1.
Erick Baptista Passos
Rua Albertino Neiva, 2677
Teresina, PI 64045­385 ­ Brazil
T +55 86 98181 6003
erickpassos​@​gmail.com
http://sertaogames.com
FOUNDER
LEAD PROGRAMMER
for Latin America
SUMMARY
I like to create games and solve the complex problems related to this task with clever combination of
math, algorithms and fun.
My experience in the industry includes doing network middleware development for ​Exit Games​, and
founding and leading my own game studio (​Sertão Games​). I've also been lead programmer and project
manager for mid sized teams (10~20 people) in a software house (​Infoway​), and I teach computer
science at ​IFPI​ since 2004.
Notable skills are design and development of object oriented middleware and API; interest in advanced
problem solving; and also teamwork & leadership. I like to code in many languages, but especially C#
(Unity), Java and C/C++.
EDUCATION
Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Niteroi­RJ, Brazil — PhD, 2008 ­ 2012
MIT Media Lab, Cambridge­MA — Visiting PhD Student, 2010 ­ 2011
Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG), Campina Grande­PB, Brazil — Masters, 2001 ­
2003
Ass. de Ensino Sup. do Piauí (AESPI), Teresina­PI, Brazil ­ Graduation in Informatics, 1996 ­ 2000
EXPERIENCE
Lead Developer (Latin America), Exit Games
Teresina, PI — 2016­now
Exit Games are the maker of the ​Photon ​family of network/multiplayer middleware and infrastructure.
I joined their team in 2016 as a senior programmer and have been developing proof of concepts, demos
and leading a small team that is creating a couple of new products for them.
Products being developed:
● Photon TrueSync ​(role: tech­lead and project manager): a lockstep middleware for Unity on
top of photon cloud. Includes a replacement deterministic physics engine, fixed point math,
automatic replays and a full­featured prediction/rollback system to tackle latency issues. ​Role​:
project manager and tech­lead;
● Photon Thunder (role: lead­programmer and project manager): a replacement
transport­layer for the new UNet Unity network system. Includes transparently using photon
matchmaking behind normal UNet high level API, a photon­based transport layer, and the
hybrid use of NAT punch­through when available (using features from the raknet native
C/C++network library);

2. Chief Engineer/Founder, Sertão Games
Teresina, PI — 2011­now
Independent game studio focused on creating original IP. I’ve been the lead programmer and producer
at the studio, designing and developing on core gameplay and AI code in C# for Cangaço, and the new
Asset Store packs.
Highlights
● Products developed include a single­player 3D real­time tactics developed in Unity3d (C#), and
a turn­based 2D strategy game for social networks with HTML4 + Google App Engine.
Recently, we've developing multiplayer demo projects for the Unity Asset Store, which have
been published by Exit Games.
● We also like to organize game jams and workshops for the local game development community.
Cangaço Wargame, ​Cangaço​ and M.O.B.A from Sertão Games.
Our satellite event was one of the ​highlights​ of NASA­hosted ​Dark Side of the Jam​.
Lead/Emeritus Engineer, Infoway e­health company
Teresina, PI — 2005­2007, 2011­2014 (consulting)
R&D head and lead engineer, directly responsible for creating innovative products and processes that
resulted in winning the Brazilian National Innovation Award 2013, and achieving a 10­fold revenue
increase (from 2005 to 2012).
Accomplishments
● Has designed and led the development of the company’s web framework, used in large­scale,
production­grade, health­insurance systems that have managed ~1 million people since 2006;
● Responsible for the ​Idea Pitch initiative, where employees may develop new ideas/prototypes
using 20% of their work­hours and present them for incubation and possibly spinning­off as
separate businesses;
● Mentored the company’s R&D department, which focus on computational intelligence.
Associate Professor, UFPI (grad school only)
Teresina, PI, Brazil — 2012­now
Computer Science Professor. Interested in artificial intelligence, human vision and game technology.
Lectures ​project and analysis of algorithms​ and ​computational photography​ courses.
Research Highlight
● CATRA​: device for detecting and mapping early cataracts in the human eye (at the MIT Media
Lab, jointly with Vitor Pamplona and Ramesh Raskar ­ USPO Patent # US8746885).

3.
CATRA: testing light diffusers, early prototypes, Ramesh Raskar presenting CATRA at TedxBoston
Professor, IFPI
Teresina, PI, Brazil — 2004­now
Computer Science Professor. Lecturer of ​computer architecture​, ​enterprise programming​, ​web
programming​, and ​computer graphics and multimedia systems​ undergraduate courses.
Project Highlight
● Vision Blocks​: (collaboration with MIT Media Lab) a visual language for computer vision.
Designed and helped the development of the new interpreter and interface with a group of IFPI
students.
Vision Blocks: demos on ​official website​.
INDIE GAMES AND DEMOS
M.O.B.A​ ­ tutorial and demo (ETR: Sep 2016) ­ ​flagship lockstep/rollback demo
(Photon TrueSync)
A complete project/tutorial for the Unity Asset Store, it is a sample game of the moba genre (LoL, Dota
2, Heroes of the Storm, etc) developed in Unity 3D and Photon TrueSync. With a sci­fi setting, it
features well designed OO code (only ~50 scripts with ~50 lines of code each) and the finished pack
will include a MOD Guide (no programming required), a complete code tutorial (100+ pages) and a
video series. I'm the ​solo​ ​designer​ and ​programmer​ for this project.

4. Photon Rally​ ­ tutorial (released in December 2016 ­ published by Exit Games)
A complete project/tutorial for the Unity Asset Store, it's been #1 in popularity and gross revenue in
this category since launch. As a tutorial, its code is designed to be easy to understand and expand. The
pack also includes videos, and a detailed PDF code guide. I'm the main ​developer​ of this project.
Cangaço​ (released in June 2014)
Cangaço is a real­time tactics and RPG, where you control a group of cangaceiros (bandits) or volantes
(police) and fight battles in the brazilian backlands. Develop slang and praying abilities with your hero
in 3 single player campaigns with an interconnected plot. I was ​producer​ and ​lead programmer​.
Cangaço Wargame (released in April 2012)
Cangaço Wargame is a turn­based battle game for facebook where you challenge your friends to
become the king of the backlands. Roles: ​producer​ and ​lead programmer​.

5. Enduro & Rally Cerapió/Piocerá (Demo ­ 2013)
Cerapió is a regularity rally for cars, motorcycles and bikes that takes place every year between the
states of Piauí and Ceará in the northeast region of Brazil. The game is a simulation of a regularity rally,
where the player has to pass by the checkpoints in the exact timing, taking penalties for both delays and
early arrivals. The demo uses a realistic physics modeling for several types of cars, also features a
normal (speedy) rally mode where players can compete for the fastest time. Both game modes include
co­driver course advices (portuguese). Roles: ​programmer, game designer and producer​.
Candy Soldier, Terremoto and Cactus 2D (2011)
Cactus 2D is a game development framework for Android, written in Java, and based on LibGDX for
rendering, and other libraries for physics, etc. It was released for free, and two articles were published
in the Mundo Java Journal about it (Candy Soldier is a demo created with the framework). Roles: ​sole
programmer​ for the framework, ​lead programmer​ and ​producer​ for candy soldier.
Tales of Bast (2009)
Tales of Bast was a demo for a mobile RPG developed together with Fernando Ribeiro (creator of the
Unity UMA framework) for SBGames 2009. The game won the ​public choice award​ in the mobile
category. Role: ​programmer​.

6. França Antártica​ ​(2010)
França Antártica was a demo developed during based on the story of the french invasion on Rio de
Janeiro during the 1600’s. I was the ​producer​ and ​lead programmer​, which was my first
experience leading a game development team (5 people ­ I had experience leading programmer teams
before, but this was the first game).
Sperm Racer (2008)
It’s your time to win the game of life by swimming towards the ovum in a fast paced race that’s also full
of danger. Avoid the obstacles, save your stamina and keep the rhythm to be the one and only to
survive. Sperm Racer is a single player racing game with unique mechanics and targeted at casual and
informative gaming over the web. This is a joint project with designer Pedro Thiago, having won a
honorable mention in ​Unity Awards 2008​. Role: ​programmer​ and ​game designer​.
REFERENCES
Chris Wegmann, CEO Exit Games (​christof.wegmann@exitgames.com​) ­ my current boss
Esteban Clua, UFF, NVidia Fellow (​esteban@ic.uff.br​) ­ phd advisor
Jay Santos, Unity3D (​jay@unity3d.com​) ­ Unity evangelist Latin America
Walfredo Cirne, Google (​walfredo@google.com​) ­ masters advisor
Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Lab (​raskar@media.mit.edu​) ­ phd visitor supervisor

7. EXTRAS
A ­ AWARDS RECEIVED
Brazilian National Innovation Awards 2013 ​(1st prize: Infoway’s Idea Pitch)
Prêmio Interaje 2012​ (Web Entrepreneur of the year: Sertão Games)
Google App Engine Awards 2012 ​(Vision Blocks)
SEKE 2012​ (3rd Best Paper ­ ​Working and Playing with SCRUM​)
Vodafone Foundation Wireless Innovation Award 2011​ (1st Prize ­ CATRA/NETRA)
Popular Science’s Best of What’s New 2011​ (CATRA ­ Health)
MIT Global Challenge 2011​ (Public Choice Award ­ CATRA)
MIT Ideas Competition 2011​ ­ (Winner Award ­ CATRA)
B ­ SELECTED PUBLICATION (game­related research)
A Perception Simulation Architecture for Plot Generation of Emergent Storytelling​. BATISTA, D;
Pozzer, C. T; Clua, E. W. G; ​PASSOS, E. B. In: CGAT, 2012, Bali, Indonesia. Proceedings of CGAT
2012.
CATRA: Cataract Maps with Snap­On Eyepiece for Mobile Phones​. PAMPLONA, V. F.; ​PASSOS, E.
B.​; ZIZKA, J.; OLIVEIRA, M. M.; LAWSON, M. E.; CLUA, E. W. G.; RASKAR, R. ACM Transactions on
Graphics, v. 30, p. 10, 2011. Presented at SIGGRAPH 2011. Vancouver, Canada, August 2011.
Sound Wave Propagation Applied in Games​. ZAMITH, M.; ​PASSOS, E.​; BRANDAO, D. N.; CLUA, E.
W. G.; MONTENEGRO, A.; TOLEDO, R. L.; KISCHINHEVSKY, M. In: Proceedings of the IX Brazilian
Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment, Florianopolis­SC, Brazil. 2010.
A Bidimentional Data­Structure and Spatial Optimization for Supermassive Crowd Simulation on
GPU​. ​PASSOS, E. B.​; JOSELLI, M. E.; ZAMITH, M. P.; MONTENEGRO, A.; CLUA, E. W. G.; FEIJO,
B. In: ACM Computers in Entertainment: CIE, Volume 7, Issue 4, Article #60, 2009.
Smart Composition of Game Objects using Dependency Injection​. ​PASSOS, E. B.​; SOUSA, J. W.;
CLUA, E. W. G; MURTA. L. In: ACM Computers in Entertainment., Volume 7, Issue 4, Article #53,
2009.
Neuronal Editor Agent for Scene Cutting in Game Cinematography​. ​PASSOS, E. B.​;
MONTENEGRO, A.; CLUA, E. W. G. In: ACM Computers in Entertainment: CIE, Volume 7, Issue 4,
Article #57, 2009.
Hierarchical PNF Networks: A Temporal Model of Events for the Representation and Dramatization
of Stories​. ​PASSOS, E. B.​; POZZER. C. T.; MONTENEGRO, Anselmo; SILVA. F. S. C.; CLUA, E. W.
G. In: Proceedings of the VIII SBGames, Rio de Janeiro­RJ, Brazil. 2009.
Real time feature­based parallel morphing in GPU applied to texture­based animation​. ZAMITH, M.;
CLUA, E. W. G.; MONTENEGRO, A.; ​PASSOS, E. ​B.​; LEAL, R.; CONCI, A. IEEE Proc. of the 16th
IWSSIP. London. Region 8, 2009. v. 16. p. 145­150.
A Novel Algorithm to Verify the Solution of Geometric Puzzle Games​. SIQUEIRA, M.; ALVES, R.;
CLUA, E.; ​PASSOS, E. B.​; SILVA C.; MONTENEGRO, A.; OLIVEIRA, J. C. In: VIII Brazilian
Symposium on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment, Rio de Janeiro­RJ, Brazil. 2009.
Supermassive Crowd Simulation on GPU based on Emergent Behavior​. ​PASSOS, E. B.​; JOSELLI,
M.; ZAMITH, M. P.; MONTENEGRO, A.; CLUA, E. W. G.; FEIJO, Bruno. In: VII Brazilian Symposium
on Computer Games and Digital Entertainment, 2008, Belo Horizonte­MG, Brazil. SBGames 2008
Proceedings, 2008. (​conference best paper​).