Steven Johnson
Tech Director at Xibalba Studios
Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolSteven Johnson is a Tech Director and co-founder with 13+ years building games and engine tooling from Monterrey, Mexico. He architected and maintained TacoShell, a Lua/LuaJIT framework that has been adapted across multiple engines (Mahatta, Löve2D, Vision SDK) and powered Xibalba Studios' first title, Icebreakers. Deep in C/C++ and Lua since the early 2000s, he also brings shader and HLSL experience, component-based design, voxel/geometric algorithms, and DSL/metaprogramming skills to large-scale game systems. His open-source contributions include frame-management and memory-leak fixes to the widely used Solar2D (ex-Corona) engine, improving dynamic shader timing and frame APIs. Regularly driving R&D and prototyping, he balances hands-on effects, level systems, and core architecture while quietly shipping production-ready tools. Colleagues know him as a relentless researcher who keeps refining infrastructure—and occasionally produces "programmer audio" in his spare time.
13 years of coding experience
1 year of employment as a software developer
BSc, Real Time Interactive Simulation, BSc, Real Time Interactive Simulation at DigiPen Institute of Technology
Github Skills (16)
lua10
graphics-engine10
c-language10
game-development10
cprogramming-language10
game-engine10
shader10
game-dev10
coreos9
engine9
cross-platform9
mobile8
videogames8
gameplay8
android7
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
coronalabs/corona
Feb 2019 - Jan 2023
Solar2D Game Engine main repository (ex Corona SDK)
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:3 reviews, 26 commits, 59 PRs in 3 years 11 months
Contributions summary:Steven primarily worked on enhancing the Solar2D game engine's core functionality. Their commits involved adding the `timeTransform` feature to the graphics engine for creating more dynamic shaders and improving the accuracy of calculations within the engine. They also implemented new methods like `Runtime:getFrameID()` and `Runtime:getFrameStartTime()` and added the `frame` field to the `enterFrame` event, which contributes to better frame management. Additionally, they fixed a memory leak within the geometry pool.
gamesolar2ddefoldiosmobile
arrayfire/arrayfire-lua
Nov 2015 - Dec 2015
Contributions:49 commits, 1 PR, 7 comments in 27 days
luaarrayfire
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