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Led by Carmackian Coder Simulacrum
Eight tutorials in the craft of making games — the engine, the language, and the player. Unity and C# are the common concrete referent; the subject underneath is the thinking that makes a game possible. Taught by the people who shaped each part of the practice.
Courses are available to holders of a paid pass or membership. See passes & membership →
Led by Carmackian Coder Simulacrum
The question
What is a game engine actually doing each frame — and why does Unity look the way it looks?
Territory
the frame loop · fixed update vs update · the rendering pipeline · scene graph as spatial index · cameras and culling · the editor as IDE · prefabs as templates · the asset pipeline · what the engine pre-computes vs what it computes each frame · first-principles cost reasoning
Outcome
The student can sketch Unity's per-frame cycle, name which costs scale with scene complexity and which do not, and decide whether a given feature belongs in Update, FixedUpdate, or neither.
Led by Hejlsbergian Language Design Simulacrum
The question
What does each C# feature cost you to use — and what does it buy you?
Territory
variables and types · methods and the Start/Update contract · SerializeField · struct vs class in Unity · reference types vs value types · nullable reference types · the cost of allocations · the garbage collector you must respect · async/await and coroutines · the compiler as ally
Outcome
The student can read a Unity C# script and explain what each feature costs at runtime and at read-time, choose between struct and class for a given game object with defensible reasoning, and identify three places where a naive choice would hurt performance.
Led by Alexandrian Design Simulacrum
The question
How does behaviour get into a game object — and why does Unity prefer components clicking together to a hierarchy of subclasses?
Territory
MonoBehaviour as component · GetComponent and references · prefabs and variants · inheritance vs composition · messaging between components · strong centres and boundaries in code · when composition becomes cruft · the fifteen properties of living structure applied to game objects
Outcome
The student can design a new game object by composing components rather than subclassing, identify a case where inheritance would be the wrong tool, and recognise three of Alexander's fifteen properties at work in well-structured Unity code.
Led by Felix Klein Simulacrum
The question
When you translate, rotate, and scale an object in Unity, what mathematical object are you actually operating on?
Territory
Vector3 and points · Quaternion and rotation · the Transform as group element · local vs world space · parent–child composition · Rigidbody and its constraints · colliders and triggers · the fixed timestep · physics materials · interpolation and its pitfalls
Outcome
The student can describe what the Transform encodes as a mathematical object, predict the result of a composition of rotations without running the code, and diagnose a common physics bug by reasoning from first principles rather than from symptoms.
Led by Miyamotian Perspective Simulacrum
The question
Why does the same mechanic feel alive in one game and dead in another?
Territory
input latency · animation curves · camera shake and screen punch · squash and stretch · sound cues as feedback · the feel of gravity · tuning coefficients · the minimum perceptible change · why Mario jumps the way he does
Outcome
The student can identify three elements of game feel in a game they know, propose a measurable change to each, and articulate what would be gained or lost by the change.
Led by Wrightian Emergence Simulacrum
The question
How do simple rules produce play that no one planned?
Territory
spawning patterns and pooling · finite state machines · behaviour trees · procedural generation · the toy-not-game distinction · feedback loops · emergent difficulty · the minimal rule-set · ecology as game design
Outcome
The student can design a rule-set of fewer than five rules that produces emergent behaviour in Unity, explain mechanistically why the emergence happens, and anticipate at least one way the system will surprise them.
Led by George Miller Simulacrum
The question
How much information can a player carry in working memory at once, and what does that mean for your UI, your tutorial, and your pacing?
Territory
working memory limits · chunking as technique · HUD hierarchy · tutorialisation vs patronising · progressive disclosure · affordance and signifier · onboarding flows · the player's cognitive budget · when a UI element has earned its place
Outcome
The student can audit a game UI for cognitive overload, apply chunking to reduce it without losing information, and distinguish onboarding that teaches from onboarding that patronises.
Led by Kojimanian Perspective Simulacrum
The question
What separates a playable demo from a shipped game?
Territory
the polish pass · audio and its absence · camera as director · performance profiling · the build pipeline · platform targets · the finishing loop · knowing what to cut · what a detail is for · the small imperfection
Outcome
The student can produce a list of what separates a playable demo from a shipped game, apply that list to a project they have made, and articulate what would be gained or lost by cutting the three things closest to the floor.