Connor Ashcroft

miniMIA

My friend set up a server at his home to learn about Linux and to have it function as a game server for our friends. It had some other functionality as well. We ran into a problem where we wanted to access his server on devices other than a PC without installing the VPN software, Tailscale. So, miniMIA was born (he named his server "Mia"), and we made a few of these to essentially bring his server wherever it was connected. I collaborated with my friend to make a toolchain that made it easy to produce these--I made the network "tunnel" software and 3D models, and Justin made the tools to install everything on a SD card for a Raspberry Pi. This was a very fun homelab project and I can't wait for the next one!

Technical Drawings

While working at a sign fabrication company, I was always fascinated by the idea of communicating design and construction intent with drawings and design. I believed the drawings we were providing the fabricators at the time could be greatly improved and made clearer, so I took it upon myself to spend my free time learning how to do them on my own, outside of work. I started learning Fusion, and spent my breaks on the production floor asking questions about the fabricators' processes and decisions. Within a couple of months, I made drawings for a mock-up sign, a few pages of which are shown above. I had a lot of fun putting these together, though nothing has come of it.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

I loved playing Keep Talking with my buddies back when it was blowing up. So much, that I tried to put it into Garry's Mod! This was pretty much finished with easy and medium-difficulty modules in 2015, and I learned how to make my programming more modular. It also involved dynamic music which was real satisfying when it fell into place in the video.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (Custom Module)

Part of my Unity experience comes from my work on the difficult Number Pad module that I uploaded to the Steam Workshop later in 2016. Its complicated defusal manual page, that I wrote, got some interesting feedback, though it was a fun challenge making the code work consistently. This was my first step into Unity which was very easy to pick up.

BRIX: Stack to the Death

A last man standing brick stacking game programmed with Lua entirely within Garry's Mod using the Starfall addon. I've spent over a year, on and off, making this from the ground up. There are certainly other games like it, but I've learned so much more about the structure of games, both on the back end and front end. This project also taught me how to optimize processing power, especially with graphics.

BRIX is planned to be refactored to become a standalone game to be released on Itch.io, but is currently on hold.

Tetris 99 Keyboard Controller

It's no secret I love Tetris and similar games. I became obsessed with getting a win in Tetris 99 when it came out! Playing on a keyboard fared better for me, but I couldn't afford a fancy keyboard controller for the Switch. So, I made my own and got my first win. Very fun!

GMod Tower

A massive multiplayer hangout server on Garry's Mod, and now standalone video game Tower Unite. This was where I learned to work with a team of other developers! I added video poker and Texas Hold 'Em to the casino in 2014. I also did a New Year's countdown clock for 2015 and a bunch of teaser events hyping up the release of the new lobby map. PixelTail took me on for a few months for Tower Unite in 2016, but I was too swamped with high school and had to depart the team.

Metaconstruct

A Garry's Mod community sandbox server on which I'm a developer. We have a custom map for wandering around and building contraptions. I hop on this server every now and then when I feel like making cool things, like that cool core visual effect above. I also made an adaptation of the American show Deal or No Deal for players to win lots of the in-game currency!