Derrick Canfield

From an early age I can always remember a keyboard below my fingers and a DOS command at my eyes. Computers have always captured my attention and there is no sight of that changing any time soon. My fascination with computers led me into my love of video games which then took me down the path of becoming a programmer.

The first time I played with any bit of code was a platformer game written in BASIC and the character was represented by a single ‘@’ symbol. I stumbled across the source files and realized that I was looking behind the curtain of what made those black and white pixels flicker on my screen to make a game. I poked around in the code to customize the levels and what ASCII characters represented the game’s characters.

Fast forward some time and I had a copy of Duke Nukem 3D before any kid my age should have a copy of it. I quickly was enthralled by the simulated 3D graphics including the gameplay that allowed you to interact with nearly everything in the world. I didn’t have many computer games that could hold my attention like Duke so I ended up scouring the file system until I came across Build.exe which was the editor for Duke Nukem 3D. After customizing the game, I knew this is what I wanted to do for a living! Move the clock forward a bunch of years and I did just that.

I, along with some friends of mine, formed my own game studio High Tale Studios in 2012. Over the years we have created our own IP and released games on a plethora of platforms. Our first title ZomNomNom was a zombie shooter where you, a receptionist for ViroCorp, must fight your way through energy-drink fueled zombies. The game was built around the touch-screen experience and because of that we launched it on iOS and Android. Our next IP, Acorn Assault, was about squirrels fighting in their own version of the French Revolution. Three titles have been released under that IP including an Xbox One title and a Gear VR game.

As I move forward in my career, I aim to improve the game industry that helped form who I am.

Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution is a game that explores the French Revolution if only it had happened in the squirrel kingdom. Squirrels adorned in coats and powdered wigs wage war to fight an unjust king and his men. The game has been released on Xbox One, PC and Mac.

I perhaps had the largest role on AA:RR in comparison to all other games that I have shipped. All art you see in the game has at the very least gone through my hands where I either modeled the piece from scratched or customized purchased assets to fit the theme of the game. I also wrote much of the game logic from scratch including the game board and how it interacts with characters. In fact, I have touched all aspects of this game from concepting to developing to releasing.

This project was easily my favorite project to work on, and, while frustrating at times, it is by far the most rewarding project.

Acorn Assault VR: The Ride is a small yet fun VR game where you attack wooden cutouts of the enemies of Rodent Revolution.

This was a project lead by my friend and High Tale Studios co-founder Amish Patel. I helped with optimization and miscellaneous tasks.

ZomNomNom is the first full game shipped by me and the team at High Tale Studios. You play as a receptionist from ViroCorp that is fighting to survive her company’s failure of a project that turned energy drinking gamers into a mindless zombie horde.

The team and I designed the gameplay to be built around the unique form-factor and input of mobile phones. We like to call it a frantic tap-to-shoot mechanism that was unlike anything else that was out there in the market at that time.

My responsibilities on this project was mostly regulated to the gameplay code, UI art and implementation as well as some artwork. Of course, being a small shop, I had my hands in every aspect, but those are the ones I spent the most time on.

Acorn Assault was the first title in the franchise which debuted on the Ouya and has since been ported to iOS and Android. It is a local multiplayer game with the option to play against the computer. The interest garnered for this title pushed us to create Acorn Assault: Rodent Revolution.

As is the case with most of High Tale Studios projects, I had my hand in everything from concepting to developing to releasing the game.