and welcome to my game design portfolio. I'm Jay van Hutten, a 23 year-old game designer from the Netherlands. In 2011 I got my bachelor's degree Game Design & Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts. This site is the place where you can find a selection of both personal and professional work and learn more about me. Feel free to look around!
Ichi is a one button puzzle game I designed. Initially I released the game complete with 15 levels (and a one button menu!) as a freeware game in September 2011. It was nominated for the Dutch Game Awards shortly after.
Six months later in February 2012 I started working on a new version with Stolen Couch Games. They ported the game to iOS and various other platforms, adding a neat level editor and social features. I was still responsible for the in-game graphics, all of the 60 levels and additional game design. It was my first commercial game outside of work and therefore a great learning experience. With over 500.000 downloads I can honestly say I'm proud of it!
"Ichi is an extremely well-made casual puzzler." - iPhone Alley
"Ichi is a cute yet tricky one-button puzzler" - IndieGames
"A fun, stylish and challenging indie experience" - DualShockers
"There's only one key to press, after all, so how challenging could that be? Try a whole lot of challenging." - JayisGames
Toki Tori 2 is a puzzle adventure game in which you explore a lush forest island inhabited by strange creatures. Whistle and stomp to influence their behavior, and solve the puzzles. But what's up with that black goo? It's threatening your home world! In the pre-production phase I worked on early level prototypes and scripts. During actual production I was head of the level backgrounds and made two of the three tilesets.
At Two Tribes in 2009 I was a level designer on the official Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs game for the iPhone and iPad. It's a platform puzzle game in which you play as Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel known from the movie. When designing the levels I used and combined the game mechanics in a wide variety of ways, to make the gameplay live up to its full potential. I had a great time exploring these boundaries, which helped me significantly to design fun yet challenging levels!
"It’s fun and inviting gameplay makes for a great pass time!" - 148Apps
"For puzzle fans, particularly those that enjoyed Toki Tori, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs can be thoroughly recommended." - TouchArcade
At the Dutch game studio Two Tribes I worked on their platform puzzle game called Toki Tori. I designed over 20 levels, most of them for the PS3 version. Because there were a lot of levels already present in the game by the time I joined in, designing original levels required me to use those game mechanics in new ways. That was a nice and welcome challenge. I also worked on other parts of the game, such as the menu and various other in-game graphics.
This is a neat little strategy board game I designed, which is meant for play during short train travels. It is played with coins, to reduce the amount of pieces you have to take with you. Each turn the player draws a card*. The cards have questions on them about the people or things around you. Depending on the outcome of the card, even or uneven, the player has to flip or move a coin. When a player's coin faces the opponent's coin with the same side up, the opponent's coin is removed from the board. You win by taking all the other player's coins - it's up to you if you give them back to your opponent after the game!
* Alternatively, you can play by rolling a dice. Roll a six and you can choose your move.
This is my second attempt at programming a Game Boy Advance game in C using the open source DevKit Advance SDK. It's a simple puzzle game based on the concept of Lights Out (1995). This personal project shows I have a basic understanding of programming. I tested the game on real hardware using a flash cart, and it works just fine!
Because I'm an allround designer I usually get involved in the marketing side of games as well. As a result, I created lots of promotion materials including video game trailers. What once was just a hobby of recording and editing Counter-Strike videos (we've all been there) turned out to be a valuable skill I'm still developing with every trailer I make.