Game Development Timeline

One screen conveyor-based puzzle designed for a puzzle Advent calendar.

2023 Confounding Calendar

The goal of the Hex Game is to claim as many hexagons as possible; however, players are not allowed to create monochrome equilateral triangles. The solitaire version of this game was the inspiration for my article:

Diamond Game is a tricky two player webgame designed to be difficult for humans and computers. The rules are simple: take turns placing stones on a 2d grid of fixed size and be the first to create a flower, but these rules ultimately give rise to complex strategies and techniques.

Pair-Square is box-pushing puzzle with two players who move simultaneously. The website features a few collections of hand-designed custom levels ranging from trivial to brutal and an online level editor.

Developed on a team with Frank Bonini and Katie Bogan, Kingdom Carver is a 3D virtual reality game developed for the CAVE at Villanova. The player uses motion controls to hold a sword and slash through large procedurally generated parcels of land each with many castles. The goal of the game is to divide the land as evenly as possible so that each castle has its own section of land with equal surface area. The player is scored on accuracy and if the slices they make are too uneven they will lose the game. The game begins with 3 castles and gets more difficult over time as more complicated terrain and more castles are introduced. All the while, facts about castles and snarky lines are delivered to the player based on their performance.

Get Off My Planet relies on quick reactions as players jump from planet to planet and explore a variety of hostile locations. Obstacles attack the player from all sides, requiring them to think fast, move quickly, and get off my planet! Avoid crushing pillars, space station lasers, piercing ice spikes, and even huge living chess pieces. The game features retro graphics, a dynamic soundtrack, and simple swipe controls. It is easy to learn but difficult to master. Do you have what it takes to swipe your way through all twenty waves perfectly?

You have accepted a mission to mine as much ore as you can from the endless underground cavern. Fighting against the constant pull of gravity, pilot your vehicle to earn Miner Dollars to upgrade your Shield, Time Freeze, Magnet, and Boost power-ups to enhance your mining craft. Earn extra bonuses by collecting underground treasure chests and for every 1000 meters you travel. Do you have what it takes to max-out your mining vehicle's power and performance with the Miner Dollars you earn? Retro Miner features 4 game modes: Calm, Medium, Insane, and Timed. The harder the mode, the more Miner Dollars you can earn.

Can you focus on two simple things at once in this minimalistic platform game? Tap each half of the screen to jump over gaps as the game speeds up. How many levels will you reach before you succumb to Duality?

Do you have what it takes to defeat a never ending barrage of fearsome enemies, or will you die at the hands of these pixilated monsters? Traverse the arena killing everything as you go. Collect coins and chests to get awesome armor, shields, and swords. Intuitive controls paired with retro sounds and graphics make this game feel like a blast from the past!

After GameMaker, I moved on to Scratch for a bit where I had an easy way make and share games with others online. I could look at other people's code to learn and get feedback on how to improve my own projects. The majority of the games I wrote in Scratch were in scratch 1.4 and a few in 2.0. With the newest 3.0 version, a few of the projects may be broken due to changes in how the scratch interpreter works, but I have included a link to a collection of my old Scratch Projects.

GameMaker was my first introduction to programming and the image on the left is from one of the first games that I programmed titled "Zach's Ball Run". In this project there are 10 levels filled with coins and balls that bounce up and down. Collect all the coins and you can finish the level, hit a ball and you lose 1 of 5 lives that you begin with.