Morten Hansen
AllGamesAI
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Games

Successor

2020 – 2025 · Technical Game Designer

A roguelite strategic RPG with a distinct diorama look. I owned gameplay architecture, behaviour-tree AI, procedural generation and the VR port.

Unreal EngineC++BlueprintBehaviour TreesUMGNiagaraProcedural GenerationVR
Steam ↗Meta Quest ↗

At Playwood Project I worked as the technical game designer on Successor, a roguelite strategic RPG that expands on the gameplay of the studio’s previous title, Wartile. We were a tiny team across almost six years, so I touched nearly every part of the game — from small texture fixes to the grand design schemes — and I was the main driver in getting it assembled into a coherent, shipping experience.

What I built

Gameplay architecture

I architected the real-time-with-pause battle system: the timing and ordering of actions, and the core logic governing the flow of a fight so it felt responsive and fair. This is the backbone that everything else — abilities, AI, UI — hangs off.

Behaviour-tree unit AI

I implemented the units’ decision-making with behaviour trees and sub-tasks, letting units choose targets, position themselves and use abilities intelligently based on the game state. This is also the part of the project closest to applied game AI.

Procedural generation

I designed and built a procedural system that can generate anything from a single battle to a whole kingdom. Templates describe how worlds, regions, encounters, goals, battles, objectives, levels, unit spawns, site spawns and consumables come together in a semi-strict way that still leaves room for randomness — keeping runs replayable.

Focus Moment system

I built a “Focus Moment” system: when a unit fires an ability, everything slows down except the ability’s targets, which speed up — creating a readable, cascading combat beat.

VR port

I championed and led the Meta Quest release, retrofitting a PC game into a VR experience. I architected a framework that supports both PC and VR from a single codebase, reworking game-flow paradigms and interaction patterns for VR.

UI & visuals

I designed the HUD and interface — including a radial battle menu — for clear navigation and quick access, and built materials, shaders and Niagara effects to bring units and abilities to life.

Tools & technologies

  • C++ and Blueprint — C++ for performance-critical systems, Blueprint for rapid prototyping and iteration.
  • UMG — responsive, intuitive in-game UI and widgets.
  • Behaviour Trees — unit AI and decision-making.
  • Materials & Niagara — dynamic visual effects, lighting and particle systems.

Gallery

PC release

Tabletop-inspired miniature world — heroes and enemies on the campaign map.
Kingdom map and character sheet — loot, skills and the path between battles.
Hex-grid battle in a ruined dungeon — real-time-with-pause tactical combat.
Tactical pause on a snowy diorama board — plan moves while the world holds.

VR (Meta Quest)

Floating fortress diorama — the tabletop world at room scale.
Hold the character book and skill tree in your hands above the campaign map.
Tactical pause with controller UI — plan moves over the diorama battlefield.
Hex-grid boss encounter in a crystalline cavern arena.

Development

The Unit Blueprint inherited from Wartile — which slowly became a monolith.
Behaviour trees defining unit actions and decision-making.
Procedural system generating diverse, replayable biomes.
Templates driving the procedural game-mode generation.
Radial battle menu for quick, readable access to abilities.
Materials and shaders driving dynamic ability visuals.
Material frames visualising unit stats and abilities.
Material functions managing complex ability visual logic.
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