I am James Jacobus
An experienced game designer, programmer, and producer
with great passion for innovation and style.
with great passion for innovation and style.
Looking to contribute to a trailblazing game design company.
Unreal Engine technical lead and gameplay engineer with 6+ years of experience delivering real-time interactive projects, gameplay systems, tools, and production pipelines. Experienced owning technical execution across cross-functional teams, improving workflow efficiency through tooling and documentation, and partnering with creative leadership to deliver milestone-based work under tight deadlines. Background includes Unreal networking fundamentals, replication, backend integration, and AWS-supported systems.
Akimbo
Unreal Motion Design – Fortnite & Rocket League Esports Content
Unreal Technical Lead / Producer
- Sole Unreal Engine technical owner supporting a ~12-person creative team delivering broadcast/esports event content.
- Led Unreal pipeline development for live event deliverables supporting Fortnite and Rocket League.
- Partnered with leadership to define scope, execution plans, and milestone delivery schedules.
- Onboarded and trained designers into UE5 workflows, increasing productivity by an estimated 30–50%.
- Built internal tools/automation supporting Unreal Motion Toolkit Beta, improving iteration speed and reliability.
- Owned debugging, optimization, and stability for Unreal deliverables used in live production environments.
U.A. Fabrica
Plutonians
Gameplay Engineer / Systems Designer / UX Designer
- Developed VR gameplay systems in Unreal Engine 5 in collaboration with design and production.
- Built VR-friendly UI/UX systems optimized for comfort and usability.
- Created Unreal plugins and internal tools to improve development speed and consistency.
- Implemented physics-driven gameplay systems and tuned stability/performance.
- Worked with Unreal replication concepts, API integration, and AWS-supported backend workflows.
Panduit
Virtual Campus / Data Center Product Showcase
Unreal Developer (Interactive Systems / Networking)
- Built interactive real-time Unreal applications including UI-driven control systems and scripted workflows.
- Integrated AWS-connected systems and API-driven functionality for networked experiences.
- Delivered stable client-facing experiences while balancing technical constraints and stakeholder goals.
Frostware
Cold Fortune
Cold Fortune is a unique gameplay experience coming in 2022. The game was made possible by Humble Games and their Black Game Developer Fund. The game will feature in-depth cinematic gameplay.
Gameplay Programmer / Technical Animator / Level Designer
- Developed gameplay systems and animation logic supporting interactive sequences and cinematics.
- Built a Sequencer/Cutscene Manager plugin enabling branching QuickTime events.
- Collaborated cross-discipline to integrate gameplay scripting, animation state logic, and level flow.
- Improved maintainability through debugging practices, reusable tools, and documentation.
Shepherd of Light
A Collection of cool projects I’ve been part of.
Dachskreig
Designer, programmer, and producer
Dachskrieg is a fun project I created with some friends. I wanted to try my hand at creating a grid based enemy pathfinding system in Unreal, and one of my friends had an interesting idea of pitting a Dachshund against Badgers in 18th Century Prussia. I also created the combat system, coded several interactable objects, created the UI, blended basic animations, and designed the levels.
Papercut
Designer, programmer, and producer
Paper Cut is a tower defense game inspired by Japanese origami. I made it with some friends specifically because I was compelled to make an interesting tower upgrading system and balanced waves of enemies for a fun player experience. I created the basic top-down functionality, created the UI and coded the tower functionality.
Contact me
(775) 771-2344
jjacobus2344@gmail.com
jjacobus2344@gmail.com