About Me

I am Harsh Naidu from Nagpur, India. I have always been a passionate gamer since I was a child. I started playing games like Mario and Contra on Chinese video game consoles. It was in 2011, that my parents bought me a PC that started my love for games beyond anything. Some of the games I remember playing at that time are I.G.I.-2: Covert Strike, Virtua Cop 2, Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, Spy Hunter, GTA: San Andreas, RoadRash, and many more.

My game dev journey started in 2022 when I first discovered a free game development course on Instagram provided by Xamk – South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences. I made some 2D assets in Krita, a 3D model in Blender, and 2 games in Unity (one for Windows and the other for Android).

Soon I found out that the programming aspect of game development is something I was getting interested in which led me to further improve my programming skills as I was pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mass Communication. I did as many certifications as I could starting from a Full Stack Development certificate from UpGrad that taught me the foundational concepts of programming like Data Structures and Algorithms. I also learned Object Oriented Programming in Java in this Course. I still wasn’t satisfied as I wanted to learn more about game programming so I did two more courses from Coursera. The first one was Data Structures and Design Patterns for Game Developers and the other was Game Design and Development 1: 2D Shooter.

I wanted to pursue a Masters Degree in Game Programming from the USA in 2023, so I applied to one of the programs in Utah called Masters of Entertainment Arts And Engineering. I got rejected very late in April, so I thought of giving it another go. I registered in an open university for a one-year PG Diploma in Mass Communication as I didn’t want any gaps in my academic journey. While pursuing the PG Diploma, I decided to prepare for applications to both US and UK universities.

Finally, in December I got accepted to Southern Methodist University for one of the top game development programs in the world. I decided to pursue this program but a few months later I received another acceptance from Newcastle University with a 50% scholarship. The SMU Guildhall’s master’s program is quite expensive so it was more financially beneficial for me to study at a Russel Group University with a 50% scholarship, so I decided to come to the UK at Newcastle University to study MSc Computer Game Engineering.

In the MSc Computer Game Engineering course here at Newcastle University, I have worked only in C++ which is the preferred language in the games industry. I have learned to create advanced graphics using OpenGL and build a Physics Engine, AI, and Networking System. The initial two modules were quite difficult for me as I didn’t have a strong grasp of the concepts of programming, especially with C++ because learning those concepts to complete a certification with a few assignments and studying those concepts in a university as a computer science degree in undergraduate is quite different. But, I worked hard and got really good grades on the third module especially the way I implemented the Physics Engine.

I found creating a Physics Engine in the third module really fascinating and wanted to explore it more so for the team project I chose to implement physics in our game using the Bullet middleware. I want to be a gameplay programmer and work on physics-driven gameplay programming. While I find Graphics and Networking cool as well, Physics has always been my strength and personally find it very interesting.

I hope to get a job in a game studio as a Gameplay Programmer and get to work on cool physics-driven gameplay mechanics.