The New Kids On The (Matterless) Block | State of Matterless #19
As the heat of the summer rolls in at the start of June, it’s time for an update on how things are going in the Matterless world.
The New Kids On The (Matterless) Block
Year two at Matterless has begun, and to keep up with the ever-growing span of our work, we are boosting our forces with a trio of new team members. Say hello to Vidhvat, game designer, Robin, a contract senior unity developer, and Thomas, our new QA Lead!
Vidhvat Madan - Game Developer
“I’m a game designer and developer with a decade of experience working on indie games. Most notably, I created the Lovely Planet game franchise for PC and consoles. Having spent some time in mobile games development and learning everything about Web3, I’ve started exploring the realm of augmented reality. I’m always excited to experiment with new tech and Auki Labs’ Shared AR opens a whole new arena of interactive experiences that could change the way we interface with both the real and the virtual.”
Robin Lindh - Senior Unity Developer
“I’ve always had a big passion for creating games. To directly see the results and reactions of people feels rewarding and super fun. I love quick prototyping and game jams and I’m really excited to bring this all into immersive AR toys! I’m a programmer at heart, but music is also a big passion. I’ve played the piano since I was 10 and am also composing music, mostly known for my chiptunes.”
Thomas Chorowski - QA Lead
“I love games and I’ve been playing them for as long as I can remember. My parents always talk about how as a child, I never wanted to stop playing games… I always had three more lives so I could not stop. It’s no wonder, then, that my career has been in gaming since the very beginning. I’ve worked mostly as a tester, but I’ve also had opportunities to try game design. I had the pleasure to be part of the team that created Dead Island and Dying Light! Now it’s time to help revolutionize the AR world with the Matterless team.
Outside of work, I spend a lot of time with music (I play bass and guitar, I plan to buy a double bass in the near future) and philosophy (I waste a lot of time thinking about life and our purpose here). I also bicycle to work every day, though to be honest, I don’t like riding bikes!
My quote to live by is “Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die.” So do not waste your time and be happy!”
Sprint Goals
Being a small team with an ambitious vision, we originally established a rhythm of releasing a new build every month. We wanted each build to have significant additions and improvements that would excite our users, and with that goal in mind, we ended up taking five weeks per build. Even with that slightly longer timeline, we still felt a little rushed, especially as the team has plenty of other work not directly tied to build releases! Our pioneering work with augmented reality will only get more challenging as we make more gains, so we are now aiming to release new builds every six weeks.
Exploring AR Physics
Every other Friday is Creative Exploration Day, where the team is free to dabble in anything outside their existing tasks that would help the Matterless vision. It’s always exciting to see what surprises our team members create from these sessions. In the video above, our Unity engineer JD summoned his creative and technical prowess to create a working version of shared AR physics! Observe as the die is launched from one phone while a second phone captures every detail of the action, down to the way the die bounces off the bench before rolling on the floor, with total accuracy. The limits of what we can do with this… are endless!
That’s it for this week’s update. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next time!
— Kerwin, social media manager
