Nikhil Karnad

ni-'kil ka:(r)-na:d
[ASCII Phonetic]

Miscellanea

My interests are varied. Here are some of the things that have jogged my curiosity.

Cryptic Crosswords

Martial Arts

Self-defense, flexibility, discipline, exercise, peace of mind - I'm able to develop all of these by taking martial arts training. (And the gi's look really cool too!) I really enjoy it.

Art

What started off as copying cartoon characters onto the pages of my highschool notebook turned into a wonderful hobby. I like to draw and sketch - mostly pencil on paper. I have also worked with oil crayons on paper. Recently, I got a Wacom Graphire tablet and I'm trying to get a hang for the GIMP airbrush tool and various paint effects using the computer. If you're interested, my work is available on DeviantArt here.

Game Development

During my undergraduate studies, I found the time to try to make computer games. Little did I know at that time how much effort goes into each one! It was a good learning experience and helped keep my programming skills sharp.

  • FireBoy: A hot-and-cold theme game developed in 8 hours for the RPI Gamedev GameJam in February 2007. Thanks to my friends Chris Willmore and Josh Hodosh.
  • Afterburn: A 2D side-scrolling space-shooter. My role was a lot of art and a tiny bit of programming. Thanks to my friend Karthik Kumar.
  • Cardiac Arrest: A 3D car-racing game written in C/C++ using the Allegro game programming library. Developed for the APOGEE Techincal Festival at BITS, Pilani, India. Thanks to my friends Karthikeyan A.S. and Suudhan R.