Having studied a degree in Computer Games Programming I spent a large portion of my student life living in front of a PC developing small video games using a range of languages from Basic to C++. The below list shows my first steps into Basic games programming in 2005 through to my later degree works. Whilst I continue to develop small games or tools since finishing my degree, the majority of which are for learning purposes only to develop my knowledge in various languages, although I am hoping to find the time to work on something more significant in the near future.

F.I.S.H was the result of a team developed game, of which I held the role of team lead and programmer. The game is a puzzle platformer in which the emphasis is on environmental manipulation, having a similar gameplay style to Lemmings. The game was presented at the University of Huddersfield, and at Game Republic competition in Sheffied.

Magic Pen was the result of my dissertation research, looking at augmented virtuality in video games and developing a suitable control mechanic using a household webcam. The chosen mechanic was drawing to the screen space using movement recongised from a camera such as being able to move your hand on a table to draw on screen.

One of the later modules during my university degree had me required developing different advanced graphical rendering effects in C++ and DirectX. This included parallax occlusion mapping, bump mapping, phong lighting, skyboxes, reflection, refraction and vertex shaders. The demonstration created presented the effects in a small environment, manipulated with various sliders to alter the degree of the effects.

Pew Online was the first group project initiated during my degree, working alongside 4 others to develop a small networked game. With only two weeks to create a fully functioning online game, after a lot of crunch development we were exceptionally pleased with the outcome. The projects main ambition was to improve our confidence in the use of C++. Features in the final game included a full UI, chat system, scoreboard, particle effects, selectable player classes, different player abilities and a character improvement system. Pew online was presented 9th March 2007 and received a 10/10 grade.

aMazed features a fully immersive maze environment with a goal of avoiding artificial controlled enemies to reach the end of the maze. The maze takes advantage of depth first search random maze generation in a 3D environment. The project was developed further to add additional features such as randomly placed danger tiles which the player must avoid along with several different enemy characters that operate with different AI instructions.

In order to prepare for projects to come our introduction into C++ and DirectX required us to develop a small engine. Straight away I knew that I wanted to develop support for .BSP environments to load full environments that would only render what was in the current view, knowing I could then make use of external tools I was already familiar with when creating levels. The majority of the class were importing static .x (3DSMax) environments using a lot of wasted resources. This coupled with a state menu system I was extremely pleased with the final outcome and resulting grade.

During the later stages of my degree’s first year we were tasked with creating a simple two player Snakes and Ladders type board game in Java. Having had very little tutelage with the Java language I found this project extensively difficult and even though the final result doesn’t look impressive, was one of my proudest achievements during my degree course which in turn earned me top marks upon hand-in.

One of the final first year assignments was to select a choice of networked games and recreate it in Basic. I decided to pick the nostalgic Bomberman, a game in which I spent a lot of time playing growing up. Upon finishing the games network coding I decided to extend functionality to a menu state system, animated logo introduction and chat system for online play.

Having struggled to decide upon a final year project idea, I eventually settled on a platform shooter called Krazed. The aim of the game was to survive various enemies passing through the screen whilst increasing your score by shooting them. The project was simple in concept so I focused on polishing the gameplay whilst adding as many additional features as I could into the allotted time (such as the fittingly gruesome death animation).

My initial final year project idea was to recreate the classic Street Fighter, of which I developed until realising that the time investment of the artwork alone for the requirement attack and defend animations would far outweigh the room for demonstrating programming ability. Due to this the project was canned shortly after getting a handful of attacks for two characters into the game.

Before attending university I would play around with various languages performing exercises and tutorials to prepare for the course. Shuffle is the sole game that I managed to complete before the course begin, programmed in Basic and being a simple randomly generated tile based puzzle with a highscore feature to extend replay value.