About me

Bio

Hi, I'm Juan Fernando, a game designer and programmer located in Medellín, Colombia. During my childhood I developed a burning passion to Lego. I was either building weird Bionicle/System hybrids or playing and telling crossover stories that mixed all the sets I owned, no matter the theme they belonged to. During that time I also played a bunch of games on my PS2. The years passed and I started playing less and less with Lego, but the passion for building stuff lived on. I eventually got an Xbox 360 and a friend of mine lent me his copy of Halo Reach, that game changed my life. I had played lots of games before, but Reach is what got me to lean in a hardcore way to the hobby. I poured a massive amount of hours into Reach and later into Halo 4, I eventually discovered Forge (Halo's map editor). That led me to realize I could merge my passion for games with my passion for building stuff.

Studies & background

I studied Digital Entertainment Design Engineering at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, there I fell in love with game design and the way it integrates a lot of disciplines to deliver meaningful experiences. During the later years of university I delved pretty deep into general game design, level design and narrative design, using Unreal Engine and Unity to give life to multiple experiences and games.

I've worked in cross-disciplinary teams both during university and in a professional manner, that has helped me develop the ability to communicate design concepts and ideas to teams of artists, programmers, producers and such.

I've also had the opportunity to apply my skills in various Quality Assurance roles, always making sure my documents and oral feedback are clear and concise.

I believe games have the power to impact and even help the lives of the people who play them and I'm glad that I can now contribute to push this art medium forward, through new and unexpected avenues.

Resume

You can take a look to my resume here: