BIO

Before I get started, I should point out that I'm not getting into my life story. I'm just going to mention the computer-related things I've done/can do, and all that jazz. If you're bored already, then you should probably.. *waves his hand* You're not bored... you love reading this. Nothing makes you happier than knowing the achievments of a computer geek.

And if you actually are interested, then, well.. You can be my new friend! Really! Na nevermind, I'm probably lying again.

If you have any questions/comments/etc about any of this, or anything for that matter, feel free to let me know as usual. I'm always interested in what you all have to say.


Interested in hiring me for a project? Check out the "Contact Me" page, and let me know what you need, etc.

Timeline of Accomplishments (and such)

aka: All the Crap I've Made

 

1995 -

  • Created a dinky ascii-based game in QBasic. You were a command base on the ground, and had to shoot up at targets. I'd say it's similar to Missile Command, but it wasn't even close. The game itself wasn't significant, but it was the first real game others got to play, and I was proud of it none the less.

1996 -

  • A buddy of mine started writing fiction based on the Legend of the Red Dragon (L.O.R.D.) BBS door game world and the characters in our local game, so I thought I would try my hand at it as well, and ended up with several episodes over the next year or so. I still have'em, and despite the earlier ones being pretty bad, I'll put them on the site soon.

  • Since BBS's were big at the time, and L.O.R.D. was an influence, I decided to write my own BBS door game. I taught myself Turbo Pascal, as I began writing the original Defenders of Zentax.

  • At some point, I created a script in Commo, my terminal app, to play the L.O.R.D. forest fights and events without user interaction. Why do I feel it necessary to mention it here? Because I know of nobody else that did it! Consider it lazy, or clever. It was a time-saver, if nothing else.

1997 -

  • I'm not sure of the exact date, if this is even the right year, but I created a little app called J-Reader to read my Juno email from DOS. I had no internet access at the time, but I was lucky enough to get Windows 3.1 and Juno running on my crappy computer. Since that was so slow for me to use, I needed a faster way to read and even write email, so this was going to be one of the handiest things. I had also planned to create and combine UUE encoded emails, since free Juno didn't allow file attachments at the time. But alas, at some point, Juno switched to a binary message file format, which made this program obsolete.

1998 -

  • Since BBS's had started drying up locally, I created and released PL-Net, which was short for Personal L.O.R.D. Net. It allowed 10 people to play the game via email, by sending daily "packets". I charged $5 for it, which would unlock some extra features. It must have been too complicated for most to use, cause it wasn't very successful, so I eventually released a registration code for everyone to use it for free.

  • Released beta 1 of Defenders of Zentax (DOZ). People seemed interested, as I got a few emails about it. But with the state of the BBS scene, I decided the game was past it's prime, and there was too much effort left to finish it. So it kind of got pushed aside. Gone, but not forgotten.

  • This very website was also created during this year, by a friend of mine, since I didn't have internet access. It was nothing like the website is today, since it was only for the downloading of DOZ, but it was great to have at the time. If you happen to read this, thanks again Methos!

  • Not wanting to let the DOZ storyline die, combined with the fact that my programming skills were getting much better, I began work on a graphical version. The project was called DOZ-G, and considering the limited hardware I had to work with, I was impressed with what I had. But I'm not the best of artists, and I knew it was going to take a ton of work, so this was one of those projects that got left behind eventually.

  • Also, sometime during this year I think it was, I discovered a free BBS-like internet provider, for "educational purposes". I had access to a Lynx browser, so I had full text-based internet. It was great, especially with BBS's dying around here. It gave me something to do. But naturally, I wasn't satisfied with text-only internet. It never had a name, but through a combination of Commo script, pascal programs, and batch files, I concocted a very cool, albeit slow, method to see web pages graphically. It would download the current page's source code, parse it for the image names, download each image, edit the source to point to the images now on my hard drive, and load up a DOS-based browser (I forgot which one it was now) to display the page.

1999 -

  • I finally got "real" internet access, and delved into the world of IRC. After a while, I found the standard mIRC to be a bit boring, and after not finding a script that completely suited me, I slowly wrote my own, called Optical Illusion. It has the standard channel kicks and bans, an mp3 player, etc. A lot of it is just stuff I wrote for myself, and doesn't have a clean or easy interface, so I never put the script up for people to get. I may polish it up and do so sometime, since I had a few people interested in it. The current version is 0.65. I'm not sure if it will ever be "finished", as I still add things to it even nowadays.

2000 -

  • During Napster's reign, I wanted to try making my own client, using mIRC script no less. So, I did. It never had a pretty interface, but it was certainly usable. But alas, Napster got shut down, so I never bothered working on it afterwards. Though I still think of this as one of my best projects, as I don't know of anyone else who did it at that time (or even today).

2002 -

  • During the very long break I took in actually making anything exceptionally useful, I had started teaching myself C++, learned some basic 3d modeling skills, tinkered at making music, become a fair "graphics designer", and gotten into web page design. Creative juices were flowing, and I started thinking up some game ideas now that I had the skills to do them, so I decided the website needed an overhaul to accommodate my future plans. I created graphics and buttons, started learning how to create Flash animations and stuff, and came up with the whole "Planet Zentax" theme.

  • At this point, I was ready to make something good. I began working on Electris (a tetris clone with an electricity-type theme) in August, and actually set a schedule to have a version released by the beginning of September. And in record time, I did, and even had an update version a week later. I created everything in that game, from the graphics to the music. Some people will say "yeah so, it's just tetris for crying out loud!", but the fact that I did it all solo, in a month's time, and actually finished it (for the most part), is something I'm proud of.

  • Since Windows 98 isn't all that stable (especially when programming), and not all my (ancient) hardware was supported in Windows XP, I created Multi-boot Rebooter, or MBR for short. It's a little app that sits in the system tray, which you can right click and tell which OS to boot to next by default. That way I can pick one, then select Reboot from the menu, and get up for one reason or another while my computer takes it's time to reboot to the other OS. Possibly another thing written due to laziness, but it's sure handy.

  • During my free time, I started working on a 2d graphics engine that would run on 3d hardware, so I could take advantage of rotation, scaling, and all that fun stuff. The whole point of this was to be the engine for a new version of DOZ, for which the storyline and game concept had evolved greatly over the years. Due to the 3d hardware I had, and the fact I was working on other things, I put this aside for the time being.

2003 -

  • Created "Gordon" animated Flash web comic, based on Super Mario World. I had always thought up comic ideas here and there, but never really done anything for real. Since I had learned some Flash to create banners for the website, I decided I would try making something animated.

  • Currently finishing the final touches on Electris v1.2, including extra music and graphics, which will probably be the final version of the game. Both 2d and 3d graphics engines are in the works, for use with a future version of DOZ, along with some 2d side-scroller game ideas I have. Gordon web comic will continue for an undetermined number of episodes.
 

Skills

  • Programming, with experience in C++ (including DirectX), Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic, QBasic, Basic, Flash's ActionScript, mIRC script, some CGI/perl, and Commo script (not very useful now, but I had a lot of experience with it none the less).

  • Graphics Design, with experience in and access to Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, and 3DSMax (yes, it can be used for creating normal graphics).

  • 3d modeling experience in 3DSMax (used to create all graphics and models in Electris)

  • Experience in creating music, using FruityLoops (used to create all music for Electris)

  • Flash animation experience, with access to Flash MX, and Swish. All Flash on this site was created by me.

  • Web page design (this entire website, including graphics), with experience in and access to Dreamweaver, and Frontpage