An Update On The Blog
Hi, this is Yuhao. Due to a billing oversight, the DigitalOcean instance hosting the blog CMS was deleted. Unfortunately, the Coolify backup was not set up correctly, so the restoration process has taken longer than expected, and the available backup is incomplete. Thankfully, I still have the drafts for all published posts on yuhao.app/blog, and I’ll be manually restoring them over the coming days. I sincerely apologize for this oversight and appreciate your patience as I work to bring everyt... August 29, 2025Pointers and References in C++
This summer, I am brushing up my C++ by going through Alex's excellent tutorial at learncpp.com. I recently went through its chapter on Pointers and References, and I cleared a lot of my previous confusion on the topic. Here are some notes I took. References in C++ int // a normal int type (not an reference) int& // an lvalue reference to an int object const int& // a constant lvalue reference Both T& ref and T &ref are valid ways to define a reference but the first one is pref... June 24, 2025★Making of LetgO 🎈
Recently, a team I contributed to as a minor collaborator - as interaction designer -submitted a game to the thatgamecompany × COREBLAZER GAME JAM 2025. The director of the game is my friend Ebay. I first met him through Cooper and Justin, who worked with Ebay on a different project at USC — a game called Myth of Lumi. Ebay later became my Student Assistant in CTIN 534, a class taught by Peter Brinson. One day, I happened to run into him and we ended up having a long conversation. That’s when h... June 23, 2025Translating Disney
A week ago I got paid to go to Disneyland. I was invited to be a translator for a group of executives from Amazing Seasun Games who were visiting USC for a two-week summer program. Professor David White, their guide and video game producer and veteran, has been to the park over 300 times. Me on the other hand, have only visited Disneyland and California Adventure once with family. So this turned out to be quite a learning experience for me as well, and here are a few notes I took. Disneyland is... June 22, 2025★Villains
Aaron Sorkin, when asked how to portray a villain characters, says "You (the author) cannot think of them as a villain. You can't judge the character… You have to be able to empathize with that character. Find something about that character that is like you too. And you have to write that character like they're making their case to God why they should be allowed to heaven. " There was an attack last weekend at the No King’s protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, where a bystander—fashion designer Ar... June 16, 2025★Lessons from The Nest
I recently went to The Nest — an immersive theater experience by Hatch Escapes — with a couple of friends. If you're around LA, I highly recommend it; the experience is both immersive and intimate. I won't spoil anything, but one of the best moments from the experience was picking up the phone and talking to one of the characters. In a barely lit room filled with detailed props, I was truly transported to the fictional world crafted by the creators. Rest assured, though, The Nest isn't a scary ... June 4, 2025Super Hero Movies
I went to watch Thunderbolt* (2025) tonight and it made me excited about what’s next in MCU. I very much look forward to The Fantastic Four and the Avengers film coming next.... May 15, 2025★Bullies
In early April, the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration abruptly and unjustly terminated my SEVIS record. SEVIS is a database used by DHS to verify whether a student is eligible to study in the United States. Losing SEVIS status means an immediate loss of legal standing, the inability to enroll in classes, and the risk of deportation. I’m only able to write about this now because the administration reversed its decision three weeks later. When I received the news on A... May 9, 2025What happened to Only Paranoid Survives?
I am halfway through Tae Kim’s The Nvidia Way, and it’s the 2007 to early 2010s. Nvidia has introduced CUDA and worked with companies like Adobe and Autodesk to enable parallel computing to massively make their applications faster. And I just can’t stop thinking — Oh my god, how is Intel letting this happening. It’s absurd that it’s Intel’s Andy Grove coined the term Only Paranoid Survive, and 1 CEO later that’s all down the shitter. Needlessly to say, Intel had another giant miss during the sa... January 26, 2025Establishing a Movement Shooter
My friend Coop and I are building a movement shooter together. Shooter as a genre is very popular, and never lacks well designed game. So it is challenging to build something new, novel, while maintain a good sense of design. It’s gonna be a long journey before we get to there. In the meantime, I would like document all the design thinking behind this game. Below is one of the first pieces of deign document written for this game. Cooper wrote it as an email while he was on plane from New York to... January 20, 2025
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