My name's Alex!

I'm a dude from Connecticut, but right now I'm studying Computer Science at Columbia University in New York.

I've been making games for a long time

As a nine-year-old I really, really wanted to make my own version of Super Mario Bros. 3, so I googled around and found this little program called GameMaker.

I downloaded version 6.1, and the rest was history.

The earliest games I still have on my hard drive, from c. 2007-2009.

(My art skills have gotten a little less cringy since then.)

I LOVE EVERYTHING BUTTERSCOTCH

I've been listening to the podcast pretty much every week since August 2015 (I think I found it through Polygon). I bought Crashlands during launch week, and I've played just about every title you've put out. (Roid Rage is my favorite--the speed and simplicity of the game loop makes it super addicting.)

About a month ago I convinced my aunt to get Crashlands for my little cousins (aged seven and eleven)--she was looking for iOS games that weren't "trashy"--and they're so in love with it that they've stopped talking about Minecraft! (Most recently they've hatched a pet womplord, and just made it to the bawg.)

I've been following you guys and your company for a while now, and a lot of your work, life, and community-building philosophies really resonate with me, to the point that 'Be Deliberate' is my desktop wallpaper.

I love that you guys are so open and self-aware, and that you let data and morals drive your design and businesses decisions, not your egos.

I love that you don't believe in crunching, and prioritize developing efficient workflows instead.

I love that your backgrounds are all totally unconventional for game development, and that as a result you approach problems from an unconventionally academic, scientific perspective.

I love that you have the courage to readily experiment with your game designs, business models, and company structure, even when doing so goes against the latest mainstream industry wisdom.

And I really, really love that even when times are unimaginably tough, when cash is tight or prognoses are dire, you guys manage to stay crazy funny and crazy true to who you are.

In short, you have grit, you have guts, you have laughs, you have compassion, and you have a process like no one else; you're the kind of studio I'd give an arm and a leg to work for. I'm only a freshman in college, but I sincerely believe that I have the drive and technical foundation to make a valuable contribution to Butterscotch.

So, I was wondering: Could I intern for you, unpaid, from mid-May to early August this coming summer?

WHY WOULD YOU WANT ME AS AN INTERN?

I haven't really had time to specialize yet, but I've a got a super-broad skillset that covers all sorts of areas. I'm a quick, flexible learner who's good at slotting into new teams and work environments. And, I'm totally willing to relocate to St. Louis!

I've done a bit of everything--at various points I've been an elementary school teacher, artist, coder, nanny, video editor, actor, organization leader, musician, and animator--so I can provide support basically wherever you need it, whenever you need it, in any discipline. (I've even filled out W2s and W4s before, so I could help Monique with clerical work.)

KEY SKILLS

Digital media and art

Animation

Both 2D (bone- and vector-based) and 3D (rigging, posing, modeling)

Video Editing

Specifically screencasts and tutorials, but some experience with live video (here's my YouTube channel)

Audio Production

Recording through postprocessing--I know my way around condenser mics, sampling, looping, noise reduction, and converting between sound formats and various bitrates; I have some experience with DAWs

Photography

Colorgrading (Photoshop), composition, file management


Design Work

I'm pretty fluent with photo-editing and vector graphics programs. (I've done a few Inkscape tutorials, but I'm most comfortable with a tool called Moho.)

Banners


YouTube Thumbnails


GameMaker Marketplace Thumbnails


Assorted Fun Things

I'm not a fantastic artist or designer, but I can get the job done.

Programming

Here's my GitHub.

My technical experience:

  • Webscraping, using a package called Nightmare with Node.js
  • Using command-line utilities, like:
  • Using/writing scripts for programs like Blender3D and Photoshop to automate workflow
    • Bulk cropping and export of game visuals
    • Converting stacks of layers into spritesheets
    • Using Python to generate meshes programmatically given a parametric input function
  • Developing in GameMaker (After ten years I've gotten really good at breaking it--I keep finding functions in the HTML5 JavaScript runner the YoYo dev team forgot to implement)
    • I've been publishing on and off on the GameMaker Marketplace since 2014--for about a year straight I had three assets on the front page (about 6000 downloads total, but no revenue). Fuzzy Baddy is probably the most polished package I've put out
    • I haven't released any really polished games in a while (time is so hard to come by), but when I was a freshman in high school I got A Boy and His Golem (HTML5, doesn't work in Chrome) and Dungeon Mage (Windows Store) out the door. (Both are pretty buggy, unfortunately)
  • Developing in Unity (less experience than in GM)
    • I know enough about OOP languages generally that I can hack together game code in C#
    • I can pipe assets produced in Blender into the engine pretty seamlessly
  • Web development (mostly frontend, a little bit of server-side)
  • Objected-Oriented Programming (anything with C-like syntax)
    • I've coded a lot in Java, JavaScript, and GML, and a little bit in Python, C#, and C++
    • The most complicated project I ever worked on was a 2D game engine I had to code from scratch in Java for a high school Computer Science class
  • Functional programming (sort of)--I've been exposed to the theory parts of it, but haven't used it in a real setting yet

Coordination and Organization

I've worked with small teams towards long-term goals before.
I helped found my high school's first Computer Science club. Over three-and-a-half years my two cofounders and I grew the club from about 5 people to 40, and secured a $1000 education grant from Google. I was responsible for the bulk of meeting organization and club communication; I sent about 70 weekly newsletters over a three-year period, cowrote the club constitution, and drafted the majority of our Google grant proposal. My cofounders and I split work; one reached out to guest speakers, and the other handled website maintenance and meeting space reservations.

My records are thorough.
Pretty much the entirety of the last half decade of my life is backed up to Dropbox (source code, college applications, academic papers, receipts, photographs). I keep track of things.

I always plan.
At least a little. Sometimes I make just a sketch or a five-item checklist, and sometimes I write a full-blown design doc, depending on project scope.

Communication

I speak really well, I write really well, and I can teach.
I can be loud and articulate in public; the largest crowd I've been in front of was about 800 people. During high school I gave around 63 lectures on web and game development, each at about 45 minutes in length to audiences largely unfamiliar with programming. (Some of the lectures are online.)

I've worked as a teacher and tutor twice in a professional capacity; in the summer of 2015 I was an assistant teacher at a summer school for refugee children in New York City, and this year I spent about six weeks part-time as a remedial Language Arts teacher at a charter school in NYC's Bronx borough. (Logistically it didn't end up working out because I was simultaneously maintaining a full-time undergrad courseload, but I had a blast getting to know the kids.)

I can write quickly, in a variety of styles.

I listen before I speak.
I'm good at resolving interpersonal conflicts because I give people space to tell me what they need and why they're hurting. Listening has been integral to my experiences as a teacher, administrator, and friend. Conversely, I'm not afraid to tell people my own needs.

Fast turnaround times

I learn quick, and I work quick.
I went to a really rigid, academically intense high school where I had about four hours a day to myself (and I used those for sleeping), so any creative work I did had to be brought from concept to final product really, really fast.

I crammed most of my major gamedev projects into long weekends and two-week vacations, so I had to iterate through prototypes and churn out finished art pretty quickly. (The game at right took a week.)

Most of the video and song projects I've worked on had to be completed within 3 to 16 hour windows; a lot of the work I've done isn't great, but it's good enough, and I created it efficiently.

Most importantly, I'm good at working within deadlines.


Self-started learning

I look for solutions before I ask for help.
I learn new skills when I run into problems I can't solve yet. I can pick up coding frameworks and art workflows quickly; I'm not afraid of API documentation or tutorials, and stack overflow is one of my favorite websites.

But as independent as I am in my learning and problem solving, I'm not afraid to act on guidance or criticism from people smarter or more experienced than I am. I very much barely know what I'm doing, and I'm super grateful for any tips and pointers I can get.

IN SUM

You want me working at Butterscotch because I get what needs to be done, done.

It doesn't matter if accomplishing that means learning new pipelines, writing new scrapers, talking honestly with colleagues, reading up on color theory, spending hours debugging, or banging out walk animation after walk animation--one way or another I figure out how to hit the milestones I need to.

I throw myself into the projects I work on and the teams I work with, and I'm honest and sincere in everything I do. I care about people, I care about creating, and I care about making the world a happier place for others to be in.

I've got a broad skillset, a crazy work ethic, and a wide-open summer. And I'd like to offer all of that to you.

Thank you for your consideration.


Alex Rupp-Coppi
amr2311@columbia.edu