[ LAB ]
Dumping ground for experiments, prototypes, modding pipelines, retro rendering studies, and random systemic curiosities. This isn’t a polished portfolio — it’s the notebook where I test ideas and see what breaks.
I think by building.
[ EXPERIMENTS ]
Systems, simulation, economy, and AI-driven prototypes built to answer specific design questions.
Economy Curve Simulation (UE5)
Question: How should scarcity and unmet demand influence pricing over time?
Approach: Modeled supply → demand → unmet → price relationships using CurveFloat with easing functions to prevent price collapse at 0 inventory.
Outcome: Emergent price signals created player incentives to exploit scarcity instead of hoard surplus.
NPC Market Schedules (UE5)
Question: Can NPCs generate localized economy pressure without scripted events?
Approach: Each NPC household generated needs based on role (laborer, merchant, artisan), resolved at market stalls via NavInvoker paths.
Outcome: Temporal demand spikes emerged around work hours (morning) and household cycles (evening).
Station-Based Crafting (UE5)
Question: How to replace “click → wait → output” crafting with an interactive loop?
Approach: Added material checks, mini-games, time progression, and failure states.
Outcome: Crafting became a routing & scheduling problem rather than pure inventory arithmetic.
AI Contract Fulfillment (UE5)
Question: Can labor contracts act as economy drivers?
Approach: Households posted contracts (bread, firewood, textiles) requiring item production, feeding AI goals into economy.
Outcome: Contracts introduced second-order effects (work shortages → price hikes → player profit windows).
Retro PS2 Camera Blockouts (UE5)
Question: How did 2000–2006 platformers maintain traversal readability at low poly counts?
Findings: Camera rails + color separation + grounded silhouettes reduced navigational ambiguity without high fidelity.
[ MODDING ]
Modding as a systems sandbox — Bethesda, SMAPI, and workshop content used to test narrative, scripting, and pipeline ideas.
Golden Piggy Buffs (C# / SMAPI)
Problem: How to add risk-reward elements to an otherwise passive Stardew object?
Solution: Daily buff/curse system with rarity, duration rolls, luck multipliers, debug console, and i18n support.
Outcome: Became a lightweight systemic layer that players could incorporate into farm planning.
NeuroScape Narrative Flow (Fallout 4)
Focus: Terminal-based narrative fragments with environmental triggers.
Pipeline: Papyrus scripts → quest aliases → terminal records → condition nodes.
Outcome: Achieved non-linear narrative delivery without custom UI.
Capital Wasteland Cells (Fallout 4)
Focus: Encounter pacing, kit usage, lighting cones, and cover readability in tight spaces.
Outcome: Playable, performant, lore-consistent interior layouts.
Papyrus Quest State Machines
Focus: gating, flags, fail states, branching, and delayed resolutions.
Outcome: Reusable quest scaffolding for multiple mods.
[ RETRO RENDERING ]
Constraint-oriented rendering studies — fidelity reduced on purpose to improve readability, mood, and style.
Dead on Arrival: De-Make (UE5)
Constraints: low poly budgets, vertex jitter, affine texture warping, fixed camera rooms.
Outcome: Fear and tension increased due to off-screen space and limited player knowledge.
CRT Scanline Shader Notes
Focus: phosphor persistence, gamma curves, subpixel bleed, and shadow masks.
Findings: CRT simulation increases UI coherence at low resolutions.
[ TOOLS & PIPELINES ]
Pipeline and tooling experiments to support iteration, debugging, and onboarding.
Economy Dashboard (UE5)
Motivation: Prices are invisible without observability.
Tool: DT introspection + ImGui-style panel for supply, demand, unmet, and curve influence.
Outcome: Reduced tuning time from trial-and-error hours to minutes.
Perforce Depot (Google Cloud)
Problem: Source control for binary-heavy UE5 projects with distributed collaborators.
Pipeline: Helix Core → branching → typemap → onboarding → remote + failsafe scripts.
Outcome: Reduced asset collisions, improved recovery, and enabled async development.
Dialogue & Quest Notebook
Format: node graphs + beat pacing + flag conditions + item gates + payoff paths.
Outcome: Improved narrative iteration without partial scripting.
[ SERVERS & INFRA ]
Systems experimentation beyond the client — deployment, persistence, and simulation hosting.
Linux Home Server Stack
Stack: AMP + Plex + Debian + remote SSH.
Outcome: Enabled long-running simulations without occupying dev hardware.
Docker Game Services
Use Case: quick-start environments for multiplayer persistence testing.
Outcome: Reduced downtime and setup friction for collaborators.
Low-Power Compute Notes
Focus: headless power envelopes for 24/7 running game services.
Outcome: Increased uptime at reduced power cost.
[ NOTES & SKETCHES ]
Non-polished design artifacts that reveal reasoning instead of results.
PS2 Camera Study
Case Studies: Jak 2, Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper.
Findings: readability emerged from silhouette contrast, not detail density.
Economy Spreadsheet
Type: tabular scarcity simulation with pricing multipliers.
Use: pre-visualize systemic outcomes before engine implementation.
Morrowind UI Notes
Focus: diegetic collapse/expand UI panels enabling multitasking without modal screens.
Application: planned for Rialto to support multi-panel economic/quests views.