Game-related work:

July, 2021: Presentations at UNF Game Development Camp
I was invited to a summer camp for upcoming game design students where I talked about my career journey as a game developer and our puzzle design approach in Lightmatter. I also went through practical examples related to the topic of game feel.

March, 2020: Presentations at Vallekilde Højskole
I gave two talks to the game design students at Vallekilde Folk High School. One about Lightmatter and puzzle design and another about game feel.

July, 2019: Talk at UNF Game Development Camp
I gave an inspirational talk at a local summer camp for high school students where I talked about my journey from student to professional game developer: Fra GDC til Tunnel Vision Games – Random råd og erfaringer.

October, 2018: Micro talk at IndieCade Europe
I hosted a small micro talk where I described the way we used Lego to build puzzle prototypes for Lightmatter.

2016-2020: Co-founder, producer and programmer at Tunnel Vision Games
Back in 2013, we developed a university project called See You On The Other Side. Having finished our educations during the summer of 2016, we decided to create a company and work full-time on a commercial version of the game.

October, 2016: Talk about game feel at Vallekilde Højskole
I presented my game feel project for a group of game design students at the Vallekilde Folk High School.

June, 2015: Playtester for Bedtime Digital Games regarding their game Dream Factory
I gave feedback on one of the game worlds, the combat mechanics, as well as various suggestions about the overall game feel.

May 1st to 3rd, 2015: Co-organizer of Create Jam 2015 at Aalborg University
Together with other students, we organized a game jam for people at Medialogy, where over 50 participants attended. I also made a game myself called Don’t Get Left Behind.

February, 2015: Hosted a two-day game development workshop at Randers Bibliotek
I taught 15 children (age 10-15) how to make their own games in Scratch and Unity.

March, 2014: Helped Kickstarter campaign Shrug Island
I helped a friend of my launching her Kickstarter campaign. I provided feedback to the campaign, its description, video and pledge rewards.

December 4, 2013: 1-hour talk about Kickstarter at Filmbyen Aarhus
I was invited to come and talk about my Kickstarter experiences to a class of 30 film students.

November-December, 2013: Helped Kickstarter campaign Pirates of New Horizons – Mobile
I helped a friend running a Kickstarter campaign for his game Pirates of New Horizons. Unfortunately, the campaign wasn’t funded. It received $5,252 out of its $10,000 goal.

Fall, 2013: Marketing and Kickstarter consultant for HeartLands
Late in the Summer of 2013, I was contacted and asked if I could help building media buzz for a MOBA/RTS game called HeartLands. I was in charge of their social media websites, as well as creating initial plans for a Kickstarter campaign.

September 20, 2013: Participated in panel discussion about Kickstarter at Bermuda Kickoff event
Together with Thomas Lund and Mikkel Mainz, I participated in a panel debate. We discussed how to make a successful Kickstarter campaign, as well as answering questions from the audience.

June, 2013: Helped with Kickstarter campaign for the game A Hat in Time
I helped a friend creating and maintaining a Kickstarter campaign for the 3D collect-a-thon platformer A Hat in Time.

April 30, 2013: AAU Gameshow workshop at Aalborg Tekniske Gymnasium (HTX)
Unity workshop with AAU Gameshow where I led a 7-hour session of teaching 30 high school students about Unity and C# programming. We ended up making a 2D space shooter game from scratch.

April, 2013-?: Member of the Indiejam initiative
Indiejam is an organization that hosts game jams in Jutland, more specific in Aalborg, Viborg and Aarhus. We are a team of seven volunteers who are working to host the best possible game jams. My key area is getting in contact with sponsors and judges for the Indie9000 game jam. Indie9000 is a game jam held in Aalborg and is more than 7 years old.

April 5, 2013: AAU Gameshow workshop for Aalborg Tekniske Gymnasium (HTX)
I helped teaching high school students about Unity (terrain editor, character controller and simple particles) as well as showing/telling about life as a student at Aalborg University.

January, 2013-?: Co-organizer of Shareplay‘s SpilBar initiative in Jutland (Aalborg, Viborg, Aarhus)
SpilBar is a bi-monthly event where game developers and game enthusiasts meet and discuss various topics over a bottle of beer. To start the conversation, one or multiple speakers from around the world are invited to share their opinion on a given theme. It is my task to keep finding interesting speakers that can participate in SpilBar.

November, 2012: Helper organizer at the game jam Indie9000
I helped organizing a game jam in Aalborg, as well as participating with a game myself. The jam was held in Nordkraft with approximately 50 participants.

2012-2013: PR manager and gameshower at AAU Gameshow
AAU Gameshow is an organization of students from Aalborg University that goes to schools and promotes game development via live shows, workshops and various events.

October, 2011: Playtester for Kiloo Games regarding their iOS game Bullet Time
I helped with various bug fixes and came with suggestions of how to improve some of the gameplay.

October, 2011: Playtester for Exit Strategy Entertainment regarding their game Planet Buster
I helped a friend refining the usability of their casual Match-3 puzzle game.

July, 2011: Playtester for Based on Experience regarding their game Gadevalgkampen for Venstres Ungdom
A friend of mine asked if I wanted to playtest their upcoming Unity game – a political tower defence title – which I gladly agreed to. The purpose of the test was to find usability issues in elements such as the interface and tutorial, and to see how the individual units interrelate with each others. I suggested various gameplay related changes that would make the game more streamlined and accessible, and most important of all: more fun.

June, 2011: Playtester for ClearCut Games regarding their iOS title Cado
I helped a group of students with their first iOS game, Cado, by testing it for bugs and difficulty tweaks, as well as giving them ideas about features that would improve and vary the game experience.

April, 2011: Future Calling – social marketing for the movie My Avatar And Me
During my folk high school education at Vallekilde Game Academy, we had a two-week course about a movie based on the social game Second Life. Our goal was to spread the word about My Avatar And Me by using various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. Having a good grasp on these services already, my group and I managed to gather a lot of buzz up to the movie’s release (which could be watched offline as well as online in the Second Life universe).

January, 2011: Playtester for Kiloo Games regarding their DSiWare title Zoonies – Escape from Makatu
I played through the whole game and found various bugs, glitches and minor difficulty issues. I came with suggestions for changes to the puzzles and some few usability issues.

November 26, 2010: Wrote small article in the Danish newspaper Århus Stiftstidende about game jams
In a collaboration with the local library Århus Hovedbibliotek I wrote an article about game jams in Denmark. Read page 1 and page 2 (Danish).

October 2010: Playtester for Press Play regarding their iPhone title Explosive Love
I helped a friend of mine by playing his Unity-based game for the iPhone. I came with various suggestions about the pacing and difficulty of the game, as well as some minor gameplay tweaks.

June 28-30, 2010: Hosted a game workshop at Århus Hovedbibliotek in association with Projekt Aktiv Sommerferie
Together with another member of Unge Spiludviklere I held a small game development workshop for children (aged 8-15) at the local library. We introduced them to the programming tool Scratch and taught them the basic principles of game design. Even though none of them had any previous experience with making games, all of them managed to make some small-working games during the three-days workshop.

2010-?: Member and co-founder of Spilministeriet (The Game Department)
Spilministeriet is an organisation with the goal of getting more games into the Danish culture scene. Our main goal is to get more game events to Jutland, since almost everything today is held in Copenhagen.

2010-?: Member of Dansk Spilråd (Danish Game Counsil)
Dansk Spilråd is an impartial organisation that seeks to promote the understanding of games in Denmark. We host various events, lectures and workshops to strengthen and increase the general knowledge about games. Our goal is to promote a better understanding of games and game culture.

2009-?: Member of Unge Spiludviklere (Young Game Developers)
Unge Spiludviklere is a Danish association that wants to enforce the knowledge about and the passion for game developing in Denmark. We travel around and host workshops where we teach young people how to make computer games.

October 2009: Playtester for Press Play regarding their WiiWare title Max & the Magic Marker
Press Play is a small gaming studio located in Copenhagen. This was their first game. Late in the project I was invited to playtest it mainly for the purpose of game balancing and tweaking. I played throuh the whole game and came with various suggestions of how make the game more user-friendly.

2009: Writer and podcast manager at N-Gamez
N-Gamez is Danish Nintendo community site. I started writing a lot of news articles, but soon I found that I wanted to do something different. Together with some friends I started a podcast called “N-Gamez Ncast”, which lasted for 10 episodes. Here we talked about everything regarding the gaming world with a special focus on Nintendo’s games.

2008-2009: Participated at the summer camp Game Development Camp held by UNF (Ungdommens Naturvidenskabelige Forening
GDC is a Danish camp where high school students spent a week of their summer holiday developing computer games. Here I made the Blender games Gravity and .jump. A lot of developers from the industry participated, for instance Ron Carmel of 2D Boy (World of Goo) and Karl Magnus Troedsson from EA DICE (Battlefield), to share their knowledge and experience.

2007-2008: Writer at Gamers-Globe
I wrote 31 game reviews for this Danish gaming website. You can find them on Play:Right.

2004-2007: Writer at NintenDome
I was mainly a news writer for this Danish Nintendo fansite, where I posted news about the Nintendo world and gaming in general. I also wrote some reviews and articles about various games.

Online beta tester for a wide range of games
I have beta tested numerous online games: Seed, Battlefield 2142, The Lord of The Rings Online, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Battlefield Heroes, Call of Duty: World at War, Lego Universe, Battlefield Play4Free, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Battlefield 3, Gunpoint, Code Hero, SpyParty, Company of Heroes 2, Frozen Endzone, Evolve, Splatoon, Overwatch, Absolver.

Education:

Fall 2020: Intro course to Photography at Viborg Media College
I took part in a half-year course about photography, including composition, studio lighting, camera techniques, reportage and post-production work.

2014-2016: Medialogy Master (MSc.) Cand.Scient. with Games specialization at Aalborg University
“The Master education of Medialogy builts upon the knowledge gained from the Bachelor.”

Courses taught on Medialogy Master
10th semester:

• Focus on my final master project (no courses)

9th semester – Studying abroad in Austria at the Hagenberg campus of University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria:

• Advanced Computer Graphics (shader programming with OpenGL)
• Game Architecture (creating a Entity-Component-System game engine in Java with LibGDX)
• Semantic Text Analysis (using R to analyze and search in text databases)
• Software Design Methods (software design patterns, Java programming)
• Information Visualisation (using web technologies to visualize information)
• In-Game Technologies (managing a big game production)

8th semester:

• Narratives in Digital Culture (telling stories in interactive media)
• Modelling Physical Systems (physics programming using Unity)
• Foundations – Games (scientific research, writing papers and literature reviews

7th semester:

• Multivariate Statistics and Pattern Recognition (machine learning using MATLAB)
• Multimodal Perception and Cognition
• Advanced A/V Production
• Scientific Communication

2011-2014: Medialogy Bachelor B.Sc. at Aalborg University
“The Medialogy education is based on the studies of human and computer relations, audio-visual effects, the human perception, immersive computer systems and new interfaces. During the span of the education the students are given a strong technical foundation, both in theory and in practice.”

Courses taught on Medialogy Bachelor
6th semester:

• Media Sociology and Psychology (Ethnography, video analysis, discourse analysis)
• Real-time Interfaces and Interactions (electronics, bio-logging)

5th semester:

• Computer Graphics Programming (shader programming, with focus on Unity)
• Computer Graphics Rendering (compositing, raycasting and more)
• Screen Media (deeper understanding of film, photography, editing, plot, sound and more)

4th semester:

• Design and Analysis of Experiments (statistics, with focus on R)
• Object Oriented Software Engineering (Java + UML)
• Sound and Music Computing (Digital Signal and Audio Processing with focus on Pure Data)

3rd semester:

• Procedural Programming (C++)
• Perception (visual and auditory)
• Image Processing (OpenFrameworks + OpenCV)
• A/V Production (focus on producing short films)

2nd semester:

• Interaction Design
• Mathematics to multi media applications
• Physical interface design (electronics, with focus on Arduino)

1st semester:

• Animation and Graphic Design (Maya and Photoshop)
• Problem based learning in Science, Technology and Society
• Introduction to Programming (Java + Google GWT)

February-June 2011: Game Academy at Vallekilde Højskole (folk high school)
Game Academy is the world’s first folk high school education solely focusing on games. It’s a three-months course teaching about almost every aspect of the game industry. Our headmaster Thomas Vigild invited a large group of different people from the industry to talk about and share their inside experiences. Ranging from subjects such as game design, audio design and game development, to storytelling, analysis and board games, I learned a lot about the inner workings of the videogame industry. We also held a game jam, Exile, where I developed Suction Co-Op with two other students. I also kept a blog while I was on the education, which you can read here (Danish): Gustav Dahl @ Vallekilde Game Academy 2011.

2007-2010: Studentereksamen at Århus Statsgymnasium (STX)
The Danish Gymnasium is similar to a high school and is a fundamental three-year education. You have subjects on three different levels, where A is the highest, B is medium and C is only a half year of study. My study line was English A, Spanish A, Film Science B, Social Science B, Mathematics B and Biology B. My ending average grade: 9,7 (by the Danish grading scale – can be compared to a B on the ECTS scale).