Making gamesfor education, research and culture

by a programmer who designs and teaches

I find the fun in your subject and build a game anyone can play - for universities, museums and researchers. You get exactly what we agreed: on brief, on time, on budget, and a little past what you asked for.

Let's talk See the work

Selected work

Cardiff University - School of Journalism, Media and Culture

ViewfindR

I built the filmmaking simulator Cardiff's journalism students use to practise framing, lighting and shot composition. It plays for people who've never opened a game before.

“His approach displayed an excellent command of the various facets of the process and an impressive skill in articulating a viable sequence of intermediary steps. He reported regularly, met every milestone and delivered a product with all the desired features. No ifs and buts - he does a brilliant job.”
Savyasaachi Jain - project lead, Cardiff University

Students practise in a sandbox that detects whether a shot is a close-up or a wide shot, and whether it follows the rule of thirds, then teachers assess the results separately. It's in active use on the course.

The biggest challenge was making it feel accessible to people who'd never played a game before, while keeping the depth needed to simulate real filmmaking - moving as much as possible from keyboard controls to mouse-based input. Getting that right meant designing a solution, testing it with real users, and iterating until it worked.

Echo Games CIC - for five museums in and around Bath

Built from Beneath

I developed the puzzles for this digital escape room, plus the editor tooling that let five Bath museums shape them fast.

“Geoffrey proved himself an exceptionally competent developer, producing professional standard code that exceeded our expectations. He was punctual, clear in communicating issues, and sustained a professional codebase and developer practice.”
Dr Daniel J. Finnegan - lead programmer, Echo Games CIC

Players solve puzzles to learn about the brighter and darker sides of Bath's history, including how the efforts of both the wealthy and working class shaped the city into what it is today.

I was brought in as the Unity developer. With five organisations collaborating, finding the right puzzles meant testing a range of mechanical prototypes before settling on what suited the story. I built custom editor tooling to implement the selected puzzles quickly, keeping them intuitive and tactile for a museum touchscreen.

Play Well For Life - with Royal Holloway, University of London

Dragons of Afterlands

I programmed the companion-app UI and challenge gameplay for this AR wellbeing board game, now used with young people in NHS and school settings.

Co-created with: Young people, psychologists and educators
Built with: Unity - Multiplayer AR companion app paired with a physical board game

Co-created with young people, psychologists and educators, the game pairs a physical board with a companion app: players take on social, emotional, cognitive and physical wellbeing challenges as they play. It has been used with young people in NHS hospital and school settings.

I joined as a Unity programmer on the companion app. Because the game leans on a large online database, the UI layer for the menu flow and HUD had to stay independent from that logic - I built it with animations and particles, then moved on to the challenge-based gameplay.

Echo Games CIC - with Great Ormond Street Hospital

T Cell Titans

I focused on game feel for this shooter about the body's immune defence against cancer - co-designed with the young patients it's made for.

“He quickly understood my inputs and translated them into the game. He communicated effectively and was always willing to work on all the little visual adjustments I asked for, sometimes even predicting them. He is professional, organised, attentive, and his enthusiasm for game development is contagious.”
Daniela De Angeli - lead artist, Echo Games CIC

Co-designed with the young patients themselves, it depicts real T-cell therapy immune responses, supporting conversations between healthcare practitioners and children with leukaemia.

Making a game for children meant paying extra attention to intuitive, satisfying interaction - game feel was the focus, keeping the actions full of life while staying accurate to the underlying research. I drew on the experience design I'd built up on live mobile games, using tweening and particle effects to make the interactions pop.

Treibrad Games GmbH

Baugarten

I built out the early prototype of this educational city builder, so we could playtest its maths-driven economy in schools fast.

“Geoffrey thinks in questions. This is a superpower when working as a team, exploring different options. He showed creativity and initiative helping bring my game project to life - creating his own designs and contributing greatly to the game design.”
Henry van Wagenberg - co-founder, Baugarten

Baugarten is a world-building and resource-management PC game where maths and science become the tools for managing a steampunk economy. Henry reached out when it was still just an idea, with the prototype barely past placing buildings on a map.

I built out the gameplay: the building menu UI, randomly generated farm shapes and areas, and the formulas players use to manage them. Getting a prototype done fast let us playtest with schools and teachers and shape the game's direction.

Language Lab

Language Lab VR

I implemented the progression and in-game economy for this VR language-learning app, released on Steam and Meta.

“We needed an item unlock/in-game currency system added to a Unity 3D VR project. Geoffrey was a very good listener and understood our needs. As he made progress, he sent updates, and he delivered an excellent final product. We definitely recommend him.”
Andrew and Adam Dugan - co-founders, Language Lab

Language Lab VR is a Virtual Reality language-education application released on Steam and Meta. It rethinks how language is learnt, giving players an interactive space where they see and touch to learn at their own pace.

I was brought on board to design the economy feature: a way for students to feel a sense of progression, working towards unlocking new areas and earning points to do so, with tweens and animations to make purchasing feel satisfying.

University of Bath - with NT Bath Assembly Rooms

A Regency Scandal

I wove three puzzles into one meta-game that turns a Regency ball into a shared murder mystery spectators can follow without playing.

Studied: How visitors shift between watching and playing
Outcome: Research pilot delivered and run live at the Bath Assembly Rooms

The study explored how visitors move from passively watching an exhibit to actively taking part - drifting between watching and playing as they choose.

My job was to connect three puzzle mechanics into a single meta-game, feeding clues from each puzzle into one shared murder mystery so spectators could follow along without playing themselves. I designed it to be genuinely fun to play while giving the study a reliable way to measure visitor behaviour. It ran as a pilot and wrapped once the research was complete.

Play Well For Life - with University of Bristol

Game of Awkwardness

I built this turn-based card game as server-authoritative multiplayer from the ground up - played together in any browser, mobile or desktop.

Scope: Solo build
Built with: Unity - Netcode for GameObjects, Multiplayer Sessions and Unity Relay

A card game helping players navigate social interactions - the design stays under wraps until closer to release.

What I can talk about is the engineering: I built the digital prototype solo as a server-authoritative, turn-based multiplayer game using Netcode for GameObjects, Multiplayer Sessions and Unity Relay. The build was deployed to web browsers, working both on mobile and desktops, in landscape or portrait - maximising accessibility.

About

I'm a gameplay programmer and educator based in London, making games for universities, museums and cultural organisations - built so the people you're trying to reach can play, even if they've never touched a game before.

Most clients are commissioning their first game, on grant money and a deadline - so I keep it legible: regular updates, honest trade-offs, no surprises. The quotes above are the part I'm proudest of.

Get in touch

Bring me a brief, a research question, or a hunch that a game might work. We start with a call, then a clear, fixed quote - and from there, no surprises. No ifs and buts.

Email me LinkedIn