Uses This

A collection of nerdy interviews asking people from all walks of life what they use to get the job done.

A picture of Benjamin Porter

Benjamin Porter

Game developer (Moonman)

Posted in developer, game, windows

Who are you, and what do you do?

Hi, I'm Benjamin Porter, and I'm an independent game developer. My current project is Moonman, a procedurally-generated adventure game. I recently finished over 365 days of daily pixel art as a personal challenge.

What hardware do you use?

I've got a desktop PC (i7 4790) with 8Gb RAM, a GTX 960, and a 2TB HDD. I use a MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard and have a Wacom Bamboo for occasional sketching. I have two ASUS LCD screens -- one for my code and the other everything else.

At home I've got a Toshiba Satellite P50 running Windows 8 and connected to a pair of Audio Engine A5's. I've also got a Mac Mini which I used to develop some iOS applications a few years ago. I've got a NES, SNES, N64 (which all still work) and a 360 (which doesn't). I use a Moto G for personal mobile communications and telephony.

And what software?

Most of my day is spent in either Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2013 or The GNU Image Manipulation Program (The Gimp). I use Notepad++ and VIM to edit some files (.py, .json, .txt, etc) and I used After Effects to cut together my recent trailer. I have a custom sprite editor called MoonPixel which I used to edit and organise sprites for my game, and I use Audacity to edit sound effects. Google Docs, Trello and lots of sticky notes help organise my life.

In my time off I draw pixel art, play around with Unity, or hang out on Twitter via Chrome.

What would be your dream setup?

I don't really get excited about hardware specs these days, but I do look forward to a time when it's easy to sit outside on a nice day and work on my games. Huddled over a laptop doesn't work for me and glare always makes it tricky to see laptop screens. Some kind of fast e-ink device that i can interactively scribble code on (and have it execute) would be nice. We are definitely moving in that direction, so hopefully it won't be too far off.