Shane Breedveld - Games Producer

Hello, I'm Shane Breedveld - Games Producer

I’m 27 years old and currently enrolled as a 3rd Year Student at the BUAS in the Netherlands where I’m studying Creative Media and Games Technologies with a specialty in Design and Production. As a producer, this study has allowed me to build projects in sizeable teams and gather experience regarding the role of a Games Producer.

Some of the skills that I possess involve but are not limited to Project Management using Agile, Waterfall and Kanban, Scrum, JIRA, and much more. For more information regarding my skillset make sure to check the section ”Skills” at the bottom of the page.

Project Showcase

Alien Removal Division is a fast-paced, action-packed first-person shooter, set in a military research facility during the 1950s. The base has been overrun by aliens and you find yourself, as the only survivor, at the center of the invasion.

The game also features high mobility platform and interactive enemy dismemberment empowering the player to maneuver through the base whilst tearing apart any creature they encounter. This project is currently in development as part of my studies at the BUAS.

Team Size

25

Project Duration

32 Weeks
*In Developlment*

Awards

To Be Announced

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Project Responsibilities

Main Roles: Producer, Product Manager

  • Making a High-Level Planning with a roadmap and dependency overview.
  • Creating a team structure and appointing Leads to clarify responsibilities and spread the management workload.
  • Onboarding the team to use JIRA effectively as a tool to manage, plan and allocate our work in.
  • Creating a Resource Management overview and setting up Feature teams.
  • Perform Vision holder duties such as creating documents that supported alignment as well as doing team exercises on alignment.
  • Managing communications with Outsource and incorporating their schedule within our planning to minimize dependencies.
  • Setting up a structure for on-location brainstorming allowing sub-teams to come with concept proposals.

Sugar Blast is a wave-based Third Person Shooter with lively and interactive combat arena’s. This was a project that I worked on during my studies at the BUAS in The Netherlands.

This project has taught me a lot of valuable lessons regarding wrapping up a full production cycle.

Team Size

23

Project Duration

24 Weeks

Awards

Best Design

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Project Responsibilities

Main Role: Producer

  • Monitoring and managing project risks by maintaining a Risk Log.
  • In collaboration with leads set deadlines and key deliverables and monitor velocity towards these.
  • Spearheading the Agile Process, Sprint Retrospectives and Plannings.
  • Teaching the team JIRA and using it for our project management.
  • Managing project scope and feasibililty adjusting it where needed.

Secondary Role: Level Designer

  • Creating the HUB Level which functioned as an interactive menu.
  • Making the tutorial experience and environment.
  • Hosting playtests and gathering data to iteratively develop the levels.
  • Collaborating with artists to steer onboarding asset creation.

Night Shift is a sandbox horror game in which you are tasked with the protection of a town against the horrors of the night. You have to restore the light protecting the town while avoiding these dangerous monsters yourself. This was a project that I worked on during my studies at the BUAS in The Netherlands. 

This project mostly taught me the importance of scope and the impact of reaching milestones to push development.

Team Size

9

Project Duration

8 Weeks

Awards

Best Design

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Project Responsibilities

Main Role: Level Designer

  • Design the gameplay experience and game loop, both core and additional.
  • Iteratively design the sandbox environment of the City of Wuldenholm
  • Create and assist with scripted events and tailor them to function depending based on player’s approach direction.

Secondary Role: Producer

  • Structure Risk Management by maintaining a Risk Log.
  • Doing 1-on-1’s with the entire team multiple times throughout the project.
  • Facilitate the Art and Audio departments with asset lists so that we can prioritize work and avoid dependencies.
  • Onboard the team on using Trello and manage the backlog.
  • Host Sprint Plannings and Retrospectives to fit with our agile approach.

Snail Cuisine is top-down cooking game in which you are tasked to cook, combine and deliver meals for the customers in your restaurant. Combining challenging controls with a time challenge and upbeat mood to make for a fun little game.

Snail Cuisine was made as a submission for the Game Jobs Live Game Jam which had the required theme of Leave Something Behind.

Team Size

8

Project Duration

3 Days

Awards

Nominee Best Itch Page

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Project Responsibilities

Main Roles: Audio Designer

  • Responsible for SFX related to the character’s mobility and interactions.
  • Creating the UI which shows the player how long they’ve managed to keep playing without failing.
  • Mixing and finding audio for the ambient music and the main theme.
  • Concepting of the initial game idea, including the core game loop and setting.

Gob A Tale of Greed is a Roguelite game with RPG elements, in this game you play as Gob on his task to gain enough wealth and artifacts to overthrow the oppressive Trade Lord. With combat allowing you to use magic, ranged ,or melee attacks or choosing to combine together impressive combo’s.

Gob A Tale of Greed is a side project that I’ve put together a team for with the main goal to all improve our skills as we create a game from scratch.

Team Size

10
(5 Hrs per Week)

Project Duration

1,5 Years

Project Responsibilities

Main Roles: Producer, Product Manager

  • Making a Project Initiation Document including initial scope, project organization, budget, reporting, and controls.
  • Creating a High-Level Planning and using that as a foundation to structure our weekly plannings.
  • Risk management through the usage of a Risk Log.
  • Tracking velocity and progress by providing team members with work logs.
  • Setting up a Community Management structure and planning.
  • Setting Deadlines and Key deliverables and tracking progression on those.
  • Managing scope and decision-making on cutting content.

Secondary Roles: Creative Director and Vision Holder

  • Write the story for the game, backstory, and lore of each of the zones.
  • Concept the zones and their characters as well as their function.
  • Collaborate with artists to guide them on visualizing the environments and characters providing creative feedback in the iterative process.
  • Establishing an Art Style Guide and researching similar games and methods that make this style achievable.

Skills

Leadership & Ambition

As I personally strive to improve a little bit every day I also try to apply this consistent improvement to the teams I am part of. Being a firm believer in facilitating and supporting the team to grow and improve throughout the course of a project, be it through 1-on-1 sessions with team members or retrospectives and postmortems. This allows for a reflective process that results in individual growth which in turn benefits the team as a whole.

Creativity

As much as I am a producer I am also a game designer and understand the creative aspects of making games. I try to bring that creativity into the role of producer by not only being bound to a toolset or proven method but if the situation asks for it coming up with a creative and hand-tailored solution to a challenge within a project. It is exactly this reason why I strive to keep learning more and more, this way I can create a good balance between applying proven knowledge or a more personal touch.

Production Skills

  • Risk Identification and Management
  • JIRA
  • Scrum and Agile Methodologies
  • Kanban
  • Waterfall
  • KPI’s and tracking progress
  • Sprint Planning & Retrospectives
  • Scope and Budget Breakdowns
  • Resource Planning
  • Setting Deadlines and Milestones
  • Tracking Project and Individual Velocity
  • Representing a Project or Team
  • Creating and Performing Presentations
  • Outsource Management
  • High-Level Planning and Dependency Management
  • Monitoring Project Scope
  • Community Management 
  • Integrating Marketing into Projects

Design Skills

  • Level Design from Sketches to Final with extensive documentation supporting design decisions
  • Integrating Design work with Programming and Art
  • Competitor Analysis
  • UE4 Blueprinting
  • Basic C# Knowledge
  • Writing Narrative and Story

Languages

Dutch orb

Dutch: Native

English orb

English: Fluent

Swedish orb

Swedish: Fluent

Software & Additional Skills

  • Confluence
  • P4V
  • GitHub
  • UE4
  • Unity
  • Photoshop CC
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Microsoft Office Suite
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Setting up NDA’s
  • Using Steamworks