About

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, I’m currently residing in San Diego, CA, as a software engineer. I spend my free time traveling across the country for Smash, and pushing my creativity as far as I can through art. I’m blessed in how I have the freedom to create things, from code to art to stories to pretty much anything you can think of!

Software Engineering
Smash Bros.
Art
Graphic Design
Author
Travel
Random Interests

🧑‍💻 Software Engineering

I graduated from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa with a BS in Computer Engineering, and have been been working as a software engineer since 2015. I currently work full time at a well-established company in San Diego, California.

I’ve grown up loving how one can create literally anything with technology, having played around with websites way back in the MySpace and NeoPets days haha. My left-sided brain absolutely loves how the basis of technology stems from puzzle solving: as long as you can break it down enough, anything can be solved and made.

I’m experienced in the following, with a focus on back-end development and embedded systems:

Languages	Tools/Environments	Exposed to
– C, C++, C#/.NET – Java – Python – HTML/CSS – Javascript	– Perforce – Linux – Qt / Qt Creator – Visual Studio – Scrum – JIRA	– SQL – Git / Github – MATLAB – Verilog – Eclipse – Android development / Android Studio

Also with experience in technical documents: SDDs, ICDs, User Manuals, etc.

🎮 Smash Bros.

I’ve been competing in Super Smash Bros. tournaments since around 2010, right out of high school. From Brawl on the Wii to Ultimate on the Switch, it’s been an amazing journey and honestly the most influential part of my life.

Up until 2021, I’ve stuck with the gorilla that came most naturally to me: Donkey Kong. Using his combination of weight, power, speed, and surprising amounts of creativity with his cargo carry and combos, I’ve had an amazing time with him for over a decade (and still do here and there currently). His taunt where he shrugs is also how I came up with my gamer tag “iDK”.

From 2021 on however, I’ve put him on the side and had to pick up none other than Pyra and Mythra, my dream character ever since I had finished their game Xenoblade Chronicles 2 back in 2018. This is easily my favorite game of all time, and it was an absolute blessing to have them make it into Smash as DLC. They also happen to be a contender for the best in the game, whereas people would put DK around bottom 20 (out of 80+ characters) in Ultimate…

The release of Smash for Wii U, or Smash 4, coincided with me graduating from college and moving from Hawaii to San Diego for my first and current engineering job. Taking advantage of my new location, I’ve traveled to dozens of places throughout the continent… just to play video games! I’ve barely traveled back when I was student stuck on a rock, but Smash allowed me to open my wings and see what the world truly had to offer. It’s been about 12 years of traveling for Smash thus far, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon : )

Beyond travels, it’s amazing just how much Smash (esports in general) teaches you about life. Constantly learning, making lifelong friends, practicing regularly, performing under pressure, and so much more. It’s truly a blessed lifestyle if you know how to balance it with the rest of your life.

🎨 Art

I’ve always dabbled in drawing throughout my entire life, but I never really chased after improvement until starting 2018. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was my main motivation (just like with playing Pyra and Mythra — I love this game so much), and I absolutely fell in love with not just the aesthetics and environments in the game, but how the game uses art to convey real emotions and meaningful relationships that make us better people.

I not only wanted to recreate the game I love so much through art, but the game has also inspired me to grow enough artistry skills so that I can create such a world, potentially with my engineering background, while simply indulging in our imagination. I honestly wouldn’t even be surprised if I find myself in a complete career change in the future, not because of engineering getting less interesting but because of how amazing the world of art is becoming in my eyes.

Also sometimes I stream art on Twitch! Throughout the pandemic I spent majority of my time with Twitch in the background as I worked, and I’ve had an amazing privilege of meeting many of my favorite streamers at TwitchCon – which motivated me to push my art even further than ever before.

See the Art tab in the header at the top of this page, for all the work I’ve done!

Also in case you haven’t already guessed, all images on this page are made by yours truly 🙂

✒️ Graphic Design

Alongside with my engineering degree, I also got a BA in Studio Art with a focus in graphic design. Going into college, I wanted to combine design with technology to create anything I wanted, again going back to the fascination with websites like MySpace and NeoPets. I worked a part-time job as a graphic designer on campus, and took a few commissions here and there, but I don’t really dabble too much in design nowadays as I put my focus into Smash and drawing. It’s always handy to have that design background however, whenever I’m making my own images for social media and whatnot, or even when dabbling in front-end software work.

📕 Author

I’m a self-published author! With how much I love the world of Smash and how much I’ve learned from competing, I just had to write an entire book on it, especially since books on Smash basically don’t exist. Check it out here, or via the “Smash 4 Book” tab on top!

I’ve also created a Smash notebook, The Ultimate Notebook, using my graphic design skills and book layout skills to provide a way to organize notes for such an extensive game. With over 80 matchups and thousands of little intricacies in this game, it’s absolutely critical to take notes if you want to excel in this game. I do believe that a hybrid of digital (with the app of your choice) plus physical notes is an amazing way to retain information, but of course competitors can take notes however they wish – I’m just glad I could provide this kind of resource for them 🙂

🛫 Travel

I love exploring the world and seeing what it has to offer, especially with Smash tournaments being held all over! I’ve visited about 20 states and 8 countries, and that list is only going up from here. I’m slowly adding my travel albums to Flickr too!

🙌 Random Interests

Phew, that was a LOT! Other things I like to talk about:

• Story-driven video games (e.g. Xenoblade 2, NieR)
• UI/UX
• Chinese/Asian culture
• Non-fiction books
• Self-improvement
• Food, food, food
• Boba addict
• Running / Working out

Fun Facts:

• I’ve taken long-distance trains (over 24 hours) 3 times in my life. It truly feels like you’re being transported to another world.
• I ran a full marathon once (the Honolulu Marathon in 2014), and I don’t plan on doing one ever again :^)
• I wrote a random tweet about a job listing in 20 seconds, and it ended up peaking at over 100,000 likes somehow
• I tried skydiving once and now it made theme parks way less fun in comparison. I also couldn’t stop thinking about much pressure the harness puts on the crotch… people never talk about this.