Hello, my name is Torin Pellegrini, I am currently a games programming student at Abertay University.
I will graduate in May 2025 with a Bachelor of Science degree, with Honors, in Computer Games Applications Development. I am excited to join the games industry and contribute meaningfully and creatively within a professional organization.You can find my projects below and more information through the header buttons at the top.
Featured Projects
Additional Work
About
One of my first memories is playing a video game on my dad's lap, a random PC game we had rented from the library. Some of my best memories growing up revolve around playing videogames. I always knew that I wanted to make games to bring that same joy to others.
That is not to say that I did not have other interests growing up. I participated in martial arts from a young age, instilling a deep sense of personal responsibility, discipline, and perseverance. I was also a part of the Scouts, where I attained the highest rank of Eagle. As part of Scouting, I learned to work effectively within a team, and received leadership training and experience on excursions and projects.
For my last two years of High School, I earned a Shelby Davis Scholarship to attend Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong. I took part in various extracurricular activities, including teaching English classes online to kids in Thailand and Mainland China as well as being part of a Dragon Dance team. The academic environment was rigorous and gave me invaluable time-management skills.
The campus was made up of 250 students from over 80 countries. This diverse environment impacted me profoundly and shaped me into an outgoing, globally-minded, and driven individual. I have since had the opportunity to travel to many countries and continue studying abroad, further reinforcing the lessons I have learned.
Currently, I am studying for a BSc (Hons) in Computer Games Applications Development at Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland. I am set to graduate in May of 2025 and so far have found it incredibly rewarding to pursue my passion, which I have pursued since a young age. I have also had the opportunity to continue participating in extracurricular activities, including theatre, charity boxing, and a few game jams and competitions. As I am in my final year of university, I am looking forward to becoming a dedicated asset to a professional organization within the games industry.
About the Game
Light The Waves is a VR lighthouse-keeper simulator where the chaos increases with the number of boats! The player has a hook and pull-cord cannon for hands, and has to use them to keep both themselves and the boats in the water out of danger. The game was made over the course of 4 months in a multi-disciplinary team of eight, with four designers, two programmers, and two artists utilizing agile development methodologies. We worked together to develop mechanics and the Sea of Thieves inspired art-style. We also worked with an industry client, Near Light Games, who gave us the initial prompt 'hands-off', and worked with us throughout the project to give feedback.
Main Contributions
Role - Programmer
- Hazard spawning system for boat traffic
- Interactable joystick to control light with hook
- Kraken tentacle boss fight
- Maintaining and debugging a C++ codebase to ensure good VR performance
Mario Kart
Unity Machine Learning Agents
About
This project was made as the first assessment for my AI programming course at Abertay University. I used Unity's Machine Learning Agents (ML-Agents) system to teach karts to race around a track. Using curriculum learning techniques, I was able to gradually teach the karts to drive around a track and eventually avoid obstacles.
Features
- Machine-learning driven karts- Obstacle avoidance- Taught utilizing curriculum learning
DirectX11 Volcano Scene
Graphics Programming Coursework
About
This project was made as my final assessment for my Graphics Programming course at Abertay University, it received an 'A' grade. The project is made on the DirectX11 framework with custom HLSL shaders.
Main Features
- Sea of Thieves inspired Gerstner wave vertex manipulation
- A dynamic heightmap to generate the terrain
- Custom point, spot, and directional lights along with their shadows
- Dynamic tesselation
- Custom bloom shader
Various variables are exposed, allowing the user to adjust lighting, the waves, and bloom intensity. It is also possible to turn on a wireframe mode to visualize the tesselation.
Man The Deck
DARE Academy Semi-Finalist
About
Man The Deck was made as a submission to a competition run by Abertay University called DARE Academy where we achieved semi-finalists. The pitch presentation and prototype was made using the lessons we learned over the course of making the team's other title, Light the Waves. The game was planned to be a VR on-rails pirate shooter, where the player stuffs various objects on the deck of their ship into their cannon hand to fend off hordes of fish goblins, all the while accompanied by their trustworthy shark-dog companion, Gordon! For the application, all work for the prototype and presentation was done over the course of a month. This application brought the team to the very competitive semi-finalist presentation round. The work done for the application illustrates my passion for VR development and unique games. You can see the the initial 2 minute application presentation below.
Main Contributions
- Creating a prototype version of the game
- Implementing an in-game cinematic events system
- Custom ammo type tool so designers could quickly implement new projectiles
- Creating the visuals and script for a pitch presentation in front of a panel of industry judges
About
Lucifur: The Witch's Assistant was made as part of a 48-hour Halloween game jam in my first year of university. It is a spooky twin-stick shooter where you are tasked with blowing the candles out in a witch's mansion. As the candles go out, more mice ghosts will come to terrorize Lucifur. You can play the game in-browser below.
Contributions
Role - Level Design/Programming- Level Design and implementation in Unity
- Bug fixing in C#
Guns & Rocks 2: Guns & Rocks & Guns
About
Guns & Rocks 2 was made as part of a game jam in a team of 4 people as a way to become more experienced with the Unity Engine and expand our knowledge of game programming. We found this process to be very rewarding and an excellent way to practice time-management with the very limited time constraint. All of the work for the game, from conceptualization to art to programming was done over the course of the 12 hours.
Main Contributions
Role - Programmer- Weapon creation tool
- C# Programming and debugging
About
Market Rush was made as part of a week long game jam with the Abertay University Game Development Society with the theme 'Finite Space'. The game is a VR grocery store simulator where you only have 3 minutes to get everything on your list before closing time. It was made in Unreal Engine 5 in a team of two people. Our idea for the game was very different for the first 3 days of the jam before we decided it was not as interactive or fun as we were intending. Switching to Market Rush taught us valuable lessons about how quickly different things can change during development, as well as the importance of adapting under pressure.
Key Features
- Backpack that can store items and check them off of your list
- 60+ grocery items that can be put onto a randomized list for each playthrough
- Roaming NPC customers with voice acting
- Interactable doors
- Space management system, where items cannot fit in your backpack if they are overlapping
About
Pumpkin Roulette was made as part of Abertay Game Developer Society's 2024 Halloween Game Jam. The game is a multiplayer VR Russian Roulette adaptation with a card-based twist. Players take turns shooting themselves or the other player, while playing cards with different effects, until one of the players loses all of their health. The game was made in Unreal Engine 5, and fully networked for two players.
Key Features
- Fully Networked 2-player VR multiplayer
- Cards which apply different effects to the gameplay (Increased damage, skipping enemy turn, stealing a card, etc.)
- Fully playable Russian Roulette
- Glowing pumpkin player heads which explode using destructive geometry on player death
Crystal Cavern Dynamic Soundscape
This project was created as the final assessment for a university module, CMP407: Audio Programming, in which it received an 'A' grade. The project taught me numerous fundamentals about audio programming and how to design a level with sound at the forefront. Additionally, I recorded all the voice lines with colleagues in the university's professional recording studio.
Main Features
- Volumetric Audio Splines- Custom Sound Manager- Dialogue Focus Bubbles- SteamAudio natural reverb implementation
Baloncheta is a simple-but-satisfying VR bubble popping arcade game. The game was made as a part of the 2025 Global Game Jam in 48 hours in a team of 3 programmers and 1 artist. In the game, the player has yellow and purple hands and must pop the similarly coloured bubbles with the correct hand. Gradually the speed will increase, and the more bubbles the player pops in a row, the higher their combo will be!
Contact
You can find my LinkedIn and GitHub pages below, or reach out to me through my Gmail.
You can also find a PDF copy of my CV through Google Drive.
I look forward to our future correspondence.