Portfolio

Hy I’m Erik a game developer. I love to do programming, back-end (multiplayer) and DevOps stuff all day long. If it’s a game its good, if it is a game I worked on it is better, if I made a game succeed it is the best thing ever!

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Me

When I was 11 (1998) we got our first 386sx and I immediately got into programming with QBasic and DOS batch. I loved to create games, did some maze games for my sister and a few business simulations for my Lego cities. I organize 1 or 2 LAN parties each year since 2004 when I got my first 10mbit 4 port duplex repeater and 2 ISA-slot network cards.

After getting my bachelor in applied sciences I started working as a software developer in the industrial automation. I liked the physical stuff involved, but after 2 years it turned out to be a very conservative industry. I soon moved to a startup that did online reviews for financial services and helped them build up the architecture and designed some nice high performant web things. We were 1 of the first Azure users. After 3 years I concluded that I wanted to step up my game so I signed up for consultancy services at Luminis. At this consultant company I learned to design for big back-end systems with tens of thousands to millions of users. And I found out I got a knack for creating good quality maintainable cloud software and working with teams, so I got deep into CI/CD, DevOps, team leading, testing, security, Lean and Agile. All while writing high quality code. This I did for 4 years.

And then it dawned on me that I would be doing this for the rest of my life. No way! Top 1 on my bucket list was to get to be a game developer. I was very pessimistic of me being able to create art and design games, but heck why don’t give it a try. I’m a quick learner, know how to get things working, am able to connect to people, and there should be a place in the game industry for me somewhere.

So that is where I come from.

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Taste

I don’t know if I have a specific well developed taste, and I don’t claim to have one. But I know I like to play certain games and listen to certain music.

It started with Tyrian 2000, Wolfstein 3D, Transport Tycoon, Worms, Terminal Velocity, Falcon, SimCity, JazzJackRabbit and Cannon Fodder.
I then moved on to Earth 2140, Ceasar III, Age of Empires, Quake II, Soldier of Fortune, Emergency 2, Commandos, Tomb Raider, Half Life.
Then came Settlers 4, Max Payne, more GTA, Civilisations, Heroes of might and magic, Might and magic, Delta force, more Wolfstein, Rainbow six, Empire Earth, Dungeon siege, Serious Sam, Unreal II, Cossacks II, Red Alert II, Warcraft III.
From there on FarCry, Mass effect, Bioshock, more GTA, a lot of Hitman, more Max Payne, more Serious Sam, Stalker, Skyrim, Supreme Commander, Flat Out, all command & conquer games.
And then Fallout, Deus Ex, Borderlands, Witcher, Metal gear solid, Just Cause, Saints Row, Mad Max, Factorio, GemCraft, a lot of Doom, more Max Payne, a few lego themed games, all Assassins Creed games, Tomb raider, Batman, all Dishonered, Watch Dogs, more Wolfstein, more FarCry.

Most of my hours go into all the Creeper World games, I just love this series. Puzzling makes me calm hehe. And I play idlers when finding an interesting one.

I played a few multiplayer games. Delta force, Rainbow six and Call of Duty on LAN parties. Tried Eve online a few hours, did sunk a few hundred hours in World of Warcraft, and did grind to a few tier 7’s in World of Tanks.

Music is simple: symphonic metal and (happy) hardcore.
I always fall back to metal, so here are my favorites: Rhapsody of Fire (if they are in my country, I go see them), Ayreon, DragonForce, Amaranthe, Twilight Force, Sabaton, Freedom Call, Metalite, Orden Ogan, Keldian, Within Temptation, Sirenia, Nightwish.

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Business software development

You probably can’t rely on me telling I know a fair share of back-end development while not having that many game projects to prove. So here is a section of a few of my software consultancy projects.

This info can be found too on https://erikderoos.nl/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/diederikjohannesderoos/.

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