Jesse Spears Email and Phone Number

I'm working on an unannounced title for another company (i.e., I'm a contractor for a company other than Eden Industries). I'm unsure of how secret it is at the moment, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Originally, this company focused almost exclusively on creating and maintaining Harpoon3 (Windows, MacOS, MacOSX). Until 2003 I was responsible for all programming, art and video production. In 2003, we had a baby, and I had to cut back my work time dramatically, and AGSI (the publisher) took over more tasks, including hiring other programmers. I stopped working on Harpoon3 many years ago. The follow on project built from it (H3 MilSim) was sold to various militaries as a training aid, but that ceased production a few years back also.This "company" is very much a part time hobby at this point. I still dabble in things from time to time, but because of constraints placed on me by my day job, I don't expect I'll release anymore titles under this company until I retire.

Retro Studios is owned by Nintendo of America, and is located in Austin, TX.At Retro I've worked primarily on AI for creatures, bosses, and systems.My primary projects at Retro Studios have included (chronologically):* "Metroid Prime 3" for Wii (MP3)* "Metroid Prime Trilogy" for Wii (MPT).* "Donkey Kong Country Returns" for Wii (DKCR)* "Mario Kart 7" for 3DS (MK7)* "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze" for Wii U (DKCTF)* "Metroid Prime: Remastered"* Currently working on Metroid Prime 4Most of my work on these projects was in C++ (except MK7), with occasional work in C# and Python (for tools). Most of my work on these projects was as an AI/Gameplay Engineer.I've also spent some time working on tools and build farms, but that's never been my primary focus (except for MK7).Beginning with MK7, and continuing until after DKCTF shipped, I split my time working on tools. For MK7, that was my primary role (essentially, support engineer, keeping our artists and designers up and running while interfacing with tools and systems in Japan, writing utility software for our team, troubleshooting problems as they arose).I was also responsible for Retro's build farm (multiple pipelines and targets), an internal tools Installer, as well as another internal tool used in game development. I wrote some automated tools for auto-generating help systems for our internal databases. Much of my work for these projects was in Python, DOS Batch, C#, Inno Script, and required interfacing with Perforce, Subversion, and Alienbrain.

I worked on a Mobile Phone game for BREW: AvP2 (Aliens vs. Predators 2). I wrote many of my own tools (mostly in Python), and was responsible for all code on the BREW side (C++). It was a good learning experience, and really forced me to concentrate on optimizing my code (for both size AND speed) in order to make it work on the low end target phones.

I worked on 2 titles at Westlake:Escape From Monkey Island for MacOS: Lead ProgrammerClive Barker’s Undying for MacOS: Lead ProgrammerEFMI was a great learning experience for OpenGL and LUA.I left not too long after starting on Undying in order to follow my dream of starting my own game company (SpearSoft). I'd been working on Harpoon3 (MacOS only) since 1998, but I had an opportunity to port the code to Windows (95/98/2k/xp), and couldn't pass it up.

I was the lead programmer on 2 projects:The Wild Thornberrys' Rambler (Windows)Jump Start 4th Grade 2000 (Windows, MacOS)And helped out with 2 other projects:Disney's Dinosaurs (Windows, MacOS): Mac DebuggingDisney's Mickey Saves the Day 3D Adventure (Windows): Scripting

I worked on one major project:Jump Start 6th Grade (MacOS and Windows)and two smaller contracts:Worth Plus+ Installer (MacOS)Ported parts of Human Code's game engine to MacOS

I wrote partial wrapper for DirectDraw for MacOS using Apple's DrawSprocket. I was only working on a thin implementation, just enough for a port of one game (which turned out to be "Total Annhialation" for MacOS, which was eventually ported by Westlake Interactive, I think). Not much work, but it was a good way to keep my DirectDraw skills up to date.

I worked on a number of titles that were never published. Top Dog only published one title, ever, and that was a MacOS port completed before I was hired. Everything else was either the victim of bad luck, or bad management.Titles I worked on:High Heat (PlayStation): ProgrammerTNN Motor Sport's Hard Core 4X4 2 (PlayStation): ProgrammerTaxi! (Win95): Lead ProgrammerTop Dog 3D Graphics Library (Win95): Lead ProgrammerLunar Golf (Win95): ProgrammerHard Core 4x4 2 was actually finished, and had gone gold master, but the publisher decided not to release it (cash flow problems...they couldn't afford to market all of the games they had, and never recovered after a bad Christmas). We heard later (and I have no idea if this is true), that there were other issues: specifically licensing. In any case, Hard Core 4x4 2 was a great learning experience, being my first PlayStation game.

I helped finish "Harpoon2" for MacOS (shipped in May of 1995). Then I started work on "Hammer's Slammers" (it was cancelled when the Bryan office was shut down by IntraCorp). After being laid off, I went ahead and added a GUI on to the game engine I'd written for Hammer's Slammers (on my own time), purely for my own edification (I wanted to see if the AI I had written worked--it did! :). It also gave me a chance to develop a tiled terrain engine and Real Time Strategy game. I didn't have the rights to do anything with the code, so it was just for fun, but it turned out to be one of the better AI's I've written, incorporating Individual, Group, and Side AI, and having them all communicate and interact.

Worked on "World at War:Stalingrad". I focused mostly on cleaning up the GUI, and adding new UI features.

Worked on Harpoon 1 for Mac, Harpoon2 for DOS, Harpoon2 for Mac, and a variety of smaller projects (Battlesets, helping out with code for other titles).

I worked as a Co-op Student (both Undergrad and Graduate level) at General Dynamics in Fort Worth. The division no longer exists because GD sold it off to a competitor a while back. GD/FW was responsible for the F-16 and F-11 (and lots of smaller projects as well).