Peder Sloth Züricho

Cand.Scient. Medialogy - Specialization in games

I am a creative and technically curious individual by nature, and self-discipline is crucial for my creative process, as will soon become evident:

I am working on many different projects – iteratively. The projects are what some might label infinity projects, because they are often left incomplete, for a while. Despite their perpetual appearance, they are an expression of my creative and inquisitive person, where I am free of deadlines limiting the process. Similarly, I am reading many books concurrently, with great enjoyment, to some of my friends’ bewilderment, and yet our common amusement. Having many unfinished projects is sort of a hobby at this point, and the kaleidoscope of these facets is a major part of my personality.

Some of these projects have been games, and i have made games since i was little. In aprrox. 2008 i had outgrown making games in html with hyperlinks using Microsoft Office Frontpage, and I started modding for Warcraft3 with limited success. In 2013 I was accpeted to be a participant at UNF - Game Development Camp 2013, Link. Which helped me get to the next part of my journey with Game Engines. I returned in 2015, and in 2016 and again between 2019 - 2023 i have been an organizer of the camp myself. My passion for creating, and solving problems including games, has grown ever since.

As a kid I spend a lot of time, watching my brother play on his Nintendo64 (which is now mine - Score!), I watched mostly when it got too difficult for me to play back then. Even before then, in the 90's I spend quite a bit of time on my parents' Windows 3.1 PC and my grandparrents' Commodore computers playing painting games. As my parrents had different workstations growing up i've grown up with DOS games like Digger, Privateer, and Commander Keen 4, I played the latter one a lot. I also played GameBoy, but my dad's Compaq Pentium2 Windows 98 Computer was a little more interesting, as well as his later WindowsXP Pentium3 PC, and I mourned the inability to play Pentium4 games. To my dissapointment I couldn't fix that by painting the UI in MS-Paint. My mother had a laptop with Windows95, which had kept my appetite for videogames as I played various point and click childrens games.

I learned PortForwarding for the purpose of Warcraft3, I played countless hours in the play club's "gaming room", NeedForSpeed: Underground 2, and JakII: Renegade were top favourites! At home when the Internet turned from dial-up to ADSL broadband, I spend my time with either Runescape, Gratis Spil.dk, DanishRadio's HundeParken, or similarly. In the beginning I had the phone tucked into my chin constantly on call with my friend, then my dad got annoyed with the phonebill and we got hooked up with Skype.

In 2012 I was fortunate enough to get a primaryschool internship at IO-Interactive. And from that moment on, I have dreamed of working with video games. Although, I have come to enjoy, IoT, and Software Development as well.

Bonus Info: My favourite game of all time: Hype ~ The Time Quest.

I am a nerd, and proud of it!

Hobbies and Projects

I love to solve problems, even the tiniest insignificant problems, which doesn't necessarily need solving. And I sometimes like to make things harder than they need to be. With risk of misquoting Mythbusters, I believe they used to say "If it is worth doing, it's worth overdoing". Ofc. that's not always true. But I like the quote when I try to justify starting a new project with a ridiculus scope, which does happen. I actually made websites as a kid through webbyen.dk and looked up to my Sister, who actually was quite the webdeveloper, selftaught through library books. She took a different career path eventually, but unlike her, I could mostly do HTML stuff, and I didn't exactly know what to make a website about back then. Today, I have a need for a portfolio, and when I started this website some years ago now, I realized just how much I had forgotten. And I said to myself well, how hard can it be. I decided quite quickly that I didn't like the existing standard portfolio solutions, because each and everyone of them were intended for one type of skill, such as art, 3D, Sound etc. And I didn't want my portfolio to be links to all sorts of 3rd party hosts. I wanted to collect it all here.

As time has passed I have unfortunately lost source code to some projects, and I have projects that I haven't yet got around to include on the website yet. And I am also in the transition to go from HTML to PHP, and try to evolve from the initial prototype of a website, without pulling the current version down. By the way, I might fail to update this statement, but for now it's true.

Starting from the bottom with no libraries, and no clear documentation of what the webhotel supports and doesn't support, is also a bit of a journey in itself. Not that I cannot finish projects, but continously developing and learning, and repeating this is just how I work best. Fast prototyping, learn something, iterate. Which is why this site is also in a constant state of 'unfinished'.

The goal is for this website to be a portfolio platform that can showcase my wide set of skills and competences, and experience. Yes, it's not all equally pretty projects, but they are experience nevertheless. I hope I can showcase, IoT micoprocessor projects, Video Games, Board Games, music and sound, 3D work, Artwork, AddOns, Interactive projects, videos, presentations, and other DIY stuff, in this portfolio. And not just show the interacive things as a screenshot or two, but actually allow the visitors to interact with them e.g. play video games, etc.

I could keep listing projects, but I would rather encourage you to look around in the portfolio, yourself.

I am blessed that the projects I have are also hobbies, but when I don't have a project that I am working on, then I read books, watch movies, play games, watch documentaries, dig into history, etc. What really get's me excited is when people make an effort, and are passionate about it.

My Strengths

It's hard to reflect on your strengths and not feel a little gross about it as a Dane. But I think my greatest strength is my ability to move on, always head strong, and never holding a grudge. But as a close second I think my curiousity and wide spectrum of knowledge in many disciplines, makes good at mainly 2 things: Number 1: Acquiring new skills and knowledge on my own, and remembering it. Number 2: Cross trade communication, I speak both the language of the programmer, the gamer, the consumer, the buyer, the artist, the industrial designer, the producer, etc. etc. And this gives me a good foundation for listening and communicating.

My Weaknesses

Ironically my greatest weakness is a strange one, considering "Number 2" of my strengths above. I find it hard to communicate in layman terms, without lots of interjected sentences, and being concise and to the point. Maybe it's an effect of knowing too many details, maybe it's Neuro-Divergence, maybe both. It doesn't really matter, what does matter, is how I can be continously aware of my flaws, and actively do something to mitigate the consequences. Something I have 15 years of experience with by now. For example, I have a tendency to ignore hunger subconsciously, so I have made alarms and aiding equipment to help myself. I have experienced that in my good hearted intention to help in work situations, I sometimes stick my nose where it doesn't belong, and to prevent that, I wear headphones so I can bubble myself up to avoid getting sidetracked. Ofc. that leaves a paradox sometimes in the sense of being unable register alarms intended to make sure I get something to eat for example. I always try to deal with my weaknesses however I can. And inspite of these "limitations", I have managed to become a Graduate. And I got there despite, and partially in spite of the evaluation some 15 years ago that I was not recommended for any further education beyond special school and then an early retirement. Something that I turned into motivation, and resillience. I'd like to quite John Locke from ABC's Tv-series Lost: "Do not tell me what I can't do!". I have since then made it my personal quest to find my own limitations, and push them. I wouldn't say that is a strength, because you don't push your limitations without also taking a few hits in the process. In conclusion: I acknowledge my limitations, but I don't let them stand in my way of success. I treat them like any other problem to be solved.