iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 19/09/2026

My new intern game dev showing off his skills in #unity #gamedev

A black cat sitting on an office chair in front of a computer running the Unity editor

Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 26/01/2026

The result of mucking around with different ways of rendering voxels with GPU instances in Unity over the weekend: over 1200 FPS at 1920 x 1080 resolution on my 3080 Ti Mobile (see lower left corner)

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 08/01/2026

Started Steamworks integration today! It was cool to see the game marked as "Running" in the Steam client for the first time

Brickstrike - Running as seen in the Steam client

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 13/12/2025

Cool #gamedev thing for resolution testing! I installed a virtual display adapter and used Virtual Desktop on my Meta Quest to test what Brickstrike looks on an ultra-wide monitor. As you can see my main menu has some issues at a 3440 x 1440 resolution 😱

Screenshot from a VR headset showing Brickstrike at an ultra-wide resolution

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 08/12/2025

Today at Boston FIG! Got to demo Brickstrike at a big event for the first time!

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 29/11/2025

Getting items ready for the Brickstrike booth at Boston FIG. Be there on December 7th! www.bostonfig.com/fest2025-hom...

Items for the Brickstrike booth, including two LED acrylic cube chairs, a sign and several boxes

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 17/10/2025

A sneak peek at the new main menu UI for Brickstrike! The logo is now animated as well. #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #games #gaming #videogames

Brickstrike main menu, showing the new UI

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 06/08/2025

They said it couldn't be done. (Made on a fiber laser)

Opposite side of the rock that says "scissors"

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 05/08/2025

Another Game Maker creation: Gadgeteer because I wanted to make my own version of the sidebar in Windows Vista. It had some customization options and surprisingly most things still work. It has an analog clock, digital clock, MP3 player, calendar, day/night image, weather report (no longer working)

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 05/08/2025

Today I was going through old stuff I made in Game Maker in middle school to show my niece and nephew. Here's a short video of Pore (great name!) that I made because Spore wasn't out yet. My nephew now says that he wants to be a game developer when he grows up. They just got a Switch for Christmas 😆

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 15/06/2025

First look at the medkit model with lid opening animation in Brickstrike! This will be an offhand item capable of healing yourself or a nearby team member. #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #game #gaming

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 10/06/2025

I finally found the name for an interesting optical effect that I've seen used in some advertisements online: chromostereopsis. Maybe someone can come up with a gamedev use case? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromos... #gamedev #gaming

Geometric pattern demonstrating chromostereopsis

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 09/03/2025

I have now opened alpha testing for my upcoming game Brickstrike. Think multiplayer Minecraft + Guns! If this sounds interesting to you, join the Discord. I am looking to gather footage for a trailer. discord.gg/2HsSdv4AFS #screenshotsaturday #indiegame #gamedev #game #videogame #indiedev

Brickstrike screenshot, Death Valley map

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 06/03/2025

My new approach is to keep a "target" quaternion which is updated from the raw mouse input. Every frame I iteratively dampen the current rotation towards the "target". This is accomplished with the DampRot function, which uses the interpolation approach outlined here: blog.pkh.me/p/41-fixing-...

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 24/02/2025

The GameContext contains a static property "Instance" whose getter checks if "_Instance" is null, and if so, calls GameObject.Find, looking for the "GameContext" gobj, and calls GetComponent to get the GameContext script.

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 21/01/2025

Another successful demo night for Brickstrike! People seemed to really enjoy the game ❤️ The number one takeaway from tonight was to have an actual web presence, including a Steam page. All of that is coming soon, I'm still in the process of setting up an LLC and business bank account.

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 14/11/2024

A first look at an alpha version of my upcoming game Brickstrike! Think multiplayer Minecraft + Guns. I've been developing solo for about ~7 months now. Enjoy! #gamedev #indiegame #indiedev

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 12/10/2024

Fun screenshot from tonight's "chaos monkey" test. Randomly generate blocks to test a memory leak fix. Have been working on a new voxel FPS since earlier this year #gamedev #indiegame #screenshotsaturday

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 09/11/2023

Another C++ oddity: it's perfectly okay to assign a void** to a void* variable, and it doesn't really matter how refer to a function via a function pointer.

void myFun() {
void *foo = (void **) nullptr;
void(*fptr)() = myFun;
fptr = &myFun;
fptr = *myFun;
fptr = **myFun;
}

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Caleb Helbling @helbl.ing · 01/08/2023

A true C++ oddity: decltype((a)) gives a reference type due to the extra wrapping parentheses

Stackoverflow post explaining the use of decltype to get a reference type

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