Decode Detroit
In 2024, I worked as a developer at Decode Detroit on “The Mezzanine”, an escape room featuring a large variety of interconnected microcontrollers and associated electronics. The room provides an immersive experience by syncing lighting and sound effects with various actions around the room. Things I worked on included:
- An interactive LED based ‘numberlink’ puzzle
- Syncing lights for a cross-room ‘sorting’ puzzle, where an object was represented by sets of lights going through various tubes
- Motion effects made to represent movement within an elevator
- Various microcontroller work to control the assorted smaller puzzles
- Networking puzzles together via an event-based system
Photo credit: Decode Detroit
Thermite Labs
In 2021, I brought two personal friends of mine into developing games with me and worked on small projects with them, founding a small development studio. Acting as the group’s game director/head programmer, we produced a few game jam games and began work on a (now defunct) larger project that had a few more people working on it. While not indicative of our full potential due to the time limits imposed when working on these projects, it was a nice exercise in seeing what it takes to organize a group of people as their director.
A video of two of the game jam games created by Thermite Labs, “Bwub’s Sticky Situation” and “World of Wisps”.
EcoHack/Unity College
In November 2020, I joined a small VR hackathon called XR EcoHack 2020 ran by Unity College (separate from the engine) with a team from my school. We submitted a small virtual reality demo built for the Oculus Quest and won the competition. After that, I was able to work a short, online contract for Unity College in early 2021 on one of their virtual reality projects meant as supplemental material for one of their courses. This gave me a decent exposure to XR development, as well as working with a more business oriented structure to development and project management.
The trailer for our EcoHack submission.
Solo Projects
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 I used the spare time I was given to finally pursue Unity development, and joined multiple game jams to learn the engine. Participating in these helped me learn about the pacing of standalone game development compared to the modding tools I had used in the past, as well as aided in familiarizing myself with the software.
A short video containing the first level of “Professor Tyme and the Plot to End the World”, a game made in this period.
Overwatch Workshop
In 2019, the multiplayer game “Overwatch” released an in-game visual scripting interface that allowed for the creation of custom minigames and gamemodes by the users. Over the next year, I released a variety of modes, garnering hundreds of thousands of views online, and having my “Torb Golf” mode peak as the 10th most played in Europe, allowing me to utilize player feedback to improve my experiences for the first time.