Johnny Chen

I'm a senior game design student at NYU Game Center, currently deep in building systems that feel tight, fair, and fun to break. I design levels, tune numbers and game feel — obsessing over the moment a mechanic clicks.

Most recently I was a level design intern at ByteDance on a tactics tower-defense title. I picked up the in-house Unity level pipeline in a week, shipped eight live event levels, and designed roguelike run mechanics, progression, and room layouts for later versions.

I've shipped projects across Unity, Godot, and even tabletop, and spent a semester teaching the same craft I'm still learning.

When I'm not making games, I'm playing them — probably grinding a Roguelike.

Projects

Some of the projects are from school project/work and some are on my own time.

Selected work

Anternet
526

Anternet

Exhibited as an award-winning selected work at the NYU graduation showcase. An 8-person Game Center course project — a 3D puzzle game about ants crossing a world of network circuitry, turning logic gates, switches, and signals into puzzles you can see, touch, and break. I handled puzzle design and pacing, the ant-stacking and connection mechanics, and sound design.

Tick-Tock Takeout
349

Tick-Tock Takeout

Top 5% in Creativity and Artwork, top 10% in Enjoyment, among roughly 10,000 entries. A 96-hour, five-person entry to GMTK Game Jam 2026 — the largest game jam on itch.io — this top-down delivery strategy game had me solely designing its seven expanding level maps and co-designing the in-run economy and upgrade pacing.

Madness Overdrive: Masquerade ∞ Sin
536

Madness Overdrive: Masquerade ∞ Sin

Winner of Best Audio Design and an Honorable Mention for Best Visual at the Global Game Jam 2026 NYU Game Center site. A 4-player local party game where players pull a mask slot machine and compete to match the drawn emotion mask to absurd scene descriptions.

Been and Gone
215

Been and Gone

A multiplayer shared 3D scene-building experience. Players take turns placing childhood memory objects into a scene, nudging it toward one of six endings through a hidden attribute system — helping a waiting soul recognize the world that's been, and gone. Built in Unity, playable in browser.

Jiang Hu: The Underworld
151

Jiang Hu: The Underworld

A solo-designed wuxia-themed strategy board game for 2-6 players (~60 min). Players represent martial arts sects on a hexagonal map, collecting resources, purchasing weapons and arts, and surviving a progressively collapsing map. Last player standing wins.

Quacklands
253

Quacklands

An incremental management game about growing a duck colony and guiding their migration. Draw from a randomly refreshed tile hand, place tiles to grow your flock, manage resources, and steer ducks past fire spirits toward the Golden Land.

Rivets and Rebellion
173

Rivets and Rebellion

A solo-developed 2D platformer shooter inspired by Metroidvania design. Play as a lone officer navigating a rogue robot factory, managing a six-shot revolver, and defeating a multi-phase boss. Built with Unity2D and Spine.

Super Chair Riders
326

Super Chair Riders

A 4-player local multiplayer brawler where players ride office chairs across a classroom map. Built in Unity with wall-kick propulsion, and area occupation as the win condition.

Uroboros
415

Uroboros

A CiGA Game Jam 2023 entry on the theme 'limited and limitless.' A 2D puzzle platformer where players pre-program Elavia's action sequences before execution, solving levels with a limited command set. I handled level design (Level 2), character ability design, and sound effects.