Kiran Koch-Mathews
Gameplay & Software Engineer
Welcome
Hi, I'm Kiran. I'm a passionate developer, looking for Gamplay, Software or Simulation Engineering Roles.I graduated from RPI cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Game Development & Computer Science.My dream is to become a lead R&D Gameplay Programmer, and I welcome any opportunties to eventually achieve that.Please reach out! I'd be happy to talk.
Fisht Fight is a world where fish have grown tired of being used for sport and now
FIGHT BACK!However, that only resulted in "Fisht Fighting" being born! It's the ultimate mashup of boxing and fishing. Now, Martial arts fishers juggle mutated fish in the air for as long as they can through EXTREME COMBAT!!!
I’m the Technical Director and co-creator of this project, which I began in March 2024 with my friend, the Creative Director. Since then, we’ve expanded into a five-person team and have been developing the game in our spare time, with a full release planned for September 2025.My contributions include architecting a robust inheritance system for core components such as Managers, Fish, and Tools, along with the majority of gameplay objects that use them. I also designed and developed the combat mechanics, XR systems, and a variety of other gameplay elements.
Fisht Fight has won a list of awards and been to large showcases:
Exhibited at **Game Developers Conference **2025, winning a Best in Play Honorable Mention
Showcased as part of the Game Developers of Color Expo 2024, displayed on the front page of Steam
Finalist of the “Stupid Fun” Award at GameFest 2024, an annual game showcase for the Northeast
Part of 1UpState and the Rensselaer Game Showcase, expos for developers in Upstate New York
Watch the Trailer!
Find more games on my itch.io
During my Advanced Computer Graphics course at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, I explored modern rendering techniques by implementing several graphics pipelines in C++ and CMake. Below are some of the highlights of what I built:
Ray Casting with Anti-Aliasing
I built a ray casting renderer that traces rays from the camera through each pixel to determine visible surfaces in a 3D scene. To improve image quality, I implemented anti-aliasing by casting multiple jittered rays per pixel and averaging the results. It was fascinating to see how a simple algorithm could produce complex reflections, refractions, and crisp edges when properly refined.Radiance Estimation
Radiance estimation was one of the most challenging parts of the course for me. I worked on simulating how light bounces around a scene to create global illumination effects like soft shadows and color bleeding. Early on, my shadows were harsh and inaccurate, but after debugging light sampling and refining my visibility checks, I achieved smoother, more realistic results like those shown in the images.Photon Mapping
For photon mapping, I implemented a two-pass algorithm to simulate indirect lighting and caustics. I built a KD-tree to efficiently store and query photon hits throughout the scene. This allowed me to produce effects like focused light patterns and subtle illumination on surfaces that standard ray tracing couldn’t handle as efficiently. It was incredibly satisfying to see physically accurate lighting phenomena emerge from my own implementation.
Simplification and Subdivision
Cloth Simulation
Raycasting using anti-aliasing
Radiance
Photon Mapping
