About Me

My XC Team

I enjoy running and football. I ran NCAA Division III Track and Field as well as Cross Country, that's my team in the picture above (I'm on the far right)! I love video games, programming in general (especially video games), computer graphics, and game engine architecture.

I've played a myriad of different genres of video games since I was about three years old. Some of the earliest games I remember playing and loving early on in my childhood include:

Here are some of my favorite games of all time:

  • Subnautica (Most Platforms)

    • I've always been fascinated with the ocean and large bodies of water in general. I've read every article and watched every video on the first Subnautica (and even skim their website for job postings pretty often). I'm really excited for the third game to release!

  • RuneScape/Old School RuneScape (OSRS) (PC, Mobile)

    • I've played this game since I was around eight years old and have roughly ~130 days of in-game playtime (yikes). Back in the day, Jagex, creator of RS, went through with the Evolution of Combat (EoC) update in 2012 which led to the prompt release of a non-EoC version, OSRS, in 2013. This is by far the more popular version today and the one I play. I have more memories playing this game than any other game and it undoubtedly inspires the way I play and create games to this day. It's grindy nature (around ~2,500 hours to max your account) has always pulled me back in. I still play when I have the time, but that's not too often anymore, unfortunately.
    • In my game development class (EECS 494) we talked a lot about what makes an engaging game and I think OSRS does a fantastic job with a lot of the components of that. For example, there is an Ironman Mode in which you essentially have to play the game and do everything for yourself rather than relying on other players. As an ironman, you cannot trader other players which means you have to gather any resources you need on your own and defeat enemies/bosses on your own. The concept of short, medium, and long term goals is extremely apparent here.
    • Sometimes, you want to do a quest for some new item or area. However, you find out that another quest is a prerequisite to that one. So, you go to do that quest, but one of your skills is not at a high enough level. Then, you decide to level up that skill, but the fastest method of gaining experience at your current level requires you to traverse a dangerous area which you may not have high enough combat levels to survive, so now you have to train those. This goes on and on and you end up completing several short and medium tasks in pursuit of a longer one. Additionally, the player is presented with a myriad of interesting decisions. They need to level up a skill, so they could pick a more AFK, calm method or they could complete a quest to unlock a faster rate of experience.

  • Destiny 1 & 2 (Xbox, PS, PC)

    • Speaking of grindy games, I have 750 hours of in-game playtime in Destiny 1 & 2 combined. I bought Destiny 1 the day after it released and it is still one of my favorite games I've ever played. Granted, their MTX scheme is pretty abysmal, but the game itself is amazing.

  • Black Ops Zombies (Most Platforms)

    • I have every single Zombies perk bottle in my room at home and a Jugger-nog t-shirt, so it's safe to say this game has pretty heavily influenced me. If I had to pick a favorite Black Ops Zombies, I'd easily choose Black Ops 3. I think every single map, song, visual, sound effect, feature, mechanic, movement, etc. is almost perfect in this game and I always find myself coming back to it. Treyarch zombies has gone a bit downhill as of late (in my opinion), but I did see a Treyarch Zombies map design job posting recently, so maybe things will start to improve.

  • Crash Bandicoot Series (Most Platforms)

  • Jade Cocoon 1 & 2 (PS1 & PS2)

    • I mainly played the second Jade Cocoon, but the first had just as many, if not more, outstanding features. I think these two games were ahead of their time. JC1 released in 1999 and had one of the most interesting monster merging mechanics I had ever seen and have no clue why we don't see similar things today. You could merge two of your monsters and it would procedurally generate a new one with characteristics from both. People loved this and were very upset when it was removed in the second game. The second game had a very Pokémon-esque evolution system. Your monsters began as a small, usually less intimidating version of themselves, then they evolved into bigger, more menacing looking versions of themselves. I know very few Pokémon (I was a Yu-Gi_Oh! kid) or their evolutions, but I could name every single one of the Jade Cocoon 2 monsters at every stage of their evolution.
    • As a side note, I've always been very curious of how/if you could get the best of both worlds here. On one hand, to procedurally generate your monsters is a very cool idea as every player has their own unique monsters that no one else has (if done well). However, I think there is something really cool about working towards a certain stage of evolution for a monster because it looks so cool/iconic.
    • Some people wrote JC2 off as a Pokémon clone, and while it of course had some similarities, I think this couldn't be more wrong. I'm obviously biased, but I think JC2 has, to this day, one of the best battle mechanics of any game I've played. It is turn based with your player in the middle (your player does not attack) and you are surrounded by a circle of eight spots, each with a monster . Each side has an element (fire, water, wind, earth - the basic RPG elements). Your middle monsters are purely the element of the side they're on (e.g., the central monster on the fire side is only able to use a fire attack), they cannot be merged with a monster of the opposite type without losing they're current elemental attack. The monsters on the corners of two elements, however, are a hybrid (e.g., the enemy on the corner of fire and wind can have both a fire attack and wind attack/status spell - they attack with the element of the side you choose to attack on). The fire side is generally offensive and does the most damage, so it would make sense to put your "tanks" here, but it's not always that simple because sometimes they have to be balanced with more status or spell capabilities and these monsters generally do not have as much health (but they do have more speed).