Skills & Proficiencies:

Object-oriented programming with a focus on C# and C++
Debugging code efficiently and finding creative programming solutions
Collaborating with designers, artists, and composers to bring games to life

Passions:

AI particularly for game enemies
Gameplay programming
Shaders and VFX coding

Roles:

Engineering team leader
AI programmer
Gameplay programmer

Projects

*Backend Galleries link to a Github page presenting examples of my individual work on team projects

Neo-Versailles - Backend Gallery

3D horror game being developed by a team of seven programmers for designers at ArtCenter College of Design. I worked as the AI programmer.

Wrote code for enemy AI state machine, audio manager, and interactions with player abilities.
Debugged and refactored code for enemy attacks and interactions with Unity NavMesh.
Worked with other programmers to address errors in test builds.

Joined the project in the middle of development and had to adapt to unfamiliar code which I did by reviewing technical documentation, working to understand how different scripts connect, and asking specific questions of teammates.
Design team was mostly unfamiliar with programming, requiring me to communicate effectively to find the best way of implementing particular features.

Full source code unfortunately cannot be provided because the repository contains private assets. Examples of my work on the game can be found in the backend gallery

Traumatic Toybox - Backend Gallery - Download Build - Design Doc

3D stealth game created in Unity as part of a team of six. I was one of two programmers.

Developed AI architecture from the ground up to support easily customizable behavior.
Collaborated with designers to update and improve detection mechanics based on playtest feedback.
Programmed system for switching between game modes without requiring other team members to create alternate assets.
Reviewed other engineer’s code and tested builds to identify bugs.

Unity AI system is difficult to debug since little information is given to the coder, requiring me to find several work-arounds.

Changeling - Download - Official Site

VR mystery game in development at Xana Adhoc that I worked on from May - August 2022 as the team leader for designing the hub world and main menu. Video was recorded using keyboard controls and has been edited for brevity.

Gained experience with a wide variety of different tools in Unreal Engine including UI widgets, sound cues, splines, game instances, and more.
As team leader, I frequently assisted my team members when they hit roadblocks in their own work and provided the game director with weekly progress reports.
Communicated specific vision for creation of assets to 3D artist and composer.
Wrote documentation focusing on setting up the next set of developers.

Several different dev teams had already worked on this game which meant I had to adapt to what they had created, despite some elements being poorly documented and/or organized.
There were certain features that I ended up having to redo because I was unfamiliar with some functions of the engine at the time and later realized a more efficient way of achieveing the same result.

Loc and Load - Source Code - Backend Gallery

3D action game developed as part of a team of 6.

Coded player’s movement, attack, and abilities. Collaborated with designers to add additional polish and tweaks to these mechanics.
Developed shop system to present players with randomly selected upgrades using a custom struct.
Scripted in game tutorial.

This project had major problems around production and planning which resulted in work being handed off to me with very little time to meet deadlines. This led to my writing some hacky and disorganized code that worked but wasn’t very scalable.

Doom II: Icebreaker - Download - Backend Gallery

Mod for 1994 Doom game produced in a team of five where I was the sole programmer.

Learned ZScript coding language from scratch to program behavior for custom assets.
Coded AI for three new enemy types and functionality for two new weapons.
Collaborated with the team’s level designer to write level scripts and artists to ensure assets were properly implemented.

I didn’t have access to all the typical debug tools so I had to get creative when finding the source of various bugs.
This 90s game included several unfamiliar systems so I needed to effectively use external resources, documentation, and other mods to understand what I needed for my code.

Controller of Chaos - Download - Backend Gallery

Wave-based game where the player is a wizard who fends off enemy demons and keeps minions from rebelling. Developed by a team of three in Unreal Engine 5 for a game jam.

Created blueprints for player mechanics and UI.
Designed pickup for the player to unlock new spells as well as spawner for healing items.
Made base class for minions and enemies, collaborated with another member of the team to plan out their behavior.
Built environment to give the player the choice between having large open spaces where they have plenty of room to move and smaller rooms where they use objects to their advantage.

Remote collaboration presented issues with communicating to keep everyone on the same page.
Using Unreal with a basic GitHub repo resulted in some source control problems.

Geometry Defender - Source Code - Backend Gallery - Play Online

Browser-based tower defense game I programmed and designed using Javascript, PixiJS, and a few other libraries.

Designed a UI with a variety of subtle ways to give the player information. For example, after purchasing a tower, a sprite of that tower becomes visible and starts following the cursor around until the player puts it down as if they were clicking and dragging the tower into place.
Using ES6 Classes, I programmed three unique towers each with its own stats and projectile type as well as a grid box class to hold them.
Programmed an algorithm to steadily increase the difficulty as the player eliminated more and more enemies.

I wasn't able to figure out a way to have the web font I installed load before the page, as a result all the menu text is images of the words with the correct font rather than text objects. This slows down the page load time slightly but doesn't seem to have any major effect on the game itself.

Deep Glowing Light - Source Code - Backend Gallery

2D platformer developed by a nine-person team for the Global Game Jam. Three team members, myself included, were from RIT while the other six were students at Kyoto Computer Gakuin. I worked as a programmer scripting a variety of features.

Used Unity’s new input system and coroutines to program all player mechanics.
Worked with Universal Render Pipeline to make a 2D lighting system that would dynamically change the stage lighting based on game mechanics.
Programmed scripts for objects like checkpoints, moving platforms, and a killbox based on level designer’s specifications.

Working with students in Kyoto meant we had to collaborate across a language barrier and 14-hour time difference, which presented some difficulties when sharing ideas and deciding on the direction of the game. Still we made it work with effective communication and independent contributions.

About Me

I'm an honors student at the Rochester Institute of Technology majoring in Game Development. I began creating video games not just because I love playing them, but also because I've always wanted to design experiences that other people can enjoy and become immersed in. When I'm not playing or making games, I'm usually playing guitar (primarily alt-rock and metal and I've been trying to write some of my own songs recently), baking in order to satisfy my massive sweet tooth, reading a ton of mystery novels, and when I get the opportunity, I go scuba diving which I've been doing since I got my certification when I was thirteen.

Games That Inspire Me

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Enemy AI is relatively simple but extremely varied in how it challenges the player. I've come up with multiple ideas for my own games by thinking about how to reverse engineer a particular mechanic or enemy type.

The ways that different items change how the player moves and shoots keep each run feeling fresh.

As a player the one thing I would want to see included are guaranteed rewards for good play. Occasionally, because of how the random generation works, a player does everything right and still struggles if they don't get the items they need which gets frustrating. Adding a bonus drop for defeating a boss without being hit or similar system would go a long way to remedy this.

DOOM

Everything about the game's mechanics flows seamlessly. A great example of this is that players collect ammo and health just by walking over the pick ups. This means that instead of taking a break from combat to resupply, they sustain themselves as part of combat.

The level design has a fantastic sense of rising action. Players never lose interest since they look for hidden collectables and upgrades in the short breaks in the action between intense fights, which also give players a moment to rest.

Each weapon has its own unique strengths and weaknesses without being so situational as to be useless outside of its niche.

While playing through the game the only thing I found at all lacking is that many of the armor upgrades had very little effect on the gameplay. So if I got the opportunity I would want to add in some more consequential options. For example, adding an upgrade that would allow the player to hold down their dash input to trigger a charge that would do damage in a certain area when you hit an enemy or wall.

Borderlands 2

Players are given so many options: Each character can be built in several ways, each build interacts with different weapons in varied ways, and each weapon operates differently depending on their attachments. All that adds a nearly limitless amount of replayability.

The open world is large enough to have space for secrets and random encounters without being so vast that getting from location to location becomes tedious.

If I were to try and improve the game based on my experience with it, I would want some of the boss fights to have unique mechanics in terms of how the boss moves and attacks. Since many of the boss enemies are larger versions of the standard enemies, the game's biggest battles don't stand out all that much.

Portal 2

The number of different ways the developers use the two portals in every puzzle is brilliant.

The game's learning curve is paced perfectly. The introduction of new mechanics keeps each puzzle interesting and gives the player time to learn how to use them.

Dialogue is integrated so that it always adds to the gameplay, never forcing the player to stop or pause. When characters talk, they're either filling moments of downtime or increasing intensity in action scenes.

As a player the biggest feature I'd like to see added are more options for replaying the game. For example adding in a new game+ style mode with extra puzzles, changing the order of tests, and/or opening alternate paths through certain areas.

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