Aaron Karras

Resume

Some examples of my code may be found on GitHub @akarras, released game projects can be found on colorfulchew.itch.io

Education

  • Weber State University – Ogden, Utah
  • 73 credit hours towards a Bachelor of Computer Science

Skill Sets

  • Created, and currently operate an online community of over 2000 registered users with 30+ staff members
  • Enjoys learning, and picking up technologies
  • Interpersonal and small group communication

Technical

  • General Object Oriented Programming with C++, Java, C#
  • Game Development using Unreal Engine 4 Blueprints & C++
  • Source Control using Perforce, Git/GitHub
  • LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP)
    • This VPS is running Ubuntu!
  • Web Development using HTML/CSS/Javascript and Bootstrap
  • UWP (Universal Windows Platform) C#/XAML
  • WPF (C#/XAML)

Volunteer Work

  • Spring 2017 – Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah

 

Portfolio

Long Term Project

Stir Party [Steam | Unreal Engine 4 | Unreleased] (in development from June to still in development)

A party style game where each minigame takes around a minute to complete, and the first to win five minigames wins!

Features

  • Steam integration for matchmaking, inventory, and item drops
  • Currently 10+ minigames
  • Local couch co-op multiplayer and online multiplayer

Game Jam Games

All of the games in this section come from game jams. A game jam is a bit like a hackathon. The idea is that you are given a theme (or none at all) and are given a strict time restriction. Often Game Jams will have a winner. Not that I’ve won any, but it’s been a great learning experience for me. Especially when it comes to working on a team with other programmers and artists.

Goat Murderer [Shenanijam 2017 | Itch | Unreal Engine 4]

The prompt I received was “Robomowing Ghost Goats”, so I created a game in which you mow down endless hoards of ghost goats that roll spookily towards you.

I started a day late, but I decided to stick through it and I ended up getting much further with the project than I thought I would. Not my best work, but I’m still proud of it.

Mr. Spring – [Unreal Spring Game Jam 2017 | Unreal Engine 4]

Built in three days, Mr. Spring is a 3D platformer with a springy main character. The player must collect three items, a donut, a slice of pizza, and a beer to go with it. The game was built in tandem with my friend Zach, models were done using Blender, and gameplay logic was all done in Blueprint.

Welcome To Bluecrest [Unreal August 2016 Game Jam]

Welcome To Bluecrest was actually my first game jam ever. I was working with my friend, and neither of us really understood what we were doing. The scope on it was far too great to accomplish at my skill level at the time in three days. The concept was to create a murder mystery game where everything happened in real time. Players would be given a list of chores to complete every day, and then one murderer would need to sneak around murdering them, and the town would have to guess who it was.

This was my first ever game jam, and it wasn’t submitted as it wasn’t playable, but it meant a lot to me.

Plugins

The following plugins were all built for use on Minecraft servers. They weren’t widely distributed, but over the course of the years have been used by thousands of users. I have a few others that are more developed, but these are the ones that I opted to publish on GitHub.

June 2017 BlockRotator [GitHub]

A simple utility to allow players to rotate certain blocks such as terracotta and stairs.

July 2016 NAH (Noobs Against Humanity) [GitHub]

NAH is a fully functional game of Cards Against Humanity that displays the game to Minecraft players using an neat little GUI. It was built in a very short time frame, and has some flaws that would be great to iron out. I still love it.

Windows Phone

Disclaimer: It’s been a very long time since I developed anything for Windows Phone, but I feel like it’s worth mentioning.

Minecraft Server Checker

Description: Permitted users to add PC Minecraft servers into the app. Eventually it provided the ability for players to add friends and be notified when that friend has logged in. I’ve since removed it from the store, but it did reach 500K acquisitions.