Gabriel Padinha
Summary
Game designer with 7 years of professional experience with mobile, VR, console and PC games. Skilled at System Design, Balancing and Game Feel. I've previously worked in different titles, being the most recent and notable ones Coromon, Horizon Chase 2 and currently part of Fortnite's balance team on Epic Games.
Professional Experience
Game Designer - Epic Games
May 2023 - current
• Fortnite Balance Designer directly involved with balance decisions.
• Analyze data from all skill ranges and elos and balance the game around it in order to have a healthy and competitive environment across multiple skill levels.
• Balance of game weapons and utility items.
• Balance of other game elements, such as in-game economy, pricing of upgrades, weapons, hirings and loot pools.
Game Designer - Aquiris Game Studio
2021 - 2023
• Design and concept game systems and mechanics.
• Create and maintain documentation up-to-date.
• Break down features for development team.
• Balancing of every system in the game, from defining pipeline to actual numeric tweaking.
• Work closely with Level Design team, provinding guidelines and parameters.
Game Designer - Black River Studios
2018 - 2020
• Design and concept game systems and mechanics.
• Transform high-level ideas into detailed game concepts
• Create and maintain documentation up-to-date.
• Work closely with the team, easing members communication.
Intern Game Designer - Black River Studios
2017 - 2018
• Prototype and develop game concepts.
• Report testing feedback to game design leads.
• Idealize and pitch game ideas.
Game Developer - FabriQ
2017 - 2017
• Code and update game mechanics.
• Work closely with game design team to implement game systems.
• Create and keep development documentation up-to-date.
Skills
Adobe Animate
Adobe XD
Adobe Photoshop
Git
Unity 3D
Unreal Engine 4 and 5
Atlassian Package
Agile Methodologies
C#
Documentation & Spreadsheets
Rational Design
User Experience
Languages
Fluent English
Fluent Spanish
Native Portuguese
Education
Digital Games Technology - Amazon State University
2015 - 2018
• 2D and 3D art for games.
• Game Engines such as Unity 3D, Phaser, Construct, etc.
• Game Design.
• C# and Javascript
• Production methods such as agile (scrum).
• Sound and Music for games.
• Storytelling and Narrative.
Game Development - Samsung Ocean Center
2015 - 2015
• Game Design.
• Game Production
• Game Programming.
• Developing and pitching game ideas.
Publications & Awards
Leading a Writer's Room for Games
In this featured post, I share some practical tips and tricks on how to conduct a Writer's Room to gather narrative ideas for games.
Balancing Tips - How We Managed Math on Idle Idol
In this featured Gamasutra post, I share some practical tips of stuff I used to balance Idle Idol - our kpop themed Idle Game..
Designing an Intelligent AI for Conflict0: Revolution
This featured Gamasutra post covers through the lens of a game designer the way we created an AI fun to interact with in our last turn-based strategy title.
Shaping narrative through level design
In this post, I go through Dead Body Falls halls and rooms to explain how we did the level design in a way that would assist the narrative.
Designing with purpose - A Resident Evil 4R enemy analysis
An analysis of how enemies in Resident Evil 4 Remake were designed as different tools to create different combat experiences depending on how they're combined.
Move Forward — how Digimon Card Game let players own the action
A brief exploration of how Digimon Card Game mechanics keep players on the flow of performing actions without holding back resources and combine elements to always have an active, forward gameplay.