# Pedro Loures: Game Designer and Unity Developer

> Pedro Loures, game designer and Unity developer since 2012: haptic VR at UT Austin, serious games for Fiat and Vale, tools still in production and an award-winning SBGames capstone game.

Full name: Pedro Henrique Zarranz Loures (goes by Pedro Loures). Last updated: October 2, 2026.

This is a plain-text summary of pedroloures.com for recruiters, hiring tools and AI assistants. Every project below has its own page with more detail, such as videos, images, code or a postmortem.

- Website: https://pedroloures.com
- Email: pedroh.z.loures@gmail.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedroloures/
- GitHub: https://github.com/PedroLoures
- Portfolio PDF (game design): https://pedroloures.com/attachments/pedro-loures-game-design.pdf
- Portfolio PDF (programming): https://pedroloures.com/attachments/pedro-loures-programming.pdf
- Full name: Pedro Henrique Zarranz Loures
- Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Open to: Game design, Unity and XR roles, and collaborations
- Work preference: Prefers remote work; open to relocating or working in person within Canada

## Summary

**As a game designer (in his words):** I design play you can feel. Game designer and Unity developer since 2012. My work spans my college capstone Loneliness (Best Short Paper and 3rd in the Popular Vote at SBGames 2013), a persuasion-driven training sim for Fiat, seated VR minigames, and most recently full-body haptic VR at UT Austin's Texas Immersive Institute. I prototype every idea myself, so it gets tested in play, not just on paper.

**As a programmer (in his words):** I turn game designs into systems that ship. Unity developer since 2012: gameplay systems, VR interaction, editor and Blender tools, networking and data pipelines, for studios, schools and clients like Fiat and Vale. A Vale presentation system and a Blender animation add-on I built are still in use. Most recently I was Unity lead on Anchored Memories, a full-body haptic VR experience at UT Austin.

## Key facts

- Lives in Toronto, Canada, where he moved from Brazil after 2019. Unity developer since 2012; most of his earlier projects were made in Brazil, where he studied at PUC, and later work includes Centennial College in Toronto and UT Austin's Texas Immersive Institute.
- Unity lead and project engineer (independent partner, volunteer) on Anchored Memories, a five-act haptic VR story about climate migration from UT Austin's Texas Immersive Institute, shown at SIGGRAPH 2026: engineered the project's foundation, including a node-based story graph that let students sequence story beats and VR interactions without code, and the base code for VR interactions and audio, set up the five acts the team built on, was part of the planning team, and onboarded students onto the interdisciplinary team.
- SBGames 2013: his capstone game Loneliness took 3rd place in the Popular Vote and won Best Short Paper in the Art & Design track; it was later featured in a PlayTV / Indiana Produções documentary on the history of video games in Brazil.
- When he programs, he works hands-on across Unity, not only code: level setup, plugin integration and the rest of the editor work.
- Shipped commercial client work at D2R Studios for Fiat (dev lead on a dealership Quality Manager training sim with 76 real-world scenarios at launch, and a 3D sticker-design kiosk) and for Vale (a three-screen presentation system first built in 2012 and still in use).
- Built a Blender facial-expression add-on at D2R Studios in 2019 for the studio's animator, who still uses it.
- Sole programmer on VR Carnival: four seated VR minigames built in under a month.
- Led a team of newer developers (Coma game jam) and moved a project from Unreal to Unity to lower the deadline risk on a program's first big project with outside partners (Anchored Memories).

## Skills

Game design, Systems & mechanics, Level design, Narrative, Prototyping, Unity, C#, VR / XR, Haptics, Gameplay systems, Tools (Python, Blender add-ons), Networking & data pipelines, Team leadership

## Projects

Listed from most to least relevant. "Design" and "Programming" list what Pedro did in each discipline, in his own words.

### Anchored Memories (2026)

Five-act haptic VR story on climate migration · Unity lead and project engineer · UT Austin, 2026

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/anchored-memories/
- Role: Unity Lead · Project Engineer (independent partner, volunteer)
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Platform: VR + bHaptics TactSuit X40
- Team size: 12+ (TXI, D2R Studios, independent partners, UT Austin advisors)
- For: Texas Immersive Institute, UT Austin
- Tags: Haptic VR, Unity, SIGGRAPH 2026
- Design:
  - Part of the design team on the technical side: chose the tech and approach for bringing Erin Reilly's script and concept to VR
  - Turned the five acts into a technical structure, with weather that mirrors hurricane categories 1 to 5 as the sea rises over the years
  - Researched how to mimic each storm level, then gave every act Inspector controls for the sea and other elements, so the team could shape the weather without code
  - Set the project up so students new to game development could step in and contribute quickly
- Programming:
  - Built a node-based story graph on Unity's graph tooling, back when it wasn't yet built into the editor, so students could sequence story beats and VR interactions, with cues and timed hints, without writing code
  - Engineered the project's foundation: the barebones architecture plus the base code for VR interactions and audio that the team built on
  - Set up the structure of all five acts as separate spaces, each with its own environment prepared for the ocean changes, ready for the team's level design
  - Helped plug the haptics designer's bHaptics SDK work into the Unity project
  - Built shaders (including the sand) and rain particle effects with optimization tests; imported and configured assets, including the ocean, lent from my own Asset Store library where licenses allowed
  - Helped test the release build on my own VR headset
- Leadership:
  - Moved the project from Unreal to Unity when I joined, to lower the deadline risk on the program's first big project with outside partners and reach the July 2026 showcase
  - Main developer on the levels for part of the project, and on call as backup throughout the year
  - Part of the planning team: kept the GitHub project board in order, helped divide tasks around weekly check-ins, and onboarded the students into the project
- Links:
  - Official project page · Texas Immersive Institute: https://immersive.moody.utexas.edu/projects/anchored-memories

### Dream Arcade Simulator (2021)

Arcade management sim · Centennial College capstone, team of five

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/dream-arcade-simulator/
- Role: Gameplay Programmer
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Team size: 5
- For: Centennial College capstone
- Tags: Management sim, Unity, 2021
- Design:
  - Turn-based day/night loop: plan and build your arcade at night with time stopped, then watch robot customers play it out during the day
  - Customers with game preferences, patience and a temper: wait too long and they leave, sometimes breaking machines you'll pay to repair
  - Win on money and fame, with a cheat code system inspired by The Sims as an escape hatch
- Programming:
  - Day/night cycle with skybox, exposure and light blending
  - The whole night phase: shop with tabs, grid placement, move, rotate and sell
  - Audio manager with fade-in/out jobs, and a data-driven cheat code system using UnityEvents
  - Fixed AI code that overloaded the CPU (stutter, FPS drops and overheating) because objects weren't being disposed

### VR Carnival

Four seated VR minigames in under a month · sole programmer

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/vr-carnival/
- Role: Sole Programmer · Game Designer
- Engine / tools: Unity · SteamVR
- Team size: 3
- For: Centennial College VR course
- Tags: VR, 4 minigames, Sole programmer
- Design:
  - Designed for small rooms: every minigame is played seated, but each one is physical in a different way
  - Pitched and designed Whack-a-Mole 360 and Simon Says; built all four games
  - Exposed every gameplay value so we could tune difficulty and balance through playtesting
- Programming:
  - MiniGameManager singleton base class with overridable lifecycle hooks, so only one minigame runs at a time
  - Dissolve shader effect for materializing the bow and hammer in the player's hand
  - Extended SteamVR's interaction samples (grabbing, bow, buttons) into four distinct games
- Leadership:
  - On a short-handed team, took on all the programming and scoped the project to four core games in under a month, polishing only after all four were built

### Fiat Quality Manager Training

Data-driven training simulation for Fiat dealership Quality Managers

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/appfiat-treinamento/
- Role: Dev Lead · Programmer · Game Design team
- Engine / tools: Unity
- For: Fiat · D2R Studios
- Tags: Training sim, Client: Fiat
- Design:
  - Turned the roughly 25 reports a Quality Manager reads into two headline indicators, with the full detail one click away
  - Influence mechanic: a Quality Manager can't give orders, only persuade, so good dialogue choices earn influence that makes people act faster
  - Daily difficulty follows a customizable Fibonacci curve across a 7-day cycle, so by day 7 the player can face up to 13 difficulty-1 issues or fewer, harder ones (rated up to 4)
- Programming:
  - Content pipeline: Fiat's Excel scenario sheets → JSON → NoSQL database, downloaded by Unity at runtime
  - 76 real-world scenarios at launch, with a web admin so the client can add more without a new build
- Leadership:
  - Dev lead and one of the main programmers, while also designing the game as part of a team where everyone helped shape it

### Loneliness (2013)

Shadow-puzzle platformer · SBGames 2013: 3rd in the Popular Vote + Best Short Paper

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/loneliness/
- Role: Game Designer · Level Designer · Programmer
- For: PUC capstone
- Tags: Puzzle platformer, SBGames award, 2013
- Design:
  - Shadows replay your earlier moves, and the dark is the only thing that can hurt you: a personal theme expressed through mechanics, inspired by The Company of Myself
  - Darkness as the only threat: when pushed to add enemies, I kept the design and committed to 18 stages instead of 3 in exchange
  - 3rd place in SBGames 2013's Popular Vote with only three tutorial levels, plus Best Short Paper in the Art & Design track
- Programming:
  - Shadow replay system: moved from frame-data recording to input recording to fix desyncs on frame drops (the postmortem covers what that late rewrite cost)
- Links:
  - SBGames 2013 placements (search for Solidão): http://www.sbgames.org/sbgames2013/festival/post.php?postId=957
  - Short paper (Portuguese): http://www.sbgames.org/sbgames2013/proceedings/artedesign/02-dt-short.pdf
  - Best Short Paper certificate: https://pedroloures.com/attachments/CertificadoTrilhaArtDesign_shortpaper_best.pdf

### Vale · Porto de Tubarão (2012 / 2015 / 2019)

Three-screen presentation system controlled from a tablet · 2012 → 2019

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/appvale-portotubarao/
- Role: Desktop Developer (2012) · Rebuild Developer (2019)
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Platform: Mac + iPad (2012) · PC + Android (2019)
- For: Vale · Zor Design · D2R Studios
- Tags: Multi-screen app, Client: Vale, Still in use
- Design:
  - Presentation experience for a corporate visitor room: images, videos and data flow across three borderless screens, driven by a presenter from a tablet
  - Content updates need no developer: drop correctly named images in and rebuild
  - Still in use today, more than a decade after the first version
- Programming:
  - Custom sprite system written before Unity had native 2D
  - Content pipeline through the Resources folder: new images only need the right file names, with no code or level changes
  - In one month for the 2019 version: rebuilt the tablet app from scratch, moved the PC app off OnGUI and added real networking with UNet
  - Still in use today, more than a decade after the first version

### Blender Expressions Add-on (2019)

Python add-on that speeds up facial-expression keyframing · built for D2R Studios' animator, 2019

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/blenderplug/
- Role: Tool Designer · Programmer
- Engine / tools: Blender · Python
- For: D2R Studios
- Tags: Animation tool, Python, Still in use
- Design:
  - Designed around one animator's workflow: every facial expression for a character in one panel, picked with a click instead of digging through textures
- Programming:
  - Lists every facial texture for a character's face parts, read from a folder naming convention, so animators pick expressions from one panel
  - Saves around 3 clicks per keyframe when swapping faces, plus a one-click keyframe button
  - Built as a side project alongside my regular work, fitted into the studio's existing animation pipeline; the animator it was made for still uses it

### Coma · College Game Jam (2021)

Horror game jam on the theme “Another World” · led a team of newer developers

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/gamejamhorror/
- Role: Team Lead · Programmer
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Platform: PC (itch.io)
- For: College midterm game jam
- Tags: Horror, Game jam, Team lead
- Design:
  - 2D sprites that always face the player inside a 3D maze: an unsettling look the team could actually produce on a jam timeline
  - Trap and scare toolkit (flickering flashlight, inverted controls, slow/speed zones, jump scares) that level designers combine freely
- Programming:
  - Procedural maze generator (adapted from Kodeco's maze tutorial) whose output was saved and then decorated by hand
  - Reusable trigger system built on UnityEvents, with cooldowns and one-shot options
- Leadership:
  - Led a team of newer students (the coordinator placed me there to lead it) and set up a prefab workflow so the artists could do the level design themselves
- Links:
  - Play on itch.io: https://b-chayson.itch.io/coma

### Mitologia da Programação

Educational game where players solve Greek-myth challenges by writing Lua

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/mitologiaprog/
- Role: Game Designer · Level Designer · Programmer
- Engine / tools: Unity · embedded Lua
- Team size: 2
- Tags: Educational, Lua, Unity
- Design:
  - Wrote every level around a Greek myth: each part opens with a tale, then challenges the player to make it happen in code
  - Built the concept around the CS student I was helping: she loved Greek mythology, so every level retells a myth to keep her motivated
- Programming:
  - Embedded a Lua interpreter in Unity, so players' code compiles and runs inside the game
  - Checks each solution against the expected output, with custom hint messages or the compiler's own errors

### Animal Defense

Educational tower defense game about the food chain

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/animal-defense/
- Role: Game Designer · Level Designer · Lead Programmer
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Platform: PC (800×600)
- Tags: Tower defense, Educational
- Design:
  - Teaches the food chain through combat rules: each level of the chain is strong against the one it feeds on
  - Humans can attack anything, to show they sit at the top of the chain, and decomposers boost the gold earned from anything that dies in their area
- Programming:
  - Waypoint movement system, a concept I still use today
- Leadership:
  - Lead programmer, game designer and level designer on a project planned and built in under six months

### Fiat Personalização

Touchscreen app to design custom vehicle stickers and preview them in 3D

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/appfiat-personaliza/
- Role: Developer (intern)
- Engine / tools: Unity
- Platform: Touchscreen PC, promotional event
- For: Fiat · D2R Studios
- Tags: Kiosk app, Client: Fiat
- Design:
  - Guided kiosk flow for event visitors: enter your details, pick a car and a premade or custom design, then place the sticker on the car
- Programming:
  - Got stickers projecting onto the 3D car body within a 10-day pitch deadline by finding and adapting a plugin-based decal approach

### Custom Defense (2020)

Tower customization for a tower defense game · two-week course project

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/customdef/
- Role: Game Designer · Programmer
- For: Centennial College course project
- Tags: Tower defense, 2020
- Design:
  - Took the brief (a character customization system) and twisted it into customizing towers for a tower defense game

### Procedural Dungeon Generator

Personal research into 3D maze and dungeon generation (shelved)

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/proceduraldung/
- Tags: Procedural generation, R&D
- Programming:
  - 3D dungeon generation with overlap checks between rooms and support for special rooms

### Chaveirinho (2014)

A tiny virtual pet made as a gift · my first mobile game (2014)

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/chaveirinho/
- Engine / tools: Unity (pre-Canvas)
- Platform: Android
- Team size: 2
- Tags: Mobile, Virtual pet, 2014
- Design:
  - A pocket virtual pet with personality: she loves chocolate milk, but only one brand, and gets mad if fed the other
- Programming:
  - Touch input and a petting gesture written before Unity had its Canvas UI system

### Digital Wonderland

Story-driven 3D adventure · my first 3D game

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/digitalwonder/
- Tags: 3D adventure, Story
- Design:
  - Wrote the world and story: students trapped in a virus-infected digital world, guided by a royal companion with two faces

### Recifuturo

Educational puzzle adventure in Game Maker · my first game

- Page: https://pedroloures.com/projects/recifuturo/
- Role: Game Designer · Level Designer · Programmer · Sound Effects
- Engine / tools: Game Maker
- Tags: Puzzle adventure, Game Maker
- Design:
  - Educational puzzle adventure: I did the game design, level design, programming and sound effects
- Programming:
  - Inventory stored in a single untyped matrix, and every button built through inheritance