Current Crisis is a power grid construction and management simulator game made in Unity and sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories. Originally starting as my junior design project at Georgia Tech in January 2024, I have continued contributing to its development first as a summer intern to today as a Unity Game Developer. My work includes developing game systems and mechanics and optimizing and refactoring code. I collaborate with other full-time developers and student programmers, game designers, and artists to contribute to an engaging and educational experience.

Current Crisis is a game focused on power grid management, where you take on the combined role of both a power utility company and transmission system operator. Gameplay involves balancing the costs of operating a power grid utility by maintaining high power system reliability, even in the case of extreme weather events such as hurricanes or extreme hazards, such as wildfires, arising from the inherent risks by the inherent risk of power grid operations.

As an Implementation Student Team lead on the project, I led a team of eleven developing an economic system in the game, where cities naturally grow in population over time and demand power from the player. When power demand is met, the player earn profit based on the amount of electricity consumed, or if power demands are not met, punished with a city losing “happiness”, a resource which can end your game if depleted. The following semester I co-led a team of ten balancing the gameplay, including power rates, building construction costs, and maintenance costs to be as realistic as possible to real life situations, yet not too punishing to a player’s enjoyment.

I am current work on the project as a Unity Game Developer, developing systems such as an improved procedural terrain generation system with more refined and efficient noise generators and designer-facing tools to efficiently modify terrain. I also work alongside the QA Team to identify, address performance, optimization, and stability.