Projects and Skills

E-learning Platform Architecture

This section adds the practical detail behind the e-learning architecture summary in the CV: the standards, deployment concerns, data evolution, and operational constraints that shaped the solution.

Key contributions

• I built backend functionality for e-learning platforms across NodeJS, PHP, Java, and Haxe, including SCORM and LTI capabilities for tracking learner progress and review workflows.
• I worked with changing customer and product requirements while keeping the platform architecture maintainable enough for day-to-day delivery by a small team.
• I used data-driven database approaches to make deployments more adaptable when data requirements changed, while still allowing tighter control for production environments.
• I helped platform architecture coexist with legacy database constraints by combining Docker-based Azure services with virtual machine scale sets where needed.
• I applied AI workflows to e-learning content categorisation and personalised learning path suggestions as product-facing capabilities rather than isolated experiments.

Solution themes: learning standards, customer-driven delivery, legacy coexistence, deployment control, product-facing AI, operational maintainability.

AI and Adaptive Systems

I have applied AI and algorithmic techniques both in modern productivity/e-learning contexts and earlier real-time interactive systems.

Key contributions

• I added AI-driven productivity workflows to everyday tasks to speed up user productivity.
• I applied AI training to e-learning material categorisation and personalised learning path suggestions.
• I built potential-field path planning for EyePet Move, allowing the pet to run away from a lantern projected onto the ground.
• I built AI-driven gameplay behaviour for EyePet toys, including the Hoop and Lantern interactions.
• I designed obstacle AI, boss behaviour, and gameplay systems across commercial and independent games.

Solution themes: behaviour modelling, adaptive systems, path planning, real-time interaction, product-facing intelligence.

Data, Security, and Persistence

These are the lower-level data and persistence details behind the data architecture summary in the CV.

Key contributions

• I designed a data archiving class that acted as a central store for serialized runtime data, making it easier to inspect state and diagnose bugs when conventional debugging was unavailable.
• I designed a multi-platform persistence layer for Carnage, allowing game data to be saved through Mochi Inventory, Mochi player data, local files, and other portal-specific storage providers without changing game logic.
• I used data proxies and a save data manager to abstract persistence suppliers, turning previously direct data access into a swappable architecture.

Solution themes: runtime diagnostics, provider independence, swappable persistence, serialization contracts, portability.

Runtime and Performance

Earlier in my career, I designed and implemented reusable runtime systems for AS3 games at WeirdBeard, supporting multiple shipped products including NFS Hot Pursuit, Sims Medieval Web-Game, Phineas and Ferb: Out to Launch, and Carnage. Although these were game systems, the architectural concerns were familiar: shared foundations, strict platform limits, performance constraints, tool support, and clean separation between product logic and technical infrastructure.

Key contributions

• I designed a high-performance blit rendering architecture for Carnage, replacing Flash's built-in renderer for scenes with many thousands of objects.
• I designed a graphics pipeline that cached each rendering step, including original drawings, scaled versions, tiled versions, filtered versions, and rotated versions, so unchanged work could be skipped.
• I built a real-time animation system by prerendering and caching frames from native animated movie clips, enabling large numbers of animated objects without relying on the Flash animation system.
• I designed collision detection using Quad Tree AABB prediction and impulse-based collision solving, maintaining stable framerates with thousands of game objects.

Solution themes: reusable technical foundations, performance pipelines, cache strategy, runtime constraints, component boundaries, platform-aware design.

Tooling and Data-driven Gameplay

I have built systems and tools that allow teams to change behaviour, author content, and inspect data with less rebuild friction. This has been useful both in game development and in broader software delivery contexts where the right internal tool can reduce risk and speed up iteration.

Key contributions

• I built a data-driven state machine for EyePet Move's multi-toy system, allowing gameplay changes to the Move toy behaviour without recompiling the project.
• I built a level editor for AS3 games with grid snapping, freehand placement, property inspection, multi-select, layer locking, and drawing tools for lines, Bezier curves, and rectangles.
• I built an instanced object tool for Unreal Engine 2.0 that enabled prefab-like collections of objects to be placed as a single object in the game world.
• I built a grouped motion sensor array for the EyeToy framework to improve motion detection accuracy and reduce false positives and negatives.
• I built touch-based object manipulation components in Unity3D for Android and iOS, using quaternion-based translation and rotation behaviour.

Solution themes: authoring tools, data-driven behaviour, workflow design, reusable components, runtime configurability.

Integration and Distributed Systems

I have worked on systems where consistency, timing, latency, and external platform integration had to be designed explicitly rather than treated as incidental implementation details.

Key contributions

• I built synchronous networked timed events in Unreal Engine 2.0 for Spellborn, enabling large gameplay-driven scenarios such as the Demon Chest event.
• I built backend systems in NodeJS, PHP, Java, Haxe, C++, ASP.NET, C#, MySQL, and MSSQL for registration, persistence, level saving, community systems, and e-learning workflows.

Solution themes: backend design, event timing, platform interoperability, persistence, community systems.

WeirdBeard and Commercial Games

• I built reusable AS3 engine systems used across NFS Hot Pursuit, Sims Medieval Web-Game, Phineas and Ferb: Out to Launch, and Carnage.
• I created rendering, animation, collision, serialization, encryption, level editing, and persistence systems that allowed multiple games to share technical foundations.
• I integrated shipped games with portals and social platforms while keeping core game logic insulated from platform-specific APIs.

EyePet and PlayStation Move

• I built data-driven state machine architecture for EyePet Move's multi-toy behaviour.
• I built gameplay and AI behaviour for Hoop and Lantern toys.
• I improved motion detection accuracy through grouped sensor arrays.
• I designed quaternion-based wheel behaviour for more realistic trampoline wheel motion.
• I prototyped potential-field path planning and rhythm-based interaction systems.

Spellborn and Unreal Engine

• I built synchronous timed event systems for large gameplay scenarios.
• I created prefab-like instanced object tooling in Unreal Engine 2.0.
• I reworked boss fights and scripted gameplay behaviour, converting scripted functions to C++ where necessary.
• I implemented tutorial UI events and effects in collaboration with UI design.

Independent and Serious Games

• I built Synthwave Riders, a racing and shooting game with procedural environments, story mode, multiple characters, and multiple weapons.
• I built Masterpiece Mosaic, a puzzle game using public-domain images with configurable difficulty, comfort features, and scoring mechanics.
• I built museum, marketing, and touchtable games with interaction models tailored to public or campaign-specific environments.
• I built community systems for RebelSquadrons.org using PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and a client-side mIRC launcher script.