A Little Rambling On Myself

Flyover Summary

A Weirdo Programmer with a flare for challenge and creativity. From early points in my career so far, I’ve dabbled in plenty, having been brought up in East Sussex, situated right next to Brighton. That comes with knowledge of some of the interesting places in the Lanes and a distaste for seagulls.

I’ve worked with several companies in the area where a breadth of skill and knowledge is key to succeed in pushing the project forward. In such environments, I thrived on being given a task and finding a solution by the end of the period, hungrily learning all I can till as I was as much of an expert as I could be. I was once handed a Laravel 5 and Code Igniter then told to figure out which was easiest to code in but then also teach to new developers. Within a week or so, I had my verdict. Actually, for that job, I’d re-taught myself the basics of PHP the night before the interview. I even admitted that, yet still got the job.

Probably because one of my interviewers had done the same thing in their interview.

Personal Projects and Hobbies

I do try to do more, probably more than I should, with myself. Something I quite enjoy is picking things apart to see how they tick, usually with writing reviews or blabbing endlessly to my friends about what I just saw. I like applying my knowledge of storytelling and general movie making to things while I watch. It makes me appreciate what I’m watching all the more due to the bits I recognise working within it. I think I’m attracted to Games over other forms of media because the potential to be in the story and have it react back is deeply exciting to pursue.

I try to play and watch and read as much as I feel like I can, when I can. I try not to be too curmudgeonly when it comes to new things by sampling everything I can. I try to say ‘yes’ as much as I can. It does mean I have a collection of some classic movies and games. But then I also have a Boxed Copy of Shaq-fu, and even own an Ouya. I try to experience new media where I can, often writing about or unpicking particular experiences to figure out what makes them the way they are. But also to maybe incorporate them into my own work, whether that’s professional or private projects.

And yeah, there’s often times where I will say to people that the best present they can get me is to wander into a shop with a fiver and pick up some random thing and see how it strikes me. If it’s good? Great, something new to dig through. If it’s bad? Great! Something new to autopsy. Or get some laughs out of it.

Tabletop RPGs, at the time of writing, has been a big interest for me as their immediacy for getting ideas to a table for others to play is pretty appealing. Not to mention the human element that a video game can’t as easily replicate. I will always adore video games, but this older form of storytelling mixed with game mechanics has netted me some joyous and bizarre stories I’m glad to have experienced. I’ve been collecting books for a while. A long enough while to have my shelves literally bending.

Professional Projects

I’m still chasing the means to make something just by myself but my professional work has been quite a journey in itself. My proudest work I think is still working on the Game Engine at Storm Games, due to the amount of work and due diligence I put into that. It’s hard not to feel a little like it’s your baby after that long admittedly. Still, being able to not only bring the technology up to date enough to work for the company’s needs, get a full manual written up for new developers to work from and even having extensive commenting made the whole thing pretty comfortable to work on. Not to mention the power of the engine itself once you got up to speed. Admittedly, I wish I could have done more but I wish whoever works on it next the best of luck.

I’ve also been quite surprised at the number of projects I was involved with when I went back through my work at Inspired. I had genuinely forgotten about how many games I’d had some hand in, whether it was building from scratch, reskinning or reworking into it’s final form. I cut my teeth at the company and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Next Steps?

Right now, I am looking to keep finding things that excite me. While I won’t shy away from a good opportunity, I did very much enjoy the process I got to follow through on at Storm Games when I worked on their engine. I would enjoy doing something similar for another company in need of it should it be needed. Otherwise, I am open to opportunities where I can find it as long as there’s a good puzzle to dig into or a good story to tell.

Thanks for reading.