Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new zealand. Show all posts

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Updates from antipodes, year 2021

Hey all, it's been a while. Here's a brief update on my life --

I've successfully moved to New Zealand and I currently reside in Auckland. I'm currently working as a remote contractor on a secret project under NDA, but I imagine we'll probably announce sometime this year if everything goes well. 

I'm still working on some personal projects:

  • I have two gay games that are 95% done, they just need some playtesting and polish, but finding an in-person playtesting group in Auckland has been a bit challenging. Regardless I'll probably be releasing these games this March and April. 
  • This will be the year I attempt to finish my bigger long term project -- a sex work deckbuilder game called Macho Cam. That's about 60% done. I need to redo the card system for the 5th time.
  • For the long-awaited Radiator 3 release, my plan was to wait for Unity HDRP to get finalized before attempting to port the entire Radiator codebase from Unity 5.6 (I know, I know) to Unity 202x. But maybe I should just stick to the built-in 3D pipeline anyway.
  • I've also been contributing a lot to everyone's favorite Unity dialogue system Yarn Spinner and I've been trying to clean up my dialogue tool Merino, all of which might see its official v2.0 public release this year.
  • Most of my Quake mapping is on hold, as I dedicate my level design energies to a different engine-agnostic project. More to announce there when it's ready, which will, again, hopefully be this year.

For those who happen to be in New Zealand, I'll be giving a short in-person talk about sex games at Play By Play, which I'm told is a bit like the kiwi equivalent of the Indiecade conference track -- and it's all part of the larger in-person New Zealand Games Festival in Wellington, April 19-25, 2021. I'll be around for most of Play By Play, so feel free to say hello if you see me... Unless the country suddenly plunges into lockdown that week?

Hope everyone is having a tolerable 2021 so far. Good luck out there.

Monday, October 19, 2020

The year of changes - kia ora Aotearoa

Earlier this year I submitted my letter of resignation as assistant arts professor at New York University, so Fall 2020 will be my last semester as full-time faculty at NYU Game Center.

Working at NYU Game Center has been an immense privilege and honestly it's a dream job for any game developer. I will miss my students, colleagues, friends, and mentors. But unfortunately it was impossible to meld a job about constant meetings with a major life change:

I'm leaving New York City and moving to New Zealand.

I realize I have the rare privilege of leaving the US, at a time when most of the world has shut its borders to US citizens. But I don't think of it as an escape -- NYC will recover and stay NYC, probably, and NZ has plenty of its own problems, so let's just put aside the COVID factor and think of it more as a hiatus... I'm taking a hiatus from residing in the US, and seeing what else life has to offer.

This move also means a short (or perhaps longer) hiatus from being a full-time academic. I'll still try to make myself available to students sometimes and maybe I'll even have the pleasure of teaching some classes at a NZ university, but for now, academia likely won't be the main focus of my life. And while I must stress again that I will miss my colleagues and students dearly, I must admit, I'm also looking forward to new possibilities for my professional and creative life:

First, I have a few commercial-oriented games in the works. Look for the releases next year.

Second, starting in January 2021, I'll be available for hire for work around New Zealand (I have a NZ work visa) or remote work from anywhere. 

I'm a generalist 3D designer / developer who's very experienced with Unity, and I'm familiar enough with Unreal to prototype in BP, build levels, and get myself up to speed with minimal supervision. I'm also available as a level designer + scripter + tolerable environment artist / asset mangler for 3D projects of all types. 

My portfolio is here, email me at yang.robert.w(at)gmail(dot)com if you want to talk. Paid gigs / positions only. CV available on request.

In the meantime, kia ora Aotearoa.

Monday, January 27, 2014

The land of milk and honey

Some brief moments from New Zealand. We now return to our scheduled programming...