Sign Up for my Programming Camps!

This summer of 2016, Matthew Mistele is teaching two new summer camps to help you take your next step in programming.

If you or your student is in grades 4 – 8, take Video Game Programming Using Scratch: Beginner/Intermediate.

Unleash your creativity and take the next step on your coding journey! Campers will build on their prior knowledge and create one or two exciting video games in just one week! Students will learn additional coding tricks and programming concepts, and build advanced games with artificial intelligence, game physics, or multiplayer functionality. Students will be able to share projects with family and friends and continue expanding on their work at home.

If you or your student is in grades 7 – 12, take Video Game Programming in Java.

Video Game Programming – Intermediate is designed for students interested in video games and/or taking AP Computer Science in high school. This course will cover many of the basic concepts and skills students need to be familiar with for the AP Computer Science class using a creative and fun game development process. By the end of the course students will have built an 80’s style video arcade game in Java. Some prior programming knowledge is required.

Register Now at tbcs.org/summer

 

 

Published Roo-ometer for the Windows Phone Store!

Roo-ometer, a virtual speedometer, odometer, altimeter, and a GPS all in one awesome app, is now public for everyone in the world to download onto the Windows Phone. I have been working on this app for a while, and finally, after a few rejected publishes, is now live, and free to download. You can download it here, or you can search roo-ometer on the store.

Programming Jobs

Recently, many people have seen the PR on warthog wars, and have acted on it.
First of all, Bungie, the company that made the popular video game franchise Halo and is creating the anticipated game Destiny, saw Warthog Wars and thought it was awesome that I decided to create my game inspired by Halo. Bungie then contacted me and said they would give me a private tour of their studios, as well as make a blog post about me for all of their gamers to see.

A 4 wheeler shop in Australia saw my post on mobile apps, and gave me a job for making an app for them on the Windows Phone, IPhone, and Android, as well as revising my Logo Quiz to give his customers a discount. I have completed the windows phone version, and I am currently working on the Android version.

With a paying job, a social life, and school to juggle, life is very busy for me nowadays.

Epic Week – Feb 2014

What a week!

Awarded “Geek of the Week” by GeekWire!
Geek of the Week: Matthew Mistele, 14-year-old Xbox game developer
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/matthew-mistele/

KIRO 7 News also came to my house with a camera crew and interviewed me for 90 minutes after-school this week (Feb 5, 2014) about becoming an Xbox game developer at age 14. Four different segments aired on television – 11pm News, Morning news, Noon and even during the evening news broadcast at 6:30pm.

Being on Camera was an experience like nothing before. Because I knew that I was going to be viewed by thousands of people from all over the Seattle, I was nervous, but exited. Watch the segment below!

More news stories about my launch of Warthog Wars:
http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/redmond-teen-creates-x-box-game/ndGX6/

http://www.redmond-reporter.com/community/243814141.html

http://www.kirklandviews.com/blog/2014/1/28/fourteen-year-old-publishes-ambitious-xbox-game

Great online reviews of Warthog Wars! Amazing!
1. Outside Xbox http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWkIKiCmlWQ (5,234 views as of 2/8)
2. Xbox indies http://www.xboxindies.com/game/warthog-wars

Underway: My first games

With the foundation of Alice and the knowledge about Visual Studio and Visual Basic from the textbook, I was ready to start creating my own games. My first one was a quiz, where the player had to guess logos. This was a great game to get me started because it implemented many of the things discussed in the book. It was like a final exam to see if I was ready to move on.

My first game: Logo Quiz

This game was the start of the many games to come, each introducing a new concept into my arsenal. My next game was a matching game, introducing randomizing objects and complex arrays. This game also has a database, which stored everyone’s highscores. This allowed me to have everyone access each other’s saved information, which was a big milestone for me.

Matching Game

Next, I made Black Jack. This had complicated logic, a database, and a dealer to play against you.

BlackJack

All of these first games helped me learned something new every time, and although no money was involved, I had great satisfaction creating these games.
After these, creating games became my hobby, my passion.

Play all of these games at http://matthewmistele.com

Catching Fire: Visual Studio 2010

After a few years of making creative games in Alice, I thought it was time to move up to the next level. Although I had the feel of the flow of a program, and I knew some of the objects used, I was very intimidated moving up, and very unsure what to do. Visual Studio is a professional environment made by Microsoft to create apps for all of their platforms with all sorts of languages. My dad bought me another text book, Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Step by Step by Michel Halvorson, about creating programs in Visual Studio with Visual Basic as the language. Visual Basic helps the developer by having simpler syntax. (Syntax is virtually the grammar of coding.) After studying and completing the exercises in the book, my arsenal of tools became well equipped to start creating games for Windows.

Visual Studio 2010

Buy the textbook: Here

How it all started

When I was 9, I was (and still am), fascinated with video games. They captured my attention, was like a movie, yet I was in control of what happened. I liked the excitement, the reward of accomplishment, and the ability to play online with friends. I had always thought how cool creating those games would be, so I decided to try and make some. I talked to my dad about this, and he found a simple program for me to create my own games. Named Alice, it allowed me to create my own games, but with training wheels. It had drag and drop code, and everything was explained to me. My dad bought me a book about coding in Alice, and for 2 years, I built a foundation for my programming with creating games in Alice.

Coding in Alice

Alice website: http://www.alice.org/