Isaiah David Hines
Ann Arbor, MI 48105IsaiahHines@gmail.com
(989) 295-8362
My up-to-date Resume.
About Me
I'm currently a graduate student at the University of Michigan, studying Artificial Intelligence in the Computer Science Engineering program. I'm studying concept formation within AI agents, but this web page is primarily focused on video games that I've made. I love working on my own projects on the side and lately, most of these projects have manifested themselves as video games.My foray into video game making happened rather suddenly after taking a video game design course at UM, where I made three games for the course, and then interned at Microsoft Studios in the Summer of 2011 to make a game together with a group of 12 interns. From then on, I've almost always been working on games of my own, as well as attending a video game making bootcamp with Sid Meier and interning again at Microsoft Studios in the Summer of 2012.
Completed Games
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Description: This game is a simple remake of the popular Super Smash Bros game from Nintendo. Attack and outmaneuver your opponents from 4 stages high up in the clouds. Fall off and you will lose one of your lives. The last man standing wins the round. Fight with up to 8 players using Mario, Sonic or Spyro. About: This game was completed as the final project in a Java programming course, EECS 285, at the University of Michigan. Each group of students presented their applications in front of the class over the course of two days, and this game was voted as the favorite project by the entire class for the day that it was presented on. The game was built using LWJGL and a few other asset and controller libraries. Language: Java and the Light Weight Java Gaming Library (LWJGL), along with controller and audio libraries. LWJGL is basically a wrapper for OpenGL.
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Coriolis Station (May 2012)
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Description: This game is a puzzle platformer with more realistic movement physics than traditional platformers. You are a robot who is trying to escape a rotating space station by collecting floppy disks which allow you to move from one area to another. The rotation of the ship produces fake gravity due to the Coriolis Effect, and it's your job to conquer the strangeness of the fake gravity in order to solve puzzles and make your way off of the space station. About: This game was created in 12 days during Sid Meier's Game Design Bootcamp, held at the University of Michigan. I would probably consider the process of making this game as the best group experience that I've ever had. All programmers were extremely capable, and as such the authors are listed in alphabetical order, rather than in order of most significant contribution. Language: C++ and the Zenilib library. Zenilib provides abstractions for OpenGL, DirectX, Audio, Controllers, and Asset Loading. More Info: Wolverine Soft Description
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Battle Bender (December 2011)
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Description: Battle Bender is a multiplayer, last-man-standing, battle game with a unique twist on gravity. Players gravitate towards whatever surface is closest to them, allowing for movements up walls and upside-down on the ceiling. Use missiles, mines, pulses and surges to outmaneuver and defeat your opponents on four unique levels. About: This game was created as the third and final project for the EECS 494 Video Game Design course at the University of Michigan. It received the first-place award out of 13 games at the end-of-year, Video Game Showcase. Language: C++ and the Zenilib library. Zenilib provides abstractions for OpenGL, DirectX, Audio, Controllers, and Asset Loading.
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Puzzle Jumper (October 2011)
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Description: Puzzle Jumper is an automatic, side-scrolling, medallion collecting, jumping game. On each level, collect all the medallions of the same color without touching any other medallions to unlock new levels. Try collecting no medallions, or see how many balloons you can pop! Each achievement you conquer helps to unlock up to five total levels. Your progress is saved even when you're done playing, so that you can continue where you left off from last time. About: This was the first game that I created for the EECS 494 Video Game Design Course at the University of Michigan. Of all the games that I've made so far, this game has a few design choices that I like the most. The game automatically determines which objectives you are currently working towards and gives you in-level feedback on those objectives. Additionally, as you complete more objectives, the game issues you a title of proficiency and even recognizes when you surpass its predefined goals - giving the player gold lettering next to certain objectives. Language: C++ and the Zenilib library. Zenilib provides abstractions for OpenGL, DirectX, Audio, Controllers, and Asset Loading.
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Partial Games and Proofs of Concept
PC Gaming System (September 2013)
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Description: This is a gaming system (currently windows only) that operates in a similar fashion as the XBox 360 Dashboard and Guide system or the Wii Menu and Wii system pause info. The end vision is to support multiple games on the system, provide uniform gamepads to those games, and handle multiple users and save files. The system can work with any controller type by establishing an input map from the Device to the System provided controller. Games are built as dlls so that players can load and play different games without restarting the system. About: Current progress: The system can dynamically load dlls. Engine specified events are issued to these dlls in order to abstract the game away from the operating system level information. Device input is handled using Raw Input code, though intermediate mapping from raw input to system controllers is not yet complete. Language: C++ and OpenGL.
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No-Memory Particle Emitter (May 2013)
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Description: This is a proof of concept. This project shows how a particle emitter can be created and used without allocating or saving any information on individual particles. An emitter class contains the basic information necessary to host particles, such as image to be rendered, number of particles, position and time of the particle emitter, behavior of particles, and possibly a small history of the emitter to make the particles appear to interact with the environment more. The rendering of the particles is accomplished by using a openGL shader program that procedurally generates the particles based on the current time and the emitter class data. A particles position, velocity, color, size, etc are all determined procedurally without any memory located on the cpu and without creating a Vertex Buffer Object on the GPU. About: I believe the last time I checked, I could render 100,000 particles at 1000 FPS. Although, I honestly would have to double check that. Language: C++ and OpenGL.
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Mario (December 2012)
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Description: This is a simple Mario clone similar to the original Super Mario and with art from Super Mario World. The movement of mario is very true to Super Mario World, and things like collision and animation are spot-on. Additionally the user can quickly alter the level by using the mouse - clicking and dragging to paint the world with blocks and scrolling to select a new block or object type. It really is sharp looking - you definitely want to try it out. About: Made for fun in my free time. Language: C++ and the Zenilib library. Zenilib provides abstractions for OpenGL, DirectX, Audio, Controllers, and Asset Loading.
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MyCraft (Terraria Clone) (May 2012)
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Description: This game was made as part of a directed study at the University of Michigan. The game is based off of Terraria (which is like a well-designed 2d Minecraft). One of the elegant additions to this game that Terraria and Minecraft really don't have is that the blocks in this game have properties that are transferable to neighboring blocks. One example of this is that I can have a few antigravity blocks floating above. Any block that has the ability to cling to other blocks can attach to the anti-gravity blocks. More blocks can attach to those blocks and so on. In this way the user can create floating islands. Or if you start to dig away at the floating island, sections of it will fall together to the ground if they are no longer distantly touching the anit-gravity block. Additionally, enemies in this game were controlled by a cognitive architecture called Soar - developed at the University of Michigan. One of the goals of this project was to connect upwards of 100 Soar AI agents to the game, all interacting at the same time. About: Also, in the process of making this game, I made a pretty well-contained menu system that works with both direction key input and mouse-over input. Language: C++ and the Zenilib library. Zenilib provides abstractions for OpenGL, DirectX, Audio, Controllers, and Asset Loading.
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