Game Designer & Producer

Davide
Garassino

Design the challenge. Organise the team. Earn the player's smile.

See my work Get in touch
Portrait of Davide Garassino
01 / about

Gamer first, designer by trade

Video games have been my passion since childhood. I've played everything from Halo to Age of Empires II, Skyrim to Forza Motorsport, Diablo III to Dark Souls. Indie, AA or AAA, it doesn't matter: what matters is to play, understand, learn and, of course, have fun.

So I turned that passion into a job. After studying game design, I've worked with Italian studios as a freelance designer and producer, on projects in Unity and Unreal Engine.

Alongside my main work, I've always made games at jams with different groups of friends. In June 2026, my closest team and I won Quickload, and soon after we founded 5th Place Games S.r.l., where I'm co-founder and President.

I make games to see people having fun with them. The smile on a player's face after beating a challenge is what drives me, and what pays back every sacrifice made to build it.

02 / work

Professional projects

What I've been working on over the past few years, with a selection of the most significant documentation.

Sol Protocol key art Early Access

Sol Protocol

Game Designer / Game Tester

A high-intensity cooperative VR rogue-like in space, where every crew member plays a critical role: Pilot, Gunner or Captain.

Involved from the very beginning: ideation, implementation and testing of all major gameplay systems. I designed the dungeons and helped build the structural framework of the procedurally generated universe.

Date
Sep 2025 – Jun 2026
Engine
Unreal Engine
Platform
Meta Quest 3 / 3S, PC
Design documentation
Steam Meta Store
Deerwhere game development studio in Turin Unreleased · On hold

Type Wizard

Original concept · Game Design & Production

A turn-based rogue-lite where you play a wizard and your keyboard is your spellbook: every attack and every defence is typed.

Type Wizard is my own concept. I brought it to Deerwhere Studio as a freelance game designer and took it from the first idea to a complete design, from typed combat to the rogue-lite structure. The studio later shifted its focus to teaching, and the project was put on hold.

Date
May – Dec 2025
Engine
Unreal Engine
Design documentation
Deerwhere
Stealth Company logo Internal prototype

Uproot Humanity

Producer · Stealth Company

An action game where you play a tree taking revenge on humanity. Born as a Global Game Jam 2023 entry, it grew into a full project at Stealth Company.

I joined as a freelance producer to bring order to a project that had grown without structure. Over four months I introduced an agile workflow with a Kanban board for each department and near-daily stand-ups, keeping 40 part-time contributors aligned. With that structure in place, the team delivered its first internal prototype.

Date
Jan – May 2025
Engine
Unity
Jam version on itch.io Stealth Company
V's Rage key art Released 2025

V's Rage

Producer, Designer, QA

A parody action-adventure paying homage to '80s and '90s games and anime, with four gameplay types straight out of the arcades: beat-'em-up, runner, shoot-'em-all and side-scroller.

I found and fixed flaws in the game design, hunted bugs and built the release schedule. I helped lay a solid foundation for all four level types and their mechanics, and improved combat and enemy behaviour. When the demo levels were complete, the team carried on from the guidelines we set together.

Date
Jul – Oct 2024
Engine
Unity
Platform
PC, Mac, Linux
Developer
NewBix
Design documentation
Steam
03 / game jams

Game jams

Made to learn, meet new people and have fun. Most of them with the team that became 5th Place Games.

March to Glory cover
Slitherine × Digital Bros Game Academy · Nov 2025 – Apr 2026

March to Glory

Lead Game Designer & Producer

Turn-based strategy set in Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia: command the campaign, not the army.

GDDPitch

Play on itch.io →
Catch me if you Cat cover
The Weans Game Jam · Summer 2025

Catch me if you Cat

Producer, Level & Game Designer

Colourful 4-player party game: catch fireflies as chameleons, or keep the map safe as the cat.

Play on itch.io →
Save the Dungeon cover
Day Zero Games · Solarpunk Jam

Save the Dungeon

Producer, Level & Game Designer

Restore the environment in this solarpunk turn-based roguelite RPG.

Play on itch.io →
The Gondolier's Fugue cover
Spaghetti Invasion Game Jam 2025

The Gondolier's Fugue

Producer, Puzzle & Level Designer

A Lovecraftian horror set in Venice.

Play on itch.io →
DrAHive cover
Brackeys Game Jam 2025.1

DrAHive

Game Designer

A rage game that playfully tackles road safety.

Play on itch.io →
04 / academic

Academic projects

Made during my game design studies, each with its full design documentation.

The Last Tide cover
6 months · Unreal Engine 5 · PC

The Last Tide

Producer, Puzzle Designer

A third-person puzzle adventure in an archipelago stuck in a time loop, home to an ancient civilisation cursed by a deity.

Details & documentation

The loop has four time slots that advance when the player rests at a bonfire or sails to another island. Players explore four islands, talk to NPCs and use artifacts to interact with the environment and solve puzzles, until they break the cycle and save everyone from final judgement.

Constraint: Third person

Design documentation

Play on itch.io →
Hockey Shot logo on the rink
2 months · Unity · Mobile

Hockey Shot

Designer

Slide on the rink and challenge other players in a high-stakes best-of-5 shootout.

Details & documentation

A hyper-casual mobile hockey game with fast matches built for online multiplayer. Players alternate between striker and goalkeeper, unlock characters inspired by famous hockey mascots through a season pass or in-game currency, and upgrade and customise them to climb the rankings.

Constraint: Hyper-casual sports game

Design documentation

Watch trailer →
Conventio Lutheri trailer cover
2 months · Unity · PC

Conventio Lutheri

Designer, Producer

Goethe's Mephistopheles returns as an animated violin, to corrupt a luthier on the brink of despair and claim his soul.

Details & documentation

A first-person simulator of the luthier's craft with a horror twist on the pact with the devil. Repairs at the workbench test the player's skill; outside them, the game turns into a graphic adventure of clue gathering and story progression.

Constraint: Work simulator + horror twist

Design documentation

Watch trailer →
Ka-poong! cover art
1 month · Unity · PC

Ka-poong!

Designer

Control robots in an explosive match: score more than your opponent before time runs out, but think twice before hitting the unstable energy sphere.

Details & documentation

A 2D two-player arcade game in space that breathes new life into 1971's Pong: the core mechanics stay, joined by a dynamic field, random abilities and a ball that might explode.

Constraint: Basic shapes only, no pixel art

Design documentation

05 / playtesting

Playtesting & QA

Closed alphas and betas: playing, reporting bugs and giving structured feedback to the teams.

Horizon Hunters Gathering key art
Feb & May 2026
RuneQuest: Warlords key art
Jul – Sep 2025
Carmageddon: Rogue Shift key art
Apr, Jun & Jul–Aug 2025
Novis Games logo
Mar 2022
06 / contact

Let's make something fun

Open to game design and production roles, freelance or in-house.

garassino.davide@outlook.it