Senior Technical Systems Designer / Senior Technical Game Designer
About Me
Ah Young Joo (She/They)
Hello! My name is Ah Young, and I am a game designer with a passion for delivering emotionally-resonant gameplay mechanics, finely-tuned progression systems, and pro-social experiences. I also have a background in technical art and am well familiarized with art pipelines and collaborating across disciplines.
I have shipped 4 commercial games, and 6 free games across 10+ game development teams ranging in size from 2-35 teammates. I have experience shipping and supporting a live multiplayer/social game (Peridot). My past projects include exploration/adventure, simulation, strategy, and puzzle genres. I have 8 years of game design and programming experience in both Unity and Unreal Engine.
The latest project I've been working on is Stay: Your Forever Pet, an exploration/adventure and pet simulation game which launched on Steam Early Access in July. As a Senior Technical Game Designer and Lead Systems Designer on the team, I led the gameplay design effort to rapidly stand up RPG/roguelite-inspired exploration and progression systems to increase play time from 20 minutes in the original VR/Mixed Reality title to over 180 minutes.
In my free time I enjoy solving puzzles, hanging out with animals, practicing archery, crocheting, and learning/mastering new skills. Above all, I am passionate about bringing ideas to life!
Some of my favorite games and franchises are: Kingdom Hearts, Spiritfarer, The World Ends With You, Slime Rancher, Legend of Zelda, and NieR.