// about.md
Yoan-Daniel Malinov
Game Developer · XR Researcher
I build games and study how people play them. Most recently shipped an AR heritage game at the 5,000-year-old stone circle of Avebury as part of the LoGaCulture project.
PhD in Computer Science · First-Class BSc · University of Southampton
PhD in Computer Science · First-Class BSc · University of Southampton
// experience.ts
Experience
A Research Fellow and Lead Developer for the Ages of Avebury locative AR heritage game
Research Fellow
LoGaCulture Project · University of Southampton
2023 - May 2026
- Built and shipped Ages of Avebury - a locative AR heritage game deployed at Avebury World Heritage Site with the National Trust. ~390 downloads across iOS and Android since launch.
- Designed and built LUTE Server - a production .NET backend handling JWT auth, game telemetry, shared persistent state, and an admin panel.
- Contributed AR implementation, documentation, and bug fixes to LUTE - the open source Unity toolkit powering the project.
- Collaborated across a four-country EU Horizon consortium (Portugal, Ireland, Germany and UK), contributing to joint publications and shared research outputs.
PhD Researcher
University of Southampton
2019 - 2025
- Designed, built, and iterated StuckInSpace from scratch in Unity - an asymmetric VR co-op game used as a research instrument across VR headset, PC, and phone modalities.
- Conducted two user studies with groups of participants playing the game - handling recruitment, ethics approval, session facilitation, and data analysis.
- Implemented real-time cross-device audio streaming (FMOD over WiFi) for the second experiment.
- Conducted a systematic review of immersion and embodiment literature to ground the research framework.
- Published at IEEE VR 2021 and CHI PLAY 2020 Doctoral Consortium.
Android Developer - Internship
University of Southampton
Jul - Sep 2018
- Built an Android computer vision application in a team of two to detect and extract text from inventory labels - used for warehouse management and stock tracking.
- Implemented the label detection and OCR pipeline, working through camera calibration, perspective correction, and text recognition.
// projects.json
Projects
Selected shipped work and research projects
Ages of Avebury
SHIPPED
Locative AR heritage game deployed at a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the National Trust. Players explore Avebury across three time periods - Neolithic, Medieval, present day. Uses real-time ML silhouette detection to generate personalised 3D standing stones from player body shapes, which persist on the server and appear for future visitors. ~390 downloads across iOS and Android since launch.
Unity 6
AR Foundation
MediaPipe
TensorFlow Lite
Marching Cubes
Mapbox
iOS
Android
LUTE Server
SHIPPED
Production backend API for LoGaCulture. Handles game logging, shared variables, JWT authentication, admin panel, and the persistent stone shape social system. Deployed in production across Southampton and Bournemouth research teams.
.NET
SQLite
JWT
Docker
REST API
LUTE
OPEN SOURCE
Unity toolkit/engine for creating narrative location-based heritage games. Contributed AR implementation, documentation, and bug fixes.
Unity
C#
AR
StuckInSpace
RESEARCH
Asymmetric VR co-op game built for PhD research. Two user studies exploring how different modalities (VR headset, PC, phone) affect immersion and co-presence. Real-time audio streaming over WiFi between devices using FMOD.
Unity
VR
C#
FMOD
Multi-modal
// skills.config
Technologies
Game & XR
Languages
ML / AI
Backend & Infra
Mobile Publishing
Hardware & IoT
Research
// papers.bib
Publications
// teaching.log
Teaching
COMP6259
Advanced Games - VR/AR/XR Lecture
Lecturer · 2023-2026
Designed and delivered a VR/AR/XR lecture for the new Advanced Game Design course and given annually for three years.
COMP3218
Game Design and Development
Demonstrator + Marker · 2019-2026
Assessed and marked student game projects across multiple years - evaluating design, implementation, and providing detailed feedback.
COMP1202 · COMP1204 · COMP1206 · COMP1203
Lab Demonstrator
2019-2023
Supported 50-100+ students per session across Python, Java, databases, and electronics labs - live debugging, environment setup, explaining concepts on the fly, and adapting to different skill levels. Provided remote support via Discord during the pandemic.
// education.md
Education
PhD - Computer Science
University of Southampton
2019 - 2025
- Thesis: Characterising Embodiment in Multi-Modal Play for Virtual Reality.
- Conducted two user studies separated by a systematic review of immersion and embodiment literature.
- Explored how different play modalities (VR headset, PC, phone) affect immersion, presence, and co-presence.
BSc - Computer Science · First Class Honours
University of Southampton
2016 - 2019
- Final Year Project: Co-presence and awareness in virtual/mixed reality games
- Built a VR game in Unity exploring co-presence across modalities - directly leading to PhD research.