My name is Timothy Sandridge. I am 25 years old, married, and living in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. I recently graduated from Southern New Hampshire University as of October 28th with a BS in Video Game Programming and Development.
It is my intention that this portfolio display how wide my mastery is in Game Development. I was not satisfied with my projects being simply a demo, and so I implemented elements into them to give them a closer polish to published games. Each of my projects is more than just a showcase of a single programmed gameplay mechanic, each project also includes more polished elements such as the menu screens, a UI, and an endgame. I wanted to include these elements to show how my skillset isn't limited to one aspect of game development.
Completing the coursework and engaging in internships and personal projects has greatly increased my self-confidence in my abilities. I have work in other engines proving that I am adaptable in this ever-changing profession. My skill to pick up different engines and their languages quickly proves that I am an excellent learner and self-teacher. Scholarly skills such as these are necessary if you don't want to be tied down to and limited by only one section of the Game Development world. All my personal, professional, and educational work has shown me how diverse the opportunities in the game profession are, and I want to be able to be employable into any branch. Whether it be AAA games made in Unreal Engine 4, indie games in Unity, or mobile games and a multitude of other engines, I want to do it all.
Having these desires to use several engines across the different platforms definitely teaches you which engines are better suited for which platform. There are plenty of engines designed specifically for mobile or 2D games, but the larger engines have begun to enter that market. Unity is great for small developers whose budget is enough to focus on polishing on the programming and a stylized art, while more powerful engines like Unreal are very efficient for large studios with many graphical and animation artists.
For years now, and in this recent quarter especially, video game workers have been overworked and professionally abused. The AAA industry is notorious for exponential amounts of abusive overtime. Rockstar reportedly had their developers work 100-hour workweeks during the production of Red Dead Redemption 2, and Telltale games laid off a majority of their employees with no warning. All these horror stories of the industry leans me towards the idea of a union for developers. That is why I support organizations such as GameWorkersUnite! and sites such as r/DevUnion. Until I feel more secure about the working situation at AAA companies and my ability to prosper within them, I will stick to smaller studios.
