Work in Progress

Working at Accusoft (My first Software Engineering job)

I started at Accusoft January 2, 2014. I had been pursuing them well before Thanksgiving (2 months). I had read the type of projects they did, and found it to be interesting. Is it making games? (which is why I got into software engineering to begin with) No… but then again, I can always make games on the side, right? (I’ll talk more about that later) Back to my timeline, I graduated November 1^st 2013. After I graduated I just wanted to go to bed early and wake up late. Final Project is no joke. (Final Project is a 5 month project at the end of the Game Development degree.) I try and explain it to my friends and family, but honestly only Full Sail Students can relate. So it just comes out as, “yea it was tough.” So those from Full Sail that made it and are reading this, “Rock on!”  Where was I? Oh, going to bed early and waking up late, yes that is exactly how I felt when I finished. So I took a couple weeks off. The first week I took my family on a Disney cruise, and the second week, I did in fact go to bed early and woke up late… guilt free! After a couple weeks of this however, I knew life had to resume. So… job researching, filling out applications, taking coding tests after tests, phone interviews, long nights, early mornings, updating my media information, and so on was my life for the next 2 weeks. (basically getting off my butt and looking for a job)

During this time I had gotten a request to take an ASP.NET test, and a C# test. For those that don’t know, these tests (language specific) are pretty standard before getting that phone interview and / or before that face to face interview. I had taken a ton! So this request was nothing shocking, or out of place. However, I had never seen ASP.NET and I was rusty at C#. Sooo… I really thought I had bombed it. A couple days later I received an email stating Accusoft would like to move forward with me. Ok, maybe I wasn’t as rusty as I thought. Fast forwarding to the phone interview, I had prepared pretty good for it. I had studied the topics at hand, I knew all about the company, and I was ready for any technical questions they could toss at me. I even had my second laptop to the side, and was dressed up, just in case they wanted to do a surprise google hangout call with me (this actually happened, I was in a T-shirt and my underwear, I won’t mention the company, cause one of my friends works there, I’ll just say it didn't go very well) So phone rings, I go thru the interview with ease. However ten minutes into the interview the dreaded question was asked. “How much experience do you have with X, or Y?” Now, I had already gone thru this with Booz Allen, and Disney Interactive. I make it to the phone interview, and the lack of experience kicks me between the eyes. I knew the best course of action was to lie. No, was to be honest. I explained to them all my experience was academic, except for one small game me and my friends made. About 5 minutes later the interview was over. A total time of 17 minutes, this was the shortest interview I had ever had. (even the google hangout call was longer, and I was in my underwear!) 

Two days after Thanksgiving, I get another email, stating that Accusoft would like to move forward with me, that an email will follow. (How the… What the…???!!) OK. Well, I really didn't think I did very well, but OK. Side note: Let me also state that I was interviewing with other companies and had made it pretty far in the process. So the fact that Accusoft was still interested in me was surprising. So the email that followed was another test. This test unlike the first two had no deadline, and little to no instructions. Without saying too much, it stated I could use any resource other than another person. (ok fair enough)  It had 5 tasks for me to complete using C# framework, and using one of their SDK’s.  (repeat, using one of their SDK’s… great!) (SDK = Software Development Kit) This meant I would be trying to code something with an API (syntax) that I had never seen before. I mention this to Heather, as I am semi-freaking out. Heather tells me, “Treat it like a Full Sail lab”. Never thought of it like that. You mean trust in my education, and use the skills that was ingrained in me from day one of class? What the hey! Again I’ll fast forward it a bit; I was able to complete four out of the five tasks. I got really close on the fifth, but couldn't finish it. Two days later, another email, stating Accusoft would like to move forward with me, and had requested a face to face interview. Side note: I should have called this blog, “Would like to move forward”.

Luckily my brother and his family lives in Bradenton, FL. (just an hour south of downtown Tampa) one of the reasons I looked for jobs in Tampa. After purchasing a new suit, and preparing myself, I drove to my brothers the night before. This interview should be a piece of cake, right? I mean, I had now taken 3 tests and hopefully all technical questions will be off the table. Haha! That was not the case. Four hours of question after question, most were technical, some personality. Without going into too much of the process, I’ll just say I was tired after I left. Driving home to Orlando, gave me time to reflect on the interview, the questions and the answers I gave, and I’ll be honest… I NAILED IT! For the first time of the whole process I felt that I did pretty well. It just so happened two days later, I got an email from Accusoft stating… would like to move forward? Nope! They would like to offer the position to me. Looking back real quick, four years ago I decided Civil Engineering was no longer my path. Too be honest ten years ago I decided that, four years ago I decided to act on it. It’s been a long and unconventional road. Career gear shifted. Back to Accusoft’s crazy interview, the more I thought about it, the more I was happy they were tough on me. They were making sure this would be a good fit.

Accusoft was kind enough to give me the holidays and I started January 2^nd. The first week was kind of slow. I guess this would be normal for any job. Lots of paper work, meet and greet everyone, pretty standard stuff. Here’s where you’ll be sitting, this is the kitchen, free soda, and snacks, wait what?! Soda I can live without, but snacks.. I could live off just snack food. Oh boy this isn't going to end well. Remember I said I would get to making games later? Well, my first day I had to sign a no moon lighting agreement. I could go into more detail, but basically I can’t make money from coding, as long as I work for Accusoft…. yea… my thoughts as well. However, I can ask my manager to sign off on a project if he thinks it’s far enough removed from what we do here at Accusoft, this is good, because we certainly don’t make games. I haven’t tested this yet; however I plan to very soon. I’m not sure why Accusoft gave a gamer a chance, but I am glad they did. Only 2 weeks in, and I am very happy with my career shift. I look forward to the future here at Accusoft.

P.S. I saw dolphins this morning on the way to work. That can’t get old.

I write code, I don’t write blogs. Please forgive my awful grammar, sentence structure and spelling.

Fill free to post your thoughts.   

   

Spyfall

SPYFALL! This auto scrolling game is a fast pace dodging game. The player plays as Agent 74 a Spy who has found himself on a plane which happens to be on fire and missing the pilot. Agent 74 realizes that he must exit this plane and quickly! However the only parachute is attached to the enemy far below him.  If Agent 74 wants to live, he must catch that parachute before he smashes against the ground. Just as Agent 74 jumps from the plane, it explodes! Agent 74 dodged that catastrophe… or did he?

In this casual game, you dodge the debris which is falling from the airplane. In order to get closer to the enemy you must collect a balloon. You must collect 3 balloons, every balloon gets you closer to the enemy who has the parachute before you go splat. There are also ducks which fly horizontal and will subtract a balloon from your current total. If you collide with any of the debris then you lose a life. Coins will randomly fall from the sky for some extra cash.

Snapshot of prototype

This game was made using C# with the XNA framework. I worked with 2 other software developers. This game is still in production.

to be updated; when finished.

Structure of Game Production I & II

In Structure of Game Production (SGP), you are assigned a group to create a game in two month. During this time you are to make any and all editors that might be needed and meet deadlines set by the assistant producer, before core code even starts. I created the tile editor for our game.

To View the Tile Editor click HERE.

Tile Editor

Code Snippet of Rendering placement

Code Snippet of XML

With every project, teams will have the rollercoaster of ups and downs.

So what went wrong? At the start of month 1, we had 4 people on the team (including myself) and 5 people on the other team. At the end of month 1 we dropped to two people. We had lost a team mate due to grades and another dropped for personal reasons. Before we started sprint 2 “the crunch”, we were down to two people, to finish the game. Wisely the instructor decided this wasn’t going to end well. So my team mate and I merged onto the other team. I didn’t get to see my original game completed, however I was able to jump right in on the other team and really help out the game. So much in fact I ended up getting the “Course Directors” award.

With the extra team mates, we were really able to polish the game. I think it came out rather well.

The name of the game is “Blast”. You are solider trying to defend your town from the invading solider force (think of red dawn). The enemy spawns from a helicopter. Once the helicopter lands, it will spawn many different soldiers. Each solider has a chance to drop either money, which can be spent at the shop, ammo for your current gun, or a different gun. What makes this game interesting is you can hire help. But hired help has a price. They consume food, and resources. You will need to have a food depot and resource depot to keep your current hired help alive. These depots can be bought from the shop. You can also buy upgrades to your weapons and armor in the shop.

To View the Game Blast Click HERE.

Blast: Gameplay

Team Vortex (Naveen, Schad, Berry, Nate, Mike, Corey)

We scored 98 on our overall game.

Feel free to leave comments, or if you have any questions. Thanks for reading!  

Structures of Game Design

I wanted to start this blog to show case some of the projects I have worked on in school and out. The first project is from Structures of Game Design (SGD). We were assigned to make a game in 2 weeks. The game play wasn't as important as the features that needed to be implemented. For example, Full Screen Mode, Game State Machine, Menu System (which included: main, options, how to play, high score, credits, game play), Background Music, SFX, Pause, Game Tokens (using Object Factory, Object Manager), Event System, Message System, Collision Manager, Win / Lose Screen, Intro Screen, Scrolling Credits, Bitmap Font Manager (text effects), Parallax Scrolling, Select-able Characters (3 minimum), AI Way points, Two Player Simultaneous, Key Binding and of course no compiler errors, no program crash and no memory leaks. I received 110 on this assignment.

My game design was simple; I really enjoy Futurama and have always wanted to make some sort of Futurama game. I wanted something that would be fast and easy to learn. The goal of the game is to destroy the asteroids, and not get shot by your opponent. If you are shot by your opponent, then you lose points, however if you can shoot your opponent, then he loses points.

The assets weren’t that hard to find. Yay, google. I was also able to record the theme song which I felt added that final touch. I held one laptop up to another to record the song. surprisingly it came out rather well.

As for the code, this was the class that introduced singleton’s. Every manager used a singleton, just so I could have global access to it. It made things a lot easier, but its rather unsafe and bad coding practice.

This was also the first time I heard about lerp. I had to find something to lerp. I used a progression bar to indicate the time remaining. I think it came out rather well.

This was the first time that I was able to have free reins of what I wanted to do. Yes there were guide lines, and requirements, but I felt that this game was the first chance I was given to make a game from what I have learned thus far in the game development program.

Let me know what you think. Thanks!