/**************************************
Function name: GetProjects()
Params: void
Purpose: Return array of previous projects, be they games or music.
Return: Projects[]
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In addition to my games, I've also dabbled in music. You can use the following links to jump straight to a particular section on this page.

Games
Music

Games

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Project Name: Classic Deception
Date: 1/29/10 - 1/31/10
Genre: 2D Compilation of classic games / Humor
Team: Flipadelphia, 11 members
Role: Punch-Out section
Download: Classic Deception
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The Global Game Jam 2010 was an event that spanned the entire world. Everyone got together on a weekend, formed groups, and made games in 48 hours. Mike Belotti and I drove down to Philadelphia to partake in the event alongside our college buddies Grant Shonkwiler, Matt Brenner and Naveen Nattam as well as other local game developers and students. We were given a theme ("Deception") and a few secondary constraints, then we were left on our own to start coming up with ideas. We had a lot of great ideas but we ended up settling on the one you see here: Classic Deception.

When trying to think of the most deceptive thing to do, we came up with deceiving the player. Since we assumed our games would be played by gamers, we figured we'd take the knowledge and expectations they've accumulated over the past 20+ years and use it against them. For instance, you see Punch-Out above: you would assume you're supposed to beat up Mike Tyson. However that may not necessarily be the case. I don't want to give away any of the surprise, but I will tell you that there's a trick to beating each "game." Give it a try! It's only 5 minutes long.

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Project Name: Ace of Space
Date: 6/28/08
Genre: 3D action space shooter
Team: Awesomesoft, 6 members
Role: Gameplay Lead
Download: Ace of Space
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At the end of the program at Full Sail, you are put into groups and assigned the task of pitching two unique game ideas. You will pitch both ideas to the Game Project staff and one will be chosen for your group to turn into a full game. For my team, our two ideas were Ace of Space, a 3D action space shooter not unlike StarFox64 and the space battles from Star Wars: Battlefront II, and Celestial Harmony, a game I'm not sure how to categorize, but it entailed playing as the sun and collecting planets into your orbit which unlocked additional instruments in the background music. The latter was obviously not chosen (which spurred one of my colleagues to make it himself after school, under the name Rhythm Universe: www.mikebelotti.com), so we got to work writing the documentation on Ace - which was no small task. EVERYTHING from characters to levels, weapons, game flow, module definitions and flowcharts, and player interaction had to be thoroughly documented. We had some of it done when we pitched our two ideas, but there was still tons of paperwork to be done.

The last three months were set aside for actual programming. We had already documented out what systems we needed, who was writing them, and how long they would take, so we got to work. At this point we only met at school once a week for a progress update and to ask any questions we may have of the knowledgeable staff. For the other 6 days, we met at my house (except on Sunday: we needed at least ONE day to wind down). Even though our work often did not require constant attention from every team member, having the convenience of asking a particular coder what such-and-such did helped speed up development for us.

To deepen the definition I gave earlier, Ace of Space is a game where your mission is to kill things until you're told to kill some other things, and you do this until the boss appears. And you kill him too. See, baddies have taken over your Butterfinger Galaxy (named so because we'd get sued if we called it Milky Way) and it's up to you and only you for some reason to take them, the Intergalactic Extremely Evil Empire (IEEE), all out single-handedly. Inside the cockpit of the ARM-7 starfighter, you have a formidable array of weapons and flight maneuvers at your advantage, as well as a trusty onboard AI named DAVE. While flying around the galaxy blasting baddies into oblivion, you can take your dogfights down into planets, where you must obey the laws of gravity.

Okay, so it's not as simple as "kill kill kill win." One of my responsibilities was the objective system, which I decided to layer into tiers. At the beginning of a level, there is only one tier open with any number of objectives in it (usually 1-3). Once a pre-determined number of objectives have been completed (order doesn't matter), a new tier opens up with all new objectives and completion requirements. This continues until the final tier is unlocked, which contains one objective: destroy the boss.

The objectives are specified in a simple text file which is then read into my level system. This text file holds not just objective data, but everything else in the level as well: level bounds, background music, planet name and placement, asteroid volumes, and enemies. The planets have their own scripts with more specific data like type (sun, gas, solid, etc), surface texture, atmosphere, size, and even the event horizon, which determines how close you can be for gravity to affect you. In addition to this, I was responsible for coding the actual gravity algorithm, which keeps the player rotating around the planet while inside the event horizon.

So I've ranted a lot about the game, but you just want to play it! Well there's a link just above this post where you can download it.

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Project Name: Full Sail Tactics
Date: 8/07
Genre: 2D isometric tactical RPG
Team: SlikStiks, 4 members
Role: Gameplay Officer
Download: Download
*Note: Don't let the name scare you. That was our insane Project Officer's idea.
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Full Sail Tactics (commonly abbreviated FST) was another student project but much earlier (in the Structures of Game Production class), and with a far smaller scope. Again, we were allowed to come up with our own idea and code a game out of it from beginning to end. This game was also subject to heavy documentation to get us into the habit of doing so, but it seemed like so much more because we chose - of all genres to create in a measly two months - an RPG. It didn't strike me as an RPG at first, even though our primary inspiration was Final Fantasy Tactics. I must have just been out of it or something, because we had made what seemed like an impossible promise. However, with the help of energy drinks and an insane Project Officer (I'm only half joking when I call him insane), we managed to please our superiors, much to their surprise.

The story was a slight exaggeration of what actually transpired during those two months. It opens with a team of four young programmers desperate to prove themselves. They are assigned to be watched over by a vicious entity named Booker, who is secretly using them for his own purposes vaguely involving the destruction of Disneyland (don't ask). Our heroes travel across the world (read: campus) in search of knowledge and programming practices from their old teachers, hoping to make a game suitable for Booker's fickle tastes. They battle early Game Dev noobs, wannabe rappers, unappreciated artists and other enemies on their travels, until they return to Booker, ready to face his evil head on. However, it is at this point that he reveals his true identity: Rekoob, the Perfect Being created by our lord and savior, Dave Arneson, when he rolled a natural 20.

Okay, so it's WAY more than a slight exaggeration. It all stemmed from a speech given to us near the beginning of the first month wherein Booker attempted to scare us by saying "if you don't drop out now, you won't get all your money back" or something to that effect. Actually, his demeanor was "yeah, I'm a total badass" EVERY day, and we just went with it, turning him into a Lucifer-esque perfect being cast out of heaven by Dave Arneson. Anyway, my responsibilities as Gameplay Officer were the job and subjob system, battle system, item system, and equipment system.

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Music

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Project Name: Vacation
Date: 10/2009
Genre: Rock, Comedy, Awesome
Download: Download
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Another masterpiece written by Mike Belotti and guitar'd by yours truly. The song is about, well, needing a vacation. The lyrics complain about work, chores, and life in general, but in an entertaining way. That's pretty much all I can say about it. Keep your ears open for my kick-awesome solo!

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/**************************************
Project Name: Pocket Full of Win
Date: 06/2008
Genre: Rock, Comedy, Awesome
Download: Download
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I showed my friend Mike Belotti a silly song I threw together involving Zelda, and he thought it was the funniest thing since humor. Apparently a combination of that song and Wierd Al albums inspired him to make his own song parodies. His lyrical genius was astounding, and I even helped on some comedic renditions (check his site via the link on the right for a more complete collection). Eventually he came to me with an original song idea and wanted me to write a guitar part. And from that moment, Pocket Full of Win was born. We didn't practice together very often since I SUCK as a live musician, but we made some recordings, until he realized that we were at a RECORDING ARTS SCHOOL. He wanted a professional recording, so we booked a recording booth and had it recorded with $2 million equipment. *NOTE: If it doesn't sound like two million dollar quality, then blame us: we merely dabble in music, we are by no means professionals.

Even though I normally listen to heavier stuff, I love this song. The lyrics are hilariously over the top, and the guitar is decent if I do say so myself.

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