Giacomo Salvadori

Italy · Tuscany · Florence · giaco.salvadori@gmail.com

Born in Florence, Italy in October of 1990. I graduated at the Università degli Studi di Firenze with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science. I am a freelance programmer and game designer.

Games & Prototypes

Football Drama


A narrative game about football where you choose your own narrative. You are Rocco Galliano the manager of the Calchester, a struggling football team.
The game was released in September 2019 for mobile. I worked on the HD versione during the last quarter of 2020.
  • Programmer managed input for PC, console and Nintendo Switch
  • Technical designer - Rethink the game in full screen version
     Steam page!      Nintendo page!
Hatesick - Alter in boilerdome


A graphic adventure about hate speech and its consequences. This game was commissioned by Amnesty International Italy.
I collaborated with a team of professional game developers on this project, thanks to them I learned about important aspects of this world.
  • Programmer - I contributed to develop the core system
     Play it!
Hyperspace shoujo
Arcade spaceshooter where you deflect the enemy bullet with a satellite binary system. You can also generate wave attack when colliding the satellites (joypads required).
This game was developed during the Ggj 2018 and rewarded as best game of Pisa Game Jam.
  • Team manager - managed group during Ggj 2018 in Pisa
  • Concept idea - important role on defining the core mechanic and rules
     Download from Ggj site!
Cosmion


A casual game which the aim is collecting celestial bodies in the universe.
This is a self-made project in terms of game design and programming. The game is available for Android smartphone.
  • Programmer - I am the dev owner of the project
  • Concept idea - I make all design choices.
     Download for Android!

Experience

Game Developer

Freelance

I usually work with two of the most important engine on the market. I have both experience in B2B and B2C game dev. My experience get from game for great audience to specific app for customers with AR or VR technologies. I also put my experience at the service of Packt Publishing as a reviewer for Unity AI Programming.
Currently I have a research fellowship with the Università degli studi di Siena where I am developing VR and AR apps with Unity.

C++ Unreal Engine 4
I really started to use the engine from 2019, focusing on game mechanics and AI.

  • B2C, experience in a larger studio. Experience with Stormind Games, as AI programmer in 2021. Here I worked with JIRA, Confluence and Perforce
  • Implement mechanic for third person game
  • AI implementation
  • Knowledge of network basics for multiplayer games

C# Unity Developer
Working experience with Unity since 2017. Game designer and programmer for both B2C and B2B projects.

  • Unity dev with a research fellowship for Università degli studi di Siena, developing VR and AR apps
  • B2B - mobile and VR application for customers in the high fashion field
  • B2C - Technical designer for Football Drama
  • B2B - Dev for edu games

January 2017 - Present

Professor

Event horizon - school of digital art / TheSign - Comics & Arts Academy Firenze

Helping groups of young adults to deliver their first game as a team. I take care about lessons on Unreal (both Blueprint and C++), Unity, AI and technical game design aspects of a game.

November 2019 - Present

Assistant Professor

Event horizon - school of digital art / TheSign - Comics & Arts Academy Firenze

In the academic year 2017-18 I had my first teaching experience and during this period I helped the professor manage four teams. These teams were composed by game designers, concept artists and programmers. My support was mainly focused on team work, letting the group creating a playable videogame. I also had the opportunity to be an assistant teacher of game design course, helping the students move their first steps in the game development world and introducing them Game Maker, Unity and Unreal Engine 4.

January 2018 - July 2019

Programmer

Enegan spa

At first, I created interfaces for the new management software to improve the efficiency of CRM and Back Office. After a first period of front-end development began the back-end experience, where I learned the PL/SQL basics. I developed procedures to facilitate the billing process. I also made the data migration in the new software for the gas part. It is here that my knowledge of Oracle DB grew. During the last year and a half I started to develop a new software for the management of contracts loading with senior programmers. This was also the opportunity to introduce a centralized user control system and a software monitoring system.

October 2013 - October 2016

Education

Event Horizon - school of digital art

Game design

Here I learned game design fundamentals and developed my first games. During my time here I learnt:

  • Uses of Game Maker, Unity and Unreal Engine 4
  • Narrative design
  • How to join my tech side with the designer side to become a technical designer
  • How to develop an idea
  • How to be simple, cut what you do not need (Occam's razor principle)
  • How to complete is the most important side of a project
  • How to write a GDD
  • How to make a presentation, talk about myself and my ideas
November 2016 - June 2019

Università degli studi di Firenze

Computer Science - Bachelor's Degree

The main focuses of my studies were:

  • Object Oriented Programming and principal design patterns
  • Concurrent programming
  • Relational database and model
  • Probability and statistics
  • Artificial intelligence: search algorithm and neural network
  • Mathematical analysis
  • Algebra
  • Discrete and logic mathematics
  • Classical physics
  • Web page and app development (thesis argument)

September 2009 - July 2013

Skills

Tools
How I spend my time
Personal skills
  • Programming - Technical competencies with game engines
  • Concept base - Participation and collaboration during the brainstorming phase and initial concept of a project
  • Team management - Good risk evaluation and problem solving skills
  • Game design - Ability to define game rules and mechanics. I have a basic knowledge of Articy:Draft

Strengths

In my opinion I have three strengths that put together may create a good mix

  • Good Listening
  • Teamwork
  • Problem setting

Studies

Strand Game, trying to understand (and explain)


Trying to understand and shed light on the Kojima’s concept of strand game.

Read it on Gamasutra!
UE4 - TPS Studies


Approaching C++ in UE4 for a personal project. Starting from scratch, I learnt how to implement mechanics and create AI. Take a look to README file in the GitHub repository for more details!

Go to GitHub!      Watch the results!
FPS level pacing analysis


Pacing analysis of Call of Duty Black cats level. The analysis is made with the cluster method.

Read it!
Procedural level lab
A laboratory about level construction with Hilbert curve. This is a little project made with Unity, it is composed of two scenes.

Go to GitHub!
Physics for game designers


A paper on the perceived physics by the players when they play a video game. In these pages I analyzed the property of a game object starting from Steve Swink's definition of game feel.

Read it!

Theme by David Miller - GitHub davidtmiller