AJ Rivas
GAMES
hey, my name's AJ!
I’m a game lead and producer who inspires teams to create. While I spend most of my time wrangling design documents, organizing playtests, and keeping projects on track, I also dive into the creative side with pixel art, UI, and animation. Basically, I wear a lot of hats to make sure the final game feels cohesive and exciting. At the end of the day, I love creating intuitive experiences that get players to forget about the concept of time.
Education
B.A. in Art and Design: Games and Playable Media
University of California, Santa Cruz - 2025
Socials
Paparazzi Pursuit
Paparazzi Pursuit was my first fully polished game beyond jams and class projects. I led the team from start to finish—managing timelines, coordinating development, and ensuring creative and technical alignment.I also designed and animated all 2D characters, environments, and effects, while running playtests to refine the game.This project marked a major step in my growth as both a creator and leader, teaching me how to bring a vision to life through collaboration and iteration.
Ye Guild Clerk!
As co-producer and lead artist, I created all UI and most in-game items, guided a multidisciplinary team to maintain a cohesive style, and gave design feedback with concrete solutions. I also pushed for more interconnected mechanics, such as the rewards system, that shifted the game from being solely an interactive novel to a piece of playable media.The game has been released on Steam and garnered much attention, with thousands of downloads and reviews.
She'll Come Back
Play as a young girl named Agnes who is in search of her mother after a doomsday blizzard. Players explore the icy world and encounter interesting characters along the way.This game is part of a greater concept I have been working on with friends for a very long time. She'll Come Back is an unfinished prototype I worked on to help test out and solidify my vision for the game's future during the two-week narrative game jam.
Woeful Workaholic
You're stuck in a time loop of a 9 to 5 office job. Complete mundane tasks before the time is up and the day repeats itself.Although this game is technically an "anti-work" statement, I ended up becoming a workaholic while making it. I made this game with a group for a weekend-long game jam and I learned a lot about communication from the experience.
Wizard Wobble
Play as a wizard who lost his tower keys and attempt the challenging do-it-yourself platformer! Players must place their own platforms and obstacles in order to make it to the top of the tower!This is the first game I ever finished while working with a group. Looking back at this game inspires me because I can tell I have improved my artistic skills drastically since I began my game development journey. I am excited to get even better!
Shork Tank
Shork Tank is a fast-paced, action-packed game where you play as a rampaging shark, evading bullet attacks from seahorses while devouring enemies to grow into your ultimate size.Created during a week-long game jam hosted by the GDA club, this game features retro-style pixel art and dynamic gameplay. I co-designed the game, created all pixel art and animations, and contributed to sound design, making it an immersive and chaotic underwater adventure.
Under the Still Water
An eerie underwater cave-diving game where you navigate a silt-filled labyrinth to find a friend who never surfaced. One wrong move stirs up the water and blinds you to what's waiting in the dark.For the first time my team used PICO-8, which meant relearning our workflow from scratch under a tight deadline. I led production, co-designed, handled the art, and composed all original music and sound design solo for the first time. Balancing that many roles in a week pushed me to prioritize ruthlessly and taught me how much atmosphere can carry a game when visuals are minimal and sound has to do the heavy lifting.
Killer Deal
A horror game about paying off a mysterious debt by buying discounted items off infomercials, where the deals get stranger and the stakes get higher the longer you shop.I led production, co-designed, and handled the art, using the jam as a chance to push outside my comfort zone: I typically work in small, abstract sprites, but for Killer Deal I built larger, higher-resolution sprites to sell a more unsettling horror atmosphere. In retrospect, I'd have liked more time to refine the core mechanics, which came out feeling a bit unclear, but the jam was a good lesson in how scope and clarity need to be prioritized just as early as visual direction.
