Nick Georgian
Eyes or Ears Game Knight Showdown Game Cambia
Greetings!
My name is Nick Georgian. I am a software developer who has been enjoying game development for over 2 years.
I first started playing games in middle school when my dad introduced me to some of his favorite games including Diablo I and II, Starcraft, and Thief: The Dark Project. Ever since, I have had a love for games and continue to enjoy playing games spanning many genres from competitive multiplayer games to story-driven single player games.
I became interested in programming in early high school when I wanted to make my own custom game mode using the Starcraft II Galaxy Map Editor. I loved playing the arcade mode where people used the map editor and the art assets of Starcraft II to make new types of games like tower defenses, strategy games, and even story-driven adventures. These games inspired me to try and learn how to make a game myself using these tools.
One day, my dad found me in the middle of looking at forums and tutorials and asked me "do you find this fun?" I enthusiastically showed him my progress and that's when he taught me how this was one step away from programming. After that, I started looking into what computer programming was and learned basic java and android development by watching youtube videos and online tutorials.
I went to the University of Massachusetts - Amherst for college. I decided I wanted to learn more about computer programming and committed to computer science as a major. Other than classwork, I also participated in multiple hackathons as well as 2 summer internships where I was a software engineering intern. I also studied abroad in Madrid, Spain for a semester which was a very exciting experience. I graduated in 2020 as a computer science and mathematics double major.
In July 2020, I began my first full time position at Cisco Systems. I worked as a remote worker from Massachusetts for the first year due to the covid pandemic. In May 2021, I moved to San Jose, California to be ready for the transition to hydrid work.
While I have enjoyed my time as a software engineer so far, I found that I want to work on a product that I feel more passionate about. As I thought about what I would want to work on, I came back to my original inspiration for becoming a software engineer: game development.
I enjoy more than just playing games. I also enjoy the creative aspects, technical details, game design, and learning about the development process. I've listened to talks from the Game Developers Conference and watched many videos on different game design elements for fun. I feel I can talk about anything video games for hours on end.
I completed a game development course in college that introduced me to the Unity game engine. I worked on a mini game called Run Kid Run as the final project for the course that I continued after college for enjoyment. After taking a break from game development during the covid quarantine times, I decided to make a new project to learn more about game development and to see implementing a prototype to completion. This is what led to the development of my first published project Eyes or Ears.
I learned so much developing Eyes or Ears and I was eager to start a new project. I quickly jumped into developing Knight Showdown. Since Eyes or Ears is more of a prototype than a game, I wanted to make my next published piece closer to a full game experience. I explored how to use the Unity Asset Store to create something with pre-existing art assets. I used Adobe's Mixamo to create the animations and tuned the animations using Unity's animation tools. I also learned how to adapt the game to be compatible with controllers. Overall I am very happy with the result and had a lot of fun both creating and playing Knight Showdown!
My latest project is a fast-paced multiplayer card game my friends and I used to play in college called Cambia. It was made multiplayer using Unity's netcode for game objects (NGO), Lobby, and Relay.
I have loved working in game development so far and am interested in one day making it a career! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Eyes or Ears, Knight Showdown, and Cambia! Thank you for reading. :)
