Background:

Presage Software Development was a games and educational software company at which I spent a few years honing my programming and game design skills. During the early to mid-90's Presage was an independent developer creating a variety of titles for nearly every major publishing house in the industry. In the fullness of time they went on to be acquired first by Human Code, then by Sapient. I wish them all the best in their ongoing code efforts.

In my time at Presage I worked both as a product Programmer and as a Game Designer.

Further Information:

• Programming
• Game Designs

Programming:

For most of its coding requirements Presage had developed a common abstraction layer for cross-platform development, called "XFluffy", that all programmers used and contributed to. Programmers also tended to specialize into various technologies, for my part I specialized in PC development for MS-Windows (3.1 and 95). Additionally, I was responsible for creating several different tools covering areas from data management to graphics compression to differential patch operations.

The titles to which I directly contributed programming talent are listed below:

Major Titles
Chess Mates Release Date: Q4 1996 Project Responsibilities: Programmer Languages Used: C, C++ Technologies: Windows 95, XFluffy
Lode Runner, Lode Runner Online Release Date: Q4 1994, Q4 1995 Project Responsibilities: Lead Programmer, Design Languages Used: C, C++ Technologies: Windows 3.1, Windows 95, IPX fault-tolerant networking, DirectX 1.0 Modem
Cuckoo Zoo CD-ROM Release Date: Q2 1993 (Cancelled in Beta) Project Responsibilities: Programmer Languages Used: 80386 Assembly Technologies: DOS, 3D Software Rendering

Game Designs:

In an effort to codify their production process, Presage established a Design department whose purpose was to create and pitch game concepts to publishers, then to refine those game concepts into complete documents that would be produced. As a member of this design group I spent my days documenting and fleshing out ideas and presenting them to anyone that would listen.

I undertook many, many designs, both for Presage and on my own time. Of these, a couple are linked below.

Major Designs during the Presage Years
Venice: 1499 Venice: 1499 is a design for an action/adventure game rooted deeply in history. Blamed for a murder you didn't commit, you must find the guilty party and restore your innocence in a world on the brink of societal and technological revolution.
Ghost In The Machine Ghost ITM was a revolutionary game concept that is only now (2001) being exploited by game developers. An adventure/mystery, this game was meant to reach out, to involve the player far more than what he saw on his computer screen, as the game intruded on your real life with e-mails, faxes, pages, etc.
Other Designs I've worked on many other designs, both under my own initiative and for various companies I've worked for. For a more complete list of these design efforts please follow the link above.