- B.S., Game Design & Development | SUNY Canton (August 2024)
- A.S., Information Management | SUNY Dutchess (May 2020)
- I'm a fresh graduate looking for my first opportunity in the games industry! I want to contribute to experiences that will leave an impact on players, just as so many games have done for me.
- Receive requests to build drafts, upgrade, and optimize computers in my local area. Discuss the benchmark goals and budget of each build. Work with clients to educate on the process to become self-sufficient. Aim to be as beginner-friendly and hassle-free as possible. Personally assemble computer hardware if customers are not comfortable doing so themselves. Install operating systems and performed diagnostics to ensure proper functionality for clients.
- Help clients create desktop PC builds that meet their specifications. From game development, video rendering, 3D modeling, animation, and gaming, clients have had their needs met with the PC's concepted.
- Personally builds the PC's if clients are not comfortable handling hardware themselves.
In this year-long project, we were tasked with creating a vertical slice for a video game. I was the designer in my team. I created the thematic, aesthetic and core gameplay pillars of our game, then ran it by my teammates. I was the communication between my teammates' progress and my producer. We discussed the limits of implementation, working with programmers and artists to make sure the work was reasonable and done on time, and decided to go about each week in a waterfall methodology of development. I needed to adjust the scope of the design's aspects as the project was ongoing, adding and cutting concepts as the schedule allowed. I learned about a designer's role of being the vision for the team. Several times, members weren't completely in sync with the design. I created reference videos for my animator, documented references for my 3D modelers, and wrote out flowcharts for the gameplay and level progression.
This was my first ever game jam. The theme of "connection" was revealed, and my team started brainstorming ideas and drafting a design doc all night. We came up with the novel idea of having two players share one controller to play a game. My role was initially to create the basis of all of our game's scenes for the programmers to populate with functionality. I then moved on to UI/UX. I designed and programmed logic for all buttons, prompts, and transitions. This was my first time focusing solely on UI/UX, and I learned that I really enjoy the process of creating and implementing assets.
During this jam, I was more familiar with the time constraints and socializing aspects of jams. I found teammates very quickly. There were 4 of us this time, and I took on the responsibilities of UI/UX once again, as well as being the producer. I timelined all responsibilities after our design was finalized. We were precise enough to finish all initial design goals with 6 hours to spare, so I discussed more work and implementation with my designer. The theme of this jam was "bubbles," which was very difficult for us to think of gameplay ideas around.