About me

Hi! I'm Cass, also known as DUCK_BERET. I'm a trans woman in my late 30s living in the UK and I make arcade-style 2D action games.

A few of my favourite things

Arcade games

I love arcade games! I record the arcade games that I have cleared with no continues on my YouTube channel, often giving design commentary or strategy tips:

Here I am playing Gun.Smoke, my favourite videogame:

At this point my YouTube channel documents all sorts of games, from those that sit comfortably within their respective genres such as Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Violent Storm and Pac-Man Arrangement, all the way to the more unusual games like Mr. Driller, Bonanza Bros., Son Son and Sol Divide.

I firmly believe that there is plenty of room for designers to innovate within the arcade space without breaking any of the fundamental tenets of solid arcade game design. I hope this belief comes through in my work! Even if you don't want to do the heavy lifting of designing brand new gameplay systems from scratch, the history of arcade is still full of fascinating one-off games that are practically begging to be expanded and iterated on.

I also think that the single most important thing that any arcade-style game designer can do to improve their design skills is to clear some arcade games within the genres they want to work in. This isn't a gamer cred thing; there is an intuition that can only come from a genuine deep understanding of how these games tick, and you will be able to make much better games in much less time if you have this intuition yourself instead of having to consult expert playtesters at every step of the design process. By playing these games myself, I'm doing my best to practice what I preach. But more importantly, these games are fun!

Fighting games

Between 2012 and 2021, I spent lots of my time playing competitive fighting games (mostly Skullgirls). I won EVO 2021 (the year that it was played online due to COVID) and a bunch of European tournaments, and over in the US I got several top 8 finishes at Frosty Faustings and CEOtaku.

Here I am playing a pools match at Frosty Faustings:

And here's a combo video I made:

Unfortunately I stopped competing in tournaments just before I figured out I was trans. Important life lesson: don't put "Mr" in your online handle if you're working through a bunch of gender feelings.

I'm currently inactive in the world of fighting games but I'd love to get into them again one day!

Working on other people's games

I joined the game industry in 2009. working as a gameplay/engine/tools programmer and occasionally also as a game/level designer. I stayed there until late 2021 when I released my game Chessplosion, at which point I became a full-time solo game developer.

I still do design consulting work on action games sometimes, but I no longer work full-time on other people's projects.

Main projects

  • Mina the Hollower (PS5/XSX/Switch2/PC, 2026) - Gameplay Programmer. I worked on this game in 2020-2021, implementing enemies and objects to the lead designer's specifications. The game didn't launch until almost five years after I left so I imagine that bridget tweaked and improved pretty much everything that I worked on, but there might still be some of my code in the final game somwhere!
  • Indivisible (PS4/XB1/Switch/PC, 2019) - Tools/Engine/Gameplay Programmer. Created the game's level editor and level file format, the camera system, the cutscene system, the save data system, the enemy AI system, the engine's font rendering system and other UI system upgrades, all of the game's menus, various small engine features and various console-specific features (e.g. achievements and local co-op implementation). Also worked on status effects, the battle system and various other small gameplay systems.
  • The Marvellous Miss Take (PC, 2014) - Programmer, Game Designer, Level Designer. Designed and prototyped the game's main gameplay systems, designed and implemented all enemies and objects, designed and implemented the alternate playable characters, designed and built almost all of the levels. Designed and implemented the vision cone system.
  • Fable: The Journey (Xbox 360/Kinect, 2012) - Tools / Gameplay Programmer. Created some of the original gameplay prototypes for the game's core gameplay systems. Created the main enemy behaviour system and implemented various enemies and other gameplay systems, along with the tool support needed for them.
  • Project Milo, a.k.a. Milo & Kate (Xbox 360/Kinect, Unreleased, 2010) - Gameplay Programmer. Programmed various small gameplay systems.

Other games I helped with

  • Sex Advice Succubus (PC, 2023-present) - Sex consultant. Gave advice on some sex-related topics that were relevant to the game's world/story.
  • Bad End Theater (Consoles/PC, 2021) and various other NomnomNami games - Testing/feedback. NomnomNami has helped with lots of my games (e.g. drawing the promo illustrations for all of them and designing the characters in Hyper Bun Buster) and she's also a prolific developer of visual novels and RPGs. I sometimes test her games and give feedback on them, although frankly I usually don't have much to say beyond "this is great!"
  • Mike Mignola's Hellboy: Web of Wyrd (Consoles/PC, 2023) - Design consultant. Gave feedback on control issues, player toolkit etc. I also gave design/gameplay feedback on the team's earlier games West of Dead and Deadbeat Heroes.
  • Hazelnut Hex (Switch/PC, 2022) - Testing/feedback. Gave feedback on design, balance and so on.
  • Phantom Breaker: Omnia (Consoles/PC, 2022) - Beta Tester. Gave feedback on control issues, balance issues and so on.
  • Skullgirls 2nd Encore (Consoles/PC/Arcade, 2020) - Additional programmer. Added replay rewinding and in-game Steam lobby link clipboard functionality, and assisted with the "Super GGPO" improvements to its rollback netcode.
  • Boundless (PS4/PC, 2018) - Programmer. Worked on enemy code/design from late 2014 to early 2016.
  • Fable III (Xbox 360/PC, 2010) - Additional testing. The game needed some last-minute testing so they got various programmers and other developers from the Fable: The Journey team to temporarily help out, myself included.
  • Various prototypes and unreleased projects - Engine/Gameplay/Tools Programmer. I've worked on a few smaller projects that either haven't come out yet or never saw the light of day. Happens to the best of us.