Phil Chu, Technicat LLC

Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

http://technicat.com

technicat @ Github

Developing software since the 80s

Career

working for myself @ Technicat LLC

Jan 2000 to present

Providing consulting and contract software development, self-publishing apps and games.

working for the man @ various

Jun 1988 to Jun 2001

Journeyed through the semiconductor, defense, space, computer graphics, mobile Internet, and video game industries.

Projects

Talk Dim Sum @ Technicat

developer, publisher from Jan 2014 to present

Your dim sum companion. Read about dim sum and learn how to pronounce the dishes. Available on Itch.io and the App Store.

app: iOS, Swift, dim sum

HyperBowl @ Technicat

developer, publisher, licensee from Dec 2008 to Dec 2019

Be the ball! A Unity reimplementation of the classic bowling game, licensed from Hyper Entertainment. Available on Itch.io, Steam, and the App Store.

One of MacLife’s Greatest iPhone Apps of 2009

game: bowling, 3D, Unity

Cinefex iPad Edition @ Cinefex

developer from Apr 2016 to present

An iPad reader for the Cinefex visual effects magazine, with extras such as videos and image galleries. Kept it up and running over the march of iOS evolution, fixing, updating, and optimizing in-app purchases, user interface, video…

app: iOS, magazine, visual effects

Learn Unity 4 for iOS Game Development @ Apress

author from Apr 2012 to Apr 2013

An introduction to game development for iOS using the Unity game engine and an example bowling game (super simple version of HyperBowl).

book: iOS, Unity, game development, 3D

Emo-Ray vs. the Intergalactic Teddy Bears @ Heavy Water

programmer from Sep 2011 to Dec 2011

A Playstation Home driving/shooting game with alien invader teddy bears.

Programmer credit displayed in-world.

game: Playstation 3, Playstation Home, virtual world

RC Rally @ Heavy Water

programmer from Sep 2011 to Dec 2011

A Playstation Home multiplayer racing game.

game: Playstation 3, virtual world, racing

Blue Mars @ Avatar Reality

programmer from Sep 2007 to Jan 2011

A 3D virtual world implemented in CryEngine. Supported third-party developers, documented the Lua API and framework for creating minigames on the community wiki (a CryEngine wiki even copied part of it!), tweaked physics, updated Scaleform integration, modified CryEngine to work with Scaleform IME (for localization).

Attended in-world developer meetings. Better than Zoom.

virtual world: CryEngine, metaverse, Lua, C++

Nendo @ Izware

programmer from May 2007 to Jun 2007

A nifty 3D modeler originally developed at Nichimen Graphics. Updated to work on Windows XP.

graphics: 3D, C++

Darkwatch @ High Moon Studios

programmer from Sep 2006 to Apr 2007

A vampire western for Playstation 2 and Xbox. Worked on various HUD elements, PAL support, demo builds, implemented multiplayer split-screen, added designer-friendly Lua interfaces for audio, health bars, etc.

Received programmer credit (but oddly required to list city of birth).

game: Renderware, Xbox, Playstation 2, Lua, C++

Fugu Games @ Technicat

developer from Jun 2007 to present

Small games released as webplayers, Mac widgets, and mobile apps.

game: 3D, 2D, Unity, J2ME, C#

Tech Deck: Bare Knuckle Grind @ Visionscape Interactive

programmer from Dec 2003 to May 2004

A skateboarding game bundled with Tech Deck figures. Implemented installers, dynamic shadows, video, a build system.

game: Windows, Renderware, C

HyperBowl @ Hyper Entertainment

programmer from Jan 2001 to Jun 2001

A 3D bowling game, rolling in fanciful locations. Took over for the original lead programmer, updated attraction version of HyperBowl for localization, new lanes, optimization, new graphics cards, arcade and PC support.

game: 3D, Windows, arcade, attraction, C++

Neomar @ Neomar

programmer from Dec 1999 to Jul 2001

One of the first mobile web browsers, conforming to the WAP standards. Implemented an HTTP proxy for the Neomar WAP gateway, supporting the Neomar mobile web browser on Blackberry pagers and Palm devices.

Launched on Motient’s Blackberry service.

Company assets acquired by Good Technology (and all I got was this worthless stock certificate).

enterprise: WAP, HTTP, mobile, Java

Leverage for Scheduling @ Interval Logic

programmer from Dec 1998 to Dec 1999

Supply chain scheduling software for semiconductor fabs. Managed the group reponsible for installation, XML interoperability, and user interfaces.

enterprise: Java, XML

Leverage for Planning @ Interval Logic

programmer from Nov 1998 to Nov 1998

Supply chain planning software for semiconductor fabs. Upgraded from Tcl to TclPro.

enterprise: Tcl

Mirai @ Nichimen Graphics

consultant from Sep 1997 to Sep 1997

Successor to N-World. Fixed some code and visited 3D hardware vendors in Silicon Valley to get test cards and chat about OpenGL.

Used to make Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies.

graphics: 3D, OpenGL, Windows

N-World @ Nichimen Graphics

programmer from Dec 1995 to Jun 1997

A 3D modeling and animation package. Ported from IrisGL to OpenGL on SGI workstations, then from Irix to Windows NT, all in Franz Allegro Common Lisp (and a bit of C). Manager of core software group (all the libraries - graphics, audio, UI, security…)

Used in the making of Mario 3D.

graphics: 3D, OpenGL, Irix, Windows

ORBIS @ JHU Applied Physics Lab

programmer from Dec 1992 to Dec 1993

An expert system for submarine simulation. Added multiplayer network capability to support participation wide area networked exercises.

Donned a submarine uniform and took part in two exercises.

government: Distributed Interactive Simulation, Lisp, C++

Proposal Entry Processor @ Space Telescope Science Institute

programmer from Nov 1990 to May 1992

A syntax-directed Emacs mode used by astronomers and Institute staff to prepare and edit Space Telescope observation proposals.

A member of the proposal preparation staff asked for my project to be continued after I left (but no takers).

government: space, emacs, Lisp

Database Accelerator @ MIT

programmer from Oct 1989 to Oct 1990

A computer architecture based on content-addressable memories. Implemented compilers and simulators and simulations for the Database Accelerator and Content-Addressable Parallel Processor.

research: VLSI, CAD, Lisp

DROID @ Texas Instruments

programmer from May 1988 to Sep 1989

A VLSI layout synthesis tool, used in-house to design new products, running on TI Explorer Lisp Machines. Added optimizations and other improvements, skipped most of the meetings (also an optimization).

enterprise: VLSI, CAD, Lisp

Multilisp @ MIT

student from Sep 1987 to May 1988

Bachelors thesis project implementing an Othello game in Multilisp (Multello) to run on the Concert 32-processor computer, trying various parallelism strategies to compare processor utilization and final performance.

Wrote the thesis in LaTeX on a Symbolics Lisp Machine.

research: game, parallel processing, Lisp

START @ MIT

student from Jun 1987 to Aug 1987

Part time student work on a graph display for the the START natural language parser, then running on Symoblics Lisp machines.

research: natural language, Lisp

Publications

Learn Unity 2014 for iOS Game Development

Published Jun 2013 by Apress

Introduction to mobile game development with the Unity game engine.

Technicat on Software

Published Jan 2015 by self

Collection of software development essays.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sep 1984 to May 1988

Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Engineering

Johns Hopkins University

Sep 1991 to May 1993

Masters degree in Computer Science

Languages

Native speaker in English

Food in Cantonese

Kdrama phrases in Korean

Interests

Cats

adoption, cat cafe, lucky cat, samurai cat

Reading

Asian-American fiction, graphic design, graphic novels, history, philosophy, scifi, spy stories, technology

Viewing

kdrama, scifi, MMA

Learning

English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese

Listening

Motown, NPR Podcasts

Skills

App Development (Experienced)

Flutter, J2ME, SwiftUI, Xamarin

Game Development (Experienced)

CryEngine, Godot, Havok, Qube, Renderware, Ren’py, Scaleform, Unity, Unreal

Graphics (Experienced)

Direct3D, OpenGL, Processing

Programming (Experienced)

6502, BASIC, C, C++, C#, Dart, Java, Javascript, Lisp, Lua, Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Python, Swift, Tcl

Writing (Experienced)

English