Hack Tank (preview title) is a hack-n-slash Tanks game inspired by Diablo 2 core mechanics.

Development on the game began after project Conflict was cancelled. I did all the coding and most of the art on the preview game. My brother modelled most of the enemy vehicles.

I used Godot 4.1 engine. The planned target platform was Windows, Mac, Linux (Steam).

Implementation Details

The game is written in GDScript with C++ GDExtension setup for critical bottlenecks. 3rd party extensions used: Gut (unit testing in-editor), ProtonScatter (terrain object painting), Terrain3D (terrain).

I used a custom-build of Godot 4.1 with modifications like adding depth-write function support to implement effects like highlighting blocked objects:

For Hack Tanks development, I developed a frictionless method to use some principle elements from Entity-Component-System design rather than the standard Godot way. I called this system GECS.

For example, this is how one of the enemy tanks is setup:

The tank object itself has no custom code. Its behavior is the result of a collection interacting components. Components can be removed or added at runtime to change the behavior of any entity.

Highlight capabilities in GECS:

• Components can communicate directly with sibling components
• Supports tag components like player or enemy and ability to query entities by tag
• Components can broadcast messages to other components in the entity
• Support enforcing what type of entity a components can be attached to
• Support enforcing that the owning entity of this component must also own specific other components to ensure correct dependencies

This is while maintaining full compatibility with the normal Godot way of implementation so using components is optional. For example, Godot UI is driven by an excellent signal-slot system so no need for GECS there.

I arrived at GECS as a perfect middle ground after testing the use of Godex and experimenting on my own and deciding against an intrusive implementation.

I co-founded Narrow Valley along with two other excellent creators to work on Speak of the Wolf, our innovative simultaneous turn-based wargame with unique mechanics and an original concept.

Development took place between 2022 and 2023, I did the programming and contributed to game mechanics design.

Music and Game Design were done by Tom Jensen, Vocalist - Briar Prastiti
Art and Pipeline were done by: Rainer Weston

Our main toolkit for development and art creation: Godot 4, GDScript, Blender, Stable-Diffusion.

The project was cancelled in 2023 before reaching a public release.

Designing, developing, testing, debugging, modern email/cloud cybersecurity solutions that are secure, reliable, performant, and extensible.

Main solutions:

• modern C++X (11,14,17,20) and CMake
• Lua and Python
• Docker containerization, email transaction systems, REST API, and TLS integration
• OpenSSL, Redis, and POCO

During my contracting work, I designed and developed integration of commercial cybersecurity systems with CertNZ.

My focus in SMX was dedicated to development, debugging, and build engineering of Email cybersecurity systems and services.

Core technologies utilized through my experience there:

• C++X and CMake
• Lua scripting and tooling
• Python automation and tooling
• Containerization and Docker
• RHEL/CentOS/Fedora Linux programming
• microservices design and implementation
• Momentum API among many other Email-specific technologies
• Azure, Git, Gerrit, YouTrack, and Jenkins for project management and CI/CD
• SSL/TLS pipelines programming
• PostreSQL and Redis programming
• Lots of Bash scripting, Makefiles, C++ centric libraries, and more

Highlights from my experience:

• Upgraded the code-base from old C/C++ to modern C++14, 17, or 20. Build system to CMAKE. And scripting to Lua. Expanded unit testing significantly. Created and optimized deployment processes.
• Designed, developed, tested, and deployed many core components of SMX's industry leading filtering engine
• Debugged and resolved very tricky technical challenges

Lecturer

Delivering lectures in various core game development topics focusing on: Physics Programming, Game Engine Development, Game Design, and C++ Programming.

Utilizing my expertise to constantly advance and update existing material to match the current practices and advancements in Game Development.

Mentor

Mentorship of MDS BSE students through a number of games and tech projects through their 2nd and 3rd year. This included development of numerous prototypes, multiple vertical slices, and 1 game production project that goes through the entire process of game development from concept to release (2 semesters in 3rd year).

My priority was supporting BSE students to graduate with as much readiness to real world game development requirements as possible. I'm proud to say several of the students I lectured and mentored through their 3 years of study went on to work as game programmers in the games industry.

Producer

Held the role of Game Producer among other excellent colleagues for several startup student teams through the development of their first commercial product. MDS had an incubator program where exceptional production teams can be granted startup incubation after graduation.

Paragon was an indie sandbox space sim set in an alternative future heavily inspired by classic 80s sci-fi. Fight, trade and explore in a massive procedurally generated galaxy of millions of planets and stars. Amass money and power, upgrade and purchase new ships, and one day create your own small fleet with a base to call home.

Paragon is written in C/C++ and Lua. Powered by OpenGL and targeting Windows, Linux and OSX.

Main development solutions and tools:

• Visual Studio 2013, GCC/Make and XCode
• Git for source management, github for project management
• Python and bash for tooling and automation
• gDebugger and GPU PerfStudio for graphics debugging/profiling.
• OpenGL, Lua C API full integration, GLSL, assimp and sigc++

During my time with Meteoric Games I led the development of Paragon, after being greenlit on Steam. After I left Meteoric, Paragon was renamed Jumpdrive due to Epic releasing a game with the same name.

Paragon was unique in that all its code had to be re-released back to the opensource community as it started as a fork of an opensource game called Pioneer. Here are the commits of the github fork we used as our release channel back to Pioneer, you can see my contributions there (user: Salwan).

Paragon was a super interesting project for me due to the following:

• based on an open-source game called Pioneer, which means all the work I did for Paragon had to be released back to Pioneer as opensource
• Massive open universe game with procedurally generated planets, biomes, stars, and gameplay events
• C++/OpenGL 3 custom graphics and physics engine
• Lua integration as the game's scripting language of choice
• Super passionate community surrounding the game

Unfortunately I had to leave Meteoric Games earlier than I hoped due to moving internationally.

Some highlights from my experience working on Paragon:

• Upgraded the graphics engine from OpenGL 2.0 to OpenGL 3
• Ported the game to MacOS and Linux native
• Developed an IBL lighting system and most of the effects you see in the screenshots
• Expanded Lua integration, re-wrote parts of the AI, the input system, expanded procedural mission generation, and lots more
• managed build and deployment to Steamworks for several months including community communication

GoVolDot is a (mostly) faithful remake of my favorite game as a kid on my first computer which was an odd 80s NEC computer (PC-6001 SR) imported from Japan. Volguard had many ports but none greater than the one on PC-6001, I'm biased though so don't take my word for it.

GoVolDot is fully playable in browser (but desktop build adds custom music). Give it a play here (SPACE to fire, X to change color theme):

GoVolDot was created in Godot 3 and GDScript. For fun I used Google Spreadsheets + Javascript as its level editor. A level sheet looks like this:

I regret nothing 😂 it worked well enough.

Core is an arcady physics minimalist game with focus on sound design. It was my entry for Ludum Dare 46 gamejam so was designed and created within 2 days.

I used Godot 3 and GDScript to develop the game. There are two versions of Core, one with my own composed music which was my entry to the jam: Ludum Dare's Core page with downloads

The other used royalty-free music, here's a full playthrough of that:

Sanity or Sunrise is a 3D Lovecraftian vampirism game, it was my team's entry to Game Jam Aotearoa 2022. I entered the Game Jam forming a team with a couple of excellent creators (we used the name TeamHex).

Sanity or Sunrise was developed using Godot 3 and GDScript over 3 days from concept to release.

It is playable in browser but laggy (we didn't have time to optimize for browser runtime), the desktop build should run much better.

Zamron Encounter is an original retro first person shooter game I created and released between 2011 and 2012 targeting Flash player in browser.

The game was released on Kongregate on July 2012, however it no longer works there due to depending on the Flash player.

Zamron was created using Actionscript 3 and FlexSDK, targeting Flash 10 running in browser. Back then Flash didn't support hardware accelerated graphics yet, so the game uses software 3D graphics leading to its low resolution and abysmal framerate.

Development tools:

• Flash/Actionscript 3
• FlashDevelop
• Flex SDK for Flash 10.2, Away3D 3.6
• Mercurial Hg for source management

Features:

• Stylish retro 3D graphics and FPS mechanics
• Fire weapons or cast spells, each with multiple upgrades
• 8 Levels and 2 boss fights
• 4 types of Monsters each with 3 different AI levels, +1 final boss
• 2 endings

Peak Games was one of the leading social and mobile games development studios in central Asia and the Middle East. During my time with Peak Games, I worked on multiple social gaming projects all implemented using Flash/Actionscript3 and targeting the Facebook platform. Most of my work with the team was on Casino Plus, a multiplayer casino game with highly integrated social features via Facebook API.

Role: Flash Software Engineer

Project Casino Plus

Social casino games are popular among adult casual gamers. Casino Plus is a group of casino games that targets that audience and it's based on in-game virtual money. It includes multiple games each operating as a full game, I was part of a team of 11 developers working at Peak Games bringing the Casino Plus idea to reality.

The platform of choice was Facebook and Flash. I was responsible for developing and maintaining 2 games as well as most of the shared features between games.

Development Tools:

• Actionscript3 and Adobe Flash
• FlashDevelop
• Git for source management
• Python for automation. Ant and Maven for CI/CD
• Flash TCP sockets for multiplayer networking

Features:

• Multiple full featured games: Roulette, Blackjack, Craps, Bingo, and Slots
• Games are multiplayer with realtime chating and full social integration into facebook
• Game-specific Power Ups and other fun features that make playing games more interesting and rewarding

My experience:

Components

• Developed UI game components
• Developed sound effects and music component
• Developed social integration components

Roulette

• Implemented visual effects
• Implemented gameplay features

Blackjack

• Implemented gameplay features

Slots

• Implemented visual effects
• Implemented multiplayer gameplay features

Bingo

• Developed core logic
• Developed multiplayer gameplay

Pipeline

• Developed build automation tools using Python/PyQt

Created Emerge لاقيود for GameZanga 2012 game jam, remastered in 2024. Play the remaster here:

Original gamejam entry was written in Actionscript 3 and Flex SDK. Remaster was ported to Haxe and OpenFL.

Role: Game Developer and Lead Rendering Engineer (multiple hats)

Unity3D programming, Shader development and rendering optimization on PC/iOS/Android, realtime rendering research, developing Augmented Reality applications for iOS/Android, and Flash/Facebook social games development.

Tools

• Visual Studio/C# and C/C++
• MonoDevelop/C# and Javascript
• FlashDevelop and Actionscript3
• Unity3D engine and Cg shaders
• Git and Mercurial
• AR Toolkit Pro
• Android
• AIR SDK and Flex SDK
• Facebook API

Project Panda Car Racing

A 3D racing game with social media features (Mario Kart genre). Developed using Unity3D & C# and released for browsers on Facebook games platform. Ran as a successful commercial promotional competition.

Role: Game Developer

• Implemented gameplay features
• Implemented client anti-hack protection layer

Project Nurse the Fire 1 & 2

A casual facebook social game with time management features. Developed using Flash/Air. Released as a commercial promotional game on facebook games platform. Was successful enough that a sequel was developed led by myself as well, with expanded mechanics and multiplayer features.

Role: Lead Developer

• Contributed to game design of both 1 and 2
• Developed core gameplay features
• Developed social layer via Facebook
• Developed multiplayer gameplay features collaborating with the lead backend developer

Project Knorr Yummy Rice

A 3D Time management game. Developed using Unity3D and C#. Released as a commercial promotional kiosk game.

Role: Game Designer/Developer

• Designed and balanced gameplay features and functionality
• Developed 3D characters behavior and interaction
• Developed shaders and visual effects

Project Copenhagen World Expo

An augmented reality application for Android/iOS. Developed in Unity3D and C#. Using AR Toolkit Pro for AR features. Shown in the world expo in South Korea that year for Copenhagen.

Role: Lead Rendering Developer

• Developed realtime shaders and visual effects hand-in-hand with the graphics team
• Optimized product for Android devices
  

Project Egypt AR Experience

an augmented reality application for Android/iOS. Developed in Unity3D and C#. Using AR Toolkit Pro for AR features. Shown in the world expo in South Korea that year for Egypt.

Role: Lead Rendering Developer

• Developed realtime shaders and visual effects hand-in-hand with the graphics team
• Optimized product for Android devices

TODO: from old portfolio, detailing nurse the fire

Project Nurse the Fire

As part of my work in Small World Interactive, I was tasked with the development of two promotional games that are very similar, one is a single player game and the other is the same game but converted to be a social asynchronous multiplayer game. Both games were developed using Actionscript3.

Development Tools

• FlashDevelop
• Air SDK
• Mercurial for source management
• Python/MySQL for backend

Features

• Asynchronous multiplayer game where 3 player teams compete for the leaderboard

My Contributions

• Developed core gameplay features
• Developed social layer via Facebook
• Developed multiplayer gameplay features collaborating with the lead backend developer

Development Build

For this game I chose to create a different build for debug that uses Air SDK to directly connect to Facebook and python-based game server when running standalone without needing to be hosted in a browser. This idea allowed faster development and testing for the multiplayer and social features.

Timeline Interactive was one of the first console game development studios in the middle-east licensed for development of Playstation and XBOX titles. They were an Unreal Engine centric development studio, so my focus was Unreal Engine (C++) and XBOX development.

During my time with Timeline Interactive, I worked with the core team on their next title for XBOX, titled Heroic. Which was a multiplayer 3D platformer with innovative camera mechanics and physics-centric gameplay:

The core team that I was mentored by and worked with went on to start Instinct Games which was the development studio behind Arc: Survival Evolved.

Role: Intern C++ Software Engineer

Unreal Engine 3 was the engine of choice for the project, making use of C/C++ and UnrealScript. My responsibilities were to develop character interactions/control, game camera, and to implement new gameplay mechanics.

Tools

• Visual Studio
• C/C++ and XDK
• SVN/Perforce
• Unreal Engine 3 and UnrealScript
• Python for prototyping

My Contributions

• Developed new gameplay features under supervision of the game director
• Developed character interactions and control

• PHP and Netbeans
• Adobe ColdFusion and Dreamweaver
• MySQL/MSSQL
• HTML/Javscript/CSS

Project LocalEgypt

Role: Coldfusion Software Engineer

• Developed search features
• Developed advertisement system
• Maintained the service with the lead developer

Project Sparblock

Role: Lead Web Developer

• Designed the website using HTML/CSS/Javascript
• Developed web application to run the website using PHP/MySQL
• Maintained the web site