Capital Punishment

October 2007 - June 2008

Capital Punishment is a single-player game built on the Source Engine released by Valve, designed with extreme physics rules in the game world. The player participates in an extreme reality television game and is thrown into Solution City, a confined city full of criminals, to try and survive with limited weapons against overwhelming odds. I was the Lead Programmer for this group project at the University of Teesside, developed in total by 10 people.

Language: C++
Environments: Source Engine SDK, Visual Studio 2005/2008
Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlNxAvDmuec

Responsibilities:

- Designed and delegated tasks to a team of 5 programmers
- Assigned milestones and evaluated progress weekly
- Designed and implemented a weapons system, custom UI elements and effects in C++
- - Three types of weapons: Melee, Ranged Instant and Projectile
- - Weapon swing and reload mechanics
- - Different types of damage effects: direct and splash
- - Variables configurable through script files
- Configured and tweaked weapons through scripted files parsed by the game upon launch

Latency Hiding Techniques in Massively Multiplayer Games

October 2007 - June 2008

Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games can be designed in various ways, and often deal with multiple servers and hundreds (if not thousands) of clients connected to each server at the same time. To provide players with a realistic level of fidelity during online play, the effects of latency need to be masked. This project explored and identified various methods of hiding latency in such MMO games.

Languages: C++, ANSI C
Environments: Visual Studio 2005, Your-Freedom.net Proxy tool, network APIs
Thesis Report: Available upon request

- Highlighted different types of network architecture in MMO games
- Identified various methods of hiding latency and optimising network code between server and client
- Implementing and testing various methods (example: Dead Reckoning) in a black-box coded environment

Abstract:

The aim of this project is to research the various latency hiding and bandwidth saving techniques that are used in the gaming industry today, specifically in the massively multiplayer genre of computer games.

Various sources are looked into in order to outline the most commonly used techniques to facilitate smooth gameplay with an acceptable average response time in a virtual environment with a lot of clients interacting simultaneously. A distinction is then made between bandwidth saving and latency hiding techniques, and a core list of each type is created to further research the contents. Furthermore, there are hardware level techniques employed by ISPs and development companies which are also briefly looked at.

A few latency hiding techniques are then handpicked for implementation and testing on a suitable server-client tiered application.

MechMod

September 2003 - July 2006

MechMod is a total conversion of Valve's Half-Life engine and is an online multiplayer deathmatch game where players fight in giant flying mechs/robots on large maps. I founded, ran and developed the game after recruiting for various positions online. The Alpha version was publicly released before Half-Life 2 or the Source engine. Visit the MechMod Sourceforge page for details.

MechMod has been featured on many reputable websites, and was also given a full page in the January 2005 edition of the PC GAMER UK magazine:

Language: C++
Environments: Half-Life SDK, Visual Studio .NET 2003
Screenshots and Further Information: http://mechmod.sourceforge.net
Source Code and Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mechmod
Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl6LWR_CZDA

My Responsibilities as the Executive Director, Programmer, Webmaster and PR Officer:

- Founded the project and recruited other digital content creators online
- Led the design and technical direction of the project from start to finish
- Delegated tasks to the rest of the team members and evaluated progress on a weekly basis
- Coordinated with leading gaming news websites to concurrently publish press releases about the progress of the game during its development
- Successfully ran a closed beta test prior to launch
- Created a custom and dynamic website in PHP which linked to several MySQL databases
- Released an Alpha version which generated over 10,000 downloads in the first six months

GDV Arcade Game

October 2005 - march 2006

This was a Pac-Man themed retro-styled single player game project aiming to deliver fun gameplay through low bitrate graphics.

Language: C++
Environments: Visual Studio 2005, Text Parsing API, DirectX 9 Graphics API

- Created design documents to identify a clear development cycle flowchart
- Created black-box coded components capable of running with a different graphics API
- Developed in a standardised environment capable of producing the same frame rate on different processors

Earth's Special Forces

January 2003 - July 2005

One of the greatest Half-Life Modifications of all time, Earth's Special Forces is an online multiplayer game that brings the world of Dragon Ball Z to life were players fly around and attack each other with melee and special “ki” attacks.

Languages: HTML, PHP, and MySQL
Applications: Mantis Bug Tracker, vBulletin, InvisionBoard
Screenshots, Videos and Further Information: http://www.esforces.com

My Responsibilities as Lead Tester and Public Relations Officer:

- Led a team of qualified testers to swiftly and efficiently pin-point coding, run-time and logical errors
- Held weekly tester meetings via Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to monitor progress and delegate responsibilities to the beta testing team
- Implemented a new streamlined process for testing, abolishing obsolete practices and increasing efficiency and productivity during weekly test sessions
- Created weekly test case scenarios for the beta testing team to work through
- Administration of user base and content via forum software
- Coordinated with leading gaming websites to publish progress updates concurrently on multiple websites
- Tracked and evaluated errors submitted by the team and coordinated with programmers to implement fixes