About

Obert Chen

I’m an aspiring game developer who is focusing on all programming aspects of Unity.

My first game jam was November 2019 where our small team made an analogue dungeon crawler with index cards, weapons, life and health points, and randomly drawn monsters. This was my first intro to game design and it was an enjoyable sleep deprived game jam weekend.

Since then, I have been learning Java and C# algorithms as a light hobby for the last few years while working as a full time physicist.

I got back into the game jam world with my local game organization in January 2022. We made a 2D platformer with about 10 people.  The team included a 2D artist, a 3D artist, 4 programmers, a music/sfx specialist, and a writer. A few of us decided to stay after the jam in order to further refine the project. I rebuilt the game from scratch using the assets we had in order to accommodate gamepad support and runtime rebinding of keyboard and controller. We showed off the game as a vendor at the Too Many Games convention are currently working on designing more levels, adding art, and fixing bugs. Recreating the game and adding some modern game functionality has been a great first hand learning experience.

In another game jam from late March to early April 2022, I contributed as a programmer for a 3D exploration game we titled Alma of the Forest. I was mainly responsible for creating a modular dialogue system that could handle a narrator, three NPCs, and a protagonist. Other contributions included adding AI behavior to the finite state machine, adjusting visual effects with the protagonist, and adding various UI features.

In May 2022 to September 2022, I worked as a programmer with Plot Armor Studios to create Third Power, a 3D stealth puzzler. In a four month span we were able to go from concept to steam release. It was such an amazing ride and I loved working with an immensely talented and passionate indie team. We currently have about 1000 downloads and some good feedback on how to continue refining the project.

Hopefully I will use everything I’ve learned to continue making some amazing games!

Projects

• Third Power – programmer
• Me & I – Lead programmer / violinist
• Alma of the Forest – programmer
• Cell Shocked – playtester

Skills

• Unity specific skills
  • UI menus
  • controller runtime rebinding with new input system
  • 2D platformer physics
  • animations / animation events
  • event subscription
• Intermediate proficiency with Java/C#
• Object oriented programming
  • best practices
  • scalability
  • maintainability
• Leetcode algorithmic problems
  • 201 easy
  • 78 medium
  • 3 hard (and counting)
• Own and manage repository for Me & I on Github

School

• Georgia Institute of Technology
  • BS Nuclear Engineering
  • MS Medical Physics

Hobbies

• Board games
• Hiking
• Violin
• Ultimate frisbee
• Guitar
• Piano
• Volunteering