Rebecca Mastrostefano Gameplay Programmer

ScrapIt Overload is a top-down action roguelite that I built solo in Unreal Engine 5 (C++) during the Develop at Ubisoft mentorship, with code review from Ubisoft senior developers. The core mechanic revolves around using a magnetic pulse to collect scrap, which simultaneously upgrades automated weapons, acts as a damage buffer, and increases the physical mass and drift of the player's mecha.
Main implementations include the custom physics-based movement controller, the graph-based procedural generation system and the behavior tree-driven AI framework, as well as the persistent state management system across room transitions.
A great challenge for me was engineering a robust procedural run generation system capable of building runs with interconnected levels and rooms ensuring all levels interconnected perfectly with no dead ends, but after some iteration I built a solid algorithm based on a layered directed acyclic graph (DAG), where nodes are organized in ranks and connected forward with controlled randomness to create branching paths and guaranteed reachability.

• Built a dynamic mass framework that automatically adjusts speed, steering, and mesh attachments based on thresholds
• Built a procedural run and level generation system
• Implemented a modular weapon system that tracks enemies and dynamically scales modifiers
• Developed AI using Unreal Behavior Trees, including support enemies that project dynamic damage-reduction shields onto allies
• Built a melee combat system and a physics-driven character controller, balancing responsiveness and weight
• Structured enemy AI as modular Behavior Trees with decoupled state machines, with clean, well-timed animation transitions
• Modeling, Animation and VFX

Dungeon Twist is a commercial project (by Magari), it is a turn-based tactical game focused on free-for-all multiplayer matches that I helped develop as part of a multidisciplinary team of seven developers, designers and artists. The game uses 2D sprites in a 3D space.
I programmed the Drag and Drop System of tiles, the Tutorial System, the Robbery System and some of the characters abilities, as well as the final polish.
A great challenge was for me to join the team when all the main systems were already been developed, onboarding into an extensive codebase was not easy.

• Designed and implemented the drag and drop system
• Designed and implemented a tutorial system with scripted actions and dialogue made to be accessible and editable through the Unity inspector by designers
• Implemented and helped design a robbery system based on attack and defense which are affected by modifiers
• Implemented a modifier-driven ability system whose abilities interact with the inventory and movement systems
• Built Editor and ScriptableObject-driven tooling for zero-code, designer-authored content

Asunder (working title) is a prototype platformer made in Unreal Engine 5, where two characters navigate a side-scrolling world divided by an interactive split line. This project was a solo exploration inspired by "Split Fiction" by Hazelight Studios.
I built the dynamic split line functionality in C++ and created custom shaders and post-process effects to visually and interactively define the "split" mechanic. One key challenge was achieving a performant, frame-accurate screen-space division without relying on CPU-driven logic; solved via a fully GPU-based shader pipeline.
3D models were sourced from Fab.

• Developed core gameplay logic in C++, including: Spline-based dynamic divider system that updates in real-time based on player positions. Physics-aware split collider that aligns with the visual divider
• Built post-process shaders in HLSL via Unreal’s Custom Node to compute screen-space masks from world-space player data
• Designed and implemented render target setup to simulate player-specific visibility (e.g., different decorations per character)

Hearken is a first-person narrative mystery game that I developed solo in Unreal Engine using Blueprints and some custom C++. A major feature is the dynamic question-answer and dialogue system, where the player collects keywords through exploration, then uses them to construct answers and dialogue options. This required a flexible yet controlled UI and logic setup using UMG to track and verify keyword combinations dynamically.
I handled all aspects of design and implementation, except for the 3D models, which were sourced from Fab.

• Designed and implemented the clue collection, keyword unlocking, and question-answer systems
• Built a data-driven narrative framework with 5 branching storylines, including variable tracking for player decisions
• Built a modular dialogue system to handle branching calls with conditionally unlocked responses
• Developed a keyword tagging and filter system for constructing questions dynamically
• Designed an event-driven UMG UI architecture using C++ delegates (Observer pattern) to decouple widgets from gameplay logic