My Phrogram Bio

I'm 20 years old. I'm hoping to get a job as a professional game programmer, if all goes well. No clear plan as to how, though. Well, here's some stuff about me:

I started out by working with Visual Basic 3.0 when I was ten, and moved up to Visual Basic 6.0 later, when I was 15. As anyone who has used VB can tell you, it's no good at graphics. It's simply not built for it. So when I was about 17, I started looking for something better to use, and my dad looked around for a bit and came up with Phrogram. I tried it out, and decided it was exactly what I wanted. I've been using Phrogram ever since.

I do pretty much all game genres, but games with extensive AI are my favorites. My finished programs include RaceWay, Robotz, Visualization, Laser Frag, Space Wars, The Tribes, and Space Skirmish 3D. I have a number of other programs I'm working on, but at the moment the main ones I'm working on are Story Creator, Hovercraft, and AIWars.

AIWars is the biggest of them all by far, having over 40 MB of .Pngs already. It has over 60 missions and 100 robot types, along with over 50 computer AI types. I'm aiming for 150 missions, but we'll see. In the game, you program the AI of a group of robots to fight a group of enemy robots of an equal size. The only way to defeat the enemy is by having an AI better at fighting, upgrading, and taking advantage of the terrain. It comes with two game modes: a story-based campaign and a freestyle mode. Comments and suggestions welcome - especially as to what I should do with it when I'm done. The idea of uploading twenty different .zip files to this website doesn't appeal to me, for some reason.

Also in the works - ACV. It's a sort of hovercraft racing game where you race against a number of AI opponents. It's got a nice scrolling background... And a large number of different weapon types. It works great so far... Just need to get the last 5 weapons in. It's going to have a total of 12 when it's done.

For anyone who particularly liked SS3D, I'm working on the AI for it. The computer player is going to be capable of watching and predicting player strategies and adapting to them. It's in beta at the moment. Haven't got all the kinks worked out.

Another game... One of the first I made with Phrogram - Laser Frag. It's like Laser Tag but with a twist - you can blow things up, use shields, afterburner, hyperspace.  The AI needs work. I had it perfect, but then I saved over it like an idiot and it's back to preschool level again. I'm going to need to make a copy and rewrite it like I did before to get it to run hundreds of games against itself in succession to work out the best strategy possible. Before, it was insane how good the enemy was. Now... They fire and retreat, fire and retreat. It's kind of sad, really.   Laser Frag also features the ability to train your allies and give radio commands to them. The whole game is pretty far from being finished.

My avatar for the past year is from Visualization, a program I made that does exactly what it sounds like - it makes pretty swirls and patterns like windows media player. I think I'm going to replace it with something from ACV... That program is awesome. lol

Story Creator is always in project mode... I've been working on it ever since I was 12. So... For the past 8 years. And yes, I realize this kind of predates Phrogram by a lot, but that's because the original version was in VB 3.0. Translated that to VB 6.0 and kept working, then from that to Phrogram. Now it's at it's finest yet. But it's always got more work to be done. My favorite part, admittedly, are the video games... I would totally play Nyx if it existed. And Ninja Chef... Epic. Imagine a ninja in front of the stove, camera close behind him. He tosses up a carrot into the air and the camera zooms in on it as he cuts it in midair, rotating around the vegetable in Matrix-style camera motions - slice, slice, slice, slice in slow motion - and then the camera pans out, revealing that while his hand was perfectly steady, the ninja was defending against a horde of enemies from behind with his feet, legs and free hand. That would make such an epic trailer for a game... Lol

Other small programs/ideas/projects...

Archmage - a RTS game where you train mages to fight each other over different terrains, teaching them various types of magic that can be upgraded and combined in a variety of different ways, and all the while building the ultimate city and army. Had to stop, though... Phrogram doesn't like RTS games, apparently.

MystX - A game based on the Myst/Riven/Exile/Uru universe (which I have no rights to, I just liked the idea) where you write a "book" and the game translates it and turns it into a playable universe. I got really, really far with this. Finally had to stop when I for some reason couldn't manage to keep the trees from ending up inside the hills, or floating far above them. I needed an algorithm to detect collisions between multiple ovoids... Unfortunately, none seems to exist.

Cannonball - Like golf, but played on a vertical plane instead of a horizontal one, using a cannon to launch the oversized balls into the air, with ramps, water, and different wall and floor types. As well as different ball types. Plastic floats, but doesn't have much inertia; metal sinks, but has much inertia; rubber sinks slowly and bounces a lot, etc. Had to abandon this project due to a number of very unusual errors that began occurring in the program.

Car Wars - A game where you and a number of AI controlled cars fight against an equal number of enemy AI cars in a large number of different maps - last team standing wins. Features destructible and interactive environments and different weapon types. Abandoned this one from not being able to come up with a way to make satisfactory collisions between cars. Bouncing wasn't good enough for me.

Family Tree - A program that creates a family tree. This one is finished. I created it for use with Virtual Villagers - a game that interestingly enough doesn't distinguish between family members and non-relatives, and allows for incest of every variety. I had to come up with a very flexible family tree generator for it... So I did. It's practically useless... But wow, does the tree look tangled.

Jewels - A program based on Bejeweled. Quit because the idea wasn't original enough for me.

Monster Invasion - Very loosely imitates Pokemon, although I didn't discover that until recently. Has over 50 different types of monsters as of yet, each with a spritesheet and animations, as well as a self-generating terrain that creates itself from a large number of image files. Quit because it's not really a one-man job. Those monsters may be awesome, but they take forever to make.

Paintball - Yes, I made a paintball program. Got bored, haven't done much with it. It's not up to my standards, but it works.

Populous - 2D/3D, based on populous. Quit because 1. It wasn't original enough, 2. I figured out the scrolling world thing, and that was what I wanted, 3. Phrogram isn't good with RTS, and 4. Phrogram isn't good with mouse clicks while a large program is eating at the frame rate.

RaceWay - 2D game very loosely based on an old VB game I made - RaceWay Spectrum. The old one featured a fixed track, complex controls, no images whatsoever, and was black and rainbow themed. Think Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. Raceway is different. You can jump on trampolines with your cars, avoid zapping electricity, run into other cars to jump ahead, go as many laps as you desire. What makes this game the most fun, I think, is the editor. You can design your own tracks, use whatever background you desire, choose different pictures for the cars (bigger cars have different physics - bouncing less and slower acceleration, and more weight in collisions, for example),  decide on the color of the track, and decide on the placement of trampolines and zappers. The AI is somewhat on the simple side, but still provides a good challenge. No weapons in this game, which is unusual for my games. :P It's completely done except for making a lap counter.

Tubekill - a 3D game where you race through a long series of bending tunnels, avoiding different aliens and enemy ships, firing as you go. Quit working on it because 1. It's impossible to make it in Phrogram, and 2. There was some sort of mysterious error with loading the meshes and I can't get it to run anymore.

XFighter - a 2D arcade-style game I was making at the request of my brother Zachary. Works great... But not that interesting.


And... That's it. :) If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Hopefully I answered most of everything, though. lol  If I didn't manage, with all that, something's wrong. :P