I am Nick Heutmekers, twenty-four years old and passionate about video games. I was introduced to video games at a young age by my parent, the first game I played was Kingdom Hearts while under supervision. After as I got older I continued with Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper and various other games over various consoles: Wii, DS, 3DS, PC. This led me to experience a wide variety of genres and appreciate most (barring puzzle games). Sparking a curiosity to experience more of what games had to offer, both in gameplay but also story, art and music.

As I got older, I started being more interested in how games were created, along with the systems which made them all function. This interest blossomed into a desire to create myself, which at the time I started by building in games primarily, Terraria and Minecraft. Till a turning point where I started a Dungeons & Dragons Campaigns as a DM for my group of friends. I learned a lot from this experience as I iterated on the original rules to increase the enjoyment of my friends during their adventures. Their positive feedback gave me the course to truly pursue it not as an interest but a career path.

My focus for my designs are  systems, as these are the bedrock of what the player interacts with. From their character controller to how NPCs react, and the rules to manage it all. I have grown to appreciate this aspect of design because of how intricate but also broad it can be. Every design brings something new, and two systems are never the same, even if two inventories are not alike, while they may share some commonalities. This makes the learning and possibilities endless in my eyes, and along with the joy these systems can bring, it motivates me to push forward to improve both my systems and the experience they provide.