• cv   

Nathan Reilly

👋 I'm Nathan. I develop games, the engines they're made with, and the operating systems they run on. My goal: 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.

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 operating system for our WIP in-house standalone XR headset at Waterloo Reality Labs. Intended as an alternative to Android XR and Meta Horizon OS, built on top of the Android Open Source Project
• 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

• Game Programmer Intern - Vibe Labs Games [December 2024 - Present]
  • 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.
• 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

• Universal Text WIP

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  Generate live, detailed text descriptions of XR environments and user interactions, in Unity with C#

• Heat Diffusion

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  Compute Shader based heat diffusion simulation as a game mechanic, in Unity with C# & HLSL

• Vulkan 2D Physics WIP

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  Rendered 2D physics engine from scratch, in Vulkan & C++

• Makeshift Catan

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  Settlers of Catan from scratch, in C++

• ECS Peggle Clone

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  Clone of the game Peggle, in Unity ECS with C#

• Blizzard Game

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  The blizzard approaches. Made for uWaterloo W25 Game Jam, in Unity with C#.

• Spell Game

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  Experiment with a spell tome of unknown capabilities. Made for uWaterloo F24 Game Jam, in Godot.