Resume

Landon Manning

Over half of my life has been spent immersed in programming. From writing HTML in elementary school, to building tools in Visual Basic in middle school, learning Flash and C++ in high school, and teaching myself PHP and MySQL before college, I have always been interested in creating and learning. I worked for several years as a PHP Web Developer before returning to school to learn more about business and finances while learning about mobile development and game development on the side.

Skills & Abilities

  • I can program 2D & 3D video games using Lua, LÖVE, and LÖVE3D
  • I have designed several network systems for online video game tech demos
  • I can program websites using Lua, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery
  • I can design, build, and manage PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQLite databases
  • I am proficient with Windows, Linux, and Android
  • I know my way around Blender, Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Google Docs, and Sage 50
  • I have been known to set up small networks, nginx web servers, and Apache web servers

Relevant Experience

Dec 2015: Ludum Dare 34

I participated in the 34th Ludum Dare game jam with my friend Colby Klein where we had to complete an entire game from start to finish in 72 hours. We decided to make a Katamari-style game where you roll around and try to get bigger by absorbing various objects in the level. You can only absorb objects smaller than yourself. Finding the right objects and returning to old objects once you are bigger while sticking within the time limit can be a fun, challenging puzzle. We used our LÖVE3D framework built on top of LÖVE. The game is voiced by my friend Nadja. During this project, I did the following:

  • Modelled most of the art assets
  • Coded the Octree spacial partitioning system
  • Coded the movement system
  • Wrote the spoken lines

Our entry ended up not doing very well this time. My computer caught fire halfway through the contest and put me out of commission for several hours. Yes, it caught fire. Black smoke, steam, you name it. The power supply failed. I ended up using my Android tablet to remote control Colby's spare computer which worked surprisingly well, but was still painfully slow to use. We had to make many concessions to our game due to this problem and our final result was not as good as we had originally planned, but we did finish, so we're still proud of that.

Aug 2015: Ludum Dare 33

I participated in the 33rd Ludum Dare game jam with my friend Colby Klein where we had to complete an entire game from start to finish in 72 hours. We decided to make a goofy game where you play and a shark and must try to "rescue" a diver from drowning. We used our LÖVE3D framework built on top of LÖVE. The game consists of several simple levels, full English and German vocal tracks by my friend Nadja, a joke track by my friend EntranceJew, and nine textual translations including English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Russian. During this project, I did the following:

  • Coded the collision system
  • Coded the movement system
  • Coded the physics systems
  • Wrote the spoken lines
  • Sourced the translations

Our entry ended up reaching 122nd place in the humour category and 146th place in the audio category out of 1526 entries.

Apr 2015 - May 2015: Game Developer (Contract)

Binary Cocoa - Idaho, USA

I was brought on near the end of production of IT Simulator to help meet the deadline. IT Simulator is an arcade game that was developed for Fisher's Technology to show at an IT conference as a marketing tool. I assisted the team by:

  • Fixing rendering bugs
  • Improving gameplay balance
  • Tweaking gameplay mechanics

Apr 2015: Ludum Dare 32

I participated in the 32nd Ludum Dare game jam with my friend Colby Klein where we had to complete an entire game from start to finish in 72 hours. We decided to make a Pokémon-style turn-based battle game using our LÖVE3D framework built on top of LÖVE. The game consists of six enemies of progressive difficulty, story narration, and is fully voiced by my friend Nadja. During this project I did the following:

  • Designed and coded the battle system
  • Designed and coded the GUI
  • Modelled the arena
  • Modelled several of the arena props
  • Wrote the narrative
  • Wrote the spoken lines
  • Wrote most of the in-battle flavour text
  • Positioned the camera for each attack

Our entry ended up reaching 189th place in the humour category out of 1468 entries. I suspect we would have gotten a pretty good rank in audio as well due to our fully voiced character but since some of our audio was not created within the game jam's time frame, we opted out of audio ranking. We also opted out of the graphics ranking for similar reasons.

May 2014 - Jan 2015: Game Developer (Contract)

Binary Cocoa - Idaho, USA

As the lead developer, I worked with a small international team on the 2D multiplayer strategy game BOCO. I wrote several open source tools while working on this project including:

BOCO is written in Lua and uses the LÖVE 2D game framework running on Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and Android. As the lead developer, I wrote the code for the main game logic, the UI, and networking (both client and server).

May 2012 - Jun 2012: Web Developer (Volunteer)

Colchester Historeum - Truro, NS

The Colchester Historeum had recently received Excel spreadsheets filled with hundreds of thousands of rows of census data from Colchester's past and wanted to allow people to visit their website and search through that data. To do this, I converted the spreadsheets to CSV text dumps, which I converted to SQL queries. With a fully operational MySQL database, I wrote search software to the Historeum's specification. This tool can be found here.

Feb 2012: Android App for BlackBerry Contest

After happening across this news article, I decided it was a good time to learn about Android development. With 10 days to think of an app, learn how to code it, code it, and submit it to Research in Motion (RIM, now Blackberry), I set off on my journey.

I ended up writing a simple streaming radio app based on an Internet radio station I co-founded and was managing at the time. The app grabbed the mp3 stream from my radio station and used some interesting quirks in the SHOUTCast server to display track data. I submitted my app to RIM and received my free Playbook shortly thereafter. I also uploaded the app to the Android Market (now Google Play Store) and published the source on my GitHub.

Sep 2010 - Mar 2011: Web Developer

Velsoft Training Materials - New Glasgow, NS

My main role at Velsoft was to lead the content creation team for their new eLearning division. I worked with the Learning Management System (LMS) team to design and develop content standards for customizable courseware that would fit into the in-house developed LMS. Leading a small team, I helped put the content standards into play as we converted all of Velsoft's document-based courseware into web-based courseware.

On the side, I assisted the marketing team by creating a simple yet effective tool that allowed non-technical personnel to create beautiful landing pages for our products by selecting a few options and copy/pasting some text. This tool freed up all technical personnel from these tasks and allowed us to focus our attention on more difficult problems.

One bonus of working on this project was the ability (necessity) to thoroughly read each and every one of Velsoft's 70+ soft skill courseware products. I learned a lot about communicating effectively, dealing with conflict, and many other topics.

May 2008 - Jun 2009: Web Developer

Webbuilders Group - New Glasgow, NS

After my first year of college, my program instructor recommended me to Webbuilders for a summer position. I ended up leaving school to work at Webbuilders full time. During my time there, I built websites using the SilverStripe content management system. After I left Webbuilders, I worked on a few small projects on contract.

Sep 2007 - Dec 2007: Tutor (Term)

Nova Scotia Community College - Truro, NS

I tutored several students from both the Information Technology and Interactive & Motion Graphics programs in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. All of my tutees passed their courses.

Other Experience

Sep 2013 - Dec 2013: Customer Service Associate (Seasonal)

Walmart Canada - Halifax, NS

My main role was to assist customers in the Stationary, Health & Beauty, Cosmetics, and Chemicals departments. I was often called upon to work the cash registers during busy periods and assist with cashing out the registers at the end of the night.

Apr 2013 - Jun 2013: Bookkeeper (Student Placement)

Nova Scotia Community College - Truro, NS

Using a three month backlog of transactions, I set up an accounting environment using Sage 50 to input all of the data and give the company an up-to-date view of their finances and sales figures.

Sep 2012 - Dec 2012: Tutor (Term)

Nova Scotia Community College - Truro, NS

I tutored several students from both the Business Administration and Office Administration programs in Accounting Principles and Financial Mathematics. During exam time, I also ran an open-house Q&A crunch session where anyone could drop in to ask question they were struggling with. All of my tutees passed their courses.

Sep 2011 - Jul 2012: Business Consultant (Student Placement)

Truro and District Chamber of Commerce - Truro, NS

I worked with a small research team to develop a long-term business plan to prove the Chamber of Commerce's exposure and increase memberships throughout the Greater Colchester Area.

May 2011 - Jun 2012: Co-Founder, Administrator, Community Manager

Celestia Radio - CelestiaRadio.com

I co-founded an online radio station for a niche online community I was a part of. As a Co-Founder, I made executive decisions and deals with other organizations that helped to grow our organization and expand our community while maintaining financial stability. As an Administrator, I managed the radio server itself and curated the vast majority of our music. As a Community Manager, I moderated our IRC chat, promoted our service, managed our social media accounts, and organized events.

My final act as part of Celestia Radio was to oversee a 60-hour DJ-a-thon charity drive to raise money for Kiki Havivy's cancer treatment. Kiki passed away on 2013-06-07 at the age of 7. Celestia Radio raised $2360, the largest single donation to the fund.

Nov 2009 - Apr 2010: Sales Associate

Staples Business Depot - Halifax, NS

Most of my time was spent assisting customers with purchasing laptops, cameras, and other various electronics. During down time, I assisted the technicians with troubleshooting and repairing laptop and desktop computers.

Oct 2003 - Aug 2004: Supervisor (Volunteer)

Boys & Girls Club of Canada - Truro, NS

I supervised children and maintained the computer lab at the local Boys & Girls Club branch.

Education

Sep 2011 - Jun 2013: Business Administration & Accounting

Nova Scotia Community College - Truro, NS

My first year in this program was spent learning about all sides of business, from basic accounting and finances to marketing, economics, communication, and management. I also took several courses on Microsoft Office.

My second year in this program was concentrated in accounting and finances where I learned many financial concepts, financial mathematics, and to use Sage 50 accounting software.

Sep 2007 - Jun 2008: Information Technology

Nova Scotia Community College - Truro, NS

My first year in this program was spent reviewing general programming concepts using Visual Basic.NET and Java, simple interaction with a Linux terminal using Fedora 4, and basic server administration using Apache and ISS.

I left this program before the second year started to work full time as a Web Developer at Webbuilders Group.

Jun 2006: High School Diploma

Cobequid Educational Centre - Truro, NS

I graduated from high school in 2006 with several computer science courses including two semesters of C++ and a semester with Flash and 3D modeling.