Robert Uhren

Freelance Development: NFL Blitz

I was hired to update an old StarCraft map based on Midway Games' NFL Blitz series. This project was a fun test of my refactoring skills. I started working from the latest version of the map file that had been wiped of all project notes and comments. I found a way to re-integrate that data from older versions that hadn't been wiped yet so the map's code could be somewhat legible. Ultimately, I added many new features and mechanics, reworked almost all existing systems, and solved quite a few old bugs. Seeing how much their community loves playing the updated map in their league games has been a real treat.

League gameplay with commentary

Accounting Efficiency Tools

This was a small project I created when I worked in finance. We did our bookkeeping in Quickbooks Desktop, which is great software, but its bulk editing capabilities are lacking. As part of an effort to clean up the books, I was assigned to examine thousands of inventory items, determine when they were last used, and archive them if they hadn't been used in over a year. After doing a couple dozen entries manually, I realized it was going to take way too long to do it that way. I was repeating the same sets of keystrokes and I saw an opportunity for improvement.

I previously used AutoHotkey in my personal life for creating keyboard macros which could repeat key sequences, so with my manager's permission, I wrote a few scripts to substantially reduce the required keystrokes for some of the repetitive tasks we were each working on. With my script, inspecting and archiving inventory items was reduced from a 19-keystroke sequence down to just two, one for inspecting and one for archiving. Seeing the countless hours I saved with such a simple solution was one of my inspirations for changing career paths to become a professional developer.

Impossible Ultraviolet

This was a personal project. My goal when creating it was to make a fun, highly replayable cooperative action game. It is essentially a dungeon crawl RPG where a team of up to six players fights through five increasingly difficult levels of randomly generated enemies and grow their heroes strength along the way. The game accommodates a wide range of skill levels with five difficulty settings. Games last approximately 90 minutes and victories are rewarded with codes which players can use to unlock bonus features on subsequent playthroughs. Players get to choose one of 21 heroes to play as, each with unique abilities and upgrade paths. I'm happy with how this project turned out; with all the different possibilities, every game feels unique and players truly get to craft their own path.