John Nesky

- Class of 2008

John was a GCS member from 2004 to 2007, where he was credited on 15 games in various roles including programmer, designer, artist, and animator. John also worked on PlayCrafter, a web app with a drag-and-drop interface for kids to design games. John is best known for his work at ThatGameCompany, where he designed avatar and camera controls for Journey and animation and environment tools for Sky. In his spare time, he develops BeepBox, a web app for composing music.

Find me here:

My GCS Games

Arbarlith II

Spring 2007

Andrew Fox

CJ Hostetter

Chris DeLeon

Eric Foote

John Nesky

Justin Lokey

Michael Collins

Michael Hanley

Ning Sung Lee

Rachel Berkowitz

Tom Cauchois

3-D Action RPG. Arbarlith is back, and more action-packed. This time, the focus is on instant gratification, hack-n-slash game play that is easy to pick up and play.

Dreamscape

Spring 2007

Adam Lederer

CJ Hostetter

Eric Butler

Eric Foote

Erin McCarty

Greg Peng

John Nesky

Matthew Glisson

Stelios Melachrinoudis

Tom Cauchois

Yang Shan

2D Fighter smoother than butter. Dreamscape is a fresh take on a classic genre, the 2D fighter, set in a restless world of imagination created by the collective dreaming of every living thing on earth. The King Dreamer of this world is going into retirement, so a new king must be found! Play as the King Dreamer, Shaktool Fremont, and his would be successors: a collection of characters including squid ladies, school girls, and a foetus controlled robot (?!).

Crazy City Builder

Fall 2006

Ben Wolf

CJ Hostetter

Cristina Birkel

Geoff Cameron

Greg Hallenbeck

Henry Wladkowski

John Nesky

Robert Strickland

Build the city of your dreams with cartoon buildings! Organize and select various cartoon buildings to make them all happy while building the city of your dreams. Buildings don't like be next to some buildings, but really want to be around others instead. This end demo version outlines this basic mechanic, but there will be more to come!

The King of Euclidean Space

Fall 2006

Alex May

Andrew Fox

Ben Wolf

Dorothy Holland-Minkley

Greg Hallenbeck

Greg Newby

Henry Wladkowski

Ian Lin

Joe Gershonson

John Nesky

Mike Edelson

Robert Strickland

Theresa Chen

Victoria Aveson

Work with a partner to control your space ship and fight off waves of alien enemies: One player pilots the ship while the other controls the cannons. You will have to upgrade your ship and unlock powerful new abilities in order to take on increasingly challenging waves.

Parasomnia: Decadence of Darkness

Fall 2006

Adam Lederer

Andrew Fox

CJ Hostetter

Chris DeLeon

Greg Hallenbeck

Henry Wladkowski

Jane Chu

Jenn Kennedy

John Nesky

Justin Lokey

Richard Halstead

Stelios Melachrinoudis

Tom Cauchois

A frighteningly good time! Art and ambiance-heavy survival horror that follows the main character, Theryn Hashimoto, through his fantastic and horrifying dream... or is it a reality? Theryn himself cannot distinguish the line, so he must follow his parasomnia into the depths of his own psychological darkness to find the answer.

Eternal Storm

Spring 2006

Chris DeLeon

Chris Strickland

Colin Newby

Danny Traylor

Eric Barndollar

Eric Foote

George Shannon

Greg Newby

Jared Luxenberg

Jennifer Smith

Joe Kincaid

Joe Pfeil

John Nesky

Joseph Chakola

Josh Schnarr

Kenneth Chan

Matt Kent

Megan Sasser

Ning Sung Lee

Robert Strickland

Susan Smith

Isometric space-age bombing game. Taking place in 3305 A.D, Eternal Storm dives into the rich clouds of Jupiter, where the Juno Corporation uses automated mining platforms to maintain a monopoly on the collection of Hydrogen-3 fuel. Inside the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, a monstrous storm three times the size of Earth, Juno is rumored to have found the storm's source. Hidden by the fury of this storm, a few brave pilots launch a rebellion -- the Jupiter Liberation Front -- seeking to strike Juno in its heart to uncover the source of its secrets.

Feature Creep

Spring 2006

Alex May

Greg Hallenbeck

Greg Newby

Ian Lin

John Nesky

Matt Sarnoff

Space shooter with an absurd number of powerups. Play as ATOMIC DAVE fighting through 32 waves of the evil forces of the SPACE SHOGUN, culminating with a one-on-one battle with the shogun himself! In Feature Creep, you can fight evil, save the planet Earth, laugh, cry, and -- most importantly -- go on the most noble of all pursuits: more powerups!

Arbarlith

Fall 2005

Andrew Fox

Andrew Hall

Charlene Gilbert

CJ Hostetter

Chris DeLeon

Daryna Yakusha

Eric Barndollar

Greg Newby

John Nesky

Michael Collins

Michael Hanley

Mike Haley

Nicholas Brockmeyer

Ning Sung Lee

Richard Halstead

Thomas Pike

Jenn Kennedy

Dungeon crawling hack-n-slash. Beasts from the Aether are starting to break through the barriers surrounding the magical world of Arbarlith, unleashing chaos. Descend into the dungeons and push them back into the abyss they came from!

Hegira

Fall 2005

Chris DeLeon

Diana Archer

Donald J. Slater

Eric Barndollar

Greg Newby

Jay Meistrich

John Nesky

Juan Lasheras

Julianne Bierwirth

Luther Patenge

Michael Collins

Roy Concepcion

Tom Pike

3D space shooting, barrel rolls included. Laser guns, power ups, hordes of enemy space ships, mission objectives, and barrel rolls, topped off with some of the craziest voice acting to ever grace deep space all make the Hegira experience a memorable one.

Re-Retro

Fall 2005

Eric Foote

J'aime Ohm

John Nesky

Mark Levine

Marty Rosenberg

Randomly-generated Old School madness Ah, the classic 2-D, side scrolling, combat/adventure game. But why settle for a single game, when Re-Retro brings you a different experience every time. Every level is hot out of the oven, generated right at the loading screen. Also, ninjas.

Aethernet

Spring 2005

Chris DeLeon

John Nesky

Keisha How

Martin Rosenberg

The most disorientating game of asteroids you'll ever play Imagine playing Asteroids... but instead of space rocks, you're battling aggravated intelligent life. And the fight is taking place in unstable, highly distorted space-time. Whoa.

Shotgun Debugger

Spring 2005

Chris DeLeon

Greg Peng

Jeff Thoene

John Nesky

Matt Sarnoff

Michael Weber

Tuscan Knox

CRC_Fatal_Error Shotgun Debugger is a 2D, top-down action game. It is The Future, and your habit of computer network exploration has finally done you in. You are captured and taken to a strange underground complex populated by robot soldiers. Your task is to escape the facility -- but the hordes of walking death machines aren't just gonna let you.

Carnegie Mellings

Fall 2004

Carl Lecompte

David Astle

David Hartunion

Drew Warshaver

Eujern Lim

Grant Van Nostrand

Greg Hallenbeck

Jared Goerner

John Nesky

Kevin Costello

Lucas Coyne

Michael Weber

Poor Carnegie Mellon freshmen, never know where to go. Guide them around campus in this tribute to DMA Design's Lemmings. Note: This project contains known but unresolved bugs.

Grace's First Adventure

Fall 2004

Benjamin Saalbach-Walsh

Chris DeLeon

Evan Hoke

Fernando Mestanza

John Brandon

John Nesky

Multi-Dimensional GBA Adventure Platformer Grace's First Adventure is a GBA game where you must explore trees and caverns as you search for the five lost dogs and bring them back to the brick house on the surface, combatting various animals along the way. Note that the dogs can be used as a weapon! ;) Controls: D-Pad: left & right, and down switches between foreground and background A: Jump B: Grab/Throw Start: Exits title screen

Saturn Storm

Fall 2004

Alejo Grigera

Chris Brust

Chris DeLeon

George Shannon

John Nesky

Josh Schnarr

Matt Sarnoff

Roy Concepcion

Tuscan Knox

Welcome to the corporation, employee! Saturn Storm is a one- and two-player 'bombing run' game. You control a bomb-laden drone through Saturn's harsh atmosphere and attack floating mining platforms belonging to rival corporations. Between runs, you earn money, which can be spent on a variety of bombs, including bunker busters, EMP bombs, and many others.

Updated August 23, 2023