Installation 01
“Reece is the embodiment of dedication and passion. He is a team-player and is always putting in 110% of the effort each and every time. My project would not have gotten off the ground like it did without the help of him” - Alexander Rogic (“TheChunkierBean”, founder and project lead on Installation 01)
Installation 01 is a Halo fan game developed by Soon Studios. I first joined the project back in 2014, putting together a workable build of the game in five days for showcase at a Halo fan event, CE3. Between 2015 and 2017 I served as project manager and a gameplay programmer for the game, working with a team of around 20 individuals. During this time we received lots of media coverage including articles from game journalist websites such as Kotaku and IGN.
During this two year period we put out lots of quality content (some of which I will link at the end of this post), had a load of fun building and testing the game and from working with a group of far more experienced programmers, learned more about software that I could ever have hoped to on my own. As I mentioned, my focus was mainly on gameplay systems. I was responsible for features such as grenades, melee, the motion tracker and spent lots of time polishing and adding juiciness to the game as well as assigning tasks and priorities and trying to make sure work was completed in a reasonable timeframe.
I left the project in 2017 to focus on my studies but rejoined briefly in 2019 to retool another fan project (Sundog) with Installation 01 assets and extra game features (such as the motion tracker and animation systems) in time for PAX 2019 while other developers worked on the main build (which at the time was not functioning). This build of the game would go on to be demonstrated during the PAX weekend of 2019 which was well received.