PORTFOLIO
This portfolio showcases a selection of projects I have completed as well as those I am currently contributing to. It reflects a broad range of creative work across game development, along with related areas such as content creation and community management.
Across these projects, I have frequently taken on narrative responsibilities, allowing me to further develop and apply my skills as a Narrative Designer and Game Designer in different contexts.
GAME DEVELOPMENT
INDIE GAME DEV TEAM
Project Leader | Narrative Director | Game Director | Lead Game Designer | Level Designer | Systems Designer
We are a small independent development team dedicated to creating horror games and interconnected game universes. Our projects are driven by a strong focus on narrative depth, atmosphere, and immersive storytelling. A central element of our work is exploring powerful emotions such as fear, the unknown, and the darkness that lies beyond the familiar. Through our games, we aim to craft experiences that draw players into haunting worlds, where stories, characters, and events are often connected within a larger shared universe.
WOLFSBANE
Project Lead | Game Designer | Narrative Designer | Level Designer | Game Writing | Programmer | Voice Actor | Composer
Wolfsbane was developed as a game prototype for a project module as part of my Game Design studies at IU International University. The goal was to conceptualize, plan, structure, and ultimately turn an original game idea into a playable prototype. I designed Wolfsbane as a story-driven horror walking simulator with a deliberately focused scope, built around the unsettling premise of an Escape Room Game Master testing a new room before its public opening – only to discover that something within the experience may be playing its own game with him.
The project was structured through a complete pre-production and project management workflow: I created the GDD and Workflow Guide in Confluence, organized development in Jira across 11 Sprints + 2 Buffer Sprints, and established the backlog through project breakdown, MoSCoW prioritization, and time estimation in Excel. While the overall project spanned three months of concept development and pre-production, the playable UE5 prototype itself was built within nine focused development days, with the structured preparation allowing me to achieve the intended scope.
Beyond Project Management, I was responsible for Game Design, Level Design, Narrative Design, Game Writing, Programming, and Voice Acting. To keep production realistic, I strategically combined selected FAB assets with original 3D assets, with the intention of replacing external assets with fully original production assets should Wolfsbane move into further development. The female voice performance was provided by Fearplay Co-Founder Lunaria (Angelika Treffner).
OFFERING
Narrative Designer | Game Designer
In the story-driven Horror JRPG Offering, the demo transports players to Carinthia, Austria, in the year 1953, to the remote mansion of the Graf family. Taking on the role of Amalia, a newly hired housemaid, players gradually become familiar with the house and its guests, only to soon realize that something is deeply wrong. This demo was developed during the Global Game Jam 2026 at the IFgameSH jam site in the Starterkitchen Kiel and is currently undergoing further development.
HOPE’S END
Project Leader | Narrative Designer | Game Designer | Game Writer
Hope’s End is a story-driven psychological horror prototype developed in RPG Maker MZ during the Gamepathy Game Jam 2026. Set in rural Pennsylvania during the late 1980s, the game follows Elaine Callahan as she searches for her missing sister in the isolated village of Hope Creek. Combining environmental storytelling, psychological horror, and a dual-reality gameplay mechanic, the project explores themes of mystery, loss, and occultism while emphasizing atmosphere, narrative immersion, and environmental puzzle-solving.
For Hope’s End, I designed the game’s narrative flow in Twine and wrote the main dialogue sequences. This allowed us to play through and evaluate the complete narrative structure early in development, identifying potential dissonance, pacing issues, and other narrative weaknesses before implementation.
Given the constraints of a Gamescom showcase and the limited amount of time visitors typically spend with a game at the booth, the narrative experience was deliberately kept compact. The later sections were streamlined in particular, allowing us to prioritize a strong opening hook and effective narrative onboarding while maintaining an appropriate overall playtime.
As part of Level Design, I created the exterior environment of Hope’s Creek, while also coordinating Project Management through Jira, Confluence, and Excel. Working across several smaller sprints within a two-week development period, we were able to complete the original Hope’s End Game Jam prototype and subsequently continue refining and polishing the experience for its showcase.
Additionally, I composed and performed the original soundtrack for Hope’s End, and created the artwork for the game’s intro and outro cutscenes, which I also edited and produced for the final experience.
GONE FOREVER
Game Designer | Narrative Designer
In 2025, I participated in the Global Game Jam for the first time, where I collaborated with two other developers to create a prototype for a point-and-click adventure using the Unity engine. The project served as an experimental testbed to explore how games similar to the Cube Escape series could be realized within Unity. The focus of the prototype was on atmosphere, distinctive sound design, and a four-wall sliding system, in which each side of a room is represented in 2D and can be navigated seamlessly using directional inputs. This allowed players to switch between perspectives, discover different assets, and interact with various items within the environment.
The Global Game Jam 2025 theme was “Bubbles,” and our project, Gone Forever, was developed under the subtitle “Life is like a Bubble.” The project was created at the IFgameSH jam site in Kiel, hosted at the Starterkitchen. My role in the project involved defining the core game design principles of the prototype and aligning them within the engine. I was also responsible for narrative and environmental design, ensuring internal narrative logic while abstracting elements of the surreal and abnormal. Additionally, I collaborated closely with sound design and art to determine how and where audiovisual feedback should be implemented to achieve the intended emotional impact on the player.
CONTENT CREATION & VIDEO EDITING
From A Narrative Perspective
YT Content Creator – On my YouTube channel Kjeld Stormarnson, I explore narrative design and storytelling through a cinematic lens, focusing on how inspiration from the real world can be translated into fictional universes.
In my series “From a Narrative Perspective,” I aim to look beyond the thorns of the roses – examining stories, themes, and creative works more deeply while connecting my personal perspective on the world with my work as a narrative designer.
Making of
Umbra Noctis
BTS Producer | Set Runner – As part of the HAW Kiel (formerly FH Kiel) university horror film Umbra Noctis, I worked as a Set Runner and primarily as a Behind-the-Scenes Producer.
Join me for a look behind the scenes and experience the making of Umbra Noctis.
COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
RPU
A Star Citizen Roleplay Universe
Founder | Community Admin | Loremaker (Writer & Narrative Designer)
In 2019, I initiated a cross-organizational roleplay project within the German Star Citizen fan community. The vision was not only to connect roleplayers, but also to offer both open-ended roleplay and structured, narrative-driven campaign experiences, using Star Citizen as the shared platform.
Alongside founding our own Star Citizen organization, TYR, we launched the community-wide RP initiative Project ENOS under the umbrella of RPU (Roleplay Universe). The project quickly grew into a community of over 500 members, featuring large-scale highlight events and extensive project planning.
As part of the administration team, I was involved in decision-making processes within the community and in coordination with other organizations. This included aligning multiple planning teams and ensuring effective collaboration across departments. To support this, I helped establish a structured team framework consisting of six departments: Admin & Release, Engineering, Loremaker, Audio Design, Art Design, and the RP Development Team. The latter focused on testing the current state of the Star Citizen Alpha to evaluate how gameplay mechanics could be translated into roleplay and how these findings should inform event and campaign planning.
In my role as Loremaker, I was responsible for studying the official Star Citizen lore, as well as overseeing and coordinating community-created lore. I also contributed original narrative content for campaigns, ensuring consistency across all sources. This included developing guidelines and frameworks to maintain coherence, as well as identifying and creating narrative connections to deepen the overall roleplay experience.
For project planning, we worked extensively with methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban, and utilized tools including Trello, Miro, and the SCKantine platform developed by DCDoerek.
ARTWORK
