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Curriculum Vitae for Pete Baron



PERSONAL INFORMATION

Full Name: Peter James Baron
Nationality: British
Resident in: New Zealand
email/MSN: sibaroni@hotmail.com


CAREER EXPERIENCE

Programming Languages Used:

Action Script 3, C#, C++, C, Java, Pascal, Basic, Visual Basic, Delphi, Lisp, Forth, Cobol,80x86, 680x0, 65816, 6502.


Computer Systems Used:

iTV Set Top Box (various), PSX, PC, VM Labs Nuon, Nintendo 64, SuperNintendo, Sega Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore Amiga, AtariST, Commodore 64, Apple II, BBC Master System, Sun SPARC, VAX VMS, AppleMacintosh, PDP11, Pillar.


Completed Projects list:
(title, company, [duties], platform, description)

Defense 1942, www.playhub.com, Flash for web-browsers. A new tower defense game that got over 3 million plays in its first two months on the internet.

Shapely, www.king.com, Flash for web-browsers. A simple puzzle game which has been quite popular on the internet.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Disney WDIG, Sky STB. The first sequel in this trilogy, Jack Sparrow is called to account by Davy Jones and must collect 100 souls in 3 days or lose his own!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Disney WDIG, Sky STB. A top-view adventure/puzzle with the player taking control of Jack Sparrow as he tries to collect the Cursed Gold coins and save Elizabeth Swann.

Peter Pan: Lost Boy Rescue, Disney WDIG, Sky STB. A platform adventure with Peter Pan running, flying and fighting across 6 levels to rescue his Lost Boys and Tinkerbell from the evil Captain Hook.

Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Disney WDIG, Sky STB, based on Disney's massively successful movie. A role-playing game where you develop the group of four children to combat ever more dangerous foes and bosses, to eventually save the land of Narnia from the evil Witch.

Winnie the Pooh in Funny Hunny, Disney WDIG, Sky STB, Disney's popular children's character in an action puzzle game. Winnie must rotate and release pairs of balloons to make groups of matching colours before the play area gets too full.

Top Trumps: Gumball 3000, Minds Eye, Sky STB, reskin of Dragon Boosters to reflect an alternative theme.

Top Trumps: Dragon Boosters, Minds Eye, Sky STB, the popular card-game 'Top Trumps' themed to match the childrens television series 'Dragon Boosters'. Includes believable AI which plays from partial knowledge of the deck of cards.

Gone To The Dogs, Minds Eye, Sky STB, an online gambling game which emulates a multi-reel slot-machine. Includes back-end communications with a remote XML service.

Monopoly, Minds Eye, Sky STB, a set top box version of the classic board game with all new AI to accomodate the reduced processing power available on this platform.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Picture-in-Picture, Minds Eye, Sky STB, a picture-in-picture version of WWTBAM with new graphics, menus and layout to accommodate the video stream window.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Themed Versions, Minds Eye, Sky STB, reskinned the WWTBAM engine to produce Football, Showbiz, Sports and 2003 themed versions of the popular quiz.

Sky Sports Daily Quiz, Minds Eye, programmer, Sky STB, reskinnable quiz engine (first incarnation was ‘Football Quiz’) utilising picture-in-picture to show the channel feed while the player enjoys the quiz.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Minds Eye, programmer, Sky STB, highly successful quiz game based on the TV show, currently live on Sky GameStar.

LLG Pinball, converted Empire’s pinball game to run on the Leisure Link Games touch screen system for use in Pubs and Clubs around the country.

LLG PipeMania, Minds Eye, rewrote this classic game to run on the touch screen system from Leisure Link Games.

LLG FlipIt, Minds Eye, adapted game to play on the Leisure Link Games 'pub' touch screen system.

Starsky and Hutch, Minds Eye, AI programmer, PC PS2 & XBox, designed and coded the original AI system for the felon vehicles, the ‘ambient’ vehicles and the pedestrians in the city.

Sheep, Minds Eye, lead programmer PSX, a 3D isometric view ‘herd-em-up’ game featuring artificial stupidity.

Monopoly, Minds Eye, lead programmer, N64, a cartoon-style fully animated 3D rendition of the popular board game with particularly effective AI players.

Stratego, Minds Eye, lead programmer, IBM PC, a 3D sprite based computer conversion of the famous strategy board game for Hasbro Interactive. The AI was a hybrid of template matching, probability calculations and a complex set of 'production rules'.

The Golf Pro, Empire, consultant programmer, IBM PC, designed and coded the intelligent commentary system for this successful golf game. Created a modified version of reverse-polish notation (which can be evaluated without recursion) to make the rule parser extremely fast.

LiveAds, Integrated Sensor Systems, senior programmer, IBM PC, developed a ‘dynamic replacement’ advertising system capable of seamlessly inserting new images into broadcast quality video streams.

Maximum Road Kill, BITS, lead programmer, IBM PC, an FMV based 3D motorbike racing and fighting game.

Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, BITS, lead programmer, co-designer, SNES, 2D platformer based on the famous X-Men cartoon character.

Spiderman: Return of The Sinister Six, BITS, lead programmer and co-designer, NES, 2D platform beat-em-up.

Devious Designs, Mirrorsoft, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, lead programmer, conceived and co-designed with Bob Stevenson, 2D puzzler with quirky physical laws.

Myth, System 3, Commodore 64, lead programmer, co-designer. 2D platform game which became a hit on three platforms. Won the 1989 Indin awards for originality and graphics.

Salamander (aka Lifeforce - USA), Ocean, leadprogrammer, Commodore 64, extremely successful shoot-em-up conversion from Konami’s arcade sequel to Nemesis.

Bits for Bizmo, Melbourne House, lead programmer, Commodore 64, 2D scrolling platformer based on an AD2000 character in a Judge Dredd story.

Lord of the Rings trilogy, Melbourne House, assistant programmer, Commodore 64, graphic adventure follow-up to their acclaimed ‘The Hobbit’.


EDUCATION

1994-1997 Edinburgh University: "Knowledge Based Systems" Master's Degree in Artificial Intelligence
1986 Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology: "Computer Science" Bachelor's Degree second year
1985 Bendigo College of Advanced Education: "Computer Science" Bachelor's Degree first year
1984 Australian Higher School Certificates: Computer Science, Physics, Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, English.


GENERAL INFORMATION

I learned how to program BASIC on an Apple II at High School and taught myself 6502 assembler language on my Commodore 64 at home. At 17 I won a national programming competition hosted by Warrnambul Institute of Technology in Victoria, Australia and achieved an ‘A’ grade High School Certificate in Computer Science. Enthusiasm and increasing ability led to my securing full-time employment as a games programmer at Melbourne House. Following my return to the UK I became a self-employed contracting games programmer for ten years, before starting full-time for Minds Eye Productions which was eventually purchased by Walt Disney Ltd. Following a life-long interest, I returned to university part-time and gained an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from Edinburgh University in 1997. My master's thesis focused on the implementation, design and optimisation of Evolutionary Algorithms. The diversity of the platforms and languages I have worked with has resulted in my gaining the ability to learn new languages and machine specifications extremely quickly. My many years of experience as an out-of-house and contract programmer have given me the ability to work efficiently and effectively to schedule.


OTHER INTERESTS

I’m a keen reader of many types of literature from the classics through to Sci-Fi. I love to fly and have taken lessons in Hang-Gliding, Para-Gliding and flying a light airplane. I also love biking, my first bike was a Harley Davidson RoadKing. I emigrated to New Zealand in November 2006 and I'm loving it here!.


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