Wes Tam -- Experienced Digital Media Professional

Technical Director And Lead Programmer

613.XXX.XXXX 

westam21@yahoo.com www.linkedin.com/in/westam 

Ottawa Canada, K1G 4T8 

I am a veteran video game professional possessing strong technical aptitude, a creative and pragmatic balance and specializes in AAA content for touch device platforms. Being both highly motivated and passionate, I have a consistent track record for driving high quality product to market across multiple genres, targeting core and mid-core demographics.  Team oriented and quality-driven leader with technical, workflow, design and UX expertise.  Possess versatility with ability to translate objectives into actionable plans while providing decisive leadership to multi-functional teams.  Experience with running and growing small-sized game studios with track record of maximizing team performance.   Am known for ability to troubleshoot and juggling challenging production and technical issues while managing complex design. Comfortable running 1-5 million dollar budgets productions.   Proven ability to pitch, adept understanding and intuition of fandom focused entertainment IPs and ability to speak to IPs brands from both a fandom and pragmatic perspective.  With over 20 titles shipped and 14 years experience, my experience and skills include strong vision, game design and deep technical background with hands-on-contribute to all facets of the video game production including level design, tools, engine game programming, game design, business planning, economy balancing, testing, production management, and creative direction.  

Core Competency

Technical:

Strong C/C++, Java, C#, Obj-C, OpenGL ES, OpenGL, JavaScript, Python, Perl, iOS development, Android ADT and NDK, BBX, XML, JSON, HTML, SQL, ANT, data structures, vector math, graphics and tools programming; some experience with MS Azure; Java servlet; J2EE

Software:

Eclipse, Visual Studios, XCode, Helios Game Engine, Unity 3D, Hammer, Warcraft 3 World Editor, Tiled, Photoshop, The Gimp, Flash MX, Sketch-Up, Flash, Balsamiq, Blender, Twine, MS Office, Visio, Project, Jira, Subversion, Ant, Tomcat, iMovie, Audacity, Squarespace, Wordpress

Design and UX

Core mechanics, user-centeric design, user stories, use case modeling, usability testing, UML, wireframing, cutscene scripting, level design, interface, playable, entity and boss design, economy balancing, rapid prototyping

Management: 

Business planning, cashflow management, project planning, milestone management, budgeting, agile, scrum, critical path planning

Personal

Selected Accomplishments

  • Raised: VC funding for seed financing of studio (500K), Grant funding (IRAP, IDM OMDC totaling of 500K)
  • Co-founded/scaled mobile game studio (staff of 25)
  • Successfully pitch to IP holders and publishers for He-Man, X-Men and AAA Star Wars projects
  • Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions - Touch Arcade Game of the Week
  • He-Man - The Most Powerful Game In the Universe - Apple’s Editor Choice, Canadian VGA Finalist
  • Miner 2049er - IGN Editor's Choice Award, Best Revival - Best Of 2007 IGN awards
  • Eagle Eye (Paramount Pictures) - Pocket Gamer Bronze Award
  • Committee Member of the IGDA Ottawa Chapter
  • Writter for video game developer site: Quickelybored.com

Highlighted Projects: 

Star Wars Rebels, X-Men: Days of Future Past, He-Man: The Most Powerful Game In the Universe, Bar Star, Destructopus, Star Marine, Phase 10 Mobile, Daytona USA, Eagle Eye, New York Times Crosswords, Brain Up, Brain Up 2, Miner 2049er, Ka-Glom, Texas Hold’em Kings 2, Medieval Kings Chess1/2, Street Tactics

Education: 

Carleton University, Ottawa Ontario, Canada 2002

  • Bachelor of Computer Science Honors (Co-op), Minor in Mathematics
  • W. Ross Pinkerton Memorial Scholarship for academic achievement and community service

Interest: 

Film production, media industry, game design, creative writing, interactive narratives, experimental game design, history, game engine architecture, board game design, crowdfunding

Professional Experience

Gigataur/Glitchsoft, Founder/VP of Creative/Programmer

Ottawa Canada, 2009 - 2016

C++, C, C#, Obj-C, Java, Apache Ant, OpenGL, iOS, OSX, Android, BBX, Game Engine Architecture, Unity3D

Game engine and build system

  • Responsible for building and architecturing Helios, a proprietary and industry strength game engine and authoring toolset; build/deployment automation; artist and programmer workflow
  • Creation and management of team of 12 programmers; conducted performance reviews with staff;  defined roadmap and technical direction of the company
  • Evangelized, spec’d and designed engine, tool, workflow and technology roadmap; applied for and managed research grants; identified and resolved bottlenecks in workflow; buy vs build middlewares; technology business case; diffused technical risk; assisted in patient application process
  • Supervised and lead implementation of various modules including: skeletal animation system; deferred rendering pipeline;  graphics abstraction layer; particle system with editor; localization infrastructure; build system tools; asset pipeline and resource management infrastructure
  • Implemented visual scripting language and corresponding stack based virtual machine, skeletal animation system and editor, deformable mesh editor for world rendering, 3D level editor, tile map editor, component driven game object architecture and visual editor, implemented state based behavioral system, visual UI editing tool, platform abstraction layer, drag-and-drop physics editor

Engine, tools and additional gameplay programming

Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions; X-Men: Days of Future Past

  • Interfaced with client producer and technical lead; channel partners; external QA, porting and internal leads
  • Optimized and enhanced workflow, support artists, designers and programmers with tools and engine; implemented quest system and editor; UI programming of various meta game aspects
  • Lead development of initial demo to client; rebuilt engine for 3D rendering; mitigate technical risk
  • Implemented 2D deformable/texture splatting mesh terrain/environment system
  • Enhanced workflow, tools and engine; implemented solution for fast, real-time content authoring reflection
  • Implemented core playable characters (Scarlet Witch, Polaris and Colossus); mentored junior staff on behavior implementation of fodder enemies and playable characters

Lead gameplay and engine programmer -

He-Man The Most Powerful Game In The Universe; Star Marine; Bar Star; Destructopus; Unreleased Disney Title

  • Lead team of 5 engineers; conducted daily scrums and sprint reviews; presented technical direction and design solutions; worked with team to decompose user stories into tasks; defined schedules and budgets; performed code reviews and technical audits; interfaced with client producer and external QA and porting
  • Implemented boss battles, fodder entities, entity behaviors infrastructure; touch based control schemes; marketing layer features, infrastructure and various game system including projectile, pathfinding, physics based components and melee combat systems
  • Full stack implementation on various gameplay prototypes

Management, design and creative -

  • Worked with CEO to establish studio of 25, establish strategic and business planning; responsible for organizational structure and company and day-to-day production and workflow
  • Interfaced with client and brand partners on X-Men, Star Wars and He-Man projects; pitched to client and requirements capture; lead RFP response; moderated and managed product expectation of clients; produced various pitches and business cases to clients
  • Drove technology and creative vision of products; managed internal game and level designers; owned and drove feature set of products, managed entire product design and documentation; hands on level design; facilitated design process; worked closely with art department to visualize product and define UX; worked closely with marketing and PR business units

Magmic Games, Game Programmer/Lead Programmer

Ottawa Canada, 2004 - 2009

C++/Java/J2ME/J2SE, Python, BREW, BBAPI, Apache Ant, Visual Studios, Eclipse, Flex

Lead programmer

  • Responsible for production of Daytona USA, BrainUp/BrainUp 2, Miner 2049er, Medieval Kings 2
  • Technical Lead of 4 engineers; defined tasks from user stories; drove scrum, stakeholder and sprint review meetings; Evangelized and installed Agile development methodologies
  • Coordinate with Art and Design teams to define asset pipeline, workflow and toolset
  • Developed level editor and content authoring tools; sides scroller engine, sprite rendering system, and tree-based entity system
  • Implemented library code for UI Widgeting system, fixed point mathematics, spline and vector libraries
  • Implemented aspects of gameplay, UI and meta game logic; Implemented network based multiplayer, matchmaking and chat features; Implemented optimized chess rule and AI engine for  limited devices
  • Evaluated and integrated off-the-shelf middleware and tools; oversaw porting and transcoding efforts

Gameplay programmer

  • Full stack developer and designer of Street Tactics (a turn based tactics game), Mahjong, Medieval Kings;
  • Pitch and prototype for Cloverfield mobile game (platformer) and unlaunched free running game
  • Implemented all aspects of gameplay, entity, AI, pathfinding, UI and meta game logic
  • Implemented data driven entity system based on a simple relation data based architecture
  • Developed scripting language and virtual machine based on a C style grammar using flex/yacc
  • Helped build Maglet, a J2ME/Blackberry/Brew abstraction layer solving major device and environment fragmentation issues

Producer/Designer

  • Eagle Eye (Paramount Pictures puzzle platformer), Ka-Glom (iOS port ) and Phase 10 Mobile
  • Manage schedule, budgets and production on multidisciplinary production team; worked with stakeholders to define project requirements; manage day to day tasks of production
  • Provided and drove detailed design, design process and documentation of Datyona USA and Eagle Eye; managed designers
  • Spearhead and advocate technical initiatives for iPhone development

Cinerio Entertainment, 3D Graphics and Animation Workflow Programmer

Ottawa Canada, 2002 - 2004

  • OS X application development of curved surface editor, camera animation systems using Obj-C/OpenGL
  • Built workflow tools to streamline animation and build process for production  of animated 3D series

Department Of National Defence - Mil-Sat Group, Programmer (Co-op)

Ottawa Canada, 2001 May - Aug

  • Responsible for implementation of  visualization widgets for digital-voice-over-RF application using Java and OpenGL;  Enhanced Security Clearance

Industry Canada, Web Application Programmer (Co-op)

Ottawa Canada, 2000 May - Aug

  • Responsible for implementation of various intranet web based tools using Perl, Tomcat, SQL and HTML

RCMP, Canadian Police Information Centre, Junior Radio Technician (Co-op)

Ottawa Canada, 1999 May - Aug

  • Conducted RF interference testing of police vehicle communications equipment; configured radio equipment for police operations; implemented various scripts to help automate testing of equipment; Enhanced Security Clearance