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Without AI, I think it would have taken me at least 15 days to do, instead of 4 (and I'm probably being optimistic in that estimate). I really like this process anyway, it's fluid, I retain control but I delegate the writing to AI and I can do much more than I would ever have imagined on my own.

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Overall, I don't have any waiting time in this process. When it's working on a task, I'm preparing the next orders, reviewing the architecture for the final refactoring, working on visuals (here the 3D assets + shaders) or doing in-game robustness tests.

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His longest work session is ~15 minutes, on average 2 to 5 minutes. No agents, no autonomy: he executes the tickets task by task, which I review as it goes. I try to have changes of a few dozen lines per task whenever possible. Easier for me to follow, and I can challenge the entire implementation.

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~134 million tokens used on Codex (inside the €20 subscription). It wrote 100% of the code, to my standards. I defined the technical and functional architecture, and he handled: - reviewing my ideas to get critical feedback - complete ticket management - code implementation - git commits

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Completed in 13 commits in total, or ~3 commits per day. You might find it surprising that gameplay is so far down the list, but that's due to the constraints of ECS + online multiplayer.

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6 - Communication of client inputs -> server 7 - Creation of keyboard/mouse + gamepad gameplay 8 - Resolution of server-side inputs and distribution of floor height data to clients 9 - Resolution of heights and editing of floors client side 10 - Refinement (progressive lerp, snapping on the grid...)

I broke it down into 10 tickets that follow a logical progression: 1 - Creation of the ECS core data 2 - Generation of bundles from 3D models 3 - Loading the bundles onto the server 4 - Distribution of authorized bundles to clients 5 - Loading authorized bundles on clients

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

To give you an idea of the scale: - Time: 4 days to implement (between 35 and 40 hours of work) - Number of lines of code: ~4000: * 1000 to handle keyboard/controller inputs + network transmissions * 2500 for server-side calculations + client-side modeling * 500 for bundle creation 1/7

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The bundle itself is very simple: it consumes a .fbx file, generates a height sample file from the geometry, and a JSON manifest file. Then, the server uses this in combination with the position/rotation/scale to apply the ground transformation, and the client uses it to display the red preview.

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

And the best part is that the tool is directly open to modding; it relies on a bundle architecture that can be placed in a user directory. If both the server and the client have the bundle installed, it becomes authorized for use (the server is authoritative).

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Floor editing tool overhaul: in addition to the free sculpting mode, it now allows you to import any 3D shape and use it as a brush to sculpt the floor, even that good old Suzanne from #blender ! #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx #b3d

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Actually my chunks are 10m large, with samples every 0.5m, so 441 samples/chunks. And the brush is 8m large max, so at most it will trigger on 4 chunks and change ~300 samples max. As I only store the samples height in a strict order in each chunk, the payload is quite light even for the callback.

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It really depends on latency, that's why I'm thinking about some local prediction for the responsivness, but I have to ensure I dont compute meshes/colliders twice or it will hurt FPS quite badly.

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With this architecture I have no contention between clients, but they dont have a fully reactive brush application, they have to wait for the server callback of the chunks for the mesh modification. I will probably add some prediction for reactivity, but I need to prevent to much mesh recalculation.

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I sent an input intention with the brush data for each client. The server loop through all inputs, calculate them sum of all inputs, clamp the data and save them into the chunks. Each chunk is a static ghost, with only the delta sent back to all clients, they each modify there meshes locally.

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Hop, 4 clients + 1 server on the same machine, with a ground editor handling ground chunk data on the fly, distributed to clients that only handle the visuals (mesh editing), with decent FPS. 🥰 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Technical showcase of what I do with Unity. There's a lot missing : it's quite recently that I've felt comfortable enough to film what I create and share it. Imposter syndrome / 20. 🫤 Youtube link : youtu.be/hilybD14InA #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

youtu.be

Unity - Technical showcase

YouTube video by Keilthar

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Nah just a way to sort what happens, it's the data cherry on the cake of the network shitshow 😅

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Creating a real-time drag-and-drop system in an online multiplayer game is quite a challenge! Just look at this architecture diagram... 😭 (And then there's all the data behind it, with the Tick IDs, Session IDs, and the last state to retain...) #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #gamedev

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

I started a DevBlog ! keilthar.github.io/devlog/en/ Already 2 articles are available : - Introduction to ECS concept keilthar.github.io/devlog/en/EC... - Project Management via Obsidian and AI keilthar.github.io/devlog/en/To... #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

I need to add LODs for large shot like this, but it runs quite smoothly at 100+ FPS for the gameplay I am aiming (ARPG-like aerial view) and I will probably not need 50k units. I have quite an average setup (RTX 2080 + I7 12700k). This simulation runs with 1.3GB ram. 2/2

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

"Just make it exists first, you make it good later" 50k undeads, chasing 15 targets, using a flowfield navigation system, across a 500m x 500m map, with ~180k decors, rendered via Unity ECS/DOTS + VATs. 1/2 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 08/01/2026

OK so it was not a culling issue, but a CPU bottleneck ! Now at close range the simulation runs smoothly. With the introduction of VATs, I lost the auto-LOD, so now the GPU is struggling when too much units are in FOV. 😅 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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I didn't expect at all to go this far with this christmas side project... And now I am totally thinking of rebuilding my own game around this tech and it changes everything how I would design it. 🙃

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They are billions ! (not really but it's a nice game I recommend) 100k VATs moved by Unity ECS with a flow field, on a 500x500m map, at 30+ FPS ! 🤪 But I suspect a culling issue (FPS does not increase when zooming in) #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Starting to look at how to implement VATs on Unity and like every new topic I start studying, this meme is kicking hard 😅 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I never deep dived on the animator code, so cant really answer. As far as I tested it on Unity, it always had a limit around 1-2k gameobjects depending on the model/rig to render at ~50 FPS. I am waiting impatiently for the Animator 2.0 they talked about in 2024 which can handle far more 😭

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It's a lowpoly model I imported from the asset store. 43 bones. assetstore.unity.com/packages/p/s... I don't use many tricks here, I only disable gameobjects out of screen and reduce animator speed based on camera distance.

Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

As expected using 3D models with animator massively decrease perfs (no LODs here, but that will not solve the issue). The most optimal approach would be to use VATs, but I never implemented it until now. 😅 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

50k units with avoidance ! 👀 That's funny, because adding avoidance improves performances, making a lot of the units waiting their turn to move (to display 100k units, I would need a far bigger map to spread them) #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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In this video no, but the architecture is ready for it. The idea will be that each cell of the flow field will have a owner and each move of a unit from one cell to other will proc the path update on its neighbors.

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This simulation has barely no optimisation, only using the Unity ECS implementation. I have quite a lot of options to increase the FPS. However, my units are only capsules. With a proper model + animation, the units count should be reduce drasticaly.

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So in this scene we have : - 90k cells (1m width, 300m map width), each one with a shader to indicate the path - 9k obstacles - 100k units, moving each frames Without the cell shader and with 10 targets moving at 1m/sec, the simulation runs at a smooth 100 FPS, quite nice.

Fun fact : the frame rate of this simulation is greatly dependant of the targets speed. If they move too fast, they trigger the all map refresh more often, tanking the performances. On the first video, they move at 3m/sec. I double the framerate when they move at 1m/sec. 😅

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The flow field does not refresh all at once. There is a propagation mechanism where each cell tags its neighbors to recalculate a path. With this approach, a small amounts of cells are updated each frames. #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Targets refresh the flow field when they move from one cell to another. The green to orange area is refreshed at each cell change when the red one is refreshed every 5, reducing the recalculation of the entire map. #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

100k units moving each frame, attempting to reach the nearest target out of 10 (at center of each green areas), through obstacles (white blocks), using ECS and a flow field composed of 90k cells on a 300x300m map. #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev

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Fully functional resizing system ! It's a little sluggish with such a large area (+100 FPS for 70k sheets, which is still acceptable). But I'll limit the size of the areas eventually, so it's not a concern. 😋 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Even with a completely absurd number of leaves grouped into a single spline (so all my calculations run on all the leaves at the same time), it runs on my old RTX 1080 ! There's a leaf every 10 cm here. 🤪

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

First prototype to modify the shape of leaf zones and validate performance live. Calculations via ECS + GPU batching, it'll spawn tens of thousands of leaves for breakfast ! 😎 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I made a rework into a system of zones delimited by splines, far better for level design. No more tedious grids to manage ! Leaves can be moved out of zones and return once the animation is finished. 🥰 #indiegame #indiedev #IndieGameDev #madewithunity #unity #gamedev #vfx

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Keilthar @keilthar.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Thx ! Yeah, that's a nice environmental effect, I have big plans for it for other VFX 👀