Who am I?

I’m Andrew P. Bilyk (pronounced BILL-ick), a video game developer. I live in Springfield, MO with my lovely wife Camille, my toddler son [redacted], and 2 cats.

I wanted to make video games since I was 9 years old. I got a computer science degree from Missouri State University, and shortly after college I formed a tiny game development company, Dungeon Monkey Studios, with my friend Doug Hill. Within a year, our company was acquired by Black Lantern Studios, and we began working there.

I worked at Black Lantern for 7.5+ years, in programming, production, and design roles. I was credited on 52 released games — mostly licensed kids games, across a wide variety of genres. But in November 2012, I was terminated as a result of a company restructuring.

I now have a great day job programming at Asynchrony Labs. But in my limited spare time, I’m developing indie video games. I hope to release the first of these sometime in 2016.

My Projects

Captain Dynamite and the Fallen Hero / Trumpetproof

Captain Dynamite and the Fallen Hero is a rhythm game, and Trumpetproof is my development label. The game is similar to classic rhythm games like Space Channel 5 and Parappa the Rapper, but there are no visual cues, only audio. It’s essentially a radio drama (audio movie) about heroes and villains, with rhythm gameplay during the action scenes.

I started this in 2010 as a side project separate from Black Lantern, alongside some very talented collaborators including composer Chad Seiter. We created the first quarter of the game in late 2010 and submitted it to several indie game competitions, and in 2011 I released a playable Windows PC demo to the public. But nothing came from those competition submissions, and I dragged my feet on development for years. But I recently picked it back up and plan to release part 1 of the game on iOS sometime in 2016!