jake o'reilly

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Indie gamedev and games programmer based in Dublin, Ireland.

Godot & GDScript | C++ | Unity & C#

index

projects

Starshot Idle (Solo)

Screenshot of Starshot Idle. Description

Godot idle game that always sits on your desktop. Lots of UI and User-Experience experimentation.

itch.io

is it real? (Team)

Screenshot of is it real? The player is walking around a kitchen with a fridge, table and chairs, pet food bowl and water bowl, plant stand, kettle, stove, sink, window, and drying rack. The UI has a day count and success/fail count in the top left, it says Day 3: Pass Fail Pass. The bottom right has a task list that looks like a sticky note with the texts: 'Tidy Bookshelf in Living Room', and 'Brew Tea in the Kitchen'. The bottom left has a Journal with a J on it. Above the player is a large red E to show the player that they can interact with the sink, which is highlighted blue. The window and table with chairs are both highlighted red which shows that the player has selected them as being suspected Anomalies.

Unity anomaly (spot-the-difference) horror game. Made during my Trier, Germany Erasmus semester in a team of 4, I did the music and programming. Has systems for managing when events can happen, which can overwrite others. Anomalies can be enemies or change other objects. Custom animations for player interactables. The main mechanic is the Highlight mode and checking if the player has selected the right items.

itch.io GitHub

GolfBots (Solo)

Screenshot of GolfBots. A girl is seen aiming a blue bar at a red button. This is the trajectory of the blue robot she will send out, which will open the yellow door when it presses the button. The land is vibrant green in a purple sea.

Unity puzzle game about aiming robots. Shows off the unique control mechanics, checkpoint systems, 2 unique robot mechanics, 7 puzzle designs, level design, and level decoration. I also modeled the 2 robots in Blender.

itch.io GitHub

Balor's Chosen (Team)

Screenshot of Balor's Chosen. A Deer-skull headed person with two scythes is running around an old Irish camp, killing dark grey and silver armour-cladded soldiers. There's a minimap and enemy count in the top right, and a health and visibility bar in the top left.

Unity stealth action game. I programmed the player movement, health component system, designed the itch.io page, and did all the graphic design for the project.

itch.io

contact

jor.gamedev@gmail.com | Bluesky | LinkedIn | Discord

hobbies

I've always loved learning things, which is one of the reasons I love game development. Games let me explore any topic and turn that curiosity into something playable.

Outside of games, I'm really into music and languages. I've played guitar since 2020, used to take piano lessons, and also use an online sequencer for music ideas. Although I've never gotten into much theory, I like doing interesting things like visualising notes in fun ways. I also enjoy learning languages — I'm native in English, want to re-learn Irish, have spoken casual Spanish for 8~ years, and picked up German when I lived in Trier for 6 months.

I didn't try programming until college, but it clicked immediately and I knew I'd love it. I started with Java, and it was the first time code made sense because it was statically typed and I could see what every variable was (I tried learning Python from a magazine, I got to for i in range(5) and got stumped... WHAT IS i??). I also enjoy exploring lower-level systems like 6502 Assembly to C (not that low, I know!), which led me to an interest in optimisation, how computers work, and cryptography.

My gaming taste has shifted over time, but I love systems-loaded games like Terraria, RPGs like Fallout 4 and Persona, and casual puzzles like Picross and Sudoku. Although I seem to love buying games more than playing them... my backlog's always getting bigger!