Spirit Crossing

After Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, I helped for a bit an upcoming Unreal Engine MMO before my contract was over.

Notable work:

• Profiling and optimization: Analyzing unreal insights, porting blueprints code to C++, budgeting particle emitters, caching code that was querying things each frame, etc.
• Tackling tech debt: Unifying repeated code and blueprints, cleaning up hacky code.
• Tooling: Fixed some minor aspects of broken tools, made them more accessible to desginers, adjusted validation code so our continuous integration would catch it.

Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit

After Cozy Grove, I got to work on the sequel, "Camp Spirit". The game released in 2024.

Notable work:

• Gameplay:
  • Implemented client side asynchronous multiplayer features via REST API: Friends, gifts, astral projections
  • Designed and implemented a replacement for our previously unreliable physics based terrain population system
  • Improved cinematic moments with new features and visual effects
  • Separated various MonoBehaviors from their state, to allow manipulation when not instanced
  • Evaluate old systems for refactoring. Prepare various systems to allow proper future updating
• Tooling:
  • Implemented tools to allow designers and artists to visually edit the new map pieces
  • Implemented various tools and cheats to explore our item configs, debug game state, etc
  • Adjusted Jenkins build jobs as needs arose
• Mentoring:
  • Reviewed code and gave codebase advice
  • Onboarded new team members
  • Trained non programming team members on using Git. Managed to have them deal with merge conflicts on their own

Cozy Grove

After Steambirds Alliance, I got to work on Cozy Grove for a few years. The game ended up being quite successful.

Notable work:

• Gameplay:
  • Loot fountains, doobers, reward animations, and other feel good reward bits
  • Implemented the following minigames/quests:
    • Stone skipping
    • Photography
    • Snowball imp fights
  • Implemented recipeless crafting
  • Implemented player item dyes
  • Redesigned the animal hunger algorithm to fit player feedback
• Physics:
  • Added analytic solutions to our physics to predict throws and better display UI elements
• UI:
  • Ensured all UI fit our multiple supported aspect ratios
  • Implemented quest item selection
  • Addressed storage usability issues
  • Overhauled item obtaining notifications into flyups
  • Sorting and filtering options
• Tooling:
  • Tools to help designers explore items and loot tables
  • Simulations of player behaviors to inform drop rates
• Shaders:
  • Some small SDF work related to vignettes and camera framing
• Memory profiling/auditing:
  • Managed to reduce about 200 MB of usage, which was significant on some low memory devices
• Saving:
  • Created a system to ensure saving only happens when it is safe to save
• Integrations:
  • Dealt with DLC integration for Steam and Epic Games Store

Steambirds Alliance

I was a fan of Steambirds Alliance and joined the development team only about six months before development ceased on it. I went from being the new team member, to eventually taking care of the entire game as the rest of the team moved to Cozy Grove.

Notable work:

• Migrated crafting items into currencies. Both server and client side work, everything from implementation to UI changes.
• Single handedly managed the end of life updates, including development, localization, testing, bug fixing, deployment, community communication and support.

Shoulderon Gaiden

Shoulderon Gaiden was an indie game created by a group of people with more dreams than budget.

I did all the programming, and still have a working prototype of the game around. We had units, battles, skills, dialogue, even our own scripting language, it was a sight to behold. Our artist was also incredible. Unfortunately the design and narrative parts of the game never quite got together.

Sadly the lack of direction and funding eventually got the project canned. In a different timeline, we would have at least tried to get a publisher once we had a minimum viable product.