About Me
My name is Thomas Woodthorpe, I am a games and software programmer, with skills in design and 3D art.
Based in the UK.
Work
Swaarm – Junior Full Stack Developer
Aerospace/Tech Industry
2022 June – 2022 November
Using C# Asp.net with MVC, HTML, JavaScript / Jquery, GitHub, MongoDB, and SQL to help create an information system for the aerospace industry.
ZIAX – Senior Designer [Programming]
Games Industry
2021 April – 2022 August
I worked for Ziax for over a year. With this role, I designed the behavior and programmed them within the Minecraft Custom Content for CubeCraft which is a Microsoft Partner but I also did work on research and development for Roblox development for them.
MINING MACHINES
HYPER CUBE
TRY NOT TO DIE
STICKMAN
ANIMATED DROPPER
Moilin – Freelance Developer 2022/2023 [Short Contract]
Using Unity and C# and Roblox to help make projects. Working on AR and Mobile games in Unity and Roblox projects.
Unpaid Work Experience
Vodafone – IoT Work Experience Week Programme 2020
With this work experience programme, I developed my understanding of IoT devices and did the planning for a prototype IoT wearable device which I made a presentation for.
Moilin – Work Experience 2 Days 2019
Within this work experience, I developed a demo for the company within Unity using the Oculus Gear VR SDK. The demo showcased some of the features of the device and was made within 2 days.
Games Development Society Q1 2023 – Q2 2024
I am the president of the games development society at my University. The society won Academic Society of the Year out of 17 academic societies. Hosted and taught lessons on games development and programming, hosted two game jams and assisted with socials for the members to get to know each other.
Research
I am a volunteer research assistant for the University of Chester. I have previous assisted in collaboration with academics from Aston University in the application of VR for treating children with dog phobias and teaching them how to interact with dogs. I am doing this separate to my degree as I believe serious games have a large range of applications and I enjoy working on projects that are on the front-line of new technologies.
Games
These are some of the games I have worked on, these include Game Jam Projects and larger projects. Most of them I made myself however some I did work on with others.
Code Land 2024 Q2
Code Land was my dissertation project for my final year of my undergraduate degree. It’s a learning tool where players can learn programming concepts through a gamified experience. I developed and designed the visual scripting language and developed the game and server using Unity and Node.JS, using MongoDB for the database.
Train Invaders 2024 Q2
Train invaders is a first person wave based game inspired by Space Invaders. It was created for the Games Programming module in my final year of my undergraduate degree. It was created using Unreal Engine and C+ with several systems being designed and created instead of using the Unreal Engine systems to develop my skills in C++ and Unreal. The game features 3 different game modes.
Drone Dash 2024 Q2
Drone dash is a mobile endless runner game created for the games design and implementation module in my final year at University.
Snail Arena 2023 Q2 + 2021
Made initially for a games competition in 2021 I then extended the game in 2023. The game is a local multiplayer arcade game where players play as snails where their trails are toxic. The aim of the game is to kill other players and get the most score. Online multiplayer has been developed but a stable release has not been developed as of yet.
Tungsten Spores 2024 Q1
This was made as a group project with five other group members at University for my final year. The game is a third person shooter game set in a post-apocalyptic world. The art style was heavily inspired by older PS2 style games, with low resolution to assist with the style of the game. The game was created in Unity with C#. My main role was programming and design creating features such as; Enemy AI + Behaviour, Procedural Generation, Turret Systems. I also worked on tying different systems together and implementing level designs for some of the levels.
UEFN Business Project 2024 Q2
Working on a UEFN project as part of a business module at my University. Using Unreal Engine to develop the map. The game features tycoon systems with a focus on allowing players to have different play styles and to cater to different types of players. Players can quest, build their base, fight AI enemies and explore the hand designed world. Leveraging the Fortnite ecosystem to build a engaging and fun game. The project also won funding at a business pitching event.
Lithium Brain 2023 Q1
Made for a solo project for a University assignment with a focus on the programming, the game is a puzzle first person shooter going through a robotic post apocalyptic shopping mall. The game features a robust mission system and weapon system all including easily changeable variables and options. The game features 3 levels, one being a sewer level as the tutorial, one being the main room and the last being the rooftop.
Deep Sea 2023 Q3
Made with another developer for Ludum Dare 54 as part of the Games Development Society at my University which I am the president of. I created all of the art assets in 3Ds max and Substance Painter and did a large amount of the programming for the project.
Forest Fire Simulator 2023 Q3
This was created for a short event at my University, with the theme being Extreme Weather. The generation is procedural and shows how creating breaks in tree-lines can help stop the spread of wildfires. Created in Unity.
Science Swing 2023 Q1 [Award Winning]
Made in Unreal Engine for a game jam on the weekend, the game is a first person platformer. The project won an award for accessibility by adding a large number of accessibility features to help more players play the game such as colour blindness features and difficulty settings.
Game Jam Homicide 2022 Q1
A game made for the Global Game Jam 2022 with Unity.
In this game, one player plays as a killer, and the other plays as a detective with a time limit. It is a local multiplayer where the players take turns. You need to hide the body and then find it. You can also place traps for the detective. Both players can find money to give more time to play.
Mars Wars 2017 – 2019 SHELVED
Mars Wars was one of the first games I worked on in Unity. Made for YGD.
This project is the biggest personal project that I have worked on, however, due to it being my first large project and it is made with an old engine version I shelved it to work on smaller projects.
Lessons learned from the project
With this project I was able to learn the basics of game development and how to mix game mechanics together to create a game. I was also able to learn the Unity Game Engine to a higher level. Looking back at the project I have also been able to develop new ways of development. For example, if I were to do the project again in Unity then I would use scriptable objects. I would also use switch statements instead of several if statements and I would using the entity component system that is now in Unity to allow for a larger amount of alien enemies.
Asteroid Remover 2020 Q4
“Asteroid Remover is a fast-paced arcade game. Inspired by the Atari Missile Commander game”
A game I made in a month and a half with Unity.
This game uses HDRP and Visual Effects Graph for the high-quality lighting and the custom-made particles with controller support. On the Microsoft store for free.
Skills developed with the project
With this project I was able to develop my Unity game engine skills and the ability to use the new functionality within the engine such as the HDRP pipeline and the Visual Effects shader graph but also my ability to use the new input manager system to allow for several different bindings for different devices. This now will allow me to make higher quality games but also the ability to make cross platforms games that I will not have to port. From this project I was able to make a project with a small scope that was able to make it to market on the Microsoft store and the ability to post projects on the Microsoft store as I went through the full process to get it on the store. I also did work to get this on the XBOX store with the open publishing program although due to console bugs on my console I was not able to get it on the development mode with the development builds.
Pendro 2022
With this project, I programmed the prototype for the app inside of Unity for Moilin as Contract work.
Tileable 2022 Q4 – University Hosted Jam [Theme – Small World]
Tileable was made with 6 people including myself made in Unity using URP. I did work on the programming and I also did the lighting system / post processing and did the Input System to allow for controller and keyboard play. The game is a two player sandbox player where players have to place down world tiles and create the world.
Other Projects
HDRP Showcase 2023 Q1 – Global Game Jam
For this game jam I worked on a multiplayer project using the new Coherence multiplayer SDK however due to issues with their SDK due to it being a new SDK and company I switched to a project that utilizes HDRP to showcase some of the technology behind it.
Escape The Warehouse 2022 Q2
A game made for a job application, using Lua and the Roblox Studio.
The game is a parkour game where you go through a warehouse with 12 stages and features multiplayer gameplay.
Design sprint 2023 Q2
This was a design sprint I hosted, led, and planned and sourced all of the team members for. The design sprint followed the sprint methodology designed by Jake Knapp and was covering how to make a game fun. The sprint lasted a week, going from the inception to the game to user testing.
Lost Snails 2021 Q1
A game made for the Global Game Jam 2021 with Unity.
In this game, you collect lost snails within a small time frame, upgrade your character to do the tasks faster.
Isolation Island 2020 Q2
A game made for the Games Wales game jam hosted in Cardiff made with Unity.
In the game, you manage an island and its population. You have to balance making more farms with getting more people, wood, and stone.
Achievements
Platinum Plus Chester Volunteering Award 2023 Q3
I earned this award for doing over 300 volunteering hours while at University by helping with Research that the University is doing and by being the President of the Games Development Society.
Venture Pitch Finalist 2024 Q2
As part of my UEFN business project, I was a finalist for the venture pitch which is a program that the university runs to provide funding to students starting or running businesses. I am currently waiting for the final pitch to see if I am a Venture Pitch Winner.
Chester Difference Excellence Award 2023 Q2
I earned the Chester difference excellence award as well as the lower two awards by doing extra-curricular activities while at University. The activities included but not limited to; contract work, game projects, doing online courses, research work, enterprise and more.
Kattis Programming Website Top 35 in the UK C++
On the programming website open.kattis.com I am in the top 35 in the United Kingdom. The website has over 160,000 users and is ranked by points that users earn. I used C++ for all of the tasks on the website. In the UK I am in the top 2% of users.
Science, Business & Enterprise Faculty Voice Rep 2024
I was a student voice rep and faculty rep in my final year of University, working on a project to hopefully help students within the faculty.
Grads in Games Student Ambassador 2023/2024
Being a Grads in Games Student Ambassador means that I am able to promote their events and help guide more people towards a career in the games industry
WorldSkills Web Development National Qualifiers Stage #2 2022
I am currently doing the Web Development competition and am awaiting my results to see whether or not I go to the national finals in Birmingham. With this I had to do a initial stage with a quiz, and then two stages after that with a web design image stage and a 3 hour no internet development stage.
College Qualification – Equivalent to A*A*A*
In my college qualification I am predicted to get a D*D*D* which is equivalent to A*A*A* which is the highest grade that I could get. For this I had to put in far more work throughout the two years to ensure that I got the grade.
Artwork
I started doing 3D art back in 2018, with some freelance artwork in 2019 and have recently gotten back into it.
The tools I use are; Blender, 3Ds max, Substance Painter 3D and Unreal Engine.
Software Projects
I have done a large number of different prototype projects for things such as web apps mainly using Node.JS, HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. Here are some of them.
Web Scraper Web App – 2023 Q4
This was created to practice my web development skills. The website allows for user accounts, with custom web scraping and automation tools to automatically scrape websites and create backups. The software was developed using Node.JS and MongoDB.
Table Top Dice Roll – 2021
“Table Top Dice Roll is an Alexa Skill that allows you to roll custom dice instead of having to purchase a large amount of different dice.”
Made as a prototype for learning the Amazon voice assistant stack.
Custom Discord Bot – Freelance – 2019
I created a custom Discord bot for a Canadian gaming group. The bot worked with API’s to get current player counts on the community servers but also had a backend using Node.JS with a admin panel for the admins to control which was basic but fully worked. With this bot there was also a large system for suggestions which allowed people to vote on them and make them but it would also notify the user that made the suggestion of the outcome.
Due to the bot being created for the specific community it isn’t public and because of the community being largely inactive it was shut down after it’s creation.
