headerphoto

We're going to PAX East!


Look for me on the show floor where we'll be letting players playtest our new card game, 8-Bit!



Survival 2: The Lost Era (Visit Website) (Released)

The sequel to Survival, the original sandbox-styled "build and survive" adventure game. An MORPG featuring a world where players can build freeform structures, establish cities and factions, and explore the darkest depths. Sporting a variety of tradeskills such as gathering, fishing, mining, woodworking, culinary arts, farming, tailoring, glassblowing and more!

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on January 15, 2011 (Live now!)
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer), Yota (programmer), JaceEvergreen (lead artist) - Foomer (artist contractor)

What's cool as a... player

  • Unlike other games of the genre, features deep character progression and a true RPG feel
  • Advanced monster AI and dangerous dungeon crawls
  • Huge variety of craftable items from buildings to equipment to decoration to utilities
  • Promoted a rich roleplaying culture - no NPCs aside from aggressive creatures, and no game stores resulted in purely player driven governments and economies

What's cool as a... designer

  • The unique freeform building and ownership style allows players to freeform build en masse while preventing "troll" behavior with unique algorithms to detect and prevent undesirable building
  • Skill system designed with specialization in mind, dynamic skill "proficiency" increases with skill use and decreases with inactivity; limited proficiency available per character

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Fully persistent world - entire game state down to the tile is saved during every reboot



Pokemon Challenger (Visit Website) (Released)

(I know, I know, it's Nintendo/Game Freak's trademarked material - but everybody's allowed to have at least one fan game, right?)
Pokemon with a new twist! A unique defense-style game where you catch new creatures to bolster your defenses and fight off hordes. True to the original games utilizing over 250 of generation 1-5 Pokemon as well as all 8 badge challenges and the final four!

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on May 19, 2009 (Live now!)
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer), Shifuimam (UI design), Nintendo (well, yeah)

What's cool as a... player

  • Completely unique defense engine - don't earn money and build towers, catch Pokemon and command them to attack!
  • Up to 4 player cooperative with unlimited spectators
  • Single-player badge challenges - beat the difficult gym leaders to unlock additional starter Pokemon!

What's cool as a... designer

  • Fully rebuilt the entire Pokemon combat engine from the ground up, with all the diverse and hidden mechanics in-tact
  • Pokemon can gain levels, however there is limited experience per wave - gives players the choice between low-count specialization or high-count "jack of all trades" playstyles

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Pokemon Challenger is hosted in 4 separate server processes which utilize a central communication server - this facilities cross-server whispering between players, broadcast messages from administrators, and achievement announcements for global brags!



SolusOT 3: Reborn (Visit Website) (Released)

Developed using the OpenTibia (OT) framework, SolusOT is one of the top 20 OT servers in the world. Featuring an innovative "rebirth" system, achieve new heights of character power by rebirthing back to a lower level to rise again even stronger -

Technology: C++, OpenTibia framework
Status: Released on August 27, 2011 (Live now!)
Team: OpenTibia source contributors (framework), Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer), Eventide (design, lead content developer)

What's cool as a... player

  • Coming soon!

What's cool as a... designer

  • Coming soon!

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Coming soon!



The Wisps (In Development)

Wisps is an MORPG built on player freedom and customization. Wisps are magical elements (abilities) that are found in all life and can be collected by the people of Avia. Whether questing, exploring or slaying monsters, find new Wisps to enhance your character and make yourself one of the most powerful adventurers in all of Avia!

Technology: BYOND + Flash + MySQL
Status: Prototype finished, in full system development
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)

What's cool as a... player

  • Classless combat system using intricate (but simple) resource system for character balance
  • Full coverage crafting system, every item in the game is craftable using components
  • World completely divided into sections, players and guilds can own sections for bonuses

What's cool as a... designer

  • Fully scalable stat system - percentage based for unlimited expansion, simply alter a few base values to produce brand new abilities and creatures
  • Live data editing - edit almost every piece of game data within the game, no reboots, no refreshes - even the map! Exceptional for prototyping and testing

What's cool as a... programmer

  • The built-in map editor utilizes the same client engine that powers the game to allow designated persons to alter game terrain and maps directly from the game



Paper boy (working name) (Prototyping)

Classic arcade action! Run a paper route and try your hardest to deliver the day's papers before 10 AM. Avoid obstacles like the neighborhood dogs, renegade trash cans, low flying birds, and Mrs. Fletcher's broom. Work your way up the paper delivery ladder until you're at the poshest of neighborhoods (but don't worry, you'll still make $2.65 an hour).

Technology: iPhone, Android (Unity)
Status: Prototyping
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer), IamTheFij (programmer)

What's cool as a... player

  • Classic arcade-style action
  • Dodging dogs
  • Smashing windows
  • 100% of proceeds go toward charity* (details forthcoming)

What's cool as a... designer

  • The entire infrastructure for the game is actually based off of a "top down shooter on rails" engine, only changing projectile behavior and camera perspective

What's cool as a... programmer

  • The entire infrastructure for the game is actually based off of a "top down shooter on rails" engine, only changing projectile behavior and camera perspective



In The Hood (Visit Website) (Released)

Two warring alien groups. One remaining city targetted for assimilation.

The Hoods are fighting over who gets to assimilate the poor vacationing victims of various villas (In the Hood). Play as a Hood, an unusual warmongering species of alien, specializing in one of seven preset classes, or subscribe and customize your Hood to your liking. But most of all, have fun with multiple modes, including Capture the Flag, Bloodbath, and King of the Hill!

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on January 09, 2004 (Closed in 2008)
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)

What's cool as a... player

  • Vast weapon selection - This unique top down shooter had an emphasis on a huge and quirky weapon selection - everything from basic to projectiles to exploding mines, poison darts, healing kits, weapons that fire backwards and teleportation modules. 36 weapons in all, and only 6 of them were boring straight projectiles!
  • Unique capture the flag - 3 flags placed on the map that can be picked up and taken to any location, the first team to hold all 3 for 90 seconds wins

What's cool as a... designer

  • Versatile map design - Instead of featuring static bases, the game's mobile objective allowed teams to select a place to "bunker down" and use as a base - this resulted in ever-changing use of the maps and emergent strategy development over time.

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Player-run 24/7 servers - Featuring an XML configuration file, enterprising players could create and host their own 24/7 servers with the parameters of their choosing
  • Improved tile-based movement - made simple with a unique control scheme allowing for versatile strafing as well as preventing getting "stuck" on small objects by automatically moving around them



Survival 1 (Visit Website) (Released)

Long before Minecraft, there was Survival (released May 30, 2002) "Can you make it? Come on in and see the premiere life sim, Survival. Featuring crafting, building, gathering, killing, farming, fishing, and much more. Build a house! Build a town! Make your own community! The possibilities are endless in Survival. Only on BYOND."

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on May 30, 2002 (Closed in 2006)
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)

What's cool as a... player

  • The concept was new and original at this time, with no prominent games on the market in that genre
  • One of the first MORPGs to feature freeform player construction
  • Huge player freedom - are you a villager or a vandal? Passive or violent?
  • Promoted a rich roleplaying culture - no NPCs aside from aggressive creatures, and no game stores resulted in purely player driven governments and economies

What's cool as a... designer

  • One of the earliest games of it's kind, Survival introduced many features that modern MMOs still dream about (but generally cannot accomplish due to server scale), such as fully persistent worlds and freeform building

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Coming soon!



Other Projects

Blobs (working name) (Prototyping)

Coming soon! Something about mobile-oriented 3 minute session RTS type combat, oh, and blobs!

Technology: iPhone, Android, PC (Unity)
Status: Prototyping
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer), IamTheFij (programmer), Eventide (lead artist), Sharkminusbear (lead audio)

What's cool as a... player

  • Real-time strategy designed specifically for your cell phone with easy to use controls - only one hand required!
  • Random terrain and resource generation ensures a different play experience every time
  • Multi-platform support - play with your friends, wherever they are

What's cool as a... designer

  • Every unit is crafted using two colors, which are gathered from resource nodes on the map. Each node is placed a random distance from the base, so collection rates differ per map promoting ever-changing strategy and unit compositions
  • The intricate intransitive balance model has the depth and complexity of the Pokemon type system, and when combined with the resource system this promotes emergent gameplay on every session

What's cool as a... programmer

  • Coming soon!



Untitled Digging Game (Unreleased)

Based off the cult classic flash game Motherlode, this digging game was designed to be multiplayer. It features procedural terrain generation to produce a vertical 2D playing field where the player digs into the earth to discover minerals, gems and treasures.

Technology: BYOND
Status: Unreleased, programmed in 2009
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)



Deep Magic (Open-Source Engine) (Released)

Description coming soon!

Technology: Gamemaker
Status: Released on August 12, 2006
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)



Elemental Guardians (Open-Source Engine) (Released)

Every good designer of strategy and RPG games needs at least a few tower defense games under his or her belt. Using an open-source engine, this was one of my entries in the genre. Sporting 6 types of towers and a finite wave system with multiple difficulty levels, the balance of the game was tweaked repeatedly until the game felt extremely polished. The original engine was very limited in scope and this revamp brought it up to release quality with several missing features and a lot of additional shine.

Technology: Gamemaker
Status: Released on May 21, 2005
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)



Zelda Engine (Unreleased)

Zelda is such a nostalgic and inspirational series that I absolutely had to create my own Zelda engine. This was only a minor tech demo but featured 100% realistic graphics based off of tilesets from Zelda Classic. All of the original animations and graphical effects for characters and items were fleshed out.

Technology: BYOND
Status: Unreleased, programmed in 2002
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)



The Trinity Star (Visit Website) (Released)

Featuring some of the worst (borrowed) graphics of all time - A graphical MUD, inspired by old style ROM 2.4b6 MUDs. A direct port of many of the prominent features from a MUD set in a graphical tile-based world, including round-based combat, character class progression and clan wars with open world PVP.

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on November 14, 2001 (Closed in 2002)
Team: Polatrite (lead design, lead programmer)



The Mind's Eye (Released)

While not originally authored by me, I became a staff member of long-running ROM 2.4b6 MUD The Mind's Eye for 4 years. After working from a support administrator into a programming role, I eventually became the head administrator for a period of 12 months before passing the torch on. During my time on staff I spent over 2400 hours working on feature design, class balance and full system programming.

Technology: BYOND
Status: Released on June 15, 1995 (Live!)
Team: The Mind's Eye team, Polatrite (post-production lead design, post-production lead programmer, 4 year tenure)