Ulisses D'Ávila

A passionate Game Designer & Engineer with 5+ years of  industry experience.

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Professional Projects:

The Coalition is a flagship first-party studio within Xbox Game Studios and the home to one of gaming’s most critically and commercially acclaimed series, Gears of War. The studio is one of the world’s leading studios pushing the limits of available technology to build next-generation experiences in Unreal Engine 5

I worked as a Gameplay Designer at The Coalition from February 2023 to August 2024. The studio is located in Vancouver, BC (Canada).

Reference letter from Microsoft’s Lead Game Designer is readily available. Please send me an email requesting the letter and I will send it over.

My role at The Coalition involved:

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My role: Gameplay Designer
Engine: Unreal Engine 5
February 2023 to August 2024 (1.5 years)

Pulling No Punches

🔗Steam (96% "Very Positive" reviews) 

🔗Nintendo eShop

🔗Official Website

Pulling No Punches is a beat'em up action game with frame-by-frame animation and supporting 4-player co-op. In this beat'em up game, players battle through a fictional pandemic in a city filled with madness and denial.

As Lead Designer and Engineer, I helped Pulling No Punches get successfully crowdfunded locally in Brazil (the game is called Punhos de Repúdio in Portuguese).

The full version of the game shipped for Steam in 2022 as an indie, and for Nintendo Switch in 2023 via publisher QuByte Interactive.

My leading role in this project involved a long list of responsibilities:


Design Work samples:

🔗Enemy Design presentation

🔗Animation Cancelling & Input Buffering design presentation

🔗Article: How the player learns controls in Pulling No Punches


Awards:

Pulling No Punches won the 2 top honors at the SB Games awards in 2022.

See PDF document with winners here.

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Platforms: PC, Linux, MacOS and Nintendo Switch
My roles: Lead Designer and Lead Engineer
Team size: 6
Engine: Unity
Release Dates:
  • Steam: August 10 2022 by Braindead Broccoli
  • Switch: May 25 2023 by QuByte Interactive
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Hololabs Studio

 🔗Sky Haven (AR) official page

🔗Universal Studios theme park attractions (Twitter post)

At Hololabs, I helped bring mixed reality games to life such as Sky Haven (mobile AR game) and interactive theme park attractions at Universal Studios.

Hololabs is a game development studio based in Victoria, BC (Canada). The team of AAA industry veterans is using novel Mixed Reality technology to deliver innovative and unique experiences.

I attained or upgraded several skills at Hololabs, such as:

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Platforms: Mobile, Mixed Reality
My role: Software Engineer/Game Developer
Engine: Unity
2022-2023 (5 months)

Ultra Foodmess is a competitive party game for up to 4 players in which food characters battle against each other in a variety of fast-paced modes. In the food mess, players will explode, shoot, swing, push and dodge to come out on top.

The game has been released for Steam (which is the version I worked on), Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

In this project, I attained several skills, such as:

The game is a commercial success and spawned a sequel, Ultra Foodmess 2 (released February 2024).

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Platforms: PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
My role: Gameplay Programmer
Engine: Unity
Released in 2020 - made with Painful Smile

SimBrain VR is a project by the University of British Columbia (UBC), a virtual reality training simulation for medical students.

The simulation includes a Clinical Room where students can go through a neurological exam on an interactive virtual patient and a Mind Palace to visualize their anatomical knowledge and compile relevant information.

In this project, I had the following responsibilities:

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Platform: Oculus Quest 2
My role: VR developer
Engine: Unity
2022

Keep scrolling to see personal/Master's student projects:

IRD-VR: an Active Shooter Simulation for Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC)

🥇The project won the 2022 Horizon Interactive Gold Award 🔗

This is a project where JIBC (the Justice Institute of British Columbia) asked our team to develop a VR-based scenario to train police recruits on responding to active shooter situations.

The scenario is in the format of a single responding officer, from a first-person perspective, as they move through a building responding to various stimuli and ultimately engaging the active shooters.

In this project, I attained or upgraded some specific skills, such as:

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Platform: Oculus Quest 2
My role: Lead Developer, Game Designer
Team size: 5 to 6
Engine: Unity
Fixed duration from January to July/2022 at the Centre for Digital Media

Project Anomaly: Urban Supernatural Investigator

🔗Steam

Project Anomaly is a game about investigating cryptic creatures and solving mysteries by taking pictures and talking to characters in an open world environment.

The project is currently in development by DARK SCIENCE. It has showed in major conferences such as PAX West 2023 in Seattle.

I actively worked on the original concept/demo in 2020 and remained as a credited development advisor to DARK SCIENCE since then.

In this project, I attained or upgraded several skills, such as:

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Platforms: PC
My role: game developer/advisor
Engine: Unity
2020 to date

Archery Masters VR

🔗itch.io

Archery Masters is a VR game prototype made by myself.

The player needs to aim precisely with their bow while trying to escape a dangerous mob of angry goblins.

Download and play the prototype here.

In this project, I attained or upgraded several skills, such as:

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Platforms: PC (tested on Oculus Rift S)
Solo Project
Engine: Unity
2020 (prototype)