A Bit About Me
Thanks for dropping by. I love games, and I realized I love making them as much as love playing them.
I'm lucky in that I've been in the games industry for 10+ years in multiple capacities, introducing me to industry-standard game project management systems including Jira, Trello, and Confluence alongside vital game design tools such as Adobe XD for wireframing, ProBuilder for whiteboxing levels, using remote config solutions for gameplay balancing on the fly, Playtest Cloud and ByteBrew analytics for quantitative and qualitative data analysis and DALL•E AI image generation for visual aids during planning phases.
I'm proud of the multiple titles I've put out but even prouder of the learning I've undertaken along the way:
45(ish) hours worth of courseware and revision for the official Unity Certified Associate: Game Developer certification, culminating with a 1.5 hour test at an in-person Pearson VUE test centre, passing with a 95% score.
1-year of private, one-to-one tuition, covering different facets of game design and programming, led a highly talented game designer, programmer, and artist Joe Merix. Beginning from concept and ending with a near-finished title (thanks, COVID...), we collectively worked on a CCG-Stealth hybrid game (think Metal Gear Solid Acid but simpler). I also got introduced to version control with Sourcetree
3-months, in-person, classroom-based (15 students) game design evening course, led by Joe Merix. This course was a great introduction to the core concepts of game design, ranging from design patterns and principles and beginner-level C# programming to concepting best practices, effective game design document creation and pitching.
The completion of two of the most highly-rated, highly-regarded digital courses on Game Design and programming, totalling over 50 hours of content: The Complete C# Unity Game Developer 3D and The Complete C# Unity Game Developer 2D courses. The guided learning, and gradual increase in project complexity, coupled with Q&A's, quizzes and lecture challenges, helped me to understand the Unity engine, a working knowledge of the C# language, and how all of this comes together to make me better understand how a designer thinks when approaching the challenges of designing a game.
A working knowledge of GitHub and version control (via Sourcetree) from a self-paced course I undertook in my spare time, used in personal projects.
Independent learning: Books (Swink's Game Feel), a micro-course (Unity-offered course C# Scripting in Unity: Beyond The Basics), online design videos (Game Makers Tool Kit, Unity3D College) and blog posts (contributed insight on Game Developer etc.) alongside countless Unity game design and specialist level design ebooks
If I'm not playing games or making them, I'm reading about our industry because I'm a total nerd; everything from gamesindustry.biz to MCV/Develop and beyond.
I'm also an industry mentor in my spare time through the Limit Break mentorship scheme. I'm enthusiastic about giving the next generation realistic, practical advice on entering and advancing in the industry that they won't be able to find by Googling.
