A Quick Update

 

Hello all! A quick update on what I’ve been up to for the past year…

I have continued to work and help my family with the current move and living situation for 2019 and the beginning of the year 2020; As well as plan ahead financially with managing student loans and future career path situations and solutions. Needless to say, I’ve taken the time very seriously to make sure this planning ahead goes accordingly.

Finally reaching this new year of 2020, I’m happy to say that I’m more than ready to finally push forward with my career! I want to be the first to let recruiters and peers know that I’m readily available to help and assist design and develop games!

I’ve been working long and hard to build up my game design/ developing work station and have been keeping fresh with my game design/ developing skills over the past year by writing, designing projects, and continued taking unity classes in my spare time. I’ve pushed forward and worked hard to resolve student loans. And I’m just very happy to say that my drive to continue pursuing this career path, is as strong as ever!

I appreciate all the connections I’ve made, that have reached out wanting to assist me with the next steps in my career. As well as job opportunities I’ve had the honor of receiving but due to timing, had to put off.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this and please feel free to contact me and check out my portfolio! (I’ll be updating previous and current projects soon!)

 

(Click links below for more information)

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Resume & Contact Info                    Portfolio

 

 

 

 

 

Strive.

“This thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down” – Mary Pickford

So about a year ago, I was in a game jam themed class. For those who don’t know, most game jams are events in which game developers are given a specific theme and then are given a limited amount of time to make a game from this theme. I was given the theme of “Fall apart”

So in the span of 2-3 weeks, I had to design and develop a game from scratch and I came up with this little gem. A simplistic game which players control a sphere and navigate from point A to point B (the light).

Initially, when I pitched this idea I kept receiving bad reviews and how it was “Too simple” & “Boring” but, in the end as a designer I wanted to implement all elements of a story, art, and mechanics into my first game. By the end, I ended up receiving great reviews for the game I created.

Although it’s a simple looking game. I got into game design to create and to try and walk players through new experiences that some don’t necessarily understand or can’t experience by interactive storytelling. I believe games are some of the most interactive experiences people can try and possibly be moved by stories or even playing with one another. My purpose is to try and build experiences that can influence people to be creative and just overall experiences new things.

So, I created Strive with the “hidden” intent of raising awareness for depression/ anxiety/overthinking. With messages throughout the game that navigate players and hinting them to try different methods to beat each level if they fail, I wanted to try and show that there can be different methods to Strive out of the dark and find the brighter side of things. Although that darkness never truly fades away, we can learn to tame it and try to live with it. With help from others and the willingness to Strive to do so.

Anyone that suffers from these things and/or feels alone, please reach out to someone, seek help. Simply talking is a huge step forward in betterment/understanding and acknowledging what’s going on as well as possible recovery.

 

Love you all, take care.

 

For help, please reach out:

Suicide prevention lifeline (1-800-273-8255)

 

For more information regarding the Strive game please click here or the Image below:

 

 

 

2018 Post Graduation Update

Hello everyone!

Now that I finally have some time off of work and personal things that come up throughout the past few months since graduation, I thought I’d let all my connections know what is going on and coming up through my life before I step through the door of the gaming industry or any possible entertainment industries.

I will be taking the majority of this year off in order to help my family with our new construction business. During this year, however, I will be open to looking into possible job opportunities that may come forward to me in the future. Now, the reason I’ll be taking this time off is to ensure I myself am ready as I will be saving up and paying off loans and overall preparing myself to move to wherever in order for me to begin this journey. I’m dedicated and I promise to all and any future employees I will one day help lead a team. I’m very excited to pursue this road and hopefully, once I’m in, work my way up from there.

In the meantime, I will continue to polish up my skills within Unity and C# scripting as well. I am also taking up UX courses and sign language to strengthen outside skills. However, I will try and take up new challenges in my spare time in other engines. I’m currently studying deeper within the aspects of level designing, game balancing, and psychology, as well as the psychology of play within various games.

An analogy I like to think of in my current situation is much like an RPG game which I’m pursuing the side quests and readying myself up before I tackle the main quest.

As nerdy as that sounds, in all seriousness, I would really like to take this time to thank all of my peers and connections in and out of Full Sail University. Seeing the opportunities posted up on here by recruiters really gives me hope and allows me to be thankful to all of you helping many people that I have come across. I didn’t necessarily grow up having many opportunities in life so I promise all of you once again, my future employees and co-workers, I am and will continue to be one of the hardest workers at what I’ll do.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this and I wish you all happy rest of the day.

– Arturo Rico

A bit about me

Hello,

My name is Arturo Rico and I am 22 years old, I graduated from Full Sail University with a Bachelors in Computer Science, Game Design. During School, I studied more in-depth views regarding psychology to get a better understanding of players and myself.

I’m always looking forward to taking risks and strengthening my skills. I love to travel and learn about different areas anytime I get the opportunity to.

I was born and raised here in North Carolina and I’m always seeking new opportunities to broaden my name and help others by passing down as much knowledge as I can. I have always worked in laboring jobs ever since I was a kid to establish construction style work to help others and better myself in the future. I speak two languages: English and Spanish. I am fluent in each and I’m learning sign language. Although labor work is nothing new to me, I push myself to learn other talents and varieties of work.

I want to move around the world and learn more about people and just really push myself to the limits. We all have a limited amount of time here on earth so, I want to inspire creativity and leave a mark on peoples minds before I pass. My biggest dream is to be a leader of some sort whether it be in this industry or outside. I aspire to inspire creativity to the current world and hopefully the minds of the future!

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Please feel free to take the time to read and view the rest of my portfolio. If you have any questions please feel free to visit the Resume & Contact page for contact information. Have a great rest of the day and thank you for viewing my portfolio!

Pong And Remix

Overview

One of the first projects I’ve worked on was re-creating the game of classic Pong. I used various color coding to show where the colliders work and don’t work.