Working title · Early tech demo
A Roman builder game. Every project below exists partly to make it possible.
owx.dev
Real-time rendering, simulation and animation, built from first principles.
Projects
Private
Plica
A C++20 real-time renderer: more form, less geometry. Plica renders surface detail in shaders instead of piling up triangles, and runs natively and in the browser through WebGPU.
The background of this page is Plica, running live.
Open source · MIT
tess
A header-only C++20 library for pathfinding and deterministic simulation in 2D and 3D grid worlds: A*, shared route caches and distance fields, chunked worlds larger than memory, and repeatable simulation. Performance is gated in CI and measured on hardware from a Steam Deck to a 192-thread, four-node Xeon.
Private · In development
Animarch
Procedural character animation built on contacts, not clips. Heels, toes and hands act as supporting contacts, so one controller covers walking, stairs, ladders, climbing and carrying, refined by a small learned corrector.
Live
Chespi
An AI chess coach: play Stockfish while a coach explains the why behind each move, sets puzzles and reviews your games. Built solo, end to end: a Preact web client, Python services orchestrating LLM agents, accounts, subscriptions and deployment on Google Cloud.
Private · Research
PerceptSift
Perceptual asset triage: find what deserves a closer look. Explicit checks and perceptual signals direct a limited review budget to the procedural animation that needs it most.
Open source
agent-kit
Skills and command-line tools shared between Claude Code and Codex: quota and pace reporting, status lines, and working practices for delegation, testing, review and delivery.
About
I'm Owen Wiggins. I've built real-time software and web products since 2006: console games at Next Level Games, live, server-backed social and mobile games at PopCap, DeNA and King, then over four years as an engineering manager at Google on Google Cloud and Chrome OS.
In 2023 I founded owx.dev. It shipped Chespi, an AI chess coach I built end to end, and is now building its first game, along with the renderer, simulation and animation technology it needs.
I'm available for contract work in real-time graphics and engines, native code on the web (WebGPU, WebAssembly), full-stack product engineering, and AI-assisted development.
Previously
- Google 2018–2023 Software Engineering Manager Google Cloud Console growth and experimentation, with a TypeScript/Angular front end and Go services, then Chrome OS.
- King 2017–2018 Lead Game Developer Game prototyping, including titles with Meta and Apple for messaging platforms.
- DeNA 2013–2016 Team Lead, Technical Director, Senior Manager Led the launch of Super Battle Tactics, then client engineering across the Western studios, supporting teams including Blood Brothers.
- PopCap Games 2012–2013 Lead Developer Hidden Agenda, PopCap's first social hidden-object game.
- Inspirado Games 2010–2012 Co-founder, Lead Developer GardenMind, until the studio became part of PopCap.
- Next Level Games 2008–2010 Programmer Punch-Out!! for Wii, Captain America: Super Soldier and Transformers: Cybertron Adventures.
- University of British Columbia 2008 Cognitive Systems Thesis: gesture recognition of Nintendo Wiimote input using an artificial neural network.
- Earlier 2006–2007 Threewave Software, MDA Games on the Torque and Source engines; rendering for a synthetic aperture radar simulator.