Welcome to Playing the Game of Life
Hi friends. Welcome to my new blog. It’s been a long while. Almost 4 years to be exact. For those who've followed me over from my old domain, I am astounded and flattered at your interest over the years, despite my rambling and long absences; for all of you fresh faces, welcome to Playing the Game of Life, now in a better location. For those who don’t know, my name is Austin Ryan Snider -- or as I have recently taken as a pen-name -- A.R. Snid ...
Open Letter To Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation, My name is Austin Snider, I am an IT professional and a computer power user that has been using Microsoft products for nearly two decades. In this time, I have seen many different departments at Microsoft produce exceptional products, such as the controller for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft Visual Studio, which I have loved for quite some time. Despite these quality products, Microsoft has released many less than spectacular ...
Tool Compare: Unity 5 vs. Unreal Engine 4
A member of the Video Game Development Club group on Facebook made the following post a few days ago: "Okay so can someone help me understand what are the major differences between UDK, Unreal Engine, and Unity? And also which one is the best?" I do my best to share my experiences to our club members and was in the process of responding when I started noticing that Facebook not appear to allow paragraphs in the comments. Since this question i ...
I’m Not Dead. In Fact, I’ve Never Felt More Alive.
I just recently updated the other pages of this site (the "About Me" and "My Stuff" pages). I have attempted to write several posts in my last few months of being absent; however, I tended to make my posts too long and never got around to finishing them. So this one is short and sweet and is more of a personal update. Since my "Engineering Better Games" post back in October I've been buried in Game Development. The combination of my own persona ...
New Look Same Great Taste!
Hello everyone! If you've been around you will notice that this site just recieved an overhaul. I will continue on the same as always, but since I have been actively persuing jobs in the games industry I felt it was probably best that I cleanup and streamline a bit. I have cleaned up and updated all site pages and will hopefully soon have more detailed project pages to emphasize my work and let those interested see more of the details of what's ...
Now Accepting Extra Life Donation Pledges to Benefit Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals!
Hello again everyone! Yesterday I established an Extra Life game team for the North Carolina State University Video Game Development Club. Today I have began taking donation pledges for the upcoming 24-Hr Extra Life Game Marathon, an event aimed at raising money to benefit our local Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. I am looking for people who are willing to donate a fixed amount (preferrably $1 or more) for each hour of video games played ...
Engineering Better Games
It has been a while since my last post. There have been many things going on in my life and I have finally reached a tipping point. I am going into the video game industry. For the past couple of years I have worked through an Electrical and Computer Engineering curriculum at North Carolina State University. It has been rewarding, challenging and very insightful. There is just one problem: the curriculum I am following is designed to train Elec ...
Summer of Dev Week — What week is it again?
I'm taking some time to post this because I haven't really been faithful to what I've been trying to do this summer. I had originally intended to work at my game projects as if it were a full time job; though my family and friends take this to mean that I have unlimited free time with which to ask me to do stuff or go somewhere. But I digress. It has been several weeks and, due to "hiccups" in production (it being summer and my team being compri ...
Summer of Dev Week 1.
It has been a long but not very fruitful week. When coming back into town after a year away, it seems that everyone wants to see you. I have no problem with this, and family and friends are important, but it means that this week has been a slow one. The good news is that I planned ahead. I had scheduled this week to be a setup/relax week so that the team could get settled (if they were moving), get some rest, and prepare themselves to start on ...
Summer of Dev
Hello and welcome! It has been quite a while since my last post and I would like to jump straight to THE DESERTEAGLE PWN SUPER SUMMER OF DILIGENT GAME DEVELOPMENT (Summer of Dev. for Short) Those who have been following me are aware that I am currently going to school in pursuit of double bachelors degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and that making, critiquing and playing games is what I do. Being an undergr ...