Frank Podraza
My Name is Frank Podraza, I go by Weekie on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and pretty much any social media I’m on. I created the Nerd Herd Network, and I run the Nerd Herd YouTube Channel and this website.
I make games. I developed Poke My Balls back in 2016, the CSGO Prop in 2019, and I just released Launch My Dog in July of 2021. I am a student at the University of California Santa Cruz. I am studying computer science.
I also have a website-based portfolio for you to feast your eyes on.
Poke My Balls
Poke My Balls started as a project called Tap2Kill. It’s a simple game where different colored balls fall and you have to tap all of one color, but none of the other colors. My Father came up with the name one day and it stuck. I used this project as a way to start learning programming and the Unity engine. I have come back to it over the years to implement concepts I have learned in university. Most recently, I used a class/subclass structure and polymorphism to make the game modes load as if they were game cartridges being put into a game console. There is one system that handles loading, and storing data (The “console”), and another that handles all the behaviors of the game (The “cartridge”).
Launch My Dog
Launch My Dog is a game where you launch a hot dog into a bun. I almost finished this game back in 2018 but felt that it wasn’t good enough to release. It didn’t feel fun. I came back to it in early 2020 and have been slowly working on it since. The goal was a tight small game that I could release on Mobile. There’s some fun programming in here like trajectory prediction, even through different mediums. I have learned a lot about optimization with this project. The original had all the levels loaded simultaneously, which was slow. Now it loads each level additively, on top of a base scene, which is considerably faster. This performance boost allowed me to push other aspects of the game, like level complexity. Launch My Dog was released on July 10th, 2021. It is available on both the iOS App Store and Google Play. Leaving a review is greatly appreciated, it boosts the game in search. I am currently working on extra levels and general quality of life improvements.
The Future
Now that Launch My Dog is complete, I want to start work on other projects. I would like to develop a PC game. I want to spend time honing my programming skills, and general project workflow. I have worked on First-Person-Shooter prototypes in the past, but none came to fruition. I also spent time on a possible parkour racing game in the Unreal Engine. When I start working on something, you will find it here.