Garth Denley's Home Page
  

Welcome to my humble home page! Thanks for dropping by.
 
About Me
If you'd like to find out more about me, please skip down to the section that is of most interest to you. Potential clients and employers are probably more interested in my professional side. Everyone else is probably interested in my personal side.
Professional
I have over ten years of commercial software development experience, and over twenty years of software development experience in a hobby capacity.

I hold a First-Class Computer Science Honours degree from the University of Adelaide, and won the School prize for the highest overall result that year.

In my career I have worked in commercial game development, in Defence performing software development in the area of computer security, in a system administration and support role, and in my own business. I have worked with external and internal clients. I have worked as a tutor and in a mentoring capacity with fellow employees. In my business I developed a commercial software product from initial conception through design, development, and to successful completion; followed by maintenance, sales, and support. My software development abilities are rounded out with experience in system administration and computing support.

I have been both principally and primarily responsible for many successful projects through my career. I have the proven ability to undertake and successfully complete software development projects of considerable complexity, both under direction and entirely independently.

My language of choice is C/C++ for large-scale development, and Ruby for small-scale scripting, rapid prototyping, and code generation. My operating system of choice is Linux. Accordingly, I am strong in roles that make heavy use of these languages and environments. In addition I have knowledge and experience in the use of many other languages, tools, and operating systems. I have the demonstrated ability to learn other languages, tools, and environments quickly.

Game Development
I have been involved in successful commercial game development as part of a team, as a sole independent game developer, and in a hobby capacity.

Some of the games I have worked on are:
  • E.V.E. Paradox: A game suite of five games that I successfully developed as a sole independent developer as part of my business, Entropic Software. It was not a commercial success, but I did manage to successfully take it from initial concept through to sales and support. More information can be found here.
  • XBlast: A multi-player dynablaster clone. As co-author, I contributed a number of levels and a features back in my Uni days.
  • A commercial car racing game: I worked on the physics, control code, and initial networking, amongst other things.
  • Crossfire: I made some small contributions to reduce the severity of character death and balance low levels in this game.
  • Stun Chasey: My first ever attempt at shareware. :) This was a game for the Amiga. You've probably never heard of it, unless you tried a lot of Aminet software.
  • Raid of the Easter Eggs: My first game with a wide audience. This Easter-themed game was apparently a hit at my old primary school. It involved sneaking around the house collecting easter eggs before your family woke up. I wrote it whilst in high school.
  • Literally dozens of small, unreleased games for the Amiga and C64.

I am working on a new game as part of my business Entropic Software. I am keeping the details fairly quiet at this stage, but this will change in the future. If you'd like to know more, let me know. When the time comes, I'll drop you a line.
Personal
My past and present interests include: Rock climbing, squash, netball, chocolate, live music, chocolate, game development, and chocolate

I am throughly addicted to chocolate, especially from these guys (though these guys are pretty good too).

If you meet me in person or talk to me, I will come across as friendly, outgoing, and optimistic. In truth, I am a pessimist, an introvert, and a cynic. These are not negative traits. As a pessimist, I can never be disappointed, only pleasantly surprised. As a cynic, I will be the one with the backup plan already prepared when someone lets you down. As an introvert, you know that I have considered my words before I have spoken them.

I tend to question the status-quo when I feel there is something wrong with the conventional approach. I do this because I firmly believe in embracing improvement where the opportunity exists. I believe that most advances in society have been brought about by someone questioning the status-quo.

Everyone has a talent for something, no matter how small, or obscure, or how difficult it is to find.

I am a strong believer in remaining politically aware and voting for the representative that will best serve your needs, rather than the "lesser of two evils".

I use far-too-many hyphens.

I like to learn.

I can admit when I am wrong, but I try my hardest not to be.

I have my flaws; we all do. What is important is what you choose to do about them.

I have a throughly inappropriate sense of humour. No matter how hard you try, in time I will make you laugh.

I'm not much of a TV person, but I have been known to enjoy: Futurama, Firefly, Drawn Together, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Iron Chef. Of course, my enjoyment of a program pretty-much guarantees that it will be cancelled at some point.

I have no shortage of ideas, just the time to implement them all.
Contact
If you'd like to drop me a line, please feel free to do so. I can be reached here:



I hope to hear from you soon! :)

Garthy