Hi there! I’m Zack Ovits, aka boatbomber, a 22 year old developer from New York City and the founder of Torpedo Software!

I taught myself how to program when I was 12 years old, and I’ve been developing on Roblox ever since. I love programming and game design, and I really love being a part of a community and helping others.

My games have been played by millions of players and my tools have been used by thousands of developers!

ACHIEVEMENTS / ACCOLADES

• Won Best in Visual Art in RDC2020’s Gamejam and again in RDC2021's Gamejam

• Earned 5 Bloxy Award nominations from Roblox (Quirkiest Game, Best Live Event, Most Educational Game, Most Immersive Environment, Best Educational Game)

• Won 3 Bloxy Awards (Best Live Event, Most Educational Game, Most Immersive Environment)

• Interviewed by a senior writer for two Fortune Magazine articles. [1] [2] 

• Earned a "Best Tech Quote of 2021" from Fortune Magazine alongside Tesla and Intel CEOs. [3]

• Covered by an article in PCGamesN with a stellar review of INTERVAL. [4]

• Youngest Software Engineering intern @ Roblox in Summer 2020

• Gave an interactive workshop/lecture about Roblox gamedev at the 66th World Congress of the IPSF

• Guest lectured at UC Berkeley on the topic of programming and problem solving

• Guest lectured at University of Washington on the topic of game development

• Serving as an Official Event Organizer for Roblox

• Invited into the beta Plugin Marketplace by Roblox

• Participating in Roblox's exclusive Community Feedback program

• Held the title of Roblox Devforum Top Contributor as one of the top 20 most liked users of all time

• Headlined an episode of Level Up on educational game design

• Spoke on the Developer Panel on stage at RDC2021 answering live questions from the crowd

• Spoke on the UI Frameworks panel on stage at RDC2024 answering live questions about declarative UI

CONTACT

PSA: There are scammers who impersonate me to be hired under false pretenses so they can steal your game files and your money. Always double check who you’re really speaking to.

You can contact me through an email to zack@boatbomber.com, or with a direct message on the Roblox Developer Forum, Twitter, or Discord @ boatbomber.

To submit a commission request, use the form button below.

GAMES

Lua Learning

Lua Learning is a community-driven platform (in a Roblox game) created and designed to interactively teach users how to program in Lua, all for free! This game is made entirely by me, and features loads of impressive tech like an in-game IDE, markdown rendering, community tutorial submission, user review systems, and much much more. It has been #1 Top Rated on PC as well as featured on the Learn & Explore sort! It was nominated by Roblox for Most Educational Game in the 2020 Bloxy Awards, and it won!

RB Battles 2020

I was brought on the team as a gameplay and systems engineer. I made the parkour system for the game, some backend systems, a few of the minigames, and most of the final battle live event! I wrote the AI NPCs that the users competed against in the finale, as well as the framework that it ran on. It was nominated by Roblox for Best Live Event in the 2020 Bloxy Awards, and it won!

agn●sia

Made in just 24 hours for the RDC 2020 Gamejam, my team "Titanic in a Bottle" created a sensory experience of a puzzle platformer. We won the 'Excellence in Visual Art' award! Highly critically acclaimed, with glowingly positive reviews from star YouTubers. One such review, calling agn●sia a masterpiece, reached #25 on YouTube Trending for Gaming.
You can watch our presentation here as it goes over the ingenious mechanics, progressive level design, and breathtaking environment.

I N T E R V A L

Made in just 24 hours for the RDC 2021 Gamejam, my team "Titanic in a Bottle" created a puzzle platformer that uses "physics lag" as a time control mechanic. We won the 'Excellence in Visual Art' award! It then won Most Immersive Environment at the 2021 Innovation Awards later. It was covered by PCGamesN in a stellar review. You can watch our presentation here as it goes over the ingenious mechanics, progressive level design, and breathtaking environment.

Swing

A wacky fun physics game I made in a week as a challenge. It was nominated by Roblox for the Quirkiest Game in the 2019 Bloxy Awards!

PLUGINS

InCommand

I collaborated with Elttob to create a plugin that served as a far superior alternative to the command bar- offering multiline editing with syntax highlighting, saving the code, and running as server or client in APS mode. Some of our features were later incorporated into the command bar.

Benchmarker

A powerful tool to help you test and compare performance of functions with graphs, flame charts, percentiles, controlled inputs, and much more! Used by top developers and Roblox engineers, this power user tool is the best of its kind on Roblox.

Preset Manager

A tool to create and apply "presets" to Roblox Instances, a sorely needed feature for many Roblox Developers. Serializes and saves your presets, autosuggests properties and value types, and more.

Code Outline

The first ever code outline in Roblox Studio, designed to aid programmers who use the Studio script editor. Uses a custom Lua parser to derive your code's contents. View and navigate your code's functions and variables at a glance.

Code Minimap

The first ever code minimap in Roblox Studio, designed to aid programmers who use the Studio script editor. View and navigate your code's structure, TODOs, and errors at a glance.

RepoToRoblox

An easy-to-use tool that imports the source of entire GitHub repositories into your workspace, with QoL features that support standard project structures.

Collaborative Notes

The Roblox TeamCreate chat window is filtered so poorly that it is utterly useless, so I found an interesting gray area in ToS policy to write a plugin that uses cool networking methods to have something that totally "isn't" a replacement chat. ;)

WEBSITES

Lua Learning

As part of the Roblox Open Cloud Datastore Beta, I developed https://www.lualearning.org as a way for users to browse and search the tutorial content of Lua Learning without needing to join the Roblox game!

OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS

WindShake

High performance wind effect for leaves and foliage. Granular controls and neat APIs make this a great tool for bringing a world to life.
Using octrees and bulk CFrame sets, this module ran 77,750+ leaves at 400+ FPS.
This open source module became so widely used, it started a small Twitter trend.

"Dual Render" Scope System

The first ever dual render scope on Roblox.

This is featured on the official Roblox Blog, as well as the verified Twitter!
It was pretty revolutionary when I first made it, as ViewportFrames had only been released very recently.

Screen Distortion Raindrops

Raindrops that drip down the screen, distorting the world.

This became a very popular effect, even being showcased in games in Roblox promo on Times Square billboards and their Investor Day livestream of Feb 2021.

GradientCanvas

A canvas renderer using greedy UIGradients to draw efficiently in Roblox using a custom compression algorithm based on CIE76 color diffing.

ViewportCanvas

A canvas renderer using BaseParts inside a ViewportFrame for high resolution image rendering in Roblox using a 2D meshing algorithm based on CIE76 color diffing.

VPF Camera System

A system to easily implement security cameras, stadium jumbotrons, and more.

3D Sound

Using an EqualizerSoundEffect and some angular math, I wrote a module that gives proper 3D sound with frequency dampening at realistic angles.

SmoothScroll

Roblox ScrollingFrames jumped to position, rather than moving the canvas smoothly. I wrote SmoothScroll as a plug-n-play solution, with settings for sensitivity and friction.
Roblox has since added smooth scrolling as default behavior, but my module is still useful for those who want custom sensitivity or friction.

HashLib

Ported and optimized a large library of cryptographic hashing algorithms for Luau. It is used by the official GameAnalytics Roblox SDK! Very useful for security, and I wrote another module in the linked thread that uses HashLib to create a secure and customizable login system.

Image Clipping Module

Roblox does not have any way to apply clipping masks to images, so I wrote a module that uses clever mesh tricks to do that for you.
This was featured by the Developer Relations verified Twitter account!

VPF Replay

A powerful module to record & replay moments in your game for killcams, recaps, highlights, or anything else you desire.

GraphModule

A handy module that draws a graph of the data you give it, handling all the complicated math and state management for you.

GridCreator

A grid module that supports 3 different render methods to allow the user to choose a tradeoff, and utilizes proxies to detect changes and handle all the backend and mesh manipulation automatically.

BoatTween

A customizable and versatile alternative to Roblox's TweenService, with over 32 EasingStyles.

Highlighter

A Luau lexer and syntax highlighter utilizing RichText overlays.

TextBox+

A plug-n-play module that extends Roblox's TextBox functionality, adding features such as undo and redo support.

Bounds Constrained Highlighter

A module to highlight specified part when within set bounds. Useful for digital threat optics or detection equipment.

Audio Visualizer Bars

A module that handles all the heavy lifting and maths for audio visualization. With just a gui, a sound, and this module, you can make audio visualizers of various LoDs for your game's interface.

NumberSpinner

A module for animated number displays. Uses proxies to automatically handle all your changes and values without you needing to ever call functions yourself!

DONATIONS