Hello! I'm James
I have recently completed my final year of the BSc Computing for Games course at Falmouth University. I am passionate about developing and playing computer games. I am motivated and have good communications skills. I excel when working as part of a team but I am equally happy working on individual tasks that require me to use my initiative.
EXPERIENCE
June 2018 – September 2018
Junior Software Tester
Alfred H Knight
I joined a small quality assurance team responsible for testing in-house developed software and submitting detailed reports on errors/bugs identified using industry standard tools such as Redmine.
I was also responsible for creating unit tests for a small portion of the software written in Java.
May 2017 – August 2017
QA Tester
TT Fusion
Following my first year of study at Falmouth, I was awarded a 3-month contract as a QA tester at TT Fusion. During the contract, I worked predominantly on the LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game. I was responsible for playing through levels of the game and submitting detailed reports on errors/bugs identified using industry standard tools such as Jira.
EDUCATION
2016-2019
BSc Computing for Games (2:1)
Falmouth University
During the three years of the course I undertook tasks ranging from graphics and simulation using OpenGL to AI development to year long game development in a multi discipline team of 12.
2014-2016
BTEC Game Design (D*D*D)
Priestley College
As part of my college Level 3 BTEC course in Games Design, I undertook several development projects both individually and as teams. They ranged from character and UI concepts to developing an educational game.
SKILLS
Jira - Advanced
Redmine - Proficient
Unreal Engine 4 - Advanced
C++ - Proficient
Java - Advanced
C# - Advanced
EXPERTISE
Unreal Engine 4
I have been working in Unreal Engine 4 for 4 years focusing primarily on AI development using Behaviour trees and C++ in a range of different game genres.
JIRA
I was responsible for setting up and maintaining the JIRA project for my 3rd year development team. This involved collating data throughout sprints to track and record progress both on an individual and team basis. These were reviewed during progress meetings to aid in issue resolution and to help manage progress.
Teamwork
Throughout my university course I have taken part in many major projects involving multi-disciplinary teams. In many of these projects I have played a large role in the project management and issue resolution.
My Work
Freak Real Estate
Freak Real Estate is my current third year game development project made in Unreal Engine 4 and is an entry level wave defence strategy game where you, the player, place traps to stop people invading your house.
My Role
My role in this project was as the AI and Gameplay programmer. This means I had a wide range of tasks throughout the game. My main task was to design and implement the AI behaviours in the game. We set out with the goal of creating a team based AI that will learn the house layout and explore in a believable way where each character is different from the last, creating a unique experience every time you play. I believe we achieved this task. Each character is procedural generated with different visuals and traits that affect their behaviour in novel ways. The player can place traps to try to stop them from escaping your house alive, but the AI will always try to one up your strategies.
Get a free download from our Itch.io page using the button below!
My Work
Freak Real Estate
Freak Real Estate is my third year game development project made in Unreal Engine 4 and is an entry level wave defence strategy game where you, the player, place traps to stop people invading your house.
My Role
My role in this project was as the AI and Gameplay programmer. This means I had a wide range of tasks throughout the game. My main task was to design and implement the AI behaviours in the game. I set out with the goal of creating a team based AI that will learn the house layout and explore in a believable way where each character is different from the last, creating a unique experience every time you play. I believe we achieved this task. Each character is procedural generated with different visuals and traits that affect their behaviour in novel ways. The player can place traps to try to stop them from escaping your house alive, but the AI will always try to one up your strategies.
Get a free download from our Itch.io page using the button below!
A New Tomorrow
A New Tomorrow was my second year game development project made in Unreal Engine 4 and is an FPS stealth game set in a dystopian fantasy world. You play the role of a rogue robot who must infiltrate and destroy a top secret production facility.
My Role
My role in this project was AI programmer. This meant I was in charge of implementing AI that was responsive to the player's movements and actions. The AI characters were able to hear, see and feel the player and respond in a multitude of ways based on their situation. Another feature they had was adaptive patrols. This meant that if they detected the player but did not catch them, the AI would adapt its patrol route to include the last known point they detected the player.
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Nebula Knights
Nebula Knights was my first year development project made in Unreal Engine 4. It is a 4-player couch co-op dungeon crawler, where the players are competing to get the most points by the end of the level, but need to co-operate to complete many of the challenges they will face.
My Role
My role in this project was a Gameplay programmer. I did all of the project set up, from the AI, to the character controller. This was because I was the only team member to have worked in the Unreal Engine before. This meant I also spent a large part of my time teaching the engine to the other team members.
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A challenge I faced during this project was the couch co-op aspect. I had never programmed with 4 player co-op in mind. Many issues were caused by this, especially with UI and camera management which we're tricky when 4 players had to be accounted for.
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