I’ve been working on a new mobile game, out today on Google Play! The App Store version will follow soon. I had to hit an April deadline or my Google Play account would be closed for inactivity. Maintaining mobile games is… not always fun. Pilot Panic is the successor to my earlier mobile game, Pilot Express. I originally built it in Unity, but I’ve been learning Godot over the past few months. Porting a previous game felt like the perfect learning opportunity, though I ended up rebuilding almost everything. The game is now fully 2D, which makes the gameplay clearer and, in my opinion, looks better than the old low‑poly 3D style. ...

Today marks Quake’s 25th anniversary, which also happens to coincide with my birthday. Quake released on June 22, 1996. I was still in elementary school and I’m not entirely sure how I first got my hands on it, probably through my cousin, but my dad and I were instantly hooked and played daily. Quake wasn’t just among the first fully 3D, real‑time‑rendered FPS games; it was executed so well that it still holds up today, and that quality is what makes it unforgettable. ...

I’ve been active in the VR community for a while, being one of the original kickstarters for the Oculus DK1 VR headset. I was totally sold on the tech since E3 2012, thanks to John Carmack’s Doom 3 ski goggles tech demo. I’ve owned about every Oculus headset and dev kit since then. This eventually led to a fun contract with HTC, the Taiwanese electronics giant behind the HTC Vive. In collaboration with Taiwanese filmmaker Poke Poke Creative, we built a small VR game to raise awareness of the Air Quality Index (AQI) and Taiwan’s pollution problem, an issue tied to the country’s massive electronics manufacturing. ...

My second mobile game is officially out on iOS, grab it on the App Store! Hidden Kitty is a cute seek‑and‑find game. Explore the rooms of the house and figure out where the kitty is hiding. Behind a pillow? Inside a cupboard? Tap and slide things around to discover new spots. There’s lots of objects in the house to interact with. This summer I wanted to build something smaller and cute than what I was already working on. Unlike my previous mobile game Pilot Express, which was free‑to‑play, Hidden Kitty is a paid download, something I’d been wanting to explore for a while. ...

I’ve been working on a little mobile game this summer, which is finally released on both the App Store and Google Play! Pilot Express lets you fly a small plane up and down, avoiding obstacles such as mines and balloons along the way. Collect coins to increase your score and fly through hoops to gain a speed boost. The controls are simple and responsive, so the challenge comes from reacting quick enough, flying through tight gaps, and deciding when to go for the bonus items versus playing it safe. ...

Ludum Dare is a fantastic challenge: make a game from scratch in 48 hours. Every year more people join, resulting in thousands of entries by the end of the weekend. This was my second time participating. Running into time-wasting problems is dangerous when you only have two days. Preparing before you start is key. While there’s some value in learning new software under pressure, it’s better to use tools you already know: the C# programming language, Blender, and Unity in my case. Prepare your work environment before the weekend starts. I set up Chronolapse to capture a timelapse and OBS for livestreaming on Twitch. Avoid nasty surprises once you start, nothing derails a jam like broken software. ...

Compute Thought is a short cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game created for #Nar8, a narrative‑focused game jam. I usually lean toward gameplay and level design rather than writing, so this project was a deliberate exercise in story building. You can play it on itch.io or browse the source code on GitHub. The opening scene is my favourite, but went through many iterations. The game centers on a detective investigating the murder, in a world where humans and androids coexist (uneasily). Classic cyberpunk stories like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell inspired me. ...

Ludum Dare #29 ran from April 25th – 27th, a 48-hour jam where anyone builds a game around a single theme. Unlike the Global Game Jam, it’s common to work solo. With the theme “Beneath the Surface”, I set out to make a game about a giant monster lurking in the depths, part sandworm from Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, part Moby-Dick. I started with a seafaring concept: you sail around collecting capsules drifting on the water. Other boats attack you, while the monster tries to swallow you whole. The game takes place at night, this covers up any art assets that look too rough around the edges. ...

I spent a few days prototyping a turn-based tactical RPG, a genre I’ve grown to love. X-COM: Terror from the Deep hooked me when I was a kid, and only later did I truly come to appreciate it. It’s great to see the genre making a comeback with titles like The Banner Saga and X-COM: Enemy Unknown. As a proper tactical game, players choose their actions turn-by-turn: moving, attacking, or guarding. During the computer’s turn, the AI identifies the nearest player character and moves in to attack. The battle ends when one side is defeated. ...