In the spring and summer of 2010 I worked at 2XL Games as a programmer on the team porting 2XL Supercross and Trophylite Rally from iPhone/iPod to PC. Along with the varied work that is inherent when porting a game from one platform to another, one of my jobs was to create a front end launcher application that would interface with a billing system created by 2XL Asia (our counterpart in Seoul, South Korea). Users who got 2XL Supercross and Trophylite Rally demos pre-installed on various devices could opt to upgrade from the default trial game and the launcher application that I created would handle unlocking the full game. I also modified our PC configuration app to support localization. Here are a couple videos of 2XL Supercross and Trophylite Rally (sorry, no PC videos available just yet):

From 2008 to 2010 I worked at Coin App as Lead Programmer on “Max Blastronaut.” My main duties were creating Coin App’s in-house game engine as well as programming physics, AI, rendering, user interface, and gameplay. In September of 2009, the game won 2nd place in Microsoft’s Dream Build Play game development competition. More info is available at Coin App’s website and the official Max Blastronaut website. Here’s a video of some gameplay:

From 2006 to 2008 I worked at 2XL Games on the Xbox 360/PS3 title “Baja: Edge of Control.” During my time there I wore many hats and earned artist, outsource lead, and additional programming production credits. It was a great project to work on, and I learned an incredible amount from an amazing group of people. Baja was published by THQ in September of 2008. Here’s a little glimpse at some gameplay:

Starting in the fall of 2006 and ending in the spring of 2007, four of my friends and I created a game to be entered in the nation-wide Art Institutes Student Design Competition. Our game was a physics-based joust simulator where you went head to head against your opponent. As it turns out, we ended up winning the competition! Our game was then mass-produced and distributed at events like SigGraph, ComicCon, and GDC as marketing material for the Art Institutes. More info can be found at the official website, shankethegame.com.

My role in Shanke was that of artist and animator. After Dan had modeled the main environment, I went through and gave it an old-school vertex lighting cut to give us that feeling of radiosity without the cost of having to create light maps for environment lighting. In addition to this, I modeled, rigged, and animated the unicorn that would be used as the primary steed for the game. Even though this was not my first fully realized student game project, I learned a lot of important lessons from the experience.

Below you can view some gameplay video from Shanke:

From 2004 to 2005 I worked as a QA tester at Volition on the Xbox/PS2/PC title “The Punisher.” As my first paying job in the game industry, it was a very eye-opening experience. Getting to work QA in-house, I got to interact with veterans in all aspects of game development, from artists to programmers to producers. Getting to see into the lives of everybody on the team taught me a lot about understanding the group dynamics of making a game. Even years later, the lessons I learned at Volition are still with me today.