Hello, my name is Nicolas Perreault, an aspiring game programmer, and this is a little about me. Born in a Northern Ontario rural area, games became a passion of mine since I began playing them around the age of 3. About that same time was when I learned exactly what I wanted to do when I was older: make games. Throughout school whenever there was a creative writing assignment, or other creative assignments I would always relate my work to games, or stories in the future I wanted to make into a game. It wasn’t until closer to the end of elementary school(probably around grade 6) that I started looking into ways to mod games or create my own content for the games I loved.
I first got into programming from an editor for my favourite game of all time: Starcraft: Brood War. I would spend days writing scripts, making my own campaigns and maps, and even looked into modifying the MPQ files to create a full out mod for the game. This lead me to learn more advanced editors like the Unreal Editor, which is nothing like it is today. In the Unreal Editor I would mainly just make maps, both outdoor and indoor maps to play with friends or against bots.
It wasn’t until later near the end of High School that I began learning actual programming, in languages like QBasic and Turing. During my senior year I took a computer class and spent most of the time competing with a friend who could create a more interesting game. I made games from Pong, and Connect Four to an 2D Arena Shooter that was complete with pickups and everything. While we weren’t programming we let the class and teachers play our games, and we’d have friendly competitions within them.
I originally went to University to get a math degree, however half-way through my second year I decided I was better off following my passion and switched into the Computer Science program. Most of my free time was dedicated to learning various graphics and gaming related API’s, programming techniques, and software engineering practices. Programming and software engineering is by far my biggest passion; I just love reading about, and practicing it.
Here is a list of some of my favorite “current” games in no particular order:
- Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
- Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
- Unreal Tournament
- Transformers: WFC
- Assassins Creed Franchise
- Fallout 3
- Mass Effect 1/2
- Minecraft
- Final Fantasy: I, IV, VI, VII, X, XIII
- Back To The Future: The Game
My main hobby outside of game development has been from an early age, competitive gaming. Whether it playing Warcraft: Orcs and Humans over the modem, or playing Mario Kart or Golden Eye on consoles with friends, I have always played these games pretty competitively. When I first started playing games online I would play Starcraft:Brood War competitively on ladders such as WGTour, PGTour, etc and would participate in community tournaments. I have also played Warcraft III, and Counter Strike:Source at a competitive level, and currently am playing Starcraft II. Esports has always been a huge passion of mine no matter what the genre of game is, I am always excited to see the top players compete and compete myself.