| April 2020. | Mechanical Experience, Competency Profiles, and Jutsu | Journal of Games, Self, & Society | iThrive Games, and ETC Press |
A formal presentation of the high level ideas of my research. This paper outlines our view about player experience being formed of multiple types of experiences. It then focuses on the mechanical experience (a type of experience) and dives into ways to study it.
| April 2020. | Ooh What's This Button Do? The Physical Requirements of Video Gaming. | Masters Thesis | Dept. Computing and Software, McMaster University |
My masters thesis covers the beginning of the challenge framework that I explore in the rest of my academic work. It outlines my original analyses of various gameplay challenges and the analysis of controllers to determine an appropriate motor ability model.
| October 12, 2021 | Types for Players | Workshop for Programming Languages in Entertainment 2021 (PLIE '21) | Virtual. |
In this talk we explore the idea of modeling players based on the constraints of their motor and cognitive abilities. In this way a player's type is a set of constraints. If we understand the motor and cognitive demands of gameplay, we can then use type checking to compare the player type to the game's demands to determine playability.
| February 26 - March 5, 2018 | Game Worlds | Software Engineering 3GB3: Introduction to Game Design | McMaster University |
I was invited to cover the Game Worlds content of Dr. Carette's SE 3GB3 class. I covered 3 lectures focusing on understanding the parts of virtual environments (game worlds). The topics of these lectures were supported by the course textbook: The Fundamentals of Game Design, by Ernest Adams.
| January 25, 2017 | Technical Writing | Software Engineering 3I03: Communication | McMaster University |
I was invited to cover the Technical Writing content of Dr. Carette's SE 3IO3 class. I covered writing different types of technical documents and the writing process appropriate for them. I also included general writing tips to help with professional writing.
| April 7, 2016 | So You Want to Work With Games | Software Engineering 3GB3: Introduction to Game Design | McMaster University |
I was invited to do a guest lecture on the state of the game industry in Canada for Dr. Smith's SE 3GB3 class. I covered information about the variety of game jobs, the current statistics on the industry, and helpful application information to the third year students.