fjlj / gam495

Hi, My name is Frank Lewis.

This repository serves as an online portfolio to demonstrate various prgramming skills. I will be showcasing various projects, documenting initial thoughts/planning, challenges, solutions, further refinement, and future plans. These four selected artifacts demonstrate various skills and abilities in regards to programming in many different languages. Things as simple as a game of snake written in C/C++ that runs in the console, can be broken down into many learning opportunities and interesting solutions. A text-based adventure game system written in python can be eye opening to how useful/powerful a scripting language and dictionaries can become. Writing a blackjack game that operates 100% in the browser on the client side, with no special dependancies or requirements, also opens the doors on a massive world of issues one faces in web-development. Finally I have also included a group project of an FPS game created in the Unreal Engine. This was one project that spoke to how amazing a team effort can be when planning and communication is a priority. Where helping eachother learn rather than watching someone fail and not offering any support can make all the difference in the progress and outcome of the project. Listed below are these 4 artifacts, each artifact has an assessment and reflection of its own that can be found via clicking their title's.

---

Snake Game

• Displays welcome text
• Displays controls
• AI demonstraits the game in the background

---

Fight The Virus

• Displays Title
• Displays Controls
• Allows Begin/Quit
• Displays player health, weapon and ammuntion selection/amount.

---

Text Based Adventure Game Platform

• Displays premise/objective
• Displays how to view commands
• Displays current position/inventory

---

Web Based Multi-Hand Black Jack

• Prompts player for game options
• Defaults to placeholder values if nothing entered
• Player can select bet increments of 5/10/25/50
• Left clicking a player position will add the selected bet amount(up to the maximum bet)
• Right clicking a player position will subtract the selected bet amount
• Players may bet until "Place your bets" timer has ended.
• Live Demo: Play BlackJack

---

Self-Assessment Notes

• Each project is able to be browsed for additional information where they present various skills in 2D/3D, Algorithms, Complex problem solving, Game Engine/Interface Development, Physics, and more... Each project discusses the planning, the challenges, the solutions, takeaways and future development plans based around those lessons learned.

• My primary takeaway from years of programming, is not a speech on staying relevant by trying new languages, platforms, styles, or areas of development. Rather, that if you have sound principles in logic and a vast understanding of mathematics, data structures, how information is utilized by various hardware... The language and platform matters very litte, what matters the most is that you continue to challenge yourself to find the limits of any language or platform you are using; then try to fix/improve those limitations. Challenge yourself to create something with strange constrictions, force yourself to be creative to solve problems. Not because an optimal solution does not already exist... but because true understanding comes from knowing the why behind the answers.

• I am not attempting to minimize the importance of staying relevant, rather I want to reframe the thinking around how to stay relevant. Staying up to date with industry standards as well as any updates to the languages you are working with, or the latest trends on how to best accomplish goals with the language you are using; sets you up with the habbits to not only stay relevant in one field/language, but to quickly gain relevance in any field/language.

• This portfolio is a rather small snippet of over 25 years of personal programming and development experience. Through the years the programming, development, hacking forums and videos have been massively helpful and informative. The information age is able to grow and evolve much faster than traditional learning and coursework. A formal education in software engineering or development should not be looked at as an education in learning to engineer or develop software/games, rather it should be viewed as a platform to teach you how to think like an engineer/developer. Provide you the tools, platform, and practice to be able to effectively start your own journey in learning and self-development.

• I am presently diving into machine learning, neural networks, augmented topologies, re-enforcement learning, genetic algorithms, and AI. What will your next adventure be?

Thank You,

Frank Lewis