Projects and experience

Here is a list of projects and jobs I’ve worked on, mostly (reverse) chronologically, with links to more details where available.
Procedural texture generation
I’m currently creating a procedural texture generator for my final work at the college. It is still in the early stages.
iPhone game BlockMelter
BlockMelter is a new iPhone game to be released very soon. It’s a block-falling, color-matching game, controlled using touches. It will be free (ad-supported).
iPhone game Sleek
I have led the development of Sleek while working at AVL, so the development was a bit slow. It is a snake clone, touch controlled. You can find more information, including screenshots and a video here.
AVL
in May 2008. I have switched to AVL, which provides various services to companies developing engines, such as simulation and modeling software, testing facilities and others. There I currently work within a small team on a multi-platform framework connecting GTK+, Python, C++ and some other company-developed components in order to provide the simulation engineers an easier way to develop their tools. Our framework is used as a base for such tools throughout the company.
Football Mania game
For the same publisher (Divico) I have led the development of a turn-based strategy football game called Football Mania, which is currently also being sold in Croatia. This game also served as my first contact with A.I. which I have programmed for the game. You can find more information about this game here.
Bluerows game
In the meantime, I have designed a logical computer game Bluerows, and led its development. It is currently being sold in retail stores in Croatia, and for a while it had also been sold over the internet (through the BigFishGames portal). Soon we expect to expand to a few European countries. The game is being published by Divico d.o.o from Zadar, Croatia. Bluerows is a completely original game, where the player has to rearrange the ‘bluerows’ to match a certain pattern. The novelty is in the way this rearranging is done, where the game relies on combinatorics. You can find more information here.
Soko Z.I. (http://www.soko.hr) – game and application programmer
I have worked at Soko for about 9 months on several projects.
Ground control station for unmanned aircraft used for scouting over areas caught by fire, for ecological purposes, etc. I have mostly worked on background logic and network code – the system was operated using two laptops connected by a network cable which had to have completely synchronized application states at every moment. I’ve also had to develop solutions for handling disconnections, failing of one of the laptops and other problems.
MIG-21 aircraft simulator – I’ve worked on modernizing the simulator which the company had developed earlier for the Croatian Air Defense. We were updating it for the new operating systems, new networking technology, more modern projectors, new version of visualization engine, etc. My job was on various parts of the system – from debugging to programming the new projectors and installing new software on the simulation machines.
3D visualizer to be used for the Winter Olympic games in Canada. Here I have mostly worked on interacting with a 3d party 3D engine over the network (we’d used a light version of Vega-prime, called Lyra) and performing various calculations used by the engine. The application itself was meant to be used by the visitors of the Olympics, where they could fly over British Columbia, viewing different locations of sports events as well as advertisements. The view was projected on a 1.5m sphere, and the users would control the flight just by moving their hand, while a motion sensing device (a type of thermal camera) would interpret that.
XNA Racer improvement – updating the XNA Racer example to work as a racer through the human body. It was to be used in a museum in the USA, running on an Xbox 360
College projects
I have been the project lead on several projects in the college, most notable of which were creating a compiler and a game.
The compiler was for a made-up language, a mix between C, Basic and Pascal, which included a complete virtual machine. Ten people were working on this project.
The other project was creating a game using .Net technology. We had to develop a project using all of the available .Net technologies, including web services, ASP, MS SQL, Compact .Net for Windows Mobile, and a desktop application. We have created a simple word game on all of the available platforms – Web, mobile and desktop.
SRCE, CARNet technical support
I have worked at CARNet technical support call center for about four months. SRCE is ‘University computing center’. My job was helping users connect to the internet, troubleshoot their issues, help them with forgotten passwords, with registering domain names and similar tasks. I was working in a team of about 10 people. Although the job was not at all close to game development, I have enjoyed working with the people there, being a part of the team and improving my communication skills.
Games for gambling machines
During the last year of high-school and the first year of college I had worked as a part-time programmer on the development of a computer game for gambling machines for a company located in Sesvete, Croatia. The game was a simple slots type game, it ran on a custom embedded system with an Atmel Mega processor, and I was programming in C using Atmel proprietary tools.
RentACoder
(http://www.rentacoder.com)
I had worked on several programming projects through this service during my high-school education. These were my first attempts at earning some money using my relatively new programming skills.

Here is a list of projects and jobs I’ve worked on, mostly (reverse) chronologically, with links to more details where available.

“Bitmapa”

In March 2009 I have opened a small company called “Bitmapa”, although we have always operated under the brand name “NightIrion” and the actual name of the company is basically only mentioned on invoices. We have worked on iPhone projects – some our own and some on contract for other companies and individuals.

I have personally served many roles – from programming to game design, securing contracts and negotiating royalty rates to planning and organizing project development for other members of the team. Here are some of the projects we have worked on:

iBailout!!, in cooperation with Marroni Electronic Entertainment from the US, published by Hands-On Mobile. It’s a classic pac-man type of game but with a political theme – you play the evil Federal Reserve stealing money from American citizens and destroying cities along the way. I have been the only programmer on this project and have also helped with other parts of the game development. More info here.

iLikeCereal!!, also done in cooperation with Marroni Electronic Entertainment, is an entertainment application where you play around with cereals in the milk. I’ve programmed the application and have also contributed to design.

Nuts, made for MacEnvy.com, is a modern remake of an 80s Atari classic. More info here.

You can find out more at the official NightIrion website: http://www.nightirion.com

Procedural texture generation

I’m currently creating a procedural texture generator for my final work at the college. It is still in the early stages but produces some interesting results nonetheless.

iPhone game Sleek

Sleek was our first iPhone project and it was also the first iPhone application developed in Croatia. I have led the development of Sleek while working at AVL. It is a snake clone with a retro look and feel, touch controlled. You can find more information here.

AVL

In May 2008. I had switched to AVL, which provides various services to companies developing engines, such as simulation and modeling software, testing facilities and others. There I had worked within a small team on a multi-platform framework connecting GTK+, Python, C++ and some other company-developed components in order to provide the simulation engineers an easier way to develop their tools. The framework is used as a base for such tools throughout the company.

Football Mania

For the same publisher (Divico) I have led the development of a turn-based strategy football game called Football Mania, which is currently being sold in Croatia. This game also served as my first contact with A.I. which I have programmed for the game. You can find more information about this game here.

Bluerows

During my first year in college I have designed a logical computer game Bluerows and led its development. It is currently being sold in retail stores in Croatia, and for a while it had also been sold over the internet (through the BigFishGames portal). The game is being published by Divico d.o.o from Zadar, Croatia. Bluerows is an original game concept, where the player has to rearrange the ‘bluerows’ to match a certain pattern. The novelty is in the way this rearranging is done, where the game relies on combinatorics. You can find more information here.

Soko Z.I. (http://www.soko.hr) – game and application programmer

I have worked at Soko for about 9 months on several projects.

Ground control station for unmanned aircraft, used for scouting over areas caught by fire, for ecological purposes, etc. I have mostly worked on background logic and network code – the system was operated using two laptops connected by a network cable which had to have completely synchronized application states at every moment. I’ve also had to develop solutions for handling disconnections, failing of one of the laptops and other problems.

MIG-21 aircraft simulator – I’ve worked on modernizing the simulator which the company had developed earlier for the Croatian Air Defense. We were updating it for the new operating systems, new networking technology, more modern projectors, new version of visualization engine, etc. My job was on various parts of the system – from debugging to programming the new projectors and installing new software on the simulation machines.

3D visualizer to be used for the Winter Olympic games in Canada. Here I have mostly worked on interacting with a 3d party 3D engine over the network (we’d used a light version of Vega-prime, called Lyra) and performing various calculations used by the engine. The application itself was meant to be used by the visitors of the Olympics, where they could fly over British Columbia, viewing different locations of sports events as well as advertisements. The view was projected on a 1.5m sphere, and the users would control the flight just by moving their hand, while a motion sensing device (a type of thermal camera) would interpret that.

XNA Racer improvement – updating the XNA Racer example to work as a racer through the human body. It was to be used in a museum in the USA, running on an Xbox 360

College projects

I have been the project lead on several projects in the college, most notable of which were creating a compiler and a game.

The compiler was for a made-up language, a mix between C, Basic and Pascal, which included a complete virtual machine. Ten people were working on this project.

The other project was creating a game using .Net technology. We had to develop a project using all of the available .Net technologies, including web services, ASP, MS SQL, Compact .Net for Windows Mobile, and a desktop application. We have created a simple word game on all of the available platforms – Web, mobile and desktop.

SRCE, CARNet technical support

I had worked at CARNet technical support call center for about four months. SRCE is ‘University computing center’. My job was helping users connect to the internet, troubleshoot their issues, help them with forgotten passwords, with registering domain names and similar tasks. I was working in a team of about 10 people. Although the job was not at all close to game development, I have enjoyed working with the people there, being a part of the team and improving my communication skills.

Games for gambling machines

During the last year of high-school and the first year of college I had worked as a part-time programmer on the development of a computer game for gambling machines for a company located in Sesvete, Croatia. The game was a simple slots type game, it ran on a custom embedded system with an Atmel Mega processor, and I was programming in C using Atmel proprietary tools.

RentACoder

(http://www.rentacoder.com)

I had worked on several programming projects through this service during my high-school education. These were my first attempts at earning some money using my relatively new programming skills.