Nathan Reilly
đź‘‹ I'm Nathan. I create games. I aim to be among the best at what I do through demonstrable accomplishment. I'm passionate about anything related to software and math, particularly XR, graphics and OS. I get a dopamine spike anytime I hear the words "low-level programming".
Reach out.
Also, check out my Problem Journal.
Most recent entry: Natural Looking Procedural Resource Generation
About
I'm currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, with a specialization in Human Computer Interaction.
At the moment, I'm working on...
- An open source OS overlay (built in Godot) for our WIP in-house standalone XR headset at Waterloo Reality Labs. Intended as an alternative to Android XR and Meta Horizon OS.
- A 2D top-down survival/automation genre video game, set in a boreal forest during a blizzard. Features realistic temperature simulation (using this heat diffusion sim), built in Unity with C#
- A 3D physics engine from scratch, rendered using the Vulkan API, built with C++ using no external physics libraries
Experience
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Graphics Rendering Research Intern - Huawei [September 2025 - Present]
- Architected GLSL shader optimization pipeline using AST parsing and pattern matching to detect and substitute inefficient code patterns, achieving 5% GPU performance improvement on Huawei mobile chipsets.
- Reverse-engineered production game shaders through GLSL decompilation and algorithm analysis, identifying optimization opportunities that delivered measurable performance gains for mobile titles.
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Game Programmer Intern - Vibe Labs Games [December 2024 - August 2025]
- Designed and implemented multiple core gameplay and UI systems in Unity/C#, including inventory, quest, and stat buff mechanics, increasing player retention by over 200% and significantly enhancing user engagement.
- Led onboarding and task management for new interns while driving innovative game design decisions, resulting in scalable, customizable systems and a successful vertical slice prototype for a new roguelike project, securing over 6 figures in funding.
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Software Lead - Waterloo Reality Labs [May 2024 - Present]
- Leading 10 developers in building a Unity-based software package in C#, LangChain, and Python, providing real-time VR environment analysis with text descriptions, enhancing accessibility for visually impaired users.
- Developed a Unity ETL pipeline using C# and PyTorch, capturing hand movement data to train ML gesture recognition models, empowering VR game developers to create immersive, gesture-based gameplay experiences.
Projects
Game Dev & XR
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Blizzard Game
WIP
The blizzard approaches, a significantly expanded version of the game jam game I made. Aiming to be completed EOY 2025.
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Universal Text
WIP
Generate live, detailed text descriptions of XR environments and user interactions, in Unity with C#
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ECS Peggle Clone
Clone of the game Peggle, in Unity ECS with C#
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Blizzard Game (OG)
Game Jam
The blizzard approaches. Made for uWaterloo W25 Game Jam, in Unity with C#.
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Spell Game
Game Jam
Experiment with a spell tome of unknown capabilities. Made for uWaterloo F24 Game Jam, in Godot.
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Heat Diffusion
Compute Shader based heat diffusion simulation as a game mechanic, in Unity with C# & HLSL
Graphics Programming & C++
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Vulkan 2D Physics
WIP
Rendered 2D physics engine from scratch, in Vulkan & C++
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C Subset Compiler
Course Project
A fully tested compiler for WLP4, a basic subset of C. Includes tokenizing, parsing, semantic analysis & code generation.
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Makeshift Catan
Settlers of Catan from scratch, in C++
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Biquadris - Tetris Clone
Course Project
Tetris Clone from scratch, in C++.