My name is Lea, though I am also known by Sam.
I have been programming since the age of 8, starting out by making small video games in GameMaker. Over the years, I honed my skills and eventually pursued a career in game development.
In 2015, I graduated with a degree in Engineering, and I had already started my first AAA job. For my graduation project, I built a clone of IncrediBuild to save costs and improve performance. This was a successful endeavour!
Currently, I am not employed, but I work on open-source software whenever I can. The biggest project I have contributed to is MiSTer FPGA. I contribute to projects that interest me.
I enjoy working on open-source projects and hope to launch a few of my own!
I have worked on games published by Square-Enix. This is a list of notable projects I have worked on and my parts in it:
Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (2014):
This was one of the first projects I worked on, during my internship (2014-2015). I worked primarily on fixing bugs related to console compliance. For example, nearly every compliance ruleset dictates that a game cannot have a black screen for a particular time, so that was one of the things I tackled.
Tomb Raider (2013):
Stadia: This project was ported to PC by Nixxes prior to my employment. My only role in this project is working on the port to Google Stadia, which included backporting optimizations from later games using the same engine.
Rise of the Tomb Raider:
My first role in this project was to update the debug draw routines from 240p to 1080p. This included rewriting many debug drawing routines.
PC: Because the controller vibration was mastered for the Xbox One, which has trigger rumble unlike most PC controllers, I wrote a simple algorithm to emulate trigger feedback on the standard 2-motor controller setup. My other responsibilities included bug hunting as well as optimization.
Xbox 360: I worked on the Xbox 360 downport as part of "Team Amnesia". I implemented the same controller vibration algorithm and also completely redesigned the hunting mechanism so that it used less system resources. I also worked on the online gameplay portion of the game and made sure it worked as expected. Finally, I worked on fixing issues regarding console compliance, which was necessary to ship the game.
PS4: Using the PC port as a base, I assisted with the porting process. A colleague and me were in charge of implementing online gameplay, including voice chat. I also worked on fixing issues related to console standards compliancy.
Stadia: I worked on the Google Stadia port of the game using the PS4 version as a base (both systems follow POSIX standards).
Windows Store: I spearheaded the development of the UWP (Microsoft Store) port, using the PC port as a base. During development, many issues with UWP became apparent and I worked with Microsoft to address them. I gave a talk at Xfest 2015, a Microsoft Xbox conference held in London, on recommendations and common pitfalls regarding porting one's game to UWP. The talk was well received.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel's Avengers:
My roles on these games were small. My work from the previous projects was included within the codebase. I did on occasion help with bug-hunting.
Stadia (SotTR): As with the other Tomb Raider trilogy games, I worked on the Stadia port of Shadow of the Tomb Raider. As with the other projects, the PS4 version of the game was used as a base.