Nick Sherman - Game/Xamarin Developer
With a prolific track record in designing, developing and shipping games, as well as twelve years experience in actuarial work, I can bring a unique set of skills to a development role, being equally comfortable in structuring, accessing, manipulating and displaying extremely complex data as well as solving challenging software design and logic problems.
I am proficient in both the Unity3d (C#) and Corona SDK (Lua) engine as well as Xamarin for business apps, but can very easily pick up new languages/frameworks as required, having recently completed an Obj-C contract and also learning 6502 assembly language in under a month to create two games for the Commodore 64, VIC20, Plus/4 and PET....just for fun!
Retro Football Boss
A lifelong ambition
Ever since I first played World Soccer League on the C64, I wanted to make a Football Management game. I finally achieved that when RFB was released on Steam Early Access in September 2016, published by Plug-In Digital. It is the culmination of two year's determination, research and perseverance, allowing the player to start in any season from 1888-1998 with the real players, managers, transfers and competitions from that year.
Built for Ludum Dare 40 in 48-hours
Built for the Ludum Dare Game Jam.
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Each hole is built procedurally.
Bat and ball physics completed, next step is to build a level generator which can build from .lua files.
Unity3D
Fast iteration, clean code
As well as porting RFB to Unity, I have worked as a contractor for MAG Interactive in Brighton building prototypes, and also dip into a number of other projects to sharpen my skills in all areas of Unity game development.
You can play the games Powerhouse, Overdosed and Going Up! in your browser. These were made entirely by myself in just 48 hours for the Ludum Dare jam, including all code, graphics and sound.
I am particularly interested in areas such as VR and using procedural generation to generate rich and varied content during runtime, where the man-hours are not available to design levels or landscapes by hand. I am currently combining these to create a VR mini-golf game in Unity with a potentially infinite number of hole designs, alongside various other projects ranging from VR racket/bat & ball games to a 2D base-building engine.
Procedurally-generated puzzle game.
Guess the classic video games from their screenshots.
Endless runner featuring a flying cat...
A quiz based on the 11/12 football season.
Combine the sounds represented by the pictures to make a new word. This game was then cloned and called 'Pic Combo'.
Three game modes in which the aim is to find the opposite of the word displayed.
A simple action game, burst the balloons and catch the water. An unexpected hit in Saudi Arabia!
Fun endless runner, make the shark swim up and down to eat fish and avoid obstacles.
Guess the world famous landmark from its picture.
Guess the players based on their picture.
Quiz based on bizarre world of the Sky 1 TV presenter and former colleague of Ricky Gervais.
Quiz based on the hit US sitcom.
The original Football Logos Quiz, this game achieved over 1m downloads.
The original football kits quiz, which also achieved over 1m downloads.
Unofficial version of the Channel 4 game show Countdown.
Guess the band by their logo.
Slide your finger to negotiate the arrow down the narrow path.
Guess the football team based on four related pictures.
Guess the band based on four related pictures.
A quiz based on the hit US sitcom.
Otter Studios
Having returned to programming in 2010, over the next few years I released around 25 games on the mobile app stores which achieved over three million downloads, and then turned part-time in 2014 to focus even more on development. Otter Studios was sold to a Seattle investor in late 2014.
8-bit development
For Commodore Machines
In late 2019 I learnt 6502 assembler in order to create a few games for the Commodore systems. It had always seemed like witchcraft as a kid, but recent experience with learning Xamarin and Objective-C gave me the confidence to try and to my surprise I got the hang of the completely different paradigm very quickly.
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A remake of the C64 game Soccer Rivals
A clone of the popular Happy Chef game, which was to feature a much more complex menu.
Guess the celebrity based on the picture made up of words relevant to them.
A remake of the C64 game Soccer Rivals
The Unreleased Tapes
These are the games that were being worked on when Otter Studios was sold and it was decided to move away from mobile games!
Amiga Forever
Where It All Began...
I recently found all my old Amiga disks and managed to rescue the last copy of the critically acclaimed (by my family) 1996 AMOS game 'Horse Racing 2'.
With no manual or stackoverflow back then, it was just a case of trial and error to get anything up on the screen.
Unfortunately, it would appear there are no such copies of the smash hit C64 prequel still in existence, although lemon64.com continue the search...
There never was a registered user 002...
Two frames of animation was all these horses needed.
Choices, choices...
Not enough money to start a stable...
I didn't quite understand how odds worked back then...
I don't remember why I used my full name here...
The dreams I had for Eagle Software sadly ended here...