Taha Nasir

Unannounced Title (Unreal Engine 5)
People Can Fly

From April 2023 to Present, currently working on an unannounced title.

Until Dawn Remake (Unreal Engine 5)
Ballistic Moon

Worked from July 2022 to November 2022 on the upcoming Until Dawn Remake. (Click on image to be linked to the Sony page)

Tomorrow Falls (Unreal Engine 4)
DPS Games

I worked at DPS Games from October 2019 to May 2022 on Tomorrow Falls - a multiplayer vehicle shooter IP. It was shelved in 2023. (click image for steam page)

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Name: Oasis Dawn
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: UE5
Release Date: 2025
Link: Itch.ioOasis Dawn was developed for the 57th Ludum Dare game jam, and was my 21st jam entry. Despite having only just over two days to develop the game, it is possibly my favourite jam entry I have made thusfar.Leading up to the jam, I had, for the first time, been practising the final element of game development I had little experience in - 3D modelling. As such, I was determined to create all the models for this entry, despite the additional time restriction.Working alone, I decided to focus entirely on one thing - a fully-fledged melee combat system. Building on my experiences gained making action combat systems for work, and my attempt at a melee combat system for LD55, I created Oasis Dawn, where you take the place of Zuwayhir, a legendary figure from a fictional myth, long forgotten by those who used to tell his tale. Now he's doomed to protect an oasis from shadowy demons until he breathes his last.It was an absolute joy building out a comprehensive melee combat system, integrating combo attacks, evasion, as well as parrying and two different kinds of riposte. The combos and enemy super-armour ensured that spamming the attack button would fail. Riposting next to a special crystal, whose position moves frequently, was the only way to heal mid-combat, which forces the player to engage strategically with the enemies, two of whom had some attacks that couldn't be parried, ensuring they also couldn't just remain static.Behind the scenes, there is a simple but elegant enemy-engagement system, working to make the presence of a large crowd of enemies appear menacing, without being impossible for the player to control. By limiting the number of enemies that actively engaged with the player, it allows them to play without panicking, whilst "Non-engaged" enemies reposition themselves to take the place of any enemy likely to fall.
The enemy system was designed that I could iterate many different kinds given the time, allowing me to go from 1 enemy type to 3 in the final day. I also made the music, the visuals, and all of the sound design and voice-acting, including for all the enemies.It was so much fun to develop, and I am continuing to polish for a potential Steam release in the future.

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Name: The Last Swarm Warden
Genre: Adventure/Puzzle
Platform: PC
Engine: UE5
Release Date: 2024
Link: Itch.ioGiven my affinity for action-oriented combat gameplay, The Last Swarm Warden was the result of my placing a deliberate additional restriction on myself. Developed for the 56th Ludum Dare, and my 20th Ludum Dare entry, I challenged myself to make a game that focussed more on the areas of game development I had the least experience in, but desired to work with more: narrative, and environment design. Keeping to a deliberately gameplay-light concept, The Last Swarm Warden tells the story of a nameless figure in a decayed temple, whose attendants worshipped the fireflies, but had since surrendered to a feeling of hoeplessness, turning them into shadows drawn to light like moths. Now the player must light the shrine once more, using the help of the few fireflies that remain.It incorporated elements of puzzle games and horror, as - working with my long-time friend and VFX artist SmartWilliam, we focussed on making the simple environment as atmospheric as possible by lighting it with the fireflies the player controls, I implemented a fully modular system for puzzle creation, including doors, levers to unlock them, and lanterns that could be lit to make levers activate-able. These could be placed in-editor and hooked up quickly.Environmental and puzzle design was a big-first for me, and very challenging. I'm very pleased with how it came out, but it's a skill I want to hone more. I especially enjoyed working on the sound and music for the game. For the first time, I wrote the music for my own jam entry, and spent a considerable time designing all the sounds to have a musical quality that harmonised with the background ambient music. It was also my first time implementing subtitles, as I wrote and acted all the script, and accessibility is important to me.Our ultimate focus was on the "Mood" category for ratings, which encompasses a game's atmosphere. We placed 19th out of almost 1500 entries.

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Name: Necrowizardry!
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: UE5
Release Date: 2024
Link: Itch.ioNecrowizardry was the first time I used UE5 for a game jam, and my first jam entry in two years. Once again working alongside my extraordinarily talented VFX artist friend SmartWilliam, we set out to make an ambitiously silly wizard combat game, where the gameplay loop forces the player to flit constantly between two roles. Facing off against an evil wizard, the player must control their own wizard, firing knockback projectiles, summoning skeleton minions, and positioning themselves defensively.The only way to win, however, is to then take control of individual skeletons to outsmart the AI and deal bonus damage - when possesing a skeleton, the game becomes a rudimentary melee combat game, with a full melee combo and a dodge roll. The player must go on the offensive, switching between skeletons and back to their wizard to replenish the army, prioritising between going on the offensive, and protecting themselves.
Design was shared, the music was not original, and visuals were done by SmartWilliam. I was responsible for everything else, inlcuding gameplay, UI, audio, sound design and foley, and implementing the dual combat systems and character switching. It was an immensely fun challenge to undertake.

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Hyperchase

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Name: Riposte
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: UE4
Release Date: 2022
Link: Itch.ioRiposte was my first time using UE4 in a game jam capacity, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Ludum Dare jam. Working alongside a VFX artist friend SmartWilliam, we gave ourselves just twelve hours to complete the normally 72-hour game jam, to force us to be streamlined and co-operative. Even with these restrictions, we placed in the top 8% overall and top 5% in Fun. After participating in so many jams, I am proficient with problem solving and planning rapidly and reaching a decision with a team swiftly. We're both very proud of the game we made, focussing on a single main mechanic inspired by TF2's unofficial "dodgeball" mode, and then polishing it as much as possible in the time we had. The result is a simple, visually appealing and immensely satisfying gameplay loop.

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Name: Beat Server
Genre: Rhythm
Platform: PC
Engine: Unity
Release Date: 2021
Link: [Itch.io]
(https://freeraingames.itch.io/beat-server)Beat Server was my entry to the 49th LD Game Jam. With all 72 hours to participate, I worked with another programmer to create, write, and implement something we'd never done before in a jam - any kind of more linear narrative experience. Developing a rhythm game and dealing with the complexities of audio in Unity was a challenging experience, but one that was ultimately super worthwhile. The game was received extremely well, placing 33rd overall, 27th most fun, 6th for Audio, and 2nd for Humour (out of 2000+ entries).To celebrate and also test the modularity of both the system and my composing skills, I created a second Halloween-themed beatmap, the track composed by myself and of a much higher difficulty.

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Magmania

Name: Magmania
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: Unity
Release Date: 2020
Link: Itch.ioFor the LDJam 47, I teamed up with my usual programmer friend to make Magmania, a jam entry that somewhat defies genre as an experience. In a tense and deliberately stressful timed environment, the player must prioritise keeping machines active and performing simple tasks to keep their platform afloat, buying themselves time to collect enough resources and build the final device that stabilises the environment. It becomes a game of iteratively learning, planning, timing and optimsing the best route forward under pressure. It received a lot of positive feedback and ended up very polished.

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Neural Knight AI

Name: Neural Knight
Genre: Supervised Mixed Input Neural Network
Link: Dissertation
Date: 2019My final year project at university was to develop a neural network that learned to play the 2016 Ubisoft title "For Honor". When I began this project, I had zero knowledge regarding machine learning, and though I was beginning a module on neural networks, it was purely theoretical and almost all of my learning was done independently. Without any direct hook into the game's memory, I spent the first half of the project using computer vision to implement all of the data capture as accurately as possible in order to create a dataset. That done, it then came down to creating a working neural network model.This was a process requiring a mix of art and science in equal measure, and even required tackling some as-of-yet rather unsolved problems, such as tackling imbalanced/overrepresented data for multi-label classification. Above is a quasi-in-character explainer video about the project made for the For Honor community. It received attention from numerous Ubisoft community managers who praised the project's results. Below is a diagram of the final model:

Given the dataset and narrow timeframe, I was ecstatic with results. I watched as it managed to beat the mid-level bots most of the time and beat lower level bots easily. It was concluded after extensive comparative human testing that Neural Knight's gameplay was virtually indistinguishable from that of a novice human player's. The project was given a First Class grade.

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HELLEVATOR

Name: HELLEVATOR
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: Unity
Release Date: 2021
Link: Itch.ioHellevator remains one of my personal favourite games of mine, and was an entry to the 48th LDJam. I worked with a programmer and an artist to create a slightly larger scope of game than we were normally used to. Armed with only a gun and dash attack, a small marine is tasked with getting as deep as they can into hell and fending off the enemies that climb onto the lift from the edges. Watching people try and compete for the lowest depth was definitely a highlight, and our focus was on making combat and defeating the enemies as meaningful and satisfying as possible whilst maintaining a light-hearted theme.The game was received extremely well, and I believe it to be one of the most satisfying gameplay loops I have helped craft, with the intent one day to expand upon it. It scored in the top 6% of entries for most fun.

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Polydungeon

Name: Polydungeon
Genre: Action
Platform: PC
Engine: p5.js
Release Date: 2017
Link: hosted by meThis was a personal project of mine I developed over a weekend. An avid player of roguelikes and dungeon-crawlers, I had always wanted to try developing a Dungeon Generator. However, instead of making yet another procedurally-generated dungeon-crawling game, I wanted to develop a tool for the Dungeons & Dragons community of which I am an enthusiastic member. I wrote the algorithm over the course of an evening in a javascript framework, and spent the weekend turning it into a usable tool.Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop pencil and paper roleplaying game, but is often played online. Often, maps of the combat environment are needed, and my program very quickly generates good templates to begin using. The dungeons can then be edited using the mouse, and can then be exported as an image. An additional export option allows users to save their dungeon at a size that will perfectly fit the map grid on the website Roll20. Roll20 is one of the most popular services used to play D&D online, but their map creation tools are severely limited. As a result the tool saw expansive usage during Roll20's heyday.

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Spearhead