was recognised by industry professionals who visited the event as judges, and I was awarded second place in the Master’s Game Design category at GradEx 2026
Some of the systems and tools I designed are:
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Custom Car Physics: Finding the default UE5 Physics engine and vehicle template inadequate for my vision, I created my own custom vehicle physics template that offers me much more control to deliver the superb player control that a platformer game requires. This also allows me to animate the vehicle to give it more personality and game feel.
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Dynamic Haptic Feedback Tool: Using Blueprints Function Library, I created a diverse functions library to control haptic feedback delivered to the player via their game controller. These functions are exceptionally simple to implement by anyone working on the project and can be edited in parallel without needing access to the specific system implementing the haptic system.
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Physics Object Tools: For the game implementing custom physics, I needed to make a simple tool to calculate the physics properties of a 3D asset I planned to implement in the level. Hence, I created a tool that can automatically set its mass based on the scale of the 3D asset as well as the desired collisions for the asset. This tool saves environmental artists and level designers a lot of time to populate the level with physics objects.
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Audio Tools: I created a diverse audio library tool to smooth the process of forther designers working on the project to implement audio in their systems. This audio tool can be edited in parallel and does not require you to reserve all the other systems implementing it.
Project Sift is a case study of Unreal Engine's level design toolkit. It showcases the design and creation of thematically fitting assets. The colour palette is crafted to work with any lighting direction and hue, depending on the time of day, whether it be silvery moonlight or a golden sunrise. It presents a highly optimised product with complex lighting and advanced custom post-process shaders specially designed and programmed in HLSL.
Some of the systems and tools I designed are:
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Kuwahara Filter: Being the highlight of the project, the custom Kuwahara filter transforms the viewport to look like a 2D watercoloured portrait.
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Dynamic Terrain and Foliage Tool: I created a dynamic terrain and foliage tool to handle terrain painting and foliage painting automatically. This drastically reduces the time it takes the Environment Artist to populate and design the level.
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Day and Night System: I designed a comprehensive day and night system that links to various other systems and sends them event triggers based on the time of day. This shows my ability to design and develop systems that can link to and work with multiple other systems.
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Dynamic Butterflies and Fireflies: Being tied to the dynamic day-night cycle, I designed tools to spawn and control the behaviours of butterflies and fireflies. The tool can set the movement radius of the actors as well as how chaotic their movement needs to be. The actors despawn and respawn depending on the time of day.
Ride n' Chill, a top-down casual driving game, prioritises an intuitive player experience within its cartoonish 3D city. The city's design emphasises clear navigation through distinct landmarks and intuitive road layouts, minimising the need for tutorials. Core mechanics are designed to be inherently understandable through visual cues and simple controls, fostering a learn-by-playing approach. This focus on clear visual communication and thoughtful spatial design aims to create an immediately accessible and engaging experience for a casual audience.
LifeQuest: A Lifestyle Gamification App To Enhance Personal Productivity
LifeQuest, my final-year student project, introduces gamification to task management, transforming mundane activities into an engaging RPG experience. By completing real-life tasks, users are rewarded with in-game currency to purchase and upgrade equipment, experience points to level up their characters, and keys to unlock further story chapters. This interconnected system motivates users to stay productive and experience a sense of accomplishment as they progress both in the game and in their daily lives. This project was selected as part of the top 3 best projects in the batch of final-year students.
WORK PROJECTS
Nayak
As part of a development team at Nomadicriti, I utilised my expertise in level design and environment art to guide the team through game development challenges. Leveraging my expertise in Unreal Engine 5, I optimised levels to feature exceptionally dense scenes with minimal performance impact. Through this experience, I honed my collaboration, communication, QA, and team management skills. My design capabilities were improved by learning from industry veterans and forming a strong bond with the team.
Skate Nation XL
As an Environment Artist Intern at MBS Studios for SkateNationXL, I leveraged my creative intuition to design and decorate real-life-inspired locations. I implemented specific game elements in these levels, such as skate ramps and rails, which were necessary for our arcade skating game. I maintained robust communication with my team of developers to make sure the levels I designed and produced suited our game mechanics.