Bill Kendrick

I am an experienced game developer and designer with a strong C programming background, expertise in targetting mobile platforms, and excellent communication and documentation skills. My large collection of independently-developed Open Source games are well known, and many have been ported to over a dozen platforms.

I am interested in positions where I can help design and develop educational or casual video games.

Game Industry Employment History

3/2006-Present

LimeLife, Inc. (www.limelife.com), Menlo Park, California
J2ME (Java Platform, Micro Edition) and BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) game and application development for cellphones.
Software Application Engineer

• Ported a scripting and layout engine from Java and J2ME to C and BREW, and assisted in handset ports of InStyle Mobile and PEOPLE Mobile for Verizon Wireless and US Cellular.
• Assisted designers with technical and game design issues, updated and ported an unrelease J2ME title from Europe, and worked on J2ME handset ports of Girl's Night Out Solitaire.
• Developed menuing interface, three mini-games and core shared user interface code (popups, particle effects, etc.) in Top Chef The Mobile Game. Worked closely with artists, producers and designers to help tackle a majority of the design and scalability issues. Worked closely with another programmer to integrate shared code, and with QA and porting teams to bring the product to launch.

11/2003-3/2006

Penultimate Inc. (www.penultimate.com), Palo Alto, California
BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) game development for cellphones.
Senior Software Engineer

• Designed and developed both puzzle games and 2D and 3D fast-action graphics games.
• Co-designed and developed multiplayer turn-based games utilizing application-directed SMS text messaging and a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server backend (AirChess and Word Nerd).
• Created what would become a popular Verizon Wireless 'white label' puzzle game (VZW Sudoku).
  

Personal Game Project History

6/1996-Present

New Breed Software (www.newbreedsoftware.com), Davis, California
Open Source software for Linux, Windows, Mac, etc.
Owner, Lead programmer, Webmaster

• Designed and developed numerous games for Linux which have been ported to Windows, Mac OS X, Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), Sega Dreamcast, GamePark GP32 & GP2X, Nokia Maemo, and other platforms.
• Created, and continue to at as lead developer and project manager of, the popular childrens drawing software Tux Paint, which currently averages 60,000+ downloads per month.
• Many titles are included with popular Linux distributions and have been reviewed in numerous domestic and international magazines. Some titles shipped pre-loaded with commercial devices, including the Agenda 'VR3' PDA (Aliens), Dish Network's 'Dish721' PVR (TuxMath), the Virgin America Airlines 'Red' in-flight entertainment system (Mad Bomber) and ASUS 'Eee PC' ultra-portable laptop (Tux Paint and TuxMath).

12/1998-Present

Bill's Games (www.billsgames.com), Davis, California
Web-based games
Owner, Lead programmer, Webmaster

• Designed and developed numerous single player turn-based web games. The site has been reviewed in numerous books, magazines and newspapers, and has received many awards.
  
• Designed and co-developed a stand-alone game webserver (TV Solitaire).

Skills

Operating Systems

Unix & Linux (13 years),
Windows (5 years)

Programming Languages

C (14 years),
PHP (7 years),
BASH (7 years)

Software Development Tools

GNU Make (software build tool) (9 years),
Concurrent Versions System (CVS) (software repository) (5 years),
SourceForge (software development management system) (5 years),
Microsoft Visual Studio (integrated development environment) (4 years),
MediaWiki (content management system) (2 years),
Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS) & Source OffSite (SOS) (software repository) (1.5 years),
Apache ANT (XML software build tool) (1 year)

Multimedia and Game Development Libraries

Binary Runtime Enivornment for Wireless (Qualcomm BREW) (4 years),
Java Platform, Micro Edition (Sun J2ME Java) (1.5 years),
Simple DirectMedia Layer library (libSDL) (8 years),
Portable Network Graphics library (libPNG),
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) rendering libraries (Cairo, libRSVG)

Mobile Platforms

Various mobile phones (BREW/J2ME),
Sharp Zaurus PDA (Linux/Qtopia/libSDL),
Agenda VR3 PDA (Linux/X11/FLTK);
(indirectly: Sony PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Gamepark GP32 & GP2X handheld game systems, Symbian OS, Nokia 770 & N800 'Maemo' platform)

Interface Localization & Internationalization

GNU Gettext text localization,
UTF-8 encoding/decoding in C,
Pango internationalized text rendering library (via SDL_Pango)

Education

5/1998

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science, with Distinction
Sonoma State University (www.sonoma.edu), Rohnert Park, California

Affiliations

1/1999-Present

Linux Users' Group of Davis (www.lugod.org), Davis, California
Co-founder, speaker coordinator and webmaster;
held various elected and appointed positions: president, vice president, event coordinator and outreach coordinator

8/2001-Present

Tux4Kids (www.tux4kids.com)
Lead developer of a number of educational Open Source games for Linux

8/2004-8/2006

Silicon Valley Linux Users Group (www.svlug.org), San Jose, California
Speaker coordinator, annual Linux picnic coorindator, active member

2000-2001

Davis Game Design Club, Davis, California
Founder and webmaster

References

Available upon request.
See also: my LinkedIn Profile, for various recommendations.