DMYTRO RUCHKO

Game designer who builds. Unity/C#, from prototype to shipped.

Gravitation IO @ Evolute

Casual Vampire Survivors–style mobile arena (Android/iOS)

My role: Sole game designer on a 6-person team: level design, FTUE, dialogue, ability balancing, all content implemented directly in Unity.

Watch the full video
Gravitation io - Release Trailer

Rose from the Scrap @ GameDev Camp

Katamari Damacy meets Human Fall Flat. Three-month MVP built during GameDev Camp, pitched at Global Games Pitch and Demo Day.

My role:Game Designer / Team Lead

Watch the full video
Rose from the Scrap Demo Day

Hypercasual @ LuB Games

Rapid-prototyping pipeline: 15+ Unity prototypes. One was greenlit and shipped as Rush War: Army Commander.

My role:Game Designer - mechanics, levels, and code from pitch to testable build.

Link to the Game
Rush War: Army Commander

Other games

Gravitation IO

Studio
Evolute Games
Platform
Android / iOS
Team
6 (1 game designer, 1 programmer, 2 artists, 2 founders
Duration
Aug 2023 – Dec 2023
Engine
Unity
My role
Game designer

Context

The prototype won Best Mobile Game at DevGamm 2023, then stalled. I joined to take it from award-winning prototype to launched game in four months.

What I owned

Level design, ability balancing, dialogue, and FTUE — all implemented directly in Unity, working daily with one programmer and two artists. I also ran daily standups and the project roadmap, translating founder direction into buildable scope.

Constraints

Four months to launch, six people.

Genre shift from a survival/evolution game into a multiplayer arena.

Design deep-dive: FTUE

The problem

Post-launch analytics showed almost nobody was finishing the tutorial, only around 30% of players would finish it. The original FTUE was dialogue-heavy and quite long, and the drop-off made clear players weren’t willing to read their way into a casual arena game.

What I did

I cut the tutorial dialogue and rebuilt the flow around doing instead of reading: the number of steps required to complete the tutorial was cut and simplified, as well as major parts of the exposition were removed from the tutorial.

The result

Tutorial completion recovered and players started consistently reaching the core loop. Tutorial completion rose from ~30% to ~80%.

Design deep-dive: Ability balancing

All information about the abilities, their stats, upgrade costs lived inside Unity SO. I extracted the data into spreadsheets and later built a progression curve based on analytics with the goal of spreading the content for ~5h of playtime

Outcome

Shipped to Android and iOS. Ran the post-launch cycle. Worked with live metrics and iteration, until the studio couldn’t secure further funding.

The game is currently delisted from the stores.

What I’d do differently

The game went through too many core changes too late into development.

The game changed genres, went from horizontal to portrait mode. These decisions should have been set in stone from the start

The game was torn apart between the singleplayer campaign and a multiplayer arena which were two completely different game-modes with their own abilities and features. The difference in gameplay and structure spread the team thin, one game-mode should have been chosen as primary

Rose from the Scrap

Context
GameDev Camp
Platform
PC
Team
4
Duration
3 months
Engine
Unity

Context

Three-month MVP built during GameDev Camp - my own team, under weekly critique from industry professionals.

What I owned

Led the team and the design. Built and delivered the funding pitch at Global Games Pitch and to the jury at the demo day

Outcome

Shipped the MVP in three months and presented at Demo Day; pitched for continuation funding at Global Games Pitch. The project ended there, but the pitch process led directly to my design role at Evolute.

Hypercasual @ LuB Games

Studio
LuB Games
Platform
Android/iOS
Team
4
Duration
5 months
Engine
Unity

Context

Hypercasual prototype pipeline - concepts had to be playable in days, and most were killed on purpose. Built 15+ prototypes in Unity, coding them myself.

What I owned

Took concepts from pitch to testable build: mechanics, levels, and code. Contributed design and improvement ideas on live titles in the studio's portfolio.

Outcome

One of my prototypes was greenlit and shipped as Rush War: Army Commander reached 1M+ downloads.