Christopher Main

In 2015, Christopher and Christen Main, then indie game developers, were navigating online demos, education games, and seeking funding through venture capital, government grants, and publishing. To streamline their workflow, they developed internal tools that eventually evolved into Vertical Third, a comprehensive gameplay architecture now available on the Unreal Engine Marketplace, which has received two Epic MegaGrants. Christopher, the sole programmer and tech artist for Vertical Third, integrated a proprietary launcher and patcher into the tech demo available on the Epic Game Store, and implemented online play with cloud-based instanced dedicated servers to showcase its multiplayer capabilities. Vertical Third was featured in a 3-hour showcase on Inside Unreal, and Christopher is an Unreal Authorized Trainer and Epic Developer Community Author for the UEFN Boba Shop course on 3D modeling tools. In 2024, the duo presented “Game Connectivity: Polishing Your Bells and Whistles” at the Game Developers Conference's Educator’s Summit on behalf of Epic Games. They continue to explore creative projects, including the pre-vis for “Wandering Wisp” and the cinematic short “The First CastleDay,” both of which have behind-the-scenes content on Inside Unreal