Xpost2000

C / C++ Game Programmer

Jerry Zhu
github itch.io linkedin resume

Contact me at: jerry.zhu@stonybrook.edu

I'm Jerry, I am an avid gamer, and I am also an avid game programmer! I publish independent games on itch.io under the online alias Xpost2000.

I am currently an undergraduate student at Stony Brook University studying Computer Science.

I've been programming small games, demos, custom engines, and participating in various game jams for as long as I could remember.

I am primarily a C++ and C programmer, and I develop games from scratch with custom game engines and tools! I have graphics programming experience with building software renderers, or using APIs like OpenGL for hardware acceleration. I also have experience working with game engines like Unity.

My projects are divided into:

Below are summaries of my projects. You can learn more, and view more materials such as videos and code samples by clicking on the thumbnails!

Projects:

These are my main-stay projects, which are representative of either my most technically interesting work, or best/polished work.
Usually, these are custom game engine projects, tech demos, and games written with C or C++. There are a few non-game projects from time to time.
Legends RPG

A software rendered tactics JRPG game and engine. It is written in C completely from scratch with SDL2 as it's only dependency, and features a multithreaded software renderer optimized to allow for real time postprocessing. There is also an integrated level editor, and many more features! All assets exempting music and font are self-created.


Technologies Used: C99 Emscripten SIMD SDL2

Date: June 2022 - September 2023

Status: Gameplay Functional, Paused Development


ASCENSION

A metroidvania platformer in vain of Hollow Knight style with a monochromatic visual style. Custom engine made from scratch in C99 with components from the 2D Games Framework. Features typical metroidvania movement mechanics such as wall jumping, dashing, and Hollow Knight style bouncing. Basis of some of the technologies that would appear in Legends.


Technologies Used: C99 OpenGL

Date: February 2022 - March 2022

Status: Gameplay Functional, Incomplete


CrankLang - Programming Language

A custom statically typed programming language compiler with a handwritten recursive descent parser. The current frontend is written in C++, and the language compiles into C++, and supports an FFI. The frontend does all the parsing and static analysis before it ever reaches the C++ compiler!


Technologies Used: C++

Date: April 2023 - Late May 2023

Status: Complete


2D Games Framework

A small 2D games framework with a plugin-based system that allows for quickly setting up 2D games in C, on Windows there are no dependencies! Features hot-reloading and a debug console. This project is intended to be used for game jams and features a high performance sprite batcher.


Technologies Used: C99 OpenGL

Date: July 2021 - October 2021

Status: Complete


Game Jam Projects:

These are my game jam projects which are usually excursions to learn different technology. I also use these as opportunities to get creative with the jam themes and limited time.
Usually these projects are more about gameplay features rather than pure technical features like my main projects.
Soul Walker - Dungeon Crawler Jam

This was a dungeon crawler made for the Dungeon Crawler Jam 2023. It was my first time learning Unity, and combining this with midterms whilst being a full-time student, and a solo developer was very challenging! It was designed as a surreal survival horror dungeon crawler under the jam theme "Duality".


Technologies Used: Unity C#

Date: April 2023 - (4 days)

Status: Complete


Fateless Challenge

A small wave-based survival game. This game was made in one week for minijam83 and was a take on the theme restriction which required dice. The main gameplay mechanic is the level layout which is randomized according to a dice as well as various player buffs or debuffs which are applied based on a set of randomly rolled adjectives.


Technologies Used: Godot Game Engine GDScript

Date: June 2021 - (7 Days)

Status: Complete & Released


L4DRL - 7 Day Roguelike

A roguelike take on Left 4 Dead made in the Godot Game Engine in one week for the 7 Day Roguelike Challenge. This game effectively created a custom ASCII roguelike engine within Godot and features: raycast based visibility, Dijkstra map based pathfinding for mass actor support, and a simple map generation scheme. The 4 survivors of L4D are also present and have reasonably intelligent AI (they follow the player and know how to heal themselves.) This game features interpretations of all L4D1 special infected.


Technologies Used: Godot Game Engine GDScript

Date: March 2021 - (7 Days)

Status: Complete & Released


TreeWatcher - Ludum Dare 46

An environmentalist tower defense game written in C++ with SDL2 in a weekend. The game features four different enemy types and three different types of turret units. The game is complete with a main menu and tutorial/instruction menu to learn how to play the game.


Technologies Used: C++ SDL2

Date: April 2020 - (2 days)

Status: Complete & Released


Legacy Projects:

While this isn't my best work, I like to have a way to remind myself of how far I've gone :)
These projects are also C / C++ much like my normal projects. The main difference is mostly that they are way too old to be relevant to my current ability!
Wanderer RPG

An isometric RPG game/engine written in C. It uses OpenGL for rendering graphics and features a dialogue system that supported conditionals. There was also an grid-based inventory system, and a basic combat system. Inspired by Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine era RPGs.


Technologies Used: C99 SDL2 OpenGL

Date: 2018 - (3 months)

Status: Incomplete


KillBot

KillBot was an arena survival platformer, and was made with a custom game engine in C++, with a web-based UI powered by the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF). The web-based UI was cool at the time, although it's just a novelty of a by-gone era (since I don't know of any game that still uses HTML for their actual UI anymore). The engine is simple but supports event-driven animations, and the game itself has 3 bosses with several stages. This was my first publically released game.


Technologies Used: C++ SDL2 CEF OpenGL

Date: 2018

Status: Complete & Released


SDL Pong

This was my first 2D game project, which is a polished game of Pong, there is a main menu and an AI driven player.


Technologies Used: C++ SDL2

Date: 2015

Status: Complete


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