Iain Lobb.
Unity Game Developer &
Game Designer

iainlobb@gmail.com

@iainlobb

Hello.

Welcome, I'm Iain! I'm a freelance Unity game developer and game designer. I have been designing and developing games for web, PC and mobile for almost 20 years, specialising in Unity since 2013. If you'd like my help on a project, I am available to hire remotely as a freelance programmer or game designer. I'm always excited to hear from new clients, so if you have a game project in mind, please let me know.

I have developed high quality mobile and web games for clients such as EA, Playstation, Cartoon Network, BBC and Adult Swim.

3D and 2D iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android and PC/Mac game development with Unity.

Game Design consultancy including help with pitches, game design documents, gamification, narrative design and puzzle design.

Portfolio.

Subway Surfers Blast (2023, Outplay Entertainment / SYBO Games)

Working as a Senior Engineer with the amazing teams at Outplay and SYBO, I developed many new features and fixed numerous bugs on this slick puzzle game - winner of a Google Play Player's Choice award. Play now.
(Programming)


©Dull Dude

Derpy God (2022, Dull Dude Limited)

I am currently developing my indie game Derpy God for Steam.
Please wishlist now on Steam!

(Programming, Game Design)


©Dull Dude

The Dumping Ground: You're The Boss (2015, Somethin' Else / BBC)

I was Technical Lead and co-designer of this BAFTA-winning mobile game, working with the excellent team at Somethin' Else and CBBC. (Programming, Game Design)


©Somethin' Else / BBC.

Supersaurs (2017, Preloaded / Jay Jay Burridge)

I helped Preloaded develop this fantastic augmented reality app, built using Unity and Vuforia. Hold your phone up to any of the book's 200 illustations, and they spring to life! (Programming)


©Supersaurs

Battle For Big Blue (2015, The Rumpus Room / G-Star RAW & Pharrell)

Eco-friendly mobile game with original music from Pharrell Williams! (Programming, Game Design, Level Design)
©G-Star RAW.

Happy Studio (2016, Preloaded / McDonald's)

I worked with Preloaded to develop some mini-games for this fun educational app. (Programming, Additional Game Design)
©McDonald's.

Mr Bean Risky Ropes (2018, Good Catch)

As lead programmer, I worked with the excellent team at Good Catch to develop this fun endless runner. (Programming)


©Good Catch

Moshi Monsters Egghunt: Glumpageddon (2017, Mind Candy)

Working with Mind Candy's talented team, I coded this addicting minigame inside their Moshi Monsters Egg Hunt app. (Programming)
©Mind Candy

Mr Bean Sandwich Stack (2018, Good Catch)

With Good Catch's excellent team, I coded and helped design this physics-based balancing act. Play. (Programming, Additional Game Design)
©Good Catch

Aztec Run (2017, Appbox Media)

I worked with Appbox to develop this 3D endless runner, built using Unity. (Programming, Game Design, Level Design)
©Appbox Media

Monster Mash-up (2017, Appbox Media)

Using Unity's native UI system, I built and coded the spooky menus and interface for this mobile puzzle game. (Programming)
©Appbox Media

Zwok (2006, Bloc / Sony)

Award-winning online multiplayer artillery game for PlayStation.com. Created with Flash, Java and SmartFox Server. Over 1 million registered users and 50 million games played.(Programming, Game Design)


©Sony. Art by Mike Hill.

Pop Pirates (2006, Bloc)

Award-winning arcade shoot 'em up. (Programming, Game Design)
©Bloc. Art by Liam Owen.

Stackopolis (2005, Bloc)

Webby award-winning puzzle game. (Programming, Additional Game Design)
©Bloc. Art by Eelus.

Owl Spin (2011, Dull Dude)

Cute puzzle avoider game. (Art, Programming, Game Design)
©Dull Dude. Art by Iain Lobb.

Meta4orce (2008, Bloc / BBC)

Bafta-nominated interactive game and TV series integrating television broadcasts with online gameplay. (Programming, Game Design)
©Bloc/BBC. Art by John Denton.

Battle Cave (2012, Dull Dude)

Fight your way through randomly generated dungeons in this fantasy platform game. (Programming, Game Design)
©Dull Dude. Art by Amanda Lobb.

World Class Keep Ups (2010, Dull Dude)

Silly footie keepy-uppy game.
(Programming, Game Design)
©Dull Dude. Art by Amanda Lobb.

Yoobot (2009, Bloc / BHF)

Kids' virtual world with an important public health message for the British Heart Foundation.
(Game Programming)
©BHF. Art by Liam Owen, John Denton.

Protokid (2004, Bloc / Diesel)

Years before Moshi Monsters and Club Penguin (ok, not before Habbo!), we at Bloc & Diesel created a kids virtual world, packed with games and hundreds of ways to customise your character and virtual room. I personally created more than 10 games and rooms for the site, which was instrumental in honing my skills as a game designer and developer. Sadly it's no longer online, except in my heart. (Programming, Game Design)
©Diesel. Art by John Denton, Eelus, Liam Owen, Iain Lobb.

The Wrong Door
(2008, Bloc / BBC)

Off-the-wall interactive experience to go with the bonkers TV show. Built with Flash and PaperVision. (Programming, Interaction Design)
©BBC. Art by Matt Allan, John Denton.

Stackland
(2009, Dull Dude / Muzy)

Fun sandbox with 2D physics. Sadly no longer online. (Programming, Interaction Design)
©Dull Dude. Art by Amanda Lobb.

Super Gun Kids (2013, Dull Dude)

Action platformer. (Programming, Game Design)
©Dull Dude. Art by Amanda Lobb.

Soulcalibur 3 Minisite
(2005, Bloc / Sony)

Fun interactive Flash minisite (like we made in the good old days!) to promote the game release. (Programming, Interaction Design)
©Capcom.

The Osbournes
(2002, Specialmoves / MTV)

Like The Sims, but with television's favourite rock'n'roll family. Animating this Bafta-nominated game in Flash was one of my first commercial projects. (Animation)
©MTV. Art by Oscar Wright, James Norwood, Iain Lobb.

Awards.

I've been lucky enough to pick up a few awards and nominations for my games and interactive media work over the years!

Unity Developer.

I am available to hire as a freelance Unity game developer. My skills and experience include:

  • Freelance Unity development for leading studios including Preloaded, Endemol and CBBC.
  • Lead developer on Bafta-winning, UK #1 kids app The Dumping Ground: You're The Boss – leading a team of 3 Unity developers and 4 artists.
  • Skilled C# programmer with extensive Unity API knowledge.
  • Excellent understanding of Unity engine architecture and “working the Unity way”.
  • Extensive UI design and development knowledge, including Unity's native UI system.
  • Excellent knowledge of 3D and 2D physics in Unity.
  • Expert knowledge of integrating Unity with 2D animation solutions such as Spine.
  • Extensive experience with Unity's native animation systems and state machine ("Mechanim"), and integrating 3D FBX models and animations.
  • Experience shipping to Steam, iOS, Google Play and Amazon Appstores.
  • Experience using Unity with GIT, SVN and Cloud Build.
  • I have been using Unity since 2009 (I was at the 1st Unity London meetup - 8 people in a pub!) and I have focused solely on Unity development since 2013.
  • Almost 20 years total industry experience, including 4 years leading the development team of an award-winning studio and 10 years freelancing for top studios and agencies.
  • Experience creating real-time and asynchronous multiplayer games, and integrating with services such as Playfab, Facebook and Smartfox Server.
  • I started my career in Flash, a platform with no in-built game engine, so I have extensive experience creating custom game engines, logic, maths and physics systems.

Game Designer.

I am available to hire as a freelance game designer. My skills and experience include:

  • I have been designing games professionally since 2001 - from hands-on systems development to high-level planning and pitching.
  • I co-designed Bafta-winning, UK #1 kids app The Dumping Ground: You're The Boss, smash-hit multiplayer arena Zwok, and dozens more games.
  • I have almost 20 years of real-world experience “finding the fun” in game mechanics and tuning gameplay systems.
  • I am fast and prolific at creating concepts, generating game ideas, and experienced in writing game design documents and pitches.
  • Gamification design for non-gaming applications, such as points and reward systems for business and education.
  • I have a deep theoretical understanding of game design principles, based on extensive research, and have taught game design at university masters level.

Clients.

Some of the clients who have trusted me with their game design, development and training:

Training, Speaking & Lecturing.

If you want to keep your team's skills up-to-date, or you're running a conference or university-level course, I can give 1 day or 2 day workshops on game development and game design. Choose between Unity with C# or game design theory workshops.

I enjoy speaking at conferences too. The first conference I ever went to was the inaugural Flash on the Beach in 2006 (now known as Reasons festival). It would be an understatement to say it blew my freakin' my mind! It also inspired me to get into speaking, training and lecturing myself. The highlight of my speaking "career" so far has been speaking at San Francisco's GDC in 2012 - wow!

Here's a list of sessions I have given:

I worked as a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University, teaching an online MA in Indie Game Development, designing learning and delivering lectures on game design, level design, game programming, games business and more.

I'm proud to have worked as a lecturer at the University of Plymouth from 2011-2014, and again from 2018-2020, when I was course leader for BA Game Arts and Design. During my time at Plymouth I taught game design, animation, level design and programming with Unity/C#, Adobe Animate and HTML5/JavaScript/jQuery.

Over the years I have taught over 100 students to program and design games and websites! This experience has been invaluable in developing my skills as a trainer and gives me the confidence to deliver great professional training. During my time at Plymouth I also gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice with Distiction, and Felloship of the Academy of Higher Education. I have also given workshops at Truro College, Plymouth College of Art, and Brunel University.

Writing and Blogging.

I regularly write tutorials and articles for a range of online publications. I've written professional tutorials for GameDevTuts+, articles for .net magasine and been Technical Reviewer for the Friends of Ed book The Essential Guide to Flash Games. Since 2008 I've also been writing down my thoughts and experiences on my blog: blog.iainlobb.com. Some of my more popular posts have included my open source keyboard input library for Flash Gamepad, postmortems of Meta4orce and Super Gun Kids, and my Flash performance benchmarks such as BunnyMark.

Podcast.

The Creative Coding Podcast is a collaboration between me and the ever-inspiring Seb Lee-Delisle. We talk about the pure joy (and frustrations) of creative coding. With more than 70 episodes so far, we've interviewed some of the biggest names in digital art, interaction design and game development. Guests have included Zach Lieberman, Stacey Mulcahy, Mr.doob, Daniel Shiffman, Keith Peters, Marius Watz, Golan Levin, Robert Hodgin, Joel Gethin Lewis and Ben Fry.



Logo and branding by Val Head.

Career.

Dull Dude(2009-present)

I founded Dull Dude Limited in January 2009 for my game development freelancing. I've worked with games studios such as Electronic Arts and Mediatonic, as well as advertising and digital agencies such as BBH, Isobar, Doco, Mook and Chemistry. Sadly some of my work from this period is under NDA, but I assure you, it's really good!

Outplay Entertainment (2022-2024)

As a Senior Engineer at Outplay, working with Unity and C#, I developed new features for Subway Surfers Blast, across gameplay and user interface. I later transitioned to the new games team, prototyping numerous game ideas and mechanics for upcoming releases.

Bloc (2004-2009)

Joining in 2004 as a junior designer, I pretty quickly rose through the ranks to become Head of Interactive, helping to create one of London's most acclaimed and successful digital creative agencies. My games and creative development work from this period, some of which is showcased above, won dozens of awards, including Cannes Lions, NMAs, BIMAs, FWAs, the Webby award for Best Game (Stackopolis), and a Bafta nomination. Bloc itself was a finalist for New Media Age "Creative Agency of the Year" in 2007, thanks to an incredible dream-team of talent, including Eeelus, Liam Owen, John Denton, Tom Jennings, Mat Groves (and me!), amongst many others. It was a crazy, roller-coaster four-and-a-half years, and I think I'm still recovering. I need a cup of tea!

TwoFour (2003-2004)

After graduating university, I answered a job ad for a graduate training programme at television producer TwoFour. Somehow I got the job, and started on a pretty strange year helping to make "factual entertainment" programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, and Discovery. One of my own show ideas "The Estate We're In" was even commissioned by the BBC and ran for two seasons. Although I pretty quickly returned to my true calling in games, I've dabbled in video work, including directing and editing some daft online viral videos (remember those!?) while at Bloc.

Specialmoves (2001-2002)

Specialmoves were kind enough to give me my first job in the industry, a year-long industrial placement which included making some of my first Flash and Shockwave games. I learnt a lot about programming, and a bit about myself. The stand-out was the amazing The Osbournes game, based on MTV's reality show, where my job was to turn Oscar Wright's pencil-and-paper character designs into coloured and shaded Flash animations. Definitely one of those inspiring, "let's throw everything at it" projects, worthy of the awards it picked up.

MediaLab Arts BSc (1999-2003)

I graduated First Class with Honours from Plymouth University's outstanding MediaLab Arts BSc (now known as Digital Media Design), after an inspiring four years experimenting with game design, filmmaking, generative art, and interaction design. After almost a decade away, I returned to help out as a part-time lecturer from 2011-2014 and again from 2018-2020.