Battlegrounds is a multiplayer, free-to-play medieval sandbox game featuring real-time virtual reality PvP combat. Players engage in sword fighting enhanced by gadgets like bombs, rockets, cannons, bows, guns and staffs, while competing in procedural generated game events. The gameplay is made even more intense and fast-paced by dynamic movement mechanics such as dashing, grappling and climbing. Battlegrounds is currently available on the Meta Quest Store.

Battlegrounds was developed from the ground up, and I was a part of the process from the very beginning. As a result, I was a key contributor to core gameplay systems including player movement, gripping, and the Free-For-All and Team Deathmatch modes used during the beta. From the very beginning, there was a focus on performance so we could get as many players as possible into a lobby. I supported our performance goals by creating an item clean up system that would greatly reduce the number of irrelevant actors that exist in the world at any given time.

As development progressed, I was a major contributor to developing a more dynamic game mode system using Unreal Engine's Gameplay Ability System (GAS). This new system would use actors and gameplay abilities to spawn objectives at pre-determined points around the map, enabling easier prototyping for designers and supporting both pre-existing game modes like Team Deathmatch and new ones, such as Scepter Seeker which is a mode where players compete to hold the scepter at the end of a given time limit. I also solo-developed a grappling-based race course, which remained persistently active in the world and allowed players to race against their own high scores.

The project also included daily quests progression systems involving in-game currency for unlockable weapon skins, gadgets, and cosmetics. Although I didn’t implement the backend systems directly, I worked closely with developers using Epic Online Services (EOS) and later AccelByte. As a result, I learned a lot about how to effectively and efficiently store player data.

Developing Battlegrounds deepened my understanding of multiplayer game architecture and the challenges that come with it. One such challenge involved in-game communication during server outages. To address this, I developed a system that allowed us to dynamically change a message board within the main menu of the game to display whatever text or image we wanted to the player in real-time. Another challenge was simply having to account for network latency and packet loss. As in any networked game, this issue arose throughout the game and we constantly needed to find ways to ensure smooth gameplay for all players as best as possible. This experience helped me gain valurable problem solving and debugging skills in networked environments.

Guardian of Realms is a mixed reality medieval combat game that features moddable enemies, environments and weapons, allowing players to fully customize their experience. It includes two main modes: survival mode, where players must defend a crystal against waves of enemies for as long as possible, and sandbox mode, which lets players use modifiers and hazards to create custom combat scenarios. Guardian of Realms is currently available on the Meta Quest Store.

Guardian of Realms was my first mixed reality (MR) project. My primary responsibility was porting the hazard system I had originally developed for Swordsman VR into this new environment. While the core hazard functionality remained consistent, the way in which the players would spawn the hazards into the world was different. Players would now physically throw spheres from their hip onto the environment to spawn hazards. This presented unique challenges, including accurately estimating hip position without a visible player body and making sure the placement looked natural relative to the player’s real-world movements.

Another key task I took on was improving hand representation to ensure that the player's virtual hands closely matched their real hands when moving around and interacting with objects. In Swordsman VR, visual cheating was possible since players couldn’t see their real hands. In Guardian of Realms, MR demanded a far higher level of accuracy and alignment with physical reality.

This project gave me insight into what developing a game is like from the very beginning of the process. While much of my initial work was porting pre-existing functionality, there were significant differences that helped me gain valuable experience. The original hazard system was built in blueprint in Unreal Engine 4.27, while Guardian of Realms was developed in Unreal Engine 5.2, so I gained experience porting content across major engine versions. Additionally, the project prioritized C++ over Blueprint and was built from the ground up with modding support via Mod.io, requiring me to write clean, extensible, and well-structured code suitable for community contributions.

Swordsman VR is a physics-based virtual reality medieval combat game. Players can play through a campaign mode featuring five factions and eight bosses, fight hordes of zombies in horde mode or create custom combat scenarios in sandbox mode. Players can also compete on real-time leaderboards by completing combat challenges in the training grounds. Swordsman VR is currently available on Meta Quest, Oculus, PlayStation, Steam, Viveport and PICO platforms.

Swordsman VR was both my first professional and first VR project, developed by a small team where I had the opportunity to contribute to all areas of the project. I played a key role in performance optimization using Unreal Insights, which was critical to meeting platform-specific requirements and launching the game on Meta Quest and PICO stores. I was the main developer for the Hazards update and was a core contributor to the Training Grounds update, where I implemented cross-platform leaderboards using PlayFab. This experience led me to learn how to package local builds for all supported platforms and learn how to use PlayStation tools to debug builds for their consoles.

The game achieved notable commercial success, peaking as the most downloaded PSVR2 game in August 2024 and maintaining a top-10 ranking for 10 consecutive months. This performance reflects the quality and stability of the builds we shipped, which I helped deliver on Quest, PICO, and PlayStation 5 through packaging builds locally when needed, debugging issues, and assisting with QA work using platform-specific tools at various times throughout development.

This project helped me grow significantly as a programmer and gave me valuable experience as to what it's like to work on a professional project. When I joined, the codebase was almost exclusively in blueprint but towards the end of the project we transitioned to working more in C++ so I gained a deep understanding about how to work effectively and efficiently in both environments. I also gained valuable experience with source control using GitHub and Perforce, team collaboration tools like Jira, and participated in regular code reviews via Swarm. As the only junior developer on the team, I was constantly learning from more experienced colleagues and improving my ability to write clean, maintainable, production-grade code.