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Portfolio

Hi! I'm Julian Lai. A soon to be games and interactivity graduate of Swinburne University of Technology looking for my first professional job as a game designer.

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I started with making "talking games" (think dungeons and dragons style) for my two siblings at the age of 8, I had always had a profound love for designing worlds and experiences.

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As I got older my passion for crafting experiences grew as I learnt more and more about the transformative medium of games where the audience could be so immersed that they start seeing themselves as the player character.

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Contact:

JulianRobbieLai@gmail.com
0412 600 548

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Voltage Vendors

Voltage Vendors is a space based phone repair game where you play as a loveable android name C.A.R.A. This game was exhibited at PAX AUS 2023, and I am proud to have worked on it as the Lead Game Designer and Lead Narrative Designer.

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Most Important Contributions:

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Amongst other achievements, I designed the mini-games and oversaw the overall effort to bring a tactile, handy theme to the game. 

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I also ensured that the controls for the game were intuitive and that the players always knew what they were doing.

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As the Lead Narrative Designer I worked to ensure that the story matched the mechanics and the other aspects of the game while also being compelling and interesting. I am most proud of D.A.V.E's dialogue.

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Sinister Ground

Sinister Ground is a pervasive game (think open world escape room) where players tried to uncover the secrets of a mysterious cult by solving a series of puzzles.  

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Most important contributions:

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As the encounter designer I was in charge of setting up, planning and organising all of the players encounters with cult members.

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One particular problem we encountered was the impossibility of controlling the play space. The game would be played over the entire university campus and we didn't have enough resources to make everything seem connected to the game. In response I designed and created a stalking system whereby I would take photos (sometimes secretly, other times obviously) of the players as the played and send the photos to them with threats. This had the brilliant effect of making the players always feel like they were being watched, and it made them constantly look over their shoulders wondering where the cultists were hiding. 

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Breakthrough

Breakthrough is an arcade style game that was inspired by both Atari Breakout and Pong. It features two paddles controlled by different players who must manoeuvre two bouncing balls to break through bricks, collect power ups and score against the opponent.

Most important contributions:

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As the game designer I was in charge of implementing everyone’s ideas into a cohesive game as well as creating engaging levels that suited different strategies.

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I also designed all of the levels. The first level, Bricks, was designed as a tutorial level that starts off with the player playing against the game as they learn about how the ball bounces and interacts with the bricks and their paddle.

Afterwards the levels get progressively more skill based with barriers that challenged the players to aim at specific points.

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Burgermeister

Burgermeister is a turn-based card stacking game in which two teams compete in a burger-making frenzy. One team, the Superstars, must try to keep the restaurant afloat by serving high quality burgers while the opposing team, the Saboteurs try to bankrupt the restaurant by serving disgusting burgers. The cards consists of a mix of good and bad ingredients, which the players can use on their own burgers or try to slip them into someone else’s burger.


Most important contributions:

As the game designer I created the core gameplay loop as well as the ingredient cards, which I ensured were balanced and added a dynamic element to the game without giving an advantage to any one side. I also worked on creating customer cards (which gave bonus points to ingredients the customer specifically liked or even flipped the good/bad ingredients.)

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My biggest challenge and achievement was creating a well balanced experience that was just unbalanced enough to add some variability without being too unfair.

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Get in Touch

Melbourne, Australia

Phone: 0412 600 548

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