Welcome to my Game Design Portfolio!
My name is Sara Heimbecker, and I am a Game Design graduate from George Brown College, with a background in Game Programming from Centennial College. I have a passion for creating Immersive, dynamic worlds.
My portfolio will show a variety of projects I worked on during my education. I’m excited to share my journey, let's dive in together!
Moodcaster!
As presented at LEVEL UP Showcase 2025
Moodcaster is a dungeon crawler that uses facial recognition technology that enables the player to cast spells as they traverse the dungeon. The spells they cast will reflect the current emotion the player expresses as detected by the facial recognition software.
Game Designer | Technical Director | Programmer
Moodcaster was a capstone project created at George Brown College, and will be continued to work on as a thesis project.
Embed Game here/add Link for exe download
Develop At Ubisoft
As part of the Develop At Ubisoft (DAU) program, I had the opportunity To learn under direct guidance from industry professionals through mentorship, and various Workshops.
Over the course of the program I met with my mentor regularly. She helped guide me through gaining a better understanding of C++ for game programming, and navigating the API Ubisoft provided.
I developed a silly 2D game where you play as an ever growing rat mischief that’s hunger cannot be satiated. As they eat more cheese, chaos ensues.
Additionally, DAU Hosted numerous workshops that focused on developing our skills and to give us, junior developers, an upper hand when entering the game development industry. These workshops include, Technical Interview Preparation Masterclass, and Pitching/Presenting Projects with Confidence.
Game Jams
Since Graduating I have participated in a few Game Jams in Toronto, The George Brown Alumni Jam as well as TOJam 2026. I participated as both a game designer, alongside some of my former classmates, as well as a game programmer on the project.
These were fun and collaborative projects we got to work on with the themed constraints and got to flex our creative muscles over the course of a weekend.
Tridiving
Toronto Game Jam 2026
At ToJam this year the theme was to select two of the previous years themes, and blend them. We chose to blend the themes Together but Apart, and There Will Be Consequences, to create a 3 player party game where you free fall down to earth avoiding obstacles on your way down. However, the players are all bound together and will pull each other along with each move they make. can you work together to make it to the ground, or will you accidentally pull your fellow diver into harms way.
Eternal Equilibrium
George Brown Alumni
The theme for this jam, was good vs evil. The concept of the game is the player controls both the angle and the devil, while “enemies” move around the play area. Shooting them will cause the other characters field of play to be reduced, so your goal is to achieve a high score while managing the amount of space you have to play in.
My School Assignment Catalogue!
Space Escape
The final project my group and I worked on for our practical game design class, developed in Unity.
Space escape sees players lost inside a maze like space station, where nothing is friendly. Surrounded by aggressive drones, and relentlessly pursued by a vicious android you must find the key to make your escape.
Auto Runner
A simple auto runner, the player must travers the various platforms to reach the end of each stage while avoiding obstacles.
StarLight
The first game I made in game programming. My partner and I were tasked with creating a game based on a classic arcade game.
StarLight is based on asteroids, in this version the player is tasked with protecting the galaxy from an alien invasion. Fly around each level dodging the aliens and shooting them down.
ML-Agents Maze-Shooter
For a Special Topics Gaming class my group used ML-Agents to create a maze shooter game, the goal was to navigate the maze while spiders tried to hunt you. The player is equipped with a gun to defend themselves, and they can pick up gems to score points.
We trained the agents in the maze overnight and they became rather proficient at hunting down the player.
Unnamed Mobile Prototype
This was a game we created to showcase our understanding of a variety of mechanics, such as various platforms, nav meshes, achievements, looting, and a mini map. This game was also the first mobile game that I worked on.
The game went unnamed since it was just intended to show our ability to implement concepts. Being design for mobile the overlay is misplaced when built on PC so I will provide gameplay footage.
Math Slam Dunk
A serious game made for simulation design class. The goal of the game is to allow young learners a fun and engaging way to learn and solve various math problems by dunking on the basket ball court.
Here is a link to alpha footage in engine,
Non Game Projects:
My program at Centennial was a blend of Game programming and Software development.
Click the Link to view some of these projects.
