My name is Ryan Thorlakson. I love nothing more than programming and developing video games!

I am now happily employed at Valve and am no longer seeking employment opportunities.

School
I graduated from DigiPen Institute of Technology in 2006 as valedictorian of my graduating class. I earned a bachelor's degree in Real-Time Interactive Simulation (similar to Computer Science) and a minor in Mathematics. While at DigiPen, I created five full-featured game projects by working in small teams. You can find these projects on this site! While in school, I also created my own free browser-based persistent web game, Teragaia, on the side.

Snowblind
I then worked at Snowblind Studios on Justice League Heroes as an AI/gameplay programmer. I programmed most of the boss encounters in the game and made many other contributions to the project. After Justice League Heroes shipped, I worked on Snowblind's unannounced next-gen action-RPG. I created a modular, data-driven AI system from the ground up so that designers could create intricate AI behaviors without programmer help. I also worked on many different areas of gameplay. Eventually I became the acting gameplay programming lead. I mentored other programmers, organized schedules, kept track of outstanding issues, coordinated with other departments, assisted in interviews, fought the big fires, made sure deliverables were ready to go, and more.

Light's End
After I left Snowblind in 2008, it was time to really express my creativity. I spent seven months creating my own independent game called Light's End for Microsoft's Xbox 360. I published the game through Xbox Live Indie Games. I did all of the programming, design, music, dialog, and promotion. I contracted the raw artwork through an artist from deviantART. Other than the artist's help, I was the only developer on the project.

Valve
I am now working at Valve as a gameplay/AI programmer. I helped program the popular zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2. I'm currently working with Valve on a new, unannounced project.

Welcome!
Take a look around my site. You will find information about games I have worked on, actual game downloads, other game related projects, and code samples. Soon you will see first hand that I like to get my feet wet with all aspects of video game development. I hope you enjoy my site and projects as much as I enjoyed creating them!