About me

Hello, I’m Karuna Ketan, a game designer.

I’m a game designer and final year Computer Science and Engineering student. I focus on player psychology, system design and level design, with a strong technical background. I am driven by creating balanced gameplay loops and immersive experiences that feel intentional and engaging to play.

VIEW RESUME

Projects

Survival Horror

Eclipse of Fear

Designed the diegetic "Lives as Papers" health system, where losing a life physically burns a mandatory quest item.
Balanced 4 distinct enemy waves using Data Sheets, tuning speed and detection radius to create an escalating difficulty curve.
Scripted a dynamic Intensity Director that alters lighting states and enemy aggression based on objective completion.

View project

RPG

Shattered Charms: Through The Veil

Designed the "Charm Matrix", a slot-based progression system allowing players to discover new abilities through specific Charm Fusions.
Modeled a Purification Economy in Excel, balancing Jewel drop rates to enforce exploration before the final boss.
Architected a Hub-and-Spoke world layout to control pacing, utilizing lighting cues to signal transitions between Safety and Tension.

View project

Action-adventure

Project Singularity

Designed the Teleportation Mechanic as a dual-purpose tool for both environmental traversal puzzles and combat flanking.
Prioritized "Game Feel" validation, iterating on camera shake and hit-stop feedback loops to ensure combat responsiveness.
Defined Spatial Metrics for level blockouts to accommodate the Scientist NPC escort mechanics and vertical combat encounters.

View project

Game Deconstruction

Analysis

The Last of Us: Part I

Analyzed Naughty Dog's use of "Pacing Pockets" to balance tension.
Deconstructed how scarcity mechanics (ammo, crafting) are tuned to force defensive play.
Mapped environmental storytelling techniques that guide navigation without UI.

Read Deconstruction

My Process

Research

I conduct deep Game Deconstructions to understand design pillars, game loops, and pacing.

Brief

Establishing clear Design Pillars early to ensure mechanics align with the core player fantasy.

Ideation

From brainstorming to Paper Prototyping. I test math and logic on paper to fail fast before coding.

Docs

Creating Live GDDs. I know when to write detailed specs and when to make quick flowcharts.

Prototype

Jumping into Unreal Engine 5 using Blueprints to build "ugly but functional" mechanics to test Game Feel.

Testing

Regular playtests to tune difficulty curves. Gathering feedback is my bread and butter.

Release

Packaging and shipping builds, ensuring the "First Time User Experience" is frictionless.

Analysis

Digging through playtest data and writing Post-Mortems to understand what went right and what broke.