Professional Work
On Season 4 I took on a very different role for the team that was two fold: creating side quest and hidden content on the new map Fortune's Keep as well as managing all of the loot for the map. This was a totally new system for us at High Moon, and an area that we definitely needed someone to become an expert in, so I decided to branch out from mechanics and encounters and take this on. Here I had the chance to really communicate across studios, and became the primary point of contact for the team for anything related to loot item distributions, creating brand new loot items for our side quest content, and making sure we were seeing proper item distributions across Fortune's Keep. It was a great learning experience, and I can't wait for what comes next!
On Season 2 I got the chance to take on a ton of new content and had to execute on some of the most difficult tasks thus far in my career. I designed and built the early prototypes for much of the content we contributed to this season as well as much of the scripting and design work for the limited time events and AI encounters present in this season. This was my first chance to take design concepts from scratch, prototype/iterate over them, and bring them all the way to release. It really pushed me to not only draw inspiration from the previous work of my colleagues, but build new systems from the ground up and find new solutions to problems we had never solved before. It was a massive effort but I am so happy with the content that we put out this season and am very proud of our work on it :)
Currently I work as an Associate Technical Designer with High Moon Studios as a part of the Call of Duty Warzone team. My first seasonal content releases came out around the time of the 80s Action Heroes seasonal event. It was a huge and exciting leap to go from the indie world into AAA development, and right from the start I was able to build prototypes for events, equipment, killstreaks, game modes, and other seasonal content and bring those prototypes to completion; working with engineers and artists to polish those prototypes into fully fledged features that have been put onto the live game for players to enjoy.
Where SuperMash was my entry point into the industry, Drawn to Life: Two Realms was a game I really got to help build from the ground up. I was lucky enough to be one of the new engineers chosen to work on this project and got to be a part of the core content development team for the title. I had to wear a lot of hats on this project which gave me the chance to really develop my skills as an engineer. On Drawn to Life: Two Realms I built a number of the enemies, game mechanics and gameplay features that made it into the final game. One of my biggest contributions to the game was the development of its damage system.
Drawn to Life: Two Realms uses a variety of damage types that communicate things like weight, elemental effects, or specific ways in which entities need to react. This was a core feature of the game that was going to directly impact how design, art and engineering all got their work done on player, enemy and environmental interactions. We needed an efficient and accessible way for designers to be able to play with a variety of damage types while engineers can easily implement efficient damage handling solutions. Developing this feature was a huge team effort as it needed to meet needs across design, art, and the engineering departments. I really had to put my communication skills to the test, I learned a lot and in the end was able to provide a system that helped the studio build diverse and unique damage interactions that helped give a lot of color and life to the final game.
I am extremely thankful to have been able to help build this game, Digital Continue is an incredible place with so much skill and creativity. I couldn't have asked for a better place to begin my journey in game development.
Drawn to Life: Two Realms uses a variety of damage types that communicate things like weight, elemental effects, or specific ways in which entities need to react. This was a core feature of the game that was going to directly impact how design, art and engineering all got their work done on player, enemy and environmental interactions. We needed an efficient and accessible way for designers to be able to play with a variety of damage types while engineers can easily implement efficient damage handling solutions. Developing this feature was a huge team effort as it needed to meet needs across design, art, and the engineering departments. I really had to put my communication skills to the test, I learned a lot and in the end was able to provide a system that helped the studio build diverse and unique damage interactions that helped give a lot of color and life to the final game.
I am extremely thankful to have been able to help build this game, Digital Continue is an incredible place with so much skill and creativity. I couldn't have asked for a better place to begin my journey in game development.
Here is my first shipped title, SuperMash! SuperMash is a game where you can take two classic genres and "mash" them together to create a new game that is a combination of the two (for example you could play a Platformer with JRPG elements, or a Metrovania game with Shoot em' Up mechanics). On this project I was responsible for working on systems in the video game store that acts as the hub world for the game. I programmed the Saved Mashes menu, the initial options menu, and other menus the player can interact with. I also worked on the customer interaction systems to allow the player to talk to customers, have the customers make a request for specific game mash ups, and allow the player to go complete those and return for rewards. It was my first time working on a game professionally, and I am very proud to have been given the opportunity to contribute to such an innovative and fun game.
Project Showcase
Below are my most recent coding projects. A link to each project's code repository can be found at the end of each post.
Coding Exercise - Space Invaders Remake
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For this project, I recreated Space Invaders in Unity in a week. To recreate this game in Unity I played the original, drew up design schematics and laid out a project structure in Unity. The purpose of this exercise was to build the game cleanly with well written, readable code. For the complete code check here: Space Invaders Repository
What I did:
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Senior Thesis - Blank Room, a Mobile VR work space for Google Daydream
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This project is my senior thesis. With two other students, we designed and programmed a VR app for android that places the user in a room with a virtual dry erase board that they can use their handheld controller to write on and when you are finished, the wall surface is saved as a png in a directory such that it can be loaded later. We wanted to combine existing technologies to create a cost effective way for people to spread out their problems without the need for a physical dry erase board. Past this, there is the added functionality of saving rooms like a document to be opened later or shared with other users. For the final demo (to be presented April 11th) we will have completed a full room to work in, and a UI that will facilitate saving rooms, opening rooms, clearing the walls and sharing rooms with other users. The full project code and assets can be found here: Blank room Repository . For the actual writing system and initial scene set up, credit goes to this tutorial: http://codeartist.mx/tutorials/dynamic-texture-painting/
What I did:
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Personal Project - Creating a Gerstner Wave Ocean in Unreal Engine 4
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This project was part of a game I was previously working on in my free time about a seafaring coconut (See Game Progress Log in my Previous Work section for extended description and all sources used). All of the material and shader programming for this was done in Unreal Engine 4 using their Blueprint material editor. The Gerstner wave simulates a single ocean wave efficiently when compared to a fluid particle simulation and makes a realistic looking ocean that is game ready. Once a single wave is implemented and run over time, an ocean can be built from the composite of multiple waves running simultaneously. Extensive use of materials, material functions and material instances were used to create this. The complete project can be found here: Driftwood Repository
What I did:
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