Alex Cho Snyder - Portfolio blog: Evolution Live!Alex has dedicated himself to the long-term goal of pioneering educational and artistic games. To this end, Alex worked on one of the nation’s most well-known projects pushing this envelope - Foldit. The protein folding game, Foldit, uses game design to make complex scientific problems accessible and fun for lay people. Independently, Alex has been passionate about game development since before middle school and has released dozens of completed games and similar projects throughout the years.
Alex also dedicated his computer science thesis to developing the effectiveness of implementing and measuring learning in games, and runs the blog Evolution Live! which chronicles his continual exploration in game design. Evolution Live! discusses the ideas, opportunities and advancements that are making an impact on the future of games as a tool for more than raw entertainment.
"If there were a category for greatest innovation within the competition, dRive would have won it hands-down." ~ Jay is Games
"Many thanks to Axcho for dredging up this ancient design from the dusty storage shed of my past." ~ Lost Garden
"Wow, very impressive. I like the way you think, Axcho. Keep the ideas coming." ~ Alexander Shen
"A simple idea with great execution." ~ Robots on Fire
Accomplishments:
Earned BS with Honors at the University of Washington, skipping two years of high school.
Mentioned on TechCrunch for creation of dance diagram editor on Elmore City Dance Club.
Wrote thesis paper on Designing and Evaluating Player Learning based on work on Foldit.
Placed fourth with self-designed and developed game dRive in contest sponsored by Adobe.
Wrote guest article for MochiLand on Promoting Your Game based on the above experience.
Writing and Design: (selected articles)
Designing and Evaluating Player Learning in Human Computation Games (senior thesis on Foldit)
The Game Idea Giveaway Thread or 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Promoting Your Game - Lessons Learned
Why I Care About Games <-- read this!
Myspace, Miis, Motivation
Motivation and Structure
Flash Projects:
Selected work or 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Dance diagram maker and player(s)
Latest completed game and review
Ragdoll fighting game
Ragdoll editor prototype
First flash game prototype
General Programming:
Procedural 3D recursive branching structures (C++ and OpenGL)
--> alternate download link
an animation using them
Selected C++ source code for particle physics system
Selected AS2 source code for an XML-driven blog header (for JFM)
Selected AS2 source code for experimental calculus game (dRive)
Calculator Programming:
Full list of completed calculator programs
click the colored file icons for more info
Sprite Lab (z80 assembly)
Ninja Pixel (TI-BASIC clone of N game, unfinished)
Dragon (first calculator game released)
Acid Rain (an original calculator game)
Snake (based on the cell phone version)
Overview of calculator graphics programming techniques
Visual Art:
Digital art and photography
procedural
Flash animated
folded
Frame by frame animation
HTML and Flash web art
Motivation:
In the abstract, the things that get me excited are figuring out how to expand the limits of what people think is possible, and helping other people appreciate the things that I find interesting or beautiful. As an example of the former, a big part of the appeal of calculator game programming for me was being able to do things that people would have never thought possible with the horribly inefficient language TI-BASIC, like make a rudimentary raycasting engine for a simple FPS, or an action game with actual pixel art graphics. It was really fun to explore the possibility space of the platform, researching the most obscure functions to see if they could somehow be put to use in making games just that much faster, or establishing a standard set of ugly but beautiful shortcuts and optimizations just to shave off a few bytes or milliseconds. And of course to share and show off these tricks with other calculator programmers online.
Now I direct this creative energy toward exploring new forms for Games (with a capital G) as a whole, expanding on what people think of and what they think is possible with something that is a "game". Not an easy task. The thing that excites me the most, and what I consider to be my life's work, is to help the medium of Games grow into its own as a powerful vehicle for understanding, expressing, and sharing views of the world and dreams for the future. I believe that Games have the potential to be as significant a new medium as the printed word ever was, perhaps more, and as powerful a force for change, hopefully beneficial. I will do what I can to make sure it happens, and happens in the best way possible.
One way I think this will happen, and where I am most interested at the moment, is through transforming education. I am very passionate about improving the quality of education in terms of its effectiveness and potential to benefit all life and living, particularly by using games to teach - teaching through games. As a student, I have experienced, and continue to experience, my fair share of less-than-optimal education. I'm convinced that such instances could have resulted in much more effective and enjoyable learning if only they had been conceived and structured as games. Computer and video games have much to offer to education, not only in game design theory but directly, using actual game software to enhance traditional schooling. It is an area to which I've directed a significant portion of my game design energy.
And as I mentioned earlier, what motivates me from project to project is in connecting those fields that I find interesting and sharing my appreciation with others, whether that is in Persian classical music, the martial art and philosophy Aikido, the beauty of plants, or Northwest Coast native art, among many others. Games simply happen to be the default mode of expression I turn to when imagining how to accomplish this.
~axcho