Hi!
My name is Josh, and I currently live in Oak Harbor, Washington. Oak Harbor is a decently sized city located on Whidbey Island, which falls into the Pacific Standard Time Zone (PST). During my free time, I mostly enjoy playing video games. I started with action shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty when I was younger. As time has gone on, I found that I enjoy games with more meaningful goals and gameplay loops instead of a meaningless level-up rank. Survival games ultimately won me over, especially those that incorporate strategy, such as games like Don’t Starve Together, Terraria, Stardew Valley, and RimWorld to name a few. My earliest and all-time favorite game, however, is RuneScape. Other hobbies I enjoy include Magic: The Gathering, lifting weights, watching movies, and going on hikes with my wife and dogs.
Video games are the original reason I got into computers. I would constantly try to modify game files and run mods on various games. I attempted to write scripts to automate tasks in games to make my playtime more efficient (I admit to blatant cheating, I know). I never delved deeply into software programming when I was younger, but this early exposure is the main reason I wanted to go to school to learn programming.
Although I love video games, my time at OSU has not been focused on game development. I have instead geared my degree more toward Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) by earning a minor in psychology and taking psychology classes related to Computer Science.
Interestingly enough, my current job and work experience have nothing to do with computer science. I currently work as a part-time firefighter in my hometown and was previously a combat medic in the Army. I am trying to get hired full-time as a career firefighter within the next two months, and if I do, my computer science degree may not see much use after I earn it.
That being said, there are a couple of projects that really interest me, specifically game design projects, as I would love to gain experience building some sort of game. These include from the project portal:
2. Online Trading Card Game Maker
3. Text Adventure Game for Education
4. Build an Emulator and Run Space Invaders ROM
Thanks for reading this far, and have a great day!