Timeframe: 12/2021 – 05/2022
Position: Gameplay Engineer (contract)
Technologies: TypeScript/JavaScript, React, Phaser, Spine
Status: Released on Google Play Store and Apple App Store
The Story: My first official mobile game, and with a great brand to boot! I contributed to Learn with Sesame Street with a team of about 40 people as a Gameplay Engineer, making major contributions to about 7 games contained within the app itself. Hired over Christmas, I was allowed to view the codebase, and by my second day with the team, I hit the ground running with tasks.
The team was very collaborative and we worked hard to get the games out the door in the app by late May with no real crunch. Our workflow was to set up scenes using Phaser2D Editor, and then use TypeScript for code, with React serving to parse TSX files via a behavior tree for interactive cutscenes. Spine was used for animations, and I learned a bit about troubleshooting bugs with those while doing imports and syncing sound effects.
Probably the best indicator for success on a project like this is that my then-two-year-old son absolutely loved playing the game!
