ESP Biography



CHRISTOPHER SHAW, Brown University junior & dedicated rhythm gamer



Major: Economics

College/Employer: Brown University

Year of Graduation: 2018

Picture of Christopher Shaw

Brief Biographical Sketch:

Hi, I am Chris Shaw. I am currently an undergraduate at Brown University concentrating in economics. Economics is a cool subject and all, but more importantly, I have also been designing and developing rhythm games and custom rhythm game levels as a hobby for over a decade.

My entire life I have found myself asking the question "where's the level editor?" when I play any game. As a seemingly unrelated fact, I also attended SPLASH all four years that I was in high school. I am excited to finally have the chance to bring these two separate experiences together and teach an interesting class!



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

P10768: History and Design of Rhythm Games in Splash 2016 (Nov. 19 - 20, 2016)
So you and some friends have played Rock Band together, or maybe you saw a Dance Dance Revolution machine at an arcade and gave it a try, or possibly you saw the exhibition of Stepmania during AGDQ2016 and wondered what the whole rhythm game thing was about. Well, wonder no further! This course will be split into two distinct sections. The first part will be a (really fast) whirlwind tour of the history of rhythm games. The second part will cover, at bare minimum, how to make your own level for Stepmania (a well-known PC DDR simulator) and the .sm file structure required to do so. Time permitting we will also talk about Guitar Hero customs, osu!, Beatmania emulators, and more. Experience with rhythm games not required (nor is having a computer or owning any of the software covered)