Spencer Smoot

Cinematics Embedded QA · Cloud Imperium Games

Makers of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 · 09/2024 – present · Frankfurt

• Built a feature that saves TrackView tracks to XML and loads them into other sequences. I started it as a Python tool, then moved it into the editor itself with menu and right-click access, and fixed cases like sub-sequence tracks. Designers used to rebuild five or six camera tracks for every shot. The team now shares a library of preset tracks and adjusts them per shot.
• Cinematic designers bring me the bugs nobody can explain. I trace them to the root cause across engine systems, such as facial animation culling, shadows in in-game video calls and interactable objects, and give engineering a report with the evidence. Over 50 releases so far.
• Added functions to the engine's TrackView Python API for creating usable, ship management, sequence and camera keys, and added GUID search to the editor's object selection command.
• Added the camera's f-stop to the debug text shown during renders.
• All of my engine changes went through code review with senior engineers.
• Built my own Jira dashboard in Python with Claude Code and Claude Cowork. It tracks my issues and launches local test scripts, and I keep adding to it.
• Test designers' cinematic updates in the client and editor, and write Jira bugs with repro steps and evidence so designers can stay on their own work.

Co-Founder · Lucid Thread Games

An independent game studio I started with a friend · 2019 – present

• Started the studio in 2019 and incorporated it in the US in 2020. I run it next to my full-time job and cover game direction, systems design, gameplay programming and production.
• Prototyped several original games in Unity and Unreal, each to a playable build. None were released, and each one taught me more about keeping scope small. That is why Dreamt is built from small, scoped work orders.
• Currently building Dreamt, the studio's AI character and world-building app.

AI Communications Strategist and Content Manager · Octavius Labs

The startup behind MailMentor, an AI assistant for writing sales emails · 04/2023 – 09/2023

• Wrote client newsletters with ChatGPT and planned their topics.
• Made AI-generated artwork for the newsletters.
• Reported bugs and product feedback to the development team.
• Managed social media content. I found and worked with video editors, and edited, scheduled and posted short videos.

IT Work Study · Veteran Service Office

A state-funded service for veterans in Santa Cruz, California · 01/2016 – 06/2019

• Built a computer lab out of donated computers.
• Taught veterans how to use computers and helped homeless veterans find services.
• Designed and built the Vets4Vets nonprofit website in Squarespace.

Quality Assurance Tester, Summer Intern · Sixense

A VR studio in Los Gatos, California · 06/2018 – 09/2018

• Tested Siege VR during its beta.
• Prototyped gameplay mechanics in Unreal Engine Blueprints.
• Found bugs and wrote detailed repro steps, followed test cases to reproduce reported bugs, and checked fixes from the bug database.

Combat Medic Specialist (68W), E-4 · U.S. Army

Active duty 2007 to 2011, including Iraq 2008 to 2009, then Army Reserve until 2013

• First responder for a platoon of 50 soldiers during combat operations in Iraq.
• Set up medical facilities and ran medical operations for a battalion of more than 500 soldiers during a 2010 field operation, with a team of five medics.
• Coordinated helicopter medical evacuations (Dustoff).
• Trained a medical platoon of 15 soldiers in medic refresher and Combat Lifesaver courses before deployment.
• Taught soldiers how to adapt standard trauma protocols to their mission.

Blue Rock Troopers

Lucid Thread Games · Unreal Engine · 2020 – 2021, 2024

• A base-building game in the spirit of Starship Troopers and They Are Billions. You build a military mining base around a valuable resource and defend it against waves of hostile creatures.
• Designed squads that make their own decisions based on the situation around them.
• We paused it in 2021 because the squad AI was beyond our programming skills at the time, and came back to it in 2024.

A TOL Tale

Lucid Thread Games · Unreal Engine 5, then Unity · 06/2021 – 12/2022

• A space factory game where you start very small and grow into control of a whole star system.
• It started as a 3D zero-gravity factory builder in Unreal 5. I cut it down to a 2D isometric game in Unity on a hex grid.
• Designed and built most of a component system that lets players make their own machines, similar to Oxygen Not Included.
• It was never released because the scope was too big. I have kept that lesson in every project since.

Amid the Autumn Leaves

Lucid Thread Games · Unity and C# · A few months

• My co-founder's idea: a calm 2D isometric survival and travel game about longing, the seasons and the lasting power of love.
• I programmed the movement and action systems and planned the inventory, shelter building, magic, health and weather systems in UML class diagrams.

Judge Simulator 2085

Unity, WebGL · Playable on itch.io

• You play a judge in the future, working through case files and handing out sentences from a hundred days to forever, and explaining each decision. The game asks whether a judge should follow the letter of the law or look at the person behind the case.

Ammo Drop

Solo 15-day challenge in Unity · Playable on itch.io · 02/2021

• A match-3 game where you send ammo to soldiers holding off zombies. I built it from a random game idea generator, in a genre I had never played.

Neural Network Experiment

Python · Side project

• Built a small neural network in Python to understand how they work. I kept it small so it would run on my computer.

Unsolicited QA, a Star Citizen YouTube Channel

01/2020 – 10/2021

• Made 34 videos reacting to Star Citizen videos and commenting on them as a game designer.

Game Jams, 2016 to 2023

• Gigantor Game Jam, 01/2016
• Sheeple, a puzzle game for the San Diego Game Jam (Groupthink), 08/2016
• Crustacean Frustration, Global Game Jam, 01/2017
• Cute Tower Defence, 01/2022
• Twin-Stick Shooter, 10/2023
• RTS for GitHub Game Off, 11/2023

University Projects, UC Santa Cruz

• Thread, my senior game project (2018 to 2019). A narrative game about a veteran's journey through PTSD that ends with a choice to follow the "thread" toward recovery. I pitched the idea and recruited a team of 10 classmates to make it.
• Children of Ase, a friend's senior game project that I joined as a new transfer student. A 2D top-down action and narrative game in C++. I was the designer working between the art and programming teams.
• Game AI coursework (2017). Implemented A* pathfinding, goal-oriented action planning (GOAP) and genetic algorithms in C# and Python.
• Interactive Map, a project for the CMPM 178 course.

Bachelor of Arts in Art and Design: Games and Playable Media

University of California, Santa Cruz · 09/2016 – 06/2019

Associate Degree in Mathematics and Engineering Prep

MiraCosta College, Oceanside, California (a two-year US college degree) · 06/2011 – 06/2015