99% Visible: GPU-based Visibility System in “A Search For a Shiny Thing”

Between 2024 and 2026, I worked on an unreleased photography adventure game titled “A Search For a Shiny Thing”. This article takes a look at the tech behind the photography system I developed for the game, focusing on a GPU-driven visibility system that gathers data about everything the camera sees and allows us to evaluate the quality of the shot.

Introduction to SIMD

In late 2024, I became interested in trying my hand at teaching. I challenged myself to pick a difficult topic, research, and teach it. This turned into “Intro to SIMD”, a one-off lecture I first gave to my peers at Futuregames and next year again as part of Engine & Tools course at Futuregames. I really enjoyed the process of creating educational material, and I would like to eventually tackle teaching a whole course.

Ray Tracer (Vulkan)

Real-time hardware accelerated ray tracer built with Vulkan ray tracing extensions that I wrote as a graduation project at Futuregames. The repository started out as a 3D game engine with a forward renderer I developed during a previous course. In the year leading up to the project I was doing a lot of graphics related work for “A Search For a Shiny Thing”, which inspired me to dive deeper into graphics programming.

Untitled Skeleton Game

Untitled Skeleton Game is a comedy game with light puzzles and combat. You play as a skeleton in hostpital, stealing organs, bonking doctors on the head, and looking for milk.

I developed about a third of the gameplay features, including the throwable brain, interactables and actuators, and made simple patrol-chase enemy AI.

Nominated for "Jury Choice" at FGA2024

Indomitable

Indomitable is a boss-rush game where you play as a skilled fighter captured and forced into gladiatorial combat.

I primarily worked on the boss enemy AI, using context-based steering for navigation and behavior trees for decision-making. I also did other bits and bobs: shield block mechanic, fireball-spewing furnaces, audio and VFX implemention, and more.

Nominated for "Public Choice" at GGC2022

Daidala

Daidala is a tower defense game in which you are tasked with protecting the Minotaur at the center of the labyrinth.

I was the primary programmer on this project, so rather than attempting to catalogue every system and feature I worked on, I'd like to highlight the excellent work of Mario Palleschi, who was responsible for the enemy programming.

Nominated for "Best in Show" at GGC2021