Education
I was homeschooled all through elementary and high school within New Covenant Christian School, a private "umbrella school" for homeschooling families. I graduated as valedictorian of my class, which was small, but full of talented students. My SAT test scores ranked in the top 0.1 percentile of the U.S.A., earning me the title of National Merit Scholar.
I took my college education at the University of Central Florida. I majored in Computer Science, in which UCF has an excellent degree program. I was also a student in UCF's Burnett Honors College, which offered special classes for advanced students. My elective courses included:
- Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
- Database Systems
- Honors Writing for Technical Professionals
- Honors Creative Writing
- Honors General Psychology
- Personality Theory
- Elementary and Intermediate Japanese I & II
I graduated from UCF at the end of the spring 2007 semester with a GPA of 3.305.
UCF School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science website
In fall of 2007, I enrolled in the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA), UCF's graduate degree program in game development. FIEA offers its students the personal instruction of game industry veterans, and trains them through development projects which closely simulate real-world game development environments and challenges. I entered FIEA's Production track with a focus on design and programming. I participated in many student game projects at FIEA, most notably BizarreCraft and Flow. In December of 2008, I graduated from FIEA with a GPA of 3.925.
Skills and Interests
For
practically
as long as I can remember, computer and video games have fascinated me.
My first exposure to them was with a Boulder Dash-esque
game on my father's work terminal. It had ASCII-art graphics and was
non-real-time, but I was hooked. Later I found out that my father had
an old Atari with a collection of games, which vastly broadened my
gaming horizons. And when he acquired a Commodore 64 computer, things
really started taking off...especially once I received a book which
taught programming in BASIC for kids.
As I continued to grow, I played hundreds of games and worked to create games of my own. I programmed simple text-adventure games from scratch, and did elaborate projects in game creation applications like Klik & Play and RPG Maker. I also took advantage of games which provided editors of their own, from Ultimate Wizard on the Commodore 64 to Worms World Party on the PC. I created entire campaigns in games like these, and stretched the boundaries of their game mechanics with clever manipulation of their internal workings. Through experiences like these, I gradually built up a knowledge of game design, level design, and scripting. Today I consider these to be my greatest strengths as a game developer, as demonstrated by the game examples on the main page of this site.
Another strong interest of mine worth noting is writing. Homeschooled by my mother, who was an English major in college, I learned skilled writing technique from an early age. This has served me well in my scholastic pursuits, and I also enjoy writing for its own sake.
Why "B.J."?
This is a question I'm asked every so often, so I think I might as well give an explanation here. I was named after both of my grandfathers, Bernard on my father's side and John on my mother's side. My father was also named after his own father, which means I have the same first name as him. To avoid confusion, my parents decided to call me B.J. Personally, I like it, though I'll also answer to Bernard if people prefer to use that.
Resume
Download resume (Word document)
Letters of Recommendation
Contact Information
E-mail address: bj.badger@hotmail.com
Cell phone: (321)505-0562