deadsoftie / a research log
research log · est. 2019 · written by hand

Notes on game engine architecture, the craft of development, and whatever else happens to be on my mind.

I'm Rahul Nair -> a game engine developer and grad student at DigiPen, building a custom C++ engine and making games. This is my public notebook. Technical write-ups, GDC recaps, retro dev workshops, books I'm reading, and the occasional philosophical tangent.

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No. I

Porting Chief of the Valley to iOS

Taking a desktop management sim to iPad and iPhone. Landscape orientation, touch targets, scroll behavior, audio, an in-game keyboard, and the legibility decisions that come with high-density displays.

essay · 7 min · Jun 10 #gamedev
No. II

Chief of the Valley: Devlog 2, v1.0

Staff overhaul, Steam integration, a bug report tool, and the fixes that had to happen before calling it v1.0.

essay · 6 min · Jun 6 #gamedev
No. III

Chief of the Valley: The First Devlog

Building a turn-based PC company sim in C++17 and raylib from scratch. Everything that got built, broken, and rebuilt on the way to v0.4.

essay · 9 min · May 25 #gamedev

004 Recent

5 of 12
10 Jun 2026
Porting Chief of the Valley to iOS
7 min
06 Jun 2026
Chief of the Valley: Devlog 2, v1.0
6 min
25 May 2026
★ pinned Chief of the Valley: The First Devlog
9 min
30 Apr 2026
Porting the Render Lab to Linux: What Actually Broke
7 min
29 Apr 2026
Moving to Linux: How I Ended Up on Fedora
6 min
all 12 essays →