LinsenBlog

Holy guacamole, we got chips. And by chips I mean a couple of degrees. I finally got an email confirming my satisfaction of the requirements for a B.S. in Computer Science and a Minor in Music! Really happy to be done with it all finally, but in reality, it's going to be reeeally weird adjusting to a brand new life after doing the same thing for 5 years.

The good news is that a good amount of my friends are actually going to be working in the same area as me for the time being. So hangouts and re-living the good 'ol college experience is just a call away, which is something I'm really happy about.

I'm starting at Apple on Monday and couldn't be more excited. I get to go back to doing a job I love, working with a team that not only put out spectacular work, but were a complete joy to work with. The last obstacle in my way of living the dream is negotiating with HR to let me do game jams while working. Worst case scenario, I no longer contribute to the code base and just do Art and Sound. Best case, I get to fully make games on the side. Hopefully I can get something worked out :).

Anyway, packing is calling my name, and I have lots to do in preparation for becoming a real adult. Here's to the future, which is looking pretty dang bright.

Where to start ...
I suppose a good summary of things that have happened is in store:
1. I've added all the games I've worked on to my Projects page. Check 'em out!
2. I'm going to be going on a London tour in June 2016 with the Cal Poly Jazz Band. So ... that's amazing.
3. I'm finally done with one of my last of 3 quarters in college.

That last one is kind of surreal to me, to be honest. I'll never perform in uniform at a college football game ever again. I'll never perform in a concert hall with ~300 other musicians ever again. I won't be able to participate in away-game trips with the band anymore.

What's funny is that all of these things have to do with being in Cal Poly's marching band. I really can't see myself not being part of it and it being part of my life, but each quarter it gets phased out a little more. I'm really going to miss it - the people, the music, the leadership, and especially the feeling of performing for thousands.
But I digress. There's really not much else to say in this blog post other than I've still been working on music and games and that I'll be done with school soon (even more so since I passed all my classes this quarter, eyyyyyy ...).

So yeah, thanks for reading! Cheers, and happy holidays!

I've recently added a project I worked on to my Projects page called AvaJAM (you can play it here) that I worked on with the all-powerful Thomas. Well... we were selected as a winner AND mentioned on the GitHub Blog. Big thanks to those at GitHub who organized this, and Thomas for tugging the boat along and getting us the win!

So Global Game Jam 2015 happened this past weekend, and my team and I took first place with our Unity game, Sabotage. It was an amazingly fun experience. Not only did I get to work with some really good friends and see a ton of pretty cool games come to fruition, but I also got to learn a brand new language (C#) and framework (Unity) as well as compose some more music! (although one of the songs I'm not so proud of...)

Although Unity does port to web quite easily, we build the game to be played using Xbox controllers, and thus, don't have a readily available demo that I can tack onto my website. That will change soon hopefully! Big shout out to Thomas Steinke, Elliot Fiske, and Aaron Jacobs. Here's to another win next year!