About
Summary
I am a Game Designer & Developer aspiring to tell gripping stories and create engaging mechanics in the games I make.
I graduated magna cum laude from LIT Tipperary in 2015 with a Honours BSc in Game Design & Development.
As far back as I can remember there were always video games in my life.
Bio
I have always loved playing games, ever since I was old enough to hold a controller I was playing games I'm not kidding I was playing SNES before I even went to school. The first games I ever played were Legend of Zelda: A link to the Past and Illusion of Gaia... I can't tell you which was the very first since I had both of them at the same time but either way they were fantastic and started me on a life long love of games and in particular RPGs and puzzle games. After spending many a year playing these games we finally got a decent PC and the first bit of software to be installed was none other than Tomb Raider... it was amazing... and so very high definition at least compared to the 16bit fare I had been used to. Well I loved the Tomb Raider series and have played almost every single game so farYes even that weird GBA game "Tomb Raider: The Prophecy".
When I was about six or seven I get my very own PlayStation and nothing much interesting happens for a while until I buy my very first game for myself by which I mean I gave the cashier my mother's money, and it was a damn good buy... I had bought Spyro: Gateway to Glimmer not knowing at the time that it was a sequel since the box didn't mention it. That's really all I need to say on that matter isn't it? Well I'll say more about it anyway. I can honestly tell you that I do not know how many hours I have lost to that game... hours I would only want back in order to spend them playing that game again. I have a few games for the PS1 indeed but not nearly as many as I do for the PlayStation 2. And here it all begins: I buy some awesome games and then I lose most of my life inside my room playing them. Well anyway if I were to name all of the good games I have for the PS2 then we would be here all week.
All right, for those of you who are fans of the Tomb Raider series and played it on a computer will probably know that Tomb Raider: Chronicles came with a second CD which contained a level editor... but when we got that game our computer was not powerful enough to run the level editor so it went back into the box to sleep there for a few years. And then one day I had an urge to play Chronicles again... and I discovered it, just innocently sitting there saying "you're curious aren't you?" And I was, I had no idea what a level editor was but I wanted to find out and when it was installed, I found out... It. Was. Beautiful! I made several levels with that thing long lost now... I really wish I still had them. This is what kindled my desire to make games even more than play them until I eventually wanted to make my own games for a living... cue the search for a college which has a games design course.
Well I applied for the Games Design and Development course in what was at the time Tipperary Institute but was renamed to LIT Tipperary while I was studying there and since again renamed to Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwestquite the mouthful. I was accepted and I quickly came to love it. When I went into the college for the first time I had absolutely no idea what to expect, I knew it was not going to be like secondary school at all but other than that I had no inclination as to what my life would be like for the next few months. Well I've met some good and great friends during my time at college and I have to say I'm glad I met every one of them, they're all amazing.
Now back to games, I have a done quite a few extracurricular projects over the years. Projects such as Global Game Jams which are amazing events where people from all over the world attempt to make games in forty eight hours based on a theme they are only given just before the event starts. During my first Global Game Jam I was a part of a team creating a game based on a rather unusual idea: the player could not see anything and they must guide their character around based solely on sound alone. For this game I was writing the script for the entire thing... it was not easy, not at all. But it was fun and interesting to see my imagination come to life. Another event which I took part in was Robocode along with two friends. In this event we had to write the code for a virtual tank which would battle another tank in an arena. One worked on tracking and firing at the enemy, the other worked on calculating the firepower of the bullet to be fired and I was working on movement and bullet avoidance as well as a method to make the tank stay close to the corners during a specific type of battle where about five or six tanks would battle to the death in a sort of free for all.
Besides all of the extracurricular activities I had in college I also really enjoyed many of the classes, especially the ones centring on algorithms. Those classes really struck a chord with me since I have always loved maths. After I left college I got a job as a Software Engineer and worked at various companies until 2017 when I got an internship at WarDucks, a VR focussed game studio in the centre of Dublin. Later in 2021 I began working at a mobile game studio headquartered in Singapore called Mighty Bear Games.
Thank you for reading this, I appreciate it :D
Tacitus