GAME
DEVELOPER
Portfolio by Peter Whitlock
ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Peter! Thank you for showing an interest in me and my work. I am a friendly, and passionate, games design graduate from Bournemouth University looking for full time employment in the Birmingham area.
I enjoy learning new skills, being creative, and providing an analytical approach to complex problems. One of the many reasons I've fallen in love with games design, despite only more recently discovering an interest in playing video games, is because it's such a diverse industry where I can satisfy both my mathematical and artistic sides.
In my spare time I enjoy hanging out with friends, listening to music and podcasts, as well as running and swimming. I've always enjoyed board games but, as mentioned, I've also been enjoying more video games which has helped improve my understanding of the industry. I also have a big interest in technology, history, and design.
Although games design, and especially UI design, is my top choice for the next step in my career, my skills and interests extend to all sorts of applications in software development, web development, graphic design, 3D modelling , and more. In this portfolio I hope to demonstrate some of the work I've done both as part of my university course and during my spare time that will support me in these industries.
UNITY EXPERIENCE
Out of all the skills I have developed over the last few years, working in Unity and coding in C# is one of my strongest. The 4 examples below are stretched throughout my time at university and beyond.
In first year we were tasked with creating a marble run to teach us about Unity's physics engine. However, we also had to come up with and code a couple of fictitious physics components. Along with a marble duplicator, I made an "anthropomorphiser" which added arms and legs to the marbles and animated them to walk back to the start. I was happy to receive a 1st for this assignment.
For our interface design unit in second year we needed to create a stylistic user interface for a 3D gem collection game we would need to code. We could use free assets for the project but I mainly made my UI from scratch matching it to the desert asset pack I used with an old western style theme. I really enjoyed the project and the creativity it provided but looking back I would have liked to have spent more time perfecting the user experience of my design and balancing that better with the aesthetic of it.
In my final year, I decided to use Unity for my dissertation as I wanted to create a visually simple mobile game, instead, focusing on the audio. I wanted to create a 3D augmented audio only game that could be controlled with phone and headphone gestures picked up by accelerometers and gyroscopes. Something that could be played in a real space with friends but relayed through audio. Being able to be run on a regular phone improved the accessibility of the game and by removing the screens, the game could lean on the face to face contact traditional games provide.
It was a great learning experience and really pushed my skills to attempt to develop a new style of game. However, looking back I was a little too ambitious and struggled to complete the game in the time frame hurting my final grade. Despite that, I don't regret my choice because it taught me a lot and I would rather push too far than not enough.
Currently, I am making a game for fun in my spare time with unity called Queenie. A bee hive simulator/tower defence game where you can guide and watch an army of bees evolve.
UNREAL EXPERIENCE
Despite more of my experience being in Unity, I really enjoy working in Unreal and the power the engine provides. Below are two examples of projects I worked on during my university course.
The first was for my level design unit where we were taught the basics of working in Unreal and using Blueprints to add a number of interactive elements to our levels. I created a first person eery subway level where I really enjoyed working with the lighting to create the atmosphere I wanted.
One group project we did in second year was creating a full game demo from a curated list of genres in either Unity or Unreal. We chose to make an FPS game with Unreal set in a malfunctioning spaceship using artificial gravity to create an interesting game mechanic.
I volunteered to work on a lot of the UI like the HUD and in game menus as well as other graphic design elements. If I get the opportunity to, I'd love to do something like this as a job as I really enjoyed the process.
ART & DESIGN
During my course I had the opportunity to try a range of other more artistic units where we focused on modelling, textures, animation , and even narrative story telling. Below are some examples of the types of 3D models I created using Maya.
Outside of games design I enjoy drawing, either digitally or with pencil and paper. However, more regularly I'm designing graphics using vector software as a part of projects for myself and my friends. Something I did recently was create a logo and banner art for a 3D printing Etsy page called PrintPlayPerform.
These photos are other examples of designs I have worked on with friends. Blue Saloon being a bus company, and Badly Explained an idea for a podcast. My 2D design skills are constantly evolving as I continue to teach myself in my spare time. I'd love to be able to incorporate vector art and design in my job.
WEB DEVELOPMENT & MORE
A unit we had in my first year introduced me to web design and since then I have been steadily developing my abilities with HTML and CSS in my free time. I set myself the task of creating this portfolio website from scratch as an example of my knowledge. Because I am using GitHub's free hosting service, I can't run JavaScript so I've needed to be smart with how I use CSS to create functionality and compatibility with a large range of devices.
As I am still learning there may be some issues with this site so any feedback about it would be greatly appreciated as I would love to continue to get better at web development because it's something I have really enjoyed experimenting with.
Unfortunately, I couldn't include all my experience as I have probably already written too much, however I did want to include a few other skills that may be relevant to an employer. As part of a third year course we used Python and Pandas to analysis telemetry data from League of Legends which built on my prior knowledge of Python. Recently, I have been using C++ to code a robotics project I've started with my partner: and finally, I have experience using CAD software from my previous, unfinished, university product design course.
CONTACT ME
Thank you again for your interest in me and my work. If you would like to ask any questions or contact me about anything else please feel free to use any of the following methods. If you want the quickest response, I would recommend email as I check it often and aren't always available to answer the phone but please leave a voicemail and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
linkedin.com/in/peterwhitlockpwhitlock0279@gmail.com
07375143381
