I have been learning more about UX design through hands-on experience, and at this summer’s Christian Game Developers Conference I offered to consult with anyone interested in UX design recommendations for their game. The first to take me up on my offer was Michael Steffen of Lantern Tower Games, and thus my first game-related UX design consultation was for his team’s game, Telmahre , one that those who loved Myst or The Longest Journey series would enjoy.
A struggle that software development teams have faced since time immemorial is the balance between feature development, bug fixing, technical debt, innovation, etc. Under aggressive deadlines, it can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing almost full-time on feature development and then having to set aside weeks or months for full-time bug fixing, technical debt, and innovation in order to catch up, potentially causing stress for the team because of pressure to return to feature development.
A couple of months ago, I was having a conversation with some game developer friends of mine when one asked, “In music, there are few original indie musicians out there. Oftentimes they sound same-y based on their regional influences. Is this similar when it comes to video game design?”
TL;DR – Just want to see the final design? Jump down to the “Prototyping” section below!
Over the past couple of years, I was considering what particular contributor role I would best enjoy in game development. I had been a programmer for most of my software career, and while I still enjoy implementation tasks I am completely fine letting someone else deal with the code-level details (especially the debugging).
Originally posted on 9/14/18 on the old Omnipoof WordPress site.
An interview question, a new role, and an annual trip to Portland culminated into a new endeavor during the summer of 2017: Dark OmniChess.
What is OmniChess / Dark OmniChess?
Originally posted on 7/10/2018 on the old Omnipoof WordPress site.
Last year on my drive up to Portland, OR, for the Christian Game Developers Conference, I verbally accepted a position to join Adobe as a senior software engineer to help develop the user interface for a new product.
Originally posted on 10/17/10 on Mrrrdev.
So what’s so life-changing about Minecraft?
It’s not the game itself. The graphics are blocky (though this is a part of the game’s style), the sounds are simple, there isn’t much in terms of music, and there’s no objective to work towards besides “don’t die.”
Originally posted on 10/15/10 on Mrrrdev.
A world of possibilities opened up before me as a computer science major. Once I had room for only one major-related course of my choosing, and now I had room for seven. I filled my next year with what I considered the “game development trinity” – software engineering, computer graphics, and artificial intelligence – and loved every minute of them.