Matthew's Portfolio

Matthew Thompson
Software Developer, Front-End & Game Developer (Level Designer)
About me
Hi! I'm Matthew Thompson, an eager Developer in the field of Front-End Developer at Newcastle upon tyne and wear UK. I've been eager as I have a great talent with programming since leraning my core skills at secondary school, and want to greatly exercise them through career and developed them further! My background is a mixture of exploration of skills and careers, as I began first to find a career in the game industy but level designer was too speficic so I've broaden my expertise to allow further reach of transferable skills. I've gradutated Teesside Universtiry 2023 and obtained first expereince at level design in the game industry which greatly helped me learn agile methodology and remote teamwork skills.
THIS WEBSITE IS STILL UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION, mind the gap. Todo(c#proj/JSON/tf2proj)
Skills
JAVASCRIPT
C#
HTML
SQL
CSS
JAVASCRIPT
COMPUTER TECH
Programs
VISUAL CODE
UNREAL 5
GODOT
PARSEC
OFFICE 365
HAMMER SOURCE ENGINE
PROJECTS
CODE
Portfolio


The current project to organise and connect my projects together from old porfolio. Where I wish to link my github projects and show imagry while also tying my game development side with JSON to store and impleneted to 1 webpage, this is a great task but will take time, in meantime, access my old portfolio for game developmnent

Developed in HTML, CSS and Javascript. Designed to not only show my skills in coding and projects in game and coding. But to express my interests in sci-fi design and neon esc pattern.

The challenges with this webpage were the interaction with the user and their navigation, orginally the page would change/move more frequent on user input, where it would feel dynamic and spongy. But retracted this goal as the readability and direction of user being overwhelmed would damage their orginal task to learn about myself and projects, not a animated piece that u have to sit through.
JS - Particles


For this project, I wanted to create a nebula background particle that came with challenges and simple code reviews. Goal was to have particles be mutually attracted to form clusters then one supernovas and pushes all apart.

To ensure particles were visible and none distracting, speed and chances were minimal and to not completely freeze them, there is checks to keep them moving and to orbit the centre of screen, subtle.
Main problems where optimization, experimenting slows progress, discovering p5.js system and its components, and after this I must ensure my naming convention is more distinct
SQL - Customer eCommerce


A database to store customer details, products and purchases

Focused designed to calculate in SQL and be accessible via github, must follow README to replicate project.

Challenges were understanding SQL Limitations, and structure and order to be speficic, clear and organised.
C# - MileStone roadmap


An application or web application, designed around creating tasks with notfication if completed.

How the system will work is to account hours put in project to progress the roadmap. Each task has a set hours to be completed in order to achieve success or add more hours. Its also changes depending on time of deadline to complete.

Expected Challenges, functionality on visiblity and tackling bugs due to multiple user interactions.
GAME
Samsara - Level Designer - 2024 Aug
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Worked for an indie team of 10, on a dark souls like game Samsara, helped work on 3 levels. The team I worked with was 3 members including me, and each of us split the level to work on. Each level was continued on from concept, apart from Viratdeha which had a early start for a blockout. Unreal Engine 5 - World Partition
3 - Levels Aparagodaniya, Uttarakura, Viratdeha. 3 Months. Focused on level design, with art team coming in to coat over and edit. Designed with interconnectivity intent with faithful to the concept art and direction made before our team joined
Challenges, were creating 3d spaces from 2d concepts, scaling and player space, and ensuring direction of our work aligns with directors vision and teams limitations.
TF2 Personal Project 2023
A Personal Project made October 2023, where I wish to develop a level for players still playing and enjoying Team Fortress 2. My goal is to develop a King of the Hill level to improve my level design skills from acutal player feedback willing to test. Which 24 unqiue players have tested my development 5 times. Under break but Version alpha 6 is major development change and direction

Currently paused as career requires attention. The process involves understand Hammer Source Engine and ways to obtain Team Fortress 2 players to test the alpha map. Amazing community exists, dedicated to testing new maps submitted on their website. I have done 6 tests, each 24 player max, unqiue and gave valuable feedback in functionality of the level, and notes was it fun, was changes good or negative. Plus any exploitaions to fix to even playing field.

Challenges, because of Source and TF2, the engine requires constant foresight such as adding invisible collision boxes to prevent player clipping and affecting gameplay, prevent some finding tiny lips of collision to stand on, which gives advantage not intended, class powers and their abilities greatly affecting map play. This is overcome with careful documentation and intent to finally test and play with real players. And to recognise while classes have the potential to be dangerous if wielded optimially, average won't push it frequently to be of actual impactful trouble to the map.
Samsara Bootcamp 2024 Feb
Bootcamp 2024 with INFINITY27 where I used their project as reference material and created my own level based on their story and mechanics. This was made under a month to show my skills in designing planning and implementing on my independence.
I designed this level with intent to be explorable but confind and navigable to the progression of the story. Where Wishful Thinkers is about a gem to grant wishes and the dream people reflect their corrupt nature on their wish. Influencing the player and their choice
Challenges, player navigation and progression, with how exploration gives player freedom, limits their attentiveness to continue and progress if nothing has made a change. Which my solution was having a large centre room to enter and the player needed to unlock, where rooms where split and cracks showed hints, and exploring lead to different npcs or items, rewarding the player and still showing where the end goal is.
Final Year Project 2023


For Teesside Universtiry Course - Final Year Project - 69%. My made goal was to create an explorable Island with game mechanics to help traverse and look for clues to understand the objective and puzzles to solve

I greatly enjoyed this process from concept to end, and with the Unreal Engine and its tools, impressivly helped my artist touch in building mountins to what I intended this island to look. With mechanics too help explore and reach locations, this was wanting to give player the objective to simply explore and under the true objective. Inspired by Outer Wilds.

Challenges was scale and time to implement intended gameplay features that were compressed to cover for time. This learnt me to greatly watch my hours spent and to avoid losing track on pefecting areas that aren't necessary.