GAME DEVELOPMENT | 2025
Five years, one vision: bringing Jaded to life for 180,000+ players.
Jaded is a five-year labor of love (2020 - 2025) that launched on Steam to 180,000+ players. I spent thousands of hours meticulously programming, animating, composing, and leading the team at ShellSnore Games.
This page is a comprehensive overview of my work on this project. To see a case study about my design process in refining a specific feature, click here.
ORGANIZATION
ShellSnore Games
ROLE
Creative Director
Game Designer
Programmer
Artist
Musician
TEAM
2 Developers/Designers
2 Artists
1 Musician
TIMELINE
Mar 2020 - Jan 2025
BACKGROUND
Launched in January 2025
Jaded is a linear 2D side-scrolling platformer game developed in Unity. My team launched a free early access version on Steam in April 2022, and published the final version in January 2025, reaching 180,000+ players.
BACKGROUND
Origin of ShellSnore Games
I co-founded ShellSnore Games with my childhood friend Connor. When he moved away to another state in third grade, we kept in touch online, and began to make games using the educational programming language Scratch. Over time, we developed a strong collaborative bond.
By the start of the 2020 quarantine, we had learned Unity and committed to building Jaded as our first professional-quality title. We brought on three more collaborators in 2021: Jenna and Sev for art and writing, and Sam for music.
I oversaw creative direction, led our team, and contributed across programming, art, and sound.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Coordinating development
Using Notion, I designed and maintained a centralized workspace containing a master task list, production schedule, and priority tracker. I documented bugs, delegated tasks, and scheduled regular team meeting to ensure alignment. I adjusted our timelines proactively to account for changes in scope or unforeseen circumstances.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Cutscene Workflow
I introduced a color-coded cutscene checklist system to monitor each stage of implementation, with each “DONE” box representing ~20 hours of collaborative work.
I scheduled weekly review meetings where the team discussed deliverables, and turned feedback into actionable items. This process ensured asynchronous work stayed aligned with the creative vision, producing fully polished cutscenes on schedule.
ART
Gallery
I drew and animated most of the game's pixel assets, with the exception of the portrait and concept art contributed by Jenna and Sev.
I illustrated
All 25 enemies
All UI art
Character animations for 37 cutscenes
Environments, background layers, and decals
ENVIRONMENTS
CHARACTERS
MUSIC & SOUND
Soundtrack collaboration
I created all 769 sound effects using a combination of recording, sampling from free libraries, and resampling.
I also collaborated with Sam to compose the game’s soundtrack. We worked in Logic Pro, combining synchronous sessions with asynchronous idea exchange to develop each track. I handled final mixing and refinement, ensuring seamless loops and proper export formats.
Together, we’ve composed 32 songs in total for the full release of the game. Here's just a few of them:
Ascent
Forest Floor
Lab
Inferno
© Kyle Jhong 2025