I have worked in the games industry for over two and a half years. During this time, I've worked on three Nintendo DS games; “Spore: Creature Keeper”, “Beauty Salon” and “Mean Girls”, as well as "Family Feud" for Gameboy Advance. Additionally, I've done some work on titles for other platforms, such as Playstation2 and PC.
My work typically focuses on gameplay programming. Over the past few months, I have been widening my skills by learning C# and creating a 3D space-based XNA game for Windows and Xbox 360, called “Singularity”. I wrote this game in its entirety, from the gameplay (ship handling, camera movements), to the UI (implemented a flexible menu and instruction box system which makes creating and navigating menus easy).
Before the games industry, I worked in the Visual Simulation industry for four years as a software engineer, where I mostly handled bug fixing and customer support. In my spare time, I wrote two small games for Gameboy Advance, including a 3D wireframe version of "Tempest" (which has now also been ported to Nintendo DS), and used these demos to get work in the games industry.
Programmer on “Spore: Creature Keeper”, a Nintendo DS game in the Spore franchise in which you must look after a Spore creature of your own design and help it fulfill its destiny. I was responsible for implementing a number of mini games, and other tasks such as UI and the accompanying 3D environment.
Programmer on “Beauty Salon”, a Nintendo DS game for girls in which the player must run their own beauty salon and perform the treatments in a series of mini-games. Implemented a number of the mini-games for this title.
Programmer on “Mean Girls”, an interactive story based on the film starring Lindsay Lohan. Wrote some of the scripting and worked on some of the mini-games for this title.
Designed and implemented a text handler class for the company's engine which allows text to be automatically formatted for a box of given dimensions.
Worked on a "homebrew" game for Nintendo DS.
Programmer on Gameboy Advance version of "Family Feud". Worked extensively on state-flow of the game, and question handling.
Additional programming on PC/PS2 version of "Family Feud". Implemented question class and loading code.
Additional programming on PC/PS2 game "AMF Xtreme Bowling 2006". Made improvements to collision response, including adding pin wobble.
Additional programming (localisation work and bug fixing) on PC games "Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter" and "S.O.E: Operation Avalanche".
Performing acceptance tests for software prior to release.
Customer support and bug fixing.
Member of development team for a graphics API designed for simulation, and other projects and in-house tools. Assisted in porting API to Linux.
Wrote code for demos to be displayed at trade shows.
Writing opinion pieces and reviews on a freelance basis.
Two and a half year's experience in the games industry
C/C++
C#, XNA
Worked on “Spore: Creature Keeper”, “Beauty Salon” and “Mean Girls” for Nintendo DS
IS-NITRO debugger for Nintendo DS
Worked on a number of games for PC/PS2 ("AMF Xtreme Bowling 2006", "Chronicles of a Vampire Hunter", "S.O.E: Operation Avalanche"), and "Family Feud" for Gameboy Advance.
ProDG for Gameboy Advance.
Worked on a "homebrew" game for Nintendo DS for a startup company.
Written a version of "Tempest" for Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS.
Written an image warper for Nintendo DS.
Windows (Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual C# Express Edition)
Linux (KDevelop, GCC compiler and GDB debugger)
OpenGL
68000 Assembly language.
Four years experience in the Visual Simulation industry.
Softimage 3D, Premiere, Autodesk Viz.
Visualisation degree from the University of Teesside. This degree covered a wide range of computing subjects, primarily focussing on graphics, animation, programming and games.
3 A-Levels (Physics: A, Chemistry: B and Maths: C ) from Egglescliffe Sixth Form College in 1996.
As well as my interest in games, I also enjoy live music from a wide range of acts such as cabaret singer Camille O'Sullivan and Canadian band “The Vincent Black Shadow”. I also like live comedy and attend the Edinburgh Fringe festival most years.
Check out my demos at: http://www.vertex.ukfsn.org
or e-mail me at: games@vertex.ukfsn.org