Anastasia Thambwe

Game Designer | Developer

Research & Professional experience

Media technology M.SC. Projects

Computer science B.Sc. Projects

Personal Projects

About me

I focus on designing and developing games and gamified solutions and projects.I currently work as a Creative Technologist & Game Designer at the Digital Society School (DSS), part of the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA).I'm a Media Technology M.Sc. and Computer Science B.Sc. Graduate, based in the Netherlands.I worked as an intern game designer on "Seeker Chronicles", for the University of Innsbruck, as well as on "GéoGaming", for the studio RubisWolf, based in Paris.I have been able to work on the design, development, art and management of various projects ranging from games to software programs to technological installations and more.
I am also a self-taught digital artist, and use those skills to help me design, create and communicate about the creative projects I take part in.
According to my family, I played my first ever video game at 2 years old with "The Little Mermaid" and the "102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue" on PC, and it definitely was love at first sight. I was definitely not good at it at this age, but this planted an interest for any type of board, card and video game (sports game too!).In my free time, I love playing and testing a large diversity of games to discover the different mechanisms, experiences and narrative, and I try to do the same with consoles / gaming machines.
My personal all-time favourites are "Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy", "God of War" (the series), "World of Warcraft", The Pokémon Franchise and "Aion", especially the early 1.9 version.
What I play nowadays: Overwatch, Tears of the Kingdom and various board games.
The games I recently finished: Bayonetta 2, Little Nightmares 1 & 2.

Contact Me

Thank you

Your message has been sent.

GéoGaming

Description

Position: Game Design Internship
Game: GéoGaming
Type of Game: Geocaching Mobile Game
Timeframe: July & August 2020
Company / Organisation: RubisWolf [Asnières-sur-Seine, France]

About the game

GéoGaming is a geocaching app on mobile devices, presenting the users with scenarios they can play in the region they currently are. The game proposes scenarios according to geographical location of the device, and the player has to follow the indication or look around physically to try to find the next step of the scenario and unlock the rest of the story. They might also have specific dialogues, explanations or puzzles and riddles to solve, according to how the scenario is written. When the player reaches all steps, the scenario is counted as completed.
GéoGaming also offers the possibility to create guided stroll with specific areas to visit that might give more information to the user about the place / monument.
Finally, the users of GéoGaming also have the possibility to create their own interactive ballads and scenarios for others to play.

personal contribution

Game & Interaction Design
-Designing new functionalities and reviewing/modifying the design of existing interfaces and functionalities.
- Creating a storyline and media related to it for a scenario that the company can implement in different cities for users.
- Coming up with puzzles and riddles for the game content.
- Work on the design of the website aimed to be used for in-game content creation.
Community management
- Create content to share on social media
- Finding online communities that might be interested in the game and fit the target user profile.
Documentation
- Starting, writing and updating Game Design Documentation for the game and team.
Graphics
- Creation of concept art, 2D Digital art assets (Badges, Mascot, etc.) and an animated mascot useable with face tracking.

Gallery

Seeker Chronicles

Description

Position: Game Design Internship
Game: Seeker Chronicles
Type of Game: Strategy Deck-Building game inspired by the universe of science
Timeframe: February 2022 - December 2022
Company / Organisation: University of Innsbruck [Innsbruck, Austria]

About the game

personal contribution

Game Design
- Designing a meta game and its functionalities based on the original deck-building strategy game.
- Designing new functionalities for the main game and improving the existing prototype design: Working on coming up with new decks and content for those decks based on the field of biology. Researching the different phenomena and fields related to biology to create coherent and playful decks and cards ideas.
- Coming up with cards mechanisms and types of gameplay for the field of biology.
Graphics
- Concept sketches, art and visuals to illustrate game design ideas.
Community Management
- Identifying and coming up with a community management strategy to create relevant content.

Gallery

When the game shows the player

Description

Name: When the game shows the player - A Study about Games for Leadership Assessment
Year: 2022
Type of project: M.Sc. Graduation Thesis & Research Project
Team: Solo Project
In recent years, games have shown a potential for personality assessment, becoming a new way to develop or assess specific traits in addition to regular assessment methods, such as questionnaires and tests, for example.
This research focuses on a game which is designed to investigate leadership in a group context. This paper discusses leadership in society, the potential of serious games for leadership assessment and leadership behaviours in games.
A framework of leadership traits and behaviours is defined, and through an iterative and qualitative design process inspired by design science, the game is designed, prototyped and tested with participants. In total, 6 prototypes have been run where the behaviours of each player have been observed based on the framework of traits.
Additional assessment tools such as self evaluation questionnaires are also implemented in some prototypes. Observations show how the game allows an external observer to assess leadership potential for each team. Results also show that some traits, such as conflict or stress management, seem to be more complex to distinguish among the players, whereas traits such as communication seem to be the most shown traits of all. It also shows how the group dynamic and players behaviours can be impacted by the team composition rather than by the game design itself.
Finally, the limitations and the potential of games for leadership assessment are discussed, as well as directions for future research or what questions it raises when it comes to how games can be used for leadership assessment.

About the game

"Players are an emergency team part of a spy agency gathered to help agent DEXTER complete his mission of sabotaging Lexaxis Corporation in time. They are put in contact with DEXTER through the game and have access to confidential files with the mission information. However, this mission was failed in the past because of erroneous or contradictory information. The players are required to determine what is useful and what is false."

What I worked on

Research
- Researching scientific literature to build the scientific background required for the research.
- Observe the behaviour of the players based on the leadership's framework of traits.
- Meeting with experts in Leadership, Game Design and / or Gamification to gain feedback regarding the game prototype and the overall research.
- Drawing conclusions from all the prototype runs.
Experience & Game Design
- Design a framework of 8 traits defining the style of leadership observed.
- Design a hybrid multiplayer escape game (Physical escape game with a video game on a computer), as well as all the documents and environments elements used to emphasise the narrative.
- Use Twine and Discord to create the gaming environment for the prototypes.
- Improve the 6 prototypes after each test with the participants.
Documentation & Presentation
- Documenting the process.
- Defending the thesis research during a public presentation on July 8th, 2022.

Gallery

IN A WORLD OF SILENCE… MAKE SOME NOISE!

Description

Name: IN A WORLD OF SILENCE… MAKE SOME NOISE!
Year: 2021
Type of project: Media Technology M.Sc. Project - Science 2 Experience (Public Exhibition in V2, Rotterdam)
Team: Team of 3
In this interactive sound and light installation, you can enter into a dark and quiet room where you will discover what silent mutations are. You will be prompted to break this silence and explore what noises are needed to reveal the silent mutations. Playing on the notion of silence and darkness in opposition to noise and light, the installation lets you explore the idea of cumulative noise in order to reveal the silent mutations. At the end of the experience, you will help to illuminate the room, discovering that you are the silent mutation.

Personal contribution

Concept Art & Sketches
Worked on concept sketches to represent the team's ideas for the project and present them to our teachers and to the other students.
User Experience Designer
Working with the team to design an interactive and intuitive installation for the experience we were aiming for.
Main Programmer
I was the main coder on this project, although the other students also contributed. I worked on building a prototype with Arduino and Pure Data, and on the final installation, which was using DMX controlled stage lights, Processing and Pure Data.
Installation
We installed all the physical equipment of the first prototypes and final installation with one of my teammates.
Design & Project Documentation
Documenting about the Research Process and the Interaction Process
Event Hosting
I was able to host the installation for a public exhibition that was open for a few days. We could then introduce the project to the visitors and explain to them the meaning afterwards or answer their questions.

Gallery

Lumen x ombra

Description

Name: Lumen x Ombra
Year: 2021
Type of project: Personal Game Project - B&W Game Jam 2021
Team: Team of 6
"Ombra is a being of shadow that needs light to not completely be swallowed by the darkness and to avoid becoming a mass of shadow forever. She's out discovering the world and its secrets, and on a quest to collect Lumens. She might seem like she's only made of darkness that can turn into pure shadow in the dark, but her heart is made of light, that we're able to see through her flowy bright hair, eyes, and tattoos. The balance of shadow and light allows her to have a physical body, and she needs to consume the Lumens she collects to keep that inner fire alive."Lumen x Ombra" is a 2D platformer prototype game developed by a small team for the "B&W Jam", under a week."

Personal contribution

Main Game Designer
Worked on the main idea and mechanics of the game, directed the team regarding the design with another game designer.
Concept Art
Worked on all the concept art of the game.
Graphics
Worked on all the graphics of the game (illustrations, environment elements, animations, etc.).
Project management
Writing announcements for the team regarding the progress of the project. Creation of tasks for the team members. Organization of the Trello boards, etc.

Gallery

Treasure island generator

Description

Name: 2D Treasure Island Map Generator
Year: 2021
Type of project: Academic Computer Science Project
Course: Modern Game AI Algorithms - Leiden University
Team: Solo project
This project consisted of developing, in Python, a 2D pixel art map generator based on a simple map generator code using the Perlin noise algorithm.
It generates a PNG format image with the randomly generated map registered in the project folder after running the program. Each map has an exotic island type of biome, containing different levels of water to create a believable ocean, several ships in the deeper waters, sand, grass, forest, and snowy mountains. The land part of the island also contains houses and trees, as well as a hidden treasure represented by the treasure icon. The generator has been coded so that no elements would end up in unbelievable places (example: Having a house in the water).

Gallery

ConvoBot

Description

Name: ConvoBot
Year: 2020
Type of project: Academic Computer Science project
Course: Sound, Space, and Interaction - Leiden University
Team: Duo Project
Our goal was to create an interactive system, able to give emotional responses through a predefined sonic language. Each sonic output uses two voice recordings, recorded by us. The system has an emotional state that can range from happy to angry with different levels of intensity for each emotion and a neutral/unbothered state in the middle (this is also the starting emotion).
Thanks to an OSC controller app, the user is able to press a sequence of different buttons which will create a “sentence” with an emotional value. This sentence is not played or heard by the user but conveys a message for the ConvoBot. What you will hear is ConvoBot’s response to this sentence. This sentence can have a happy/joyful/excited connotation or an angry/annoyed/confused connotation (depending on the intensity of the angry or happy emotion), which is reflected in the emotional value. When the emotional value is a positive number, the system’s state will slide to the extremely angry emotional state when it’s a negative number towards the extremely happy emotional state. The languages Processing and Pure Dara were used to develop this project.

Personal contribution

For this project, the design and development phases were worked on in collaboration, this includes:Interaction Design
Design of the installation and project.
Programming
- Coding of the sonic processing and generation of the sonic outputs (In collaboration).
- Development of the main software running the sonic system and linking it to every peripheral used in the project.

Gallery

Reflective garden

Description

Name: Reflective Garden
Year: 2020/2021
Type of project: Academic Hardware and Computer Science project
Course: Hardware and Physical Computing - Leiden University
Team: Team of 4
The aim of this project is to give plants a way to express themselves to us, as they are normally thought of as passive objects unable to influence their environment. We installed multiple plants with sensors that pick up on movements and moisture levels. The audience can interact with the plants in a multitude of ways: they can water the plants, they can move them, and they can touch/stroke their leaves. When the audience interacts with the plant(s), the mood in the room changes depending on the nature of the interactions occurring at the time. This is done to communicate the ‘mood’ of the plant to the audience. The mood is set using LED strips that can change colour, brightness, and LED blinking speed. This project was developed with the Arduino language.

Personal contribution

Interaction Design
Design the concept of the project (Team effort).
Installation
Find the right placement for the components on the plants (Team effort).
Programming
- Main coder for this project
- Algorithm connecting the sensors to the LED lights through the arduinos.
- Algorithms transforming the values of the sensors to create effects on the LEDs.
- Optimisation of the code.

Gallery

Dinomap

Description

Name: DinoMap
Year: 2020
Type of project: Academic Computer Science project
Course: Human-Computer Interaction and Information Visualization
Team: Duo project
The initiative behind this project is to create a better visualization experience of the dinosaurs’ locations, displayed in a more understandable way. In order to achieve this, an existing interface has been analysed and used as an inspiration for the project. During the development process, several usability tests have been conducted, and the most common usability errors have been improved according to the prototype testing results.
The goal was to create an interactive globe based on the current map of the world, that way the users are already familiar with it. The users are able to explore the current map while seeing all the markers showing locations of species and are, furthermore, able to see more information about each species.

Personal contribution

For this project, I focused on the code for the website and did the early prototype sketches, while my teammate focused on the user and competitor's analyses and the usability tests. The design of the application and functionalities have been determined in collaboration.

Gallery

The Butterfly Effect: Escaping the maze

Description

Name: The Butterfly Effect: Escaping the Maze
Year: 2020
Type of project: Academic Media Project
Course: Meta Media - Leiden University
Team: Team of 5
The goal of the project was to create a piece of art/media respecting the theme of "board games". Creativity and the design of the product were the main focus for this course. The team decided to go with a literal board game based on the subtheme of "Time Travel", which was selected by us. The whole project was designed and put together in one week (the duration of the course). The team met daily to come up with all the rules and adapt them after testing those each day.
To play this game, a number of 5 players is the most optimal. Each player randomly draws a "player card" to find out their role. There exist two "Time Traveller" cards and three "Regular Traveller" cards. The goal for the regular travellers is to escape the maze by each proposing a direction and movement (Move north, south, east, west or use a Joker move) for the group to avoid dead ends and the poisoned walls. During each round, the group can do 3 movements, each represented by one of the travellers. The difficulty is that the goal of the time travellers is to keep them trapped. Knowing that the time travellers can control the maze and can decide to switch one of their actions in the past to avoid them from finding the exit of the maze. It is then important for the regular travellers to foresee that change to avoid being stuck in traps and never leaving the maze...

Personal contribution

Game Design
Rules and design of the game (Team effort)
Graphics
- The graphics of the cards and board were worked on by a teammate and myself
- "Simulation" sketch of how the board game could be played physically (see picture 3)

Gallery

Block Jumper

Description

Name: Block Jumper
Year: 2018
Type of project: Personal Game Project - Ludum Dare 42 Game Jam
Team: Duo project
Block Jumper is a platformer game with pixel art graphism. Your mission as a player: Escape a room by jumping on the falling blocks to finally land safely on the end platform.
But! You must avoid being crushed by a block, or falling into the void, or even, ending up imprisoned between 4 walls.
Will you be able to join the safe platform? ... Or will you perish?
Page of the Game

Personal contribution

Game Design __(In collaboration)__Concept Art __(In collaboration)__Graphics and AnimationsSound Design

Gallery

PillShooter

Description

Name: Pillshooter
Year: 2018
Type of project: Academic Computer Science project
Course: Second Year Computer Science [Bachelor's Degree - University of Paris (Descartes)]
Team: Team of 4
For this project, the grading was done individually based on what we each worked on, and I have been ranked as the 4th best student of my year for this course.Pill'Shooter is a "Shoot 'Em Up' game for IOS mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, etc.) made in the context of the second year "Tutored Computer Science Project" course. The game was designed by the whole team and developed in Swift on Xcode, with the framework Sprite Kit. The graphics and sounds were all made by the team.
A doctor decides to hop on a "Pill Ship" that is reduced in size to fight the sickness of their patient from within. The ship on the left of the screen constantly moves forward while automatically shooting projectiles. The ship can be moved from bottom to top to get rid of the various enemies and bosses while avoiding being touched by them.

Personal contribution

Documentation & Design
Establishing and documenting the concept, and development plans of the project (In collaboration).
Project Management
Project manager (First 3 weeks): Assigning tasks and making reports for all the team meetings.
Programming
- Item collision management and projectiles' related code.
- Development of functionalities in cooperation with another student: Tutorial, bonuses (collectibles in-game), settings, scrolling background.
- Code optimization (In cooperation).

Gallery

Carreo

Description

Name: Carreo
Year: 2019
Type of project: Academic Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) Project
Course: Artificial Intelligence - University of Paris (Descartes)
Team: Solo project
I designed my own version of the "Tic Tac Toe" game, developed it in Python (playable on the Python console) and developed an AI to play against using the recursive Minimax Algorithm.
The game rules are simple and as follows: The goal is to create a square, of any size and rotation, through the 4 corners in the grid. One player uses "X" as a symbol, the other uses "O" as a symbol. The first player to create a square by its 4 corners wins. Of course, the player will attempt to block the other if they are close to reaching the winning condition. This is what the Minimax AI here does.

Gallery

ModImage

Description

Name: ModImage
Year: 2019
Type of project: Academic Computer Science project
Course: Final Tutored Computer Science Project - University of Paris (Descartes)
Team: Team of 4
For this project, the grading was done individually based on what we each worked on, and I have been ranked as the 2nd best student of my year for this course.Modimage is a tool developed for spatial relations modelling for scene representation in Python 3.7 and PyCharm.
As part of our third and last year of Bachelor’s degree, we were gathered in a team of four and had to work during the whole semester in conditions close to ones found in the professional world.
This project was a scientific image processing software which consists in analysing two binary images, each image representing a white object on a black background, in order to analyse the position of the first object compared to the second one. The result of the application is an evaluation of spatial relation(s) represented in a histogram with a linguistic description below it.
Scientific papers were analysed to come up with a proper algorithm and methodology. The role of the project manager was passed on between the students so that every member could endorse it for a period of three weeks.
We used a V-model in terms of project management. UML was used to document the software architecture.

Personal contribution

Documentation & Design
Establishing and documenting the concept, and development plans of the project (In collaboration).
Project Management
Project manager during the first 3 weeks of the project: Assigning tasks and making reports for all the team meetings.
Programming
- Work on the base structure of the project (Worked on in duo).
- Algorithm for swiping each binary image, which is used for the analysis (Worked on in duo).
- Algorithm for storing the relevant pixels of each binary image (Worked on in duo).
- Implement the linguistic interpretation of the spatial relation.
- Algorithm to normalise the histogram (Worked on in duo).
- Algorithm for the items' comparison.
- Writing of the unit tests (Worked on in duo).
- Code optimization (In cooperation).
- Appropriately commenting the code of the project.

Gallery

Simulator of Emergence of Bilingualism

Description

Name: Simulator of emergence of bilingualism
Year: 2020
Type of project: Academic Computer Science Project
Course: Language Evolution - Leiden University
Team: Duo project
For this project, we were required to modify a model software allowing two sets of populations to interact with each other and create a new language together. We were required to modify the code to model another linguistic phenomenon. We chose to go with the phenomenon of bilingualism.
The program starts with a set of two populations, each with their own vocabulary composed of a list of words for specific objects. The program makes them interact with each other so that each inhabitant of a population is able to learn the language of the other population. Therefore, creating two bilingual communities at the end of the simulation.
The simulation also shows when during an interaction between two inhabitants, if they knew the same word for an object, and if not, if knowledge was transferred during that interaction. Graphs based on those two parameters are created during the simulation, as well as an .xlsx document listing all the information of all the interactions simulated.

Gallery

Ambient canvas

Description

Name: Ambient Canvas
Year: 2020
Type of project: Academic Computer Science project
Course: Creative Programming - Leiden University
Team: Solo project

IN PROGRESS