James Brown - Software Engineer

Stellaris: Console Edition is a port of the popular 4X Grand Strategy game developed by Paradox Interactive that challenges players to build and maintain a galactic empire. This is the first ongoing title I’ve worked on, as well as my first experience developing for Xbox One. My role on the project was primarily to collaborate with artists and other programmers to translate and implement new UI menus that were introduced in the 3.9 Caelum update for PC. This primarily involved adjusting and reusing existing art assets to make menus more intuitive for controllers, which the PC version doesn’t support. However, I did encounter scenarios where I and another programmer had to implement new UI navigation code to accommodate elements that were introduced in the update, such as collapsible elements that have sub navigable lists. The menus I was primarily responsible for can be viewed below.

 

Additionally, I was also responsible for implementing the text-to-speech accessibility for Xbox One and overseeing the PS4 implementation as well. This didn’t just involve implementing the backend functionality, but finding an intuitive way to trigger it, which we achieved by mapping a shortcut button to the right thumbstick button. An example of this can be viewed below. 

 

I also had other smaller roles that primarily involved fixing general bugs in the game and engine, adding new localization keys, optimizing codes and reviewing new code that came with the update.

 

Overall, I’m very proud of the work the team and I produced, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to go outside of my comfort zone by redesigning UI layouts and working with a proprietary engine. It was very intriguing working on console platforms beyond the Nintendo Switch and observing how the work flows differ between each other. I look forward to future opportunities I get to develop for Playstation and Xbox platforms and would eagerly work on this project again if given the chance.