Hi. My name is Ruan Lombaard. I'm a 22-year-old university graduate living in Johannesburg, South Africa. I graduated in 2023 with a Bachelor of Film Arts, with specialisation in Game Design and Game Development, from The Open Window - South Africa's top private design and digital sciences higher education institution.

I'm absolutely passionate about game development and animation. I have strong skills in all aspects of game development, digital animation, UI and C# coding in Unity. What I lack for in real-life work experience at the moment, I make up for in enthusiasm, technical ability and talent.

After graduating from Open Window, I started Coded Cookie in partnership with fellow Open Window graduate, JB Willers. Coded Cookie is a game development studio developing innovative indie games for distribution via Steam and Itch.io. Coded Cookie's maiden project will launch soon.

When I'm not anchored behind my PC, I enjoy spending social time with friends and family.

I'm a hard working, intensely loyal and diligent individual with a friendly disposition, and I play well with others. I enjoy working alone, but revel in the energy of working in a high-performance team.

Featured Project: AXOQUATIC game development

Coded Cookie's soon to be released first original game. Watch the YouTube video log preview.

- Coding and Development by Ruan Lombaard.
- Texturing by JB Willers.

Axoquatic is an adventure style survival game, intended to provide a soothing, relaxing gaming experience. Players cruise around in a pond as an axolotl - a cute, amphibian creature - from birth, through life, and eventually death - all the while exploring, eating, growing and surviving. At a certain age, the axolotl is able to lay eggs. For each egg laid during its lifetime, the player gains DNA points to improve the genetic make-up of the axolotl's offspring, which the player will become once the current axolotl passes on into the big blue pond in the sky - either due to old age, or from getting ended by predators. With each generation of stronger axolotls, the predators in the pond also grow stronger, so ensuring the evolutionary balance of life.

The objective of the game is to survive as many generations as possible.

Internship Project: VR Development

In September 2022 I worked at the University of Pretoria's eXtended Reality Interaction Group as a development intern, tasked with creating a VR experience for mining students.

I was given 5 days to complete this project. The application controls works through hand tracking supported in meta Quest headsets. I typically work with Unity and C#, but this project had to be done in Unreal Engine 4 in which I had no experience at the time. I adapted to the new software quickly, and was able to complete the project to specification in the allocated time. It is important to note that I worked on the coding of the project only, and not the visuals.

Contribution to Smack Studio game

The indie game, Smack Studio offers the ability to draw, animate and code your own fighter into the game. As a way of learning, I created myself as a character. The developers of Smack Studio found my character on the Steam Workshop page where players upload their contributions, and liked the character enough to feature it in their game demo video.

GAME - Diner Defender

An alpha build university project release of a tower defense game where, instead of shooting enemies using ammo and gunpowder, the player throws junk food at them.

This game revolves around the idea of having to satisfy customers before they reach headquarters to complain. Satisfy each customer's needs by delivering their orders. Some customers need more food to satisfy themselves. Can you satisfy them all?

Download from itch

GAME - Disquiet

A 1st year university personal project release. You're a murder scene investigator responding to a call. Thinking that the murderer might still be on the premises, you bring along an armed officer, but do you believe it to be just a simple murder? Or could it be something more sinister?

Your backup goes missing and the building is quiet... too quiet... Disquiet.

Download from itch

References

Where in the world am I ?

Address

200 Sterkbos Avenue
Sharonlea
Randburg
Gauteng
South Africa

Contacts

Email: ruanlombaard@live.co.za
Phone: +27 (0) 82 906 2414

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HELLO

About Me

My Game Development and Animation Portfolio

Featured Project: AXOQUATIC game development

Internship Project: VR Development

Contribution to Smack Studio game

2022 Open Window Mid-Year report

2021 Open Window 3D Animation report

2021 Open Window Progress report

GAME - Diner Defender

GAME - Disquiet

My Digital Art Portfolio

A selection of my favourite 2D and 3D art.

My Freehand Drawing Portfolio

A selection of my favourite freehand drawing art.

My Open Window Academics

My grades are almost always amongst the top of my class. Here's a list of my subjects:

3D Rendering

Film Theory

Game Asset Creation

Game Design

Game Development

3D Animation

3D Visualisation

Game Aesthetics

Game Architecture

3D Character Design

3D Character Setup

C# in Unity

Digital Environment Rendering

Game UI

Gameplay Systems

Information Visualisation

Intro to Stop Motion

Visual Development for CGI

World Dynamics in Games

My Skills

I have a good working knowledge of many popular platforms. Here's some of my best.

References

Contact Me

I'm available for freelance work, fixed term projects and full-time employment. Please get in touch.