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Contact - spencerwells@gmail.com

I'm a software engineer and game dev who loves making cool stuff! These are some of my projects:

GMTK Jam 2021

Over the summer, my friends and I participated in the GMTK game jam and made a 3D strategy RPG in Unity called Feline Formations! I focused mainly on programming and design, implementing the following systems:

  • Grid-based movement and attacking, with highlighting to show range of actions and selected targets
  • Enemy pathfinding and attack AI
  • Editor tool for easily adding new unit types and formations to the game
  • UI that upates to show selected player units and formations
Check out the game on Itch.io! - https://centipeda.itch.io/feline-formations

ND Studios VR

I collaborated with Notre Dame Academic Technologies to create a virtual reality escape room showcasing the new studio space at the University of Notre Dame.

  • Built using Unity and the XR toolkit
  • Physics-based puzzle progression
  • Lead programmer on project, coordinated with modelers, designers, and voice actors
  • Demoed at conference of 50 people

A Friend's Quest

I recently started a personal RPG project tentatively titled A Friend's Quest inspired by the classic Paper Mario games! Although this project is just in its beginning stages, I hope to be able to share more updates and designs soon!

  • Original character designs drawn in Clip Studio Paint and edited in Photoshop
  • Sprite rigging and animation done using Unity's 2D animation package
  • Generic scriptable object based event system for easily adding interactables (like doors) without additional code
  • Seamless area-based camera transitions using Cinemachine

Secluded Mountaintop Scene

I did some terrain generation experiments in Unity, and was able to make a secluded mountaintop scene that I decorated and composited with assets from the Unity asset store.

  • Landscape generation with Gaia Pro
  • Triplanar mapping for grass, dirt, and cliff textures
  • Height fog and Massive Clouds package used to conceal background
  • Bloom and color gradient used to bring out vibrance in the trees and unify the color palette
Development of this project is currently on hold, but I hope to come back to it in the future!

Get Rings, Destroy Cubes

This is a simple space-shooter game I made about flying through rings to upgrade your ship and shooting the cubes trying to take you down.

  • Phase-based, endless gameplay
  • 5 unique enemy types
  • Rings that upgrade flight speed, turn-radius,
  • Boss battle every 3 phases with the sleeping cube at the center of the map
You can play it now on Itch.io! - https://swells.itch.io/get-rings-destroy-cubes

Lowrez Jam 2021

At the Lowrez jam, me and two friends made a game that's 64x64 resolution! You can play it on itch.io here: https://swells.itch.io/pixel

Arduino Tetris

Tetris on an Arduino! This was a group project for an embedded systems course, we display the game on an led matrix and even play the tetris theme on the speaker!

Technologies Used

  • Arduino
  • C
Codebase on Github - https://github.com/centipeda/mini-tetris

Blokus Simulator

For the final project in freshman engineering, I made a simulation of the game Blokus and programmed different AI playing styles so that I could determine what the best strategy is using thousands of game results as data Codebase on Github - https://github.com/SwellsHub/BlokusSim

Eagle Eyes

For the 2022 Notre Dame Hesburgh Hackathon we created an app to help beginner birdwatchers and promote engagement with nature

Technology Used:

  • Flutter
  • EBird API for observation data
  • Google Maps API to show recent sightings of suggested bird
Codebase on github - https://github.com/open-source-grilled-cheese/eagle-eyes

New Perspectives

For Irish Hacks 2019, my team made a Chrome extension that checks the news article you are reading and suggests other articles about the same topic on the opposite end of the political spectrum. It was made to help fight polticial polarization and make it easier for people to broaden what perspectives they are exposed to.

Technology Used:

  • HTML/CSS/Javascript
  • Python
  • IBM Watson Discovery: NLP platform for analyzing articles and finding suggestions
Codebase on github - https://github.com/open-source-grilled-cheese/new-perspective

Brick-a-Pic

For an Open Souce Development class, my group made a web app that takes pictures as input and produces buildable Lego creations!

Technology Used:

  • HTML/CSS/Javascript
  • Vue.js
  • HTML Canvas
Codebase on github - https://github.com/brick-a-pic/brick-a-pic

PostSeq

While working at the IU medical school, I helped develop a webapp to facilitate the RNA sequencing pipeline of the Biochemistry Department! Professors can access results in the database from past experiments and perform a number of statistical tests for gene expression and pathway analysis

Technologies Used:

  • R
  • R Shiny
  • Limma RNA Sequencing Analysis Package
  • GGPlot 2
  • MySQL
Codebase on github - https://github.com/SwellsHub/PostSeq

3D
Plasma rifle modelled for hard surface unit of Advanced 3D Digital Production course
Character sculpt modeled in Maya and finished in Mudbox for Advanced 3D Digital Production course
Padlock modelled and animated for final project in Basic 3D Digital Production course
2D