Colin's Page

A vertical "shmup" game with very simple gameplay. Help Yuko destroy her schoolwork and responsibilities so she can have a fun day off. Features two difficulty modes, Google Play integration (achievements and leaderboards), Google+ sharing, and a gallery that shows your progression.

The game was completed with a partner whom I collaborated with via the Internet. (See her portfolio here.) It is a very small game with a total of at most two weeks of work put into it. Some notable features include Google+ integration, leaderboards, achievements, and several scaling and filtering options to make the pixel art look good to the user.

A word game based on the classic "15 sliding tiles" puzzle. Slide the tiles to make as many four letter words as you can in the allotted time. Includes three themes and six pieces of music for either an energetic or relaxed gameplay experience.

This was my first finished project, completed in three months (on and off). The project pushed me to assess and utilize several different data structures. The Android app on the Play Store has a total of over 1,000 installs and zero reported ANR/crashes, meaning code stability.

A horizontal "shmup" game. Features six levels of gameplay with several enemies and boss battles.

The game is a rather ambitious project. It is being worked on with a partner whom I am collaborating with via the Internet. (See her portfolio here.) One particular feature that is a milestone for me is the collision detection handling. Instead of using the easy AABBs, I implemented polygon collision detection (with some borrowed code from Slick2D) and a broadphase / narrowphase for optimization.

I created several tools to help develop this game. One such tool is the level editor for creating levels. Another is the bounding polygon editor, used for creating polygon bounds of level blocks / tiles for collision detection.

The project has not been completed because my partner wanted to take a break and start a very small and simple game, which because Yuko's Day Off.

A game similar to the classic Breakout, but with an air hockey puck instead of the classic "paddle." The game has several modes of gameplay, including an Endless mode. It also features a level editor with the ability to upload/download levels to the Internet.

This game marked several milestones for me.
- It uses HTTP to communicate with a test server I created for the purpose of uploading and downloading user levels. The server side code is a custom Wordpress plugin created by me. The game can log in to a Wordpress account and upload levels to the server in the user's name.
- This was my first use of a physics engine (Box2D).
- It was also my largest and most complete game yet, with several modes, a level editor, the HTTP server and client, and several pieces of original music.

Unfortunately, I found that the game was more frustrating than fun due to the air hockey concept (the main hook of the game), so I decided to stop working on it.

A twin stick shooter game where you must defeat waves of enemies.

This game is very early in development, but I felt it was important to mention due to what I learned from it. I chose to make the game in 3D in order to challenge myself to learn more about OpenGL. I focused on speed much more, by the following:
- I made a 3D batcher to batch OpenGL calls with the CPU. This allowed for the GPU to run much more efficiently, speeding up the game by over 100%.
- I minimize Java's garbage collection by reusing objects, avoiding allocating memory with new, and avoiding strings. This allows for very smooth gameplay with no hiccups.
This is also the first time I used splines (Catmull-Rom).

A 2D game that is a hybrid overhead and platformer game. Collect food to gain weight and open up challenges/areas, or stay skinny and access other challenges. At first, your maximum weight is a not very large 250 lbs, but as the game progresses, your upper limit will increase.

This was very interesting to program because of the unusual 2D/3D perspective and the platforms of varying heights. I abandoned this game because I moved to Java programming, but I hope to revisit this one day.

A Mega Man clone intended to be used as an engine for others to develop Mega Man fan games, but was also being developed for my own fan game.

This was my first project that I considered "good." I strived to write code to perfectly emulate the physics and other elements of the original Mega Man games by watching frame-by-frame gameplay footage and visiting enthusiast web sites.. One feature I was particularly proud of was the "record" feature, allowing you to record gameplay for creating in-game cutscenes. The engine's YouTube videos have combined tens of thousands of views, with the highest having nearly 16,000 views.

I worked with another person via email and instant messaging on integrating the engine into his own fan-made project, but I have not released the engine to the public in any otherway.

Note: While the programming is all mine, the art and assets are mostly from other sources and games.

A CHIP-8 interpreter I created over a weekend.

The CHIP-8 is a virtual machine from 1978 which has a handful of opcodes and a graphics system. For more information, see the Wikipedia page.

Its compatibility is not 100% perfect (some CHIP-8 programs from the 1970s made OS calls), but most games, programs, and demos work without a problem.