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Professional software development, amateur BMW tinkering, old arcade game stuff

Ludography

Noun

ludography (plural ludographies)

  1. A list of games that someone has worked on.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ludography

Below is a table of most of the released commercial games I have been involved in.  Scroll down to the bottom for some notes on the ones that didn’t make it.

 

 heat NASCAR Heat Mobile, 704 Games, 2017-2018, iOS, AndroidTech director/lead programmer on successful F2P official NASCAR game.   heatshot
 slots NASCAR Slots, 704 Games, 2017, iOS
Added extra features, updates and analytics into existing Cocos2d based game.
 slotspic
TBA, TBA, late 2015, iOS, Android
2D dungeon game to be announced by publisher soon.  
 soon
 dat1  dat3 Drive Any Track / Riff Racer, FOAM, 2015, PC Steam, iOS, Android
Music based driving game where the track and gameplay is procedurally created from music.  I was the technical lead and developed the algorithm to form the track spline from music analysis (initially using Echonest, later our own system when Echonest Analysis was shut down).  Also responsible for rendering, effects & cross-platform engine.
 dat2 dat4
 wrcwrc3 WRC The Official Game, Bigben Interactive, 2014, iOS, Android, 3ds
Official World Rally Championship game for 2014 season.  I was responsible for engine tech, rendering, audio and some gameplay features.  I also developed a playable Windows Phone 8.1 version with near complete rendering that unfortunately was not released.  There was also an HTML5 prototype (via Emscripten/SDL2) that was unused. 
 wrc2 wrc4
 wbdios Hot Wheels World’s Best Driver, Chillingo, 2014, iPad, Android
A port of the HD console game, below.  I was responsible for the engine and tech, including device compatibility.  Unfortunately some of the console style game-play didn’t translate well to touch-screens.
 thwmobile
 sfpocket Solar Flux Pocket, Firebrand Games, 2013, iPhone, Android
This title was a variant on the one below, with levels and UI specifically tailored for smaller phone screens. No real tech differences between the two, just game content.
 sfp2
 sf2 Solar Flux HD, Firebrand Games, 2013, iPad, PC Steam, Linux Steam, Mac Steam
I worked on engine & performance and in particular the Android build & publish pipeline.
 flux
 wbd2 Hot Wheels World’s Best Driver, Warner, 2013, PS3, Xbox 360, WiiU, PC Steam, 3ds, EU/US
Responsible for TDD, cross platform engine, graphics and game logic.
 wbd_
 ff Fast & Furious Showdown, Activision 2013, PS3, Xbox 360, WiiU, PC Steam, 3ds, EU/US/RU
Certainly a challenging project for the time & budget that was available!  I worked on the TDD and led on the cross platform engine as well as some game specific special graphics effects.
 ff_
 nascar Nascar Unleashed, Activision, 2011, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, 3ds, EU/US
Responsible for TDD and led on the cross platform engine – graphics, files, audio, online, etc.
 nascar_
 run Need For Speed: The Run, Electronic Arts, 2011, 3ds, Wii, EU/US/JP
Responsible for 3DS engine, graphics & performance mainly – started out on the initial ‘bare pcb’ devkits before the final ones became available!
 run_jpg
 cars2 Cars 2, Disney, 2011, 3ds, DS
This game was completed on DS first and then ported to 3ds much later on – quite a few fixed point->floating point bugs showed where the original fixed point DS code had been a bit naughty!
 cars2_jpg
 hwt Hot Wheels Track Attack, THQ, 2010, Wii, DS
One of the pieces of new tech I developed for this was the landscape projected system, where pre-baked shadows were projected onto the vehicle to match the static landscape shadows.
 track__
 Trackmania Titlesheet TrackMania Wii, Focus Home Interactive, 2010, Wii, US/EU.  The first Wii title I worked on  and I think we did a great job with 60Hz gameplay and large tracks with a full editor.  I was responsible for the TDD, rendering, online features and some project management.  tmwii_
 tmturbo TrackMania Turbo, Focus Home Interactive, 2010, DS
The sequel to TM DS (below), the big new feature was online play and online track sharing. I was responsible for the TDD and online and engine tech as well as game UI and logic.
 tmturbo_
sponge Spongebob’s Boating Bash, THW, 2010, DS
This used the Octane engine code I developed but the game code and assets were developed in the sister studio, so I was only involved in a support and advisory role.
sponge_
p51 Planet 51, Sega, 2009, DS.  I was responsible for the TDD and engine more than the game code, in particular the open world required a streaming landscape which required special attention from art on appropriate streaming block sizes.  p51__
nfsnitro Need For Speed Nitro, Electronic Arts, 2009, DS.  Game code was handled by the sister studio using NFS Undercover as the basis, so I mainly worked on engine & support.  Special tech for this project included dynamic rewrites into palette ram to support a ‘color the world’ feature. nfsnitro_
dirt Colin Mcrae Dirt 2, Codemasters, 2009, I was responsible for the engine and some of the TDD.  Most of the game code was handled by our sister studio using GRID as the base.
dirt_
grid Race Driver: GRID, Codemasters, 2008, DS
Essentially the sequel to Create & Race below, I was responsible for the TDD, engine, game logic and online system.  In tech terms this was way ahead of the competing DS racing games at the time.
 grid_
tmds TrackMania DS, Focus Home Interactive, 2008, DS
I’m still very proud of this game – it definitely pushed the technical boundaries of what was possible on the DS! The car physics, draw distances, track editor, multi-player were unmatched at the time. I handled all sorts of things on this project – engine, graphics, game logic, publisher contact, art production plan.
 tmds2
nfsunder Need For Speed Undercover, Electronic Arts, 2008, DS
Responsible for TDD & engine primarily with 
some game code.  One particular piece of tech I developed was the extremely large scrolling HUD map – this streamed from the cartridge to RAM to VRAM and for performance I used the trick of storing the source tile data twice – one row major and one column major – so no matter whether scrolling left, right, up or down, the new data could be fetched a single sequential read.
nfsunder_
fr Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli, System 3, 2008, DS
I became de-facto producer on this project when the studios previous producer emigrated – so point of contact with licensor/publisher and contractors as well as game and engine code.
fr_
cr Race Driver Create & Race, Codemasters, 2007, DS
Responsible for TDD, engine & game code.  Possibly the first third party game to use Nintendo’s online WFC setup?  We certainly found plenty of bugs in their SDK come submission time.
 cr_
cnr Cartoon Network Racing, Game Factory, 2007, DS
Responsible for TDD, engine/tools, in particular rendering and performance as well as general game code.
 cnr_
cl Code Lyoko, Game Factory, 2007, DS
Despite writing about 75% of the engine code in this project, and some of the game side, I was missed off the credits.  When I realised this the producer insisted the game was in ‘data lockdown’ and nothing could change.  Yeah, sure.  Thanks Dorian.
 cl2
 chick Chicken Little – Ace In Action, Disney, 2006, DS
This used the Horizon engine & toolset that I was the lead programmer & architect on.  I wasn’t involved in any of the game code though except maybe the very eary builds.  Game code was developed by the sister studio in Montreal.
 chick2
thrill Thrilleville – Off The Rails, Lucasarts, 2007, DS
Like Chicken Little this used the Horizon engine and game code was developed in the sister studio.  I only helped out with engine support, and not much at that.
 thrille2
se2 State Of Emergency 2, Southpeak, 2006, PS2
This project was in development for a long time and I only done a little bit, right at the end – audio fixes in the IOP code.
se2_
tl2 Taito Legends 2, Empire, 2005, PC, PS2, Xbox
This game licensed my Taito F3 emulation from MAME, but I also done some new work specifically on protection reverse engineering – for both Operation Wolf and Bonze Adventure I wrote 68000 assembler trojan horse code to run on the original hardware in order to extract data from the C-Chip protection.
tl2_
tl Taito Legends, Empire, 2005, PC, PS2, Xbox
Originally I was contracted for work on the Taito F3 system games, but they actually ended up delayed to the sequel.  Apart from that I done a lot of performance work, using scratchpad ram on PS2 to increase software render performance, etc.
tl_
fc Fight Club, Vivendi, 2005, PS2, Xbox
I worked on the online part of the game only – PS2 GameSpy and Xbox Live.
fc_
download Corvette 50th Anniversary, TDK, 2003, PC, PS2, Xbox, EU/US
I was lead programmer on the Xbox SKU, with particular work on Xbox Live online play and graphics effects.
corvette_
mr Master Rallye, Microids, 2001, PC, PS2, EU/US
Worked on general gameplay as well as engine tech, including leading the online component (4 players online via GameSpy, 8 players on LAN). Also worked on an Xbox version that was never released.
mr_

 

Here are some interesting older commercial projects I have been involved in that ‘got away’…

 

Vehicle Combat Racing Game, 2010, Wii, DS This game was never released as the HD version, developed elsewhere, was cancelled and the companion Wii and DS weren’t feasible to market on their own. It’s a real shame as the game was technically and visually way ahead of the competitors on Wii & DS at the time. I got to use a great trick on the DS version also – although the top 3d screen ran at 30Hz due to the lack of CPU power on the DS, I ran all the 2d sprite hardware at 60Hz using interpolated positions in the vblank interrupt. So the touchscreen felt ultra responsive, and the HUD timers silky smooth!  (The game was never announced so no screenshots here as technically it’s still under NDA).
Transforming Vehicle Racing Game, 2009, Wii, DS This game, based on a major franchise, was never released as the the Wii & DS markets went south with all the shovel-ware released and the publisher felt the marketing spend (rather than dev spend) would not be recouped. A shame, as the game was pretty fun with a nice transforming vehicle hook (but no, it wasn’t Transformers). 
Machine (or Transforming Vehicle Racing Game 2), 2009, Wii See blog post here
Fear Factor Unleashed, 2005, PS2, Xbox, PC See blog post here
Velocity, Visual Science, 2004, PS2, Xbox, PC I joined VisSci when this project had already reached vertical slice. It was a graphically impressive racer and I worked on online engine tech (Xbox Live and GameSpy for PS2 and PC). I remember the network manager was particularly unwilling to open any firewall ports which made online work just a little bit hard :) I’m not sure why this was never released, probably marketing reasons at the publisher as Xbox in particular was wound down in favor of Xbox 360 around this time.
Carmageddon TV, Visual Science, 2004, PS2, Xbox, PC I joined VisSci when this project was already arguably in trouble, and then left VisSci before it was officially canned by the publisher. Whilst there though I worked on the network engine and build tools. The game looked good on PS2 but performance was very poor which in turn affected playability. I remember profiling the game once with SN Tuner and finding 110ms/frame spent in physics alone. That was matched by the fact there was no real landscape culling system at that point and a level design that let you see the entire world from many points so GPU/VU units were equally stressed!
2 Days To Vegas, Steel Monkeys, 2003, PS2, PC See blog post here
Point Of Attack, Steel Monkeys, 2003, Xbox, PC See blog post here

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