Software Engineer, 2019
BPM: Bouncing Particle Madness is an arcade rhythm game built in JavaScript (Phaser.JS). In BPM, you play as a particle bouncing between sound waves as you dodge skulls and collect hearts. I was one of two software engineers on this game. Development went from concept to completion in the span of two months.
Developing a smooth UI for BPM was crucial to fit the high-speed, motion-driven gameplay. We wanted to make the interface feel as alive and polished as the action itself.
Engineering the game in JavaScript offered a mix of benefits and challenges to us. We were constantly making sure that our resources were being properly cleared from memory, and that the immense amount of particle effects we used were not overloading most browsers. No game developer wants their project to dip frames-per-second, but a rhythm game completely falls apart when not running at full speed.
BPM was selected as one of five games from a pool of 60 projects to be shown at the UCSC Games Showcase, 2019. Each member of the small team behind this project gave it their all, and it was a learning experience like no other.