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May 15, 2025: Currently reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen š
May 5, 2025: 10 years ago, I shut down the most popular thing Iād ever made (on my own). Iām now back in a place life/career-wise where Iām once again going to ā¦
May 2, 2025: Thereās no escaping Microsoft Copilot
Apr 30, 2025: I passed the AWS test today, so I can continue to be āAWS Certified Security ā Specialtyā until 2028.
Apr 22, 2025: Abandoned for now: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter š The core concept is really cool, but after a few chapters I found myself not really caring ā¦
Apr 22, 2025: April into May I think Iām just not going to write about whatās happening at my job again until thereās some definitive resolution. Itās too fluid, and that isnāt ā¦
Apr 18, 2025: I added an update to this morningās post: the RIF is once again on hold. Or at least, access to systems isnāt being turned off and we wonāt be placed ā¦
Apr 18, 2025: RIF'ed update: things are on hold again. Along with 1,400 of my closest friends, I received a āReduction in Forceā notice yesterday. At 6pm today, Iāll no ā¦
Apr 12, 2025: Currently reading: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter š
Apr 12, 2025: Finished reading: Frank Millerās Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller š
Apr 4, 2025: I passed the Security+ exam yesterday: Tip: if one of the options is ārisk registerā, the answer is probably ārisk registerā.
Apr 3, 2025: Currently reading: Frank Millerās Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller š
Mar 28, 2025: Finished Listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley š
Mar 28, 2025: Finished reading: Berlin by Jason Lutes š
Mar 20, 2025: Lately Iām still employed (and even doing some work, given that FISMA-related work counts as āstatutory dutiesā). The next milestone there seems to be ā¦
Mar 9, 2025: Who will do this work? Today, with my family, I watched the first episode of Human Footprint, which is about invasive species. Itās full of US government employees (I ā¦
Mar 1, 2025: RL The kiddo and I worked through this Godot Reinforcement Learning tutorial, and (after some troubleshooting to get onnx to install) it worked! We ā¦
Feb 26, 2025: Currently listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley š Respect and fear the cold chain.
Feb 23, 2025: Does that mean there are more marshmallow butt games?
Feb 23, 2025: Currently reading: Berlin by Jason Lutes š
Feb 22, 2025: Robo Rampage Iāve finished āRobo Rampageā, and thus Iām done with the Complete Godot 3D course. Towards the end, I kind of wanted to just get it over with, so I ā¦
Feb 22, 2025: My day todayā¦
Feb 21, 2025: dot plan This week, work is still in a holding pattern. I applied to a good number of jobs, talked to people, and un-mothballed one of my earliest Godot ā¦
Feb 20, 2025: Finished reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard š Interesting book! In explaining āgame magicā, the author spends a lot of time delving into magic as ā¦
Feb 17, 2025: Finished Listening: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle š Done with Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection!
Feb 16, 2025: Benjamin and I have started a game jam: Crazzzy 4X Jam!
Feb 14, 2025: Become a Solution Architect looks promising: free training over 8 weeks, starts this weekend.
Feb 14, 2025: Yesterday, I spent a little time polishing my resume and applying to jobs, and took another AWS Security practice exam. The rumor mill says the hammer ā¦
Feb 13, 2025: Cease'ed So far itās been four days since I and most of my colleagues were ordered not to work. I started the week getting over a cold, so didnāt do much of ā¦
Feb 3, 2025: Rolling is Spinning Benjaminās recent game jam entry is Rolling is Spinning. It gets pretty tricky at the end! I did the coding, following his concept and directions. He ā¦
Jan 25, 2025: Game dev-ing lately Iāve been helping my son on an entry for the Boss Rush Jam 2025ā the concepts are his, most of the art is royalty free stuff from a humble bundle, ā¦
Jan 18, 2025: Finished Listening: His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle š
Jan 17, 2025: Iāve been checking out some older games in my Steam library that I havenāt played much. Iām not sure exactly what Jazzpunk is about yet, but I got to ā¦
Jan 13, 2025: Just a little bit of Barbarian Blaster, the 2nd of 3 projects taught in Complete Godot 3D. I was surprised that the first two projects are basically ā¦
Jan 3, 2025: It turns out, I donāt have to use the ārawhideā version of Fedora just to get an updated kernelā so now the new machine is on Fedora 41, and Iām ā¦
Jan 3, 2025: If youāve made a resolution to create your own website or blog (or have just been thinking about it) micro.one is a great way to get started. ā¦
Jan 1, 2025: new year, new rig Every three or four years I get the urge to build a PC. Most of the time, the urge passes and I move on to other ideas/projects/what have you. This ā¦
Dec 31, 2024: Dance like no one is watching, love like youāve never been hurt, sing like no one is listening, and never give Brian Krebs a reason to call your mom.
Dec 28, 2024: ā2025: the year of 3D Somewhere along the line, I told myself a story: Before making 3D games, I needed to learn 3D, as in get a handle on 3D graphics as a general topic, ā¦
Dec 23, 2024: Finished listening: The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle š I really enjoyed this one! It makes me want to learn some more about the Molly Maguires ā¦
Dec 19, 2024: Iāve finished the Inkscape course I was working through. I think it was worthwhileā the biggest aha! moments were: shape builder, the mesh tool, ā¦
Dec 11, 2024: Itās unfortunate that itch.io got taken down because of an escalating set of automated processes and overreactionsā but itās got me thinking about ā¦
Dec 10, 2024: Finished Listening: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle š
Dec 10, 2024: Currently reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard š
Dec 10, 2024: Finished reading: Light It, Shoot It! by Graham Chaffee š Honestly this felt a little rushed, it was over before I had a chance to really care about ā¦
Dec 8, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 3 by Riad Sattouf š
Dec 7, 2024: I decided I was tired of faking my way through Inkscape, so I grabbed this course on sale a few days ago. Iām about an hour into the course, but ā¦
Dec 3, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 2 by Riad Sattouf š
Dec 3, 2024: Nora Reed says you should have a website If you donāt want to learn to use technology, other people will use it for you, and they will use it to ā¦
Dec 3, 2024: Iāve submitted Pinball Putt to the 1-Button Game Jam. A mini-golf/pinball mashup where you need to earn enough points to pass a level, without ā¦
Dec 1, 2024: OK, Iām pretty happy that the dethrace project exists so that I can play Carmageddon natively on linux.
Dec 1, 2024: My āchill mini golf gameā for the 1-Button Jam is coming togetherā though I donāt think Iāll be done for the 5pm deadline tomorrow. Luckily, the ā¦
Nov 28, 2024: I had hoped to complete a couple more obstacles/gadgets today, but only got this pinball-style bumper working. Iām happy with the mouse graphic that ā¦
Nov 27, 2024: Iāve added an āattract modeā bot that plays plausibly but seldom successfully. It canāt really deal with obstacles yet.
Nov 27, 2024: Iāve migrated fediverse following/followers over to my profile on mastodon.gamedev.place. ross.karchner.com will now cross-post to that account. Iāve ā¦
Nov 26, 2024: Working on a chill mini-golf game for the 1-Button Jam. [image or embed] ā RossK (Nellee Hooper Edit) ā¦
Nov 20, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf š
Nov 16, 2024: The Smithsonian has a model of the ship from Close Encounters of the 3rd kind. If you look closely you can find R2D2 and a couple of other Easter ā¦
Nov 13, 2024: Another year in your feed I was on the fence a bit, but I allowed my yearly micro.blog subscription renew today. There are a thousand ways to put a site or blog up online, but ā¦
Nov 10, 2024: Finished Listening: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle š
Nov 8, 2024: Finished reading: Delights: a Story of Hieronymus Bosch by Guy Colwell š
Nov 5, 2024: I had a couple of ideas for the Github Game Off, but Iām kind of feeling more motivated to work on SpinDocā though I think my plan this month is to ā¦
Nov 5, 2024: Currently reading: Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman š
Oct 31, 2024: Not much obvious has changed since my last post about SpinDocā I did rework a lot of how the wands work behind the scenes. I had been rotating the ā¦
Oct 28, 2024: Finished reading: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle š
Oct 26, 2024: Finished reading: Little Black Book by Jeff McComsey š
Oct 25, 2024: Finished reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet š
Oct 23, 2024: Currently reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet š
Oct 19, 2024: Maybe itās time for for a little station ID? Even though you might be seeing this on Mastodon, Bluesky, or elsewhereā youāre reading my (Rossās) blog, ā¦
Oct 17, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 3 by G. Willow Wilson š
Oct 11, 2024: Who wants to start a news show with me?
Oct 11, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 2 by G. Willow Wilson š
Oct 8, 2024: SpinDoc Some progress on āSpinDocā: āringsā (aka, dots you can only use once) enemy wands that can move to appropriately colored dots By the end of this ā¦
Oct 8, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 1 by G. Willow Wilson š
Oct 5, 2024: Finished Listening: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle š
Oct 4, 2024: Finished reading: Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore š
Sep 26, 2024: Finished reading: Marvels š
Sep 23, 2024: How to Read Superhero Comics and why Finished reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock š This was more academic than I was expecting (full of words like āmisprisionā ā¦
Sep 21, 2024: Iāve been working through Firebellyās new course: Create a Complete Grid-Based Puzzle Game in Godot 4 with C#. Why? I learned a ton by taking his ā¦
Sep 21, 2024: Itās nothing to be too proud of yet, but Iāve made some progress on my Spin Doctor remake/tribute/spiritual successor/what have you. This is a ā¦
Sep 21, 2024: Donāt worry about the smoke
Sep 11, 2024: Currently reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock š Recommendation from Robin Sloanās newsletter.
Sep 9, 2024: Abandoned for now: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville š I got about halfway through, but itās been a few weeks since I picked it upā just too many other ā¦
Aug 30, 2024: The kiddo and I have been playing some Warcraft 2. Itās early yet, but Iām a little surprised by how āscorched earthā some of these scenarios are. ā¦
Aug 25, 2024: Postmortem: Quack Circuits / Godot WIld Jam 72 The ratings are in, and Quack Circuitsā¦ ranked near the bottom in most categories (there were 156 submissions). Getting 21st in āoriginalityā suits me ā¦
Aug 25, 2024: Planet of the All My Apes Gone This morning I was thinking back on some videos Iāve watched (like this) about abandoned NFT games, and it occurred to me that such a virtual world ā¦
Aug 24, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sign of the Four by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE š
Aug 18, 2024: So, I had a serviceable puzzle game. The feedback in the Karchner household was pretty much: Thatās boring. You should make the game less boring. So ā¦
Aug 17, 2024: Iāve updated the deployment pipelines for Pong Wars and the current WIP to use Godot 4.3. While I was at it, I updated the Pong Wars pipeline to push ā¦
Aug 16, 2024: Despite previous predictions, I havenāt gotten a chance to work on improving the art and adding sound, music, polish, etc yet. Iāve got until 4pm ā¦
Aug 16, 2024: If Sour Patch Kids made a beer, itād taste like āVolcano Sauceā. (please send more volcano sauce)
Aug 15, 2024: Currently reading: Policy as Code by Jimmy Ray š
Aug 14, 2024: Finished Listening: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle š (Iām actually listening to Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen ā¦
Aug 12, 2024: Itās not a game yetā but itās interactive! By tomorrow night, I should be able to have a couple of playable levels, and that will leave me most of a ā¦
Aug 11, 2024: A feeble #screenshotsaturday for my Godot Wild Jam work in progress. The current idea is something like Pipe Mania meets Snap Crcuits. This screenshot ā¦
Aug 9, 2024: The theme is out for Godot Wild Jam #72. Itās a good thing I spent time last night finally figuring out how to make 2D lighting and shadows workā¦
Aug 6, 2024: I decided to dip into Threads a bit over the last few days: itās mostly people talking about Twitter, Elon Musk, and the new Deadpool movie. One of ā¦
Aug 6, 2024: GWJ72 When I was writing this post, I almost committed to sitting out game jams for a while, in order to focus on a small number of longer-term projects. ā¦
Aug 4, 2024: The previously seen water shader, applied to a sphere (by request):
Aug 3, 2024: Finished reading: In Perpetuity by Maria and Peter Hoey š
Jul 25, 2024: Finished Listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers š
Jul 25, 2024: Switched the blog theme to Sumo by Matt Langford.
Jul 25, 2024: Finishing up Godot 4 Shaders: Craft Stunning Visuals, here are some 3D shaders:
Jul 23, 2024: Iām enjoying Kaan Alparās Godot Shaders course, and finished the 2D section last night. In this video, the animated background, greyscale, distortion, ā¦
Jul 21, 2024: Currently listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers š
Jul 19, 2024: Finished Listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport š
Jul 16, 2024: What's next for games? Two years ago, while my son was attending an event at the library, I spent some time flipping through a book about the Unity game engine (maybe this ā¦
Jul 15, 2024: Iām working on a tech-company name generator for a project, some examples from a recent run: Vibrant Institute The Logic Company Urban Mammoth The ā¦
Jul 12, 2024: In the NYT top 100 books of the 21st century, Iāve only read the two graphic novels and a book about comic books authorsā¦
Jul 9, 2024: Currently listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport š
Jul 9, 2024: Finished Listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan š Itās been a while since Iāve had the sensation of being sad when a book ends. I want to spend more time ā¦
Jul 6, 2024: Currently reading: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville š Not my first time starting, but maybe recording it here will motivate me to finish.
Jul 6, 2024: Finished reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed š
Jul 4, 2024: Currently reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed š
Jun 28, 2024: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris š
Jun 26, 2024: Got tickets for Fredericksburg Comic Con.
Jun 26, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris š
Jun 26, 2024: Finished reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed š
Jun 24, 2024: Currently listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan š
Jun 22, 2024: Ever since I started tinkering with gamedev (and Godot specifically), one thing Iāve periodically attempted is a recreation of the mac game Spin ā¦
Jun 22, 2024: Finished Listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff š
Jun 22, 2024: Iāve been waiting my whole life for this email.
Jun 20, 2024: My excellent son Benjamin(10) has created BenKardian, his two-player take on the classic solitaire game Accordian.
Jun 19, 2024: Sometimes I play games I still havenāt entirely kicked the Marvel Snap habit, but I feel like Iāve made peace with it. Itās a thing I enjoy, so I shouldnāt beat myself up ā¦
Jun 18, 2024: Currently reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed š
Jun 18, 2024: Finished reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy š Much shorter than the ā¦
Jun 17, 2024: Currently reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy š
Jun 17, 2024: Finished reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy š Good stuff, Iāll probably go back to the more practical chapters ā¦
Jun 13, 2024: Current view:
Jun 10, 2024: Finished reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers š I skimmed some chapters, but will definitely keep it around for ā¦
Jun 9, 2024: GameDev.tv jam results for The Last Stan: Iām happy to have gotten #59 (out of over 1000) in the mechanics category, and a decent showing ā¦
Jun 7, 2024: I donāt like this new world where swiping your credit card at a business automatically signs you up to receive their marketing emails.
Jun 4, 2024: āThe Last Stanā is live on itch.io and submitted to the gamedev.tv jam. Itās a platformer, with typing. Itās not my favorite thing Iāve made, but I ā¦
Jun 1, 2024: Hey, an actual #screenshotsaturday : For the gamedev.tv jam, Iām working on a platformer where you escape alien ships and defeat ground-based enemies ā¦
May 30, 2024: I spent the first part of my life in the Hazleton, PA area. Hereās a really cool 10 minute video about the ācity under the cityā, a legacy of the coal ā¦
May 29, 2024: I never thought Iād say this, butā¦ I get too many emails from Run the Jewels.
May 28, 2024: Whole Earth š Currently listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff š A year or two back, I listened to Tom Wolfeās āThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Testā, and soon after, ā¦
May 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 by Steven L. Kent š
May 24, 2024: I think Iāll try to make something for this yearās gamedev.tv jam(which kicks off tonight), if the theme is interesting. Ten days to work, and every ā¦
May 19, 2024: Iāve made a few minor fixes to Zummoning recently: Cards get dealt in a smoother, less jerky manner Help text now stays on screen for as long as your ā¦
May 19, 2024: Currently reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy š
May 18, 2024: Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or The Continuing Adventures of Miles OāBrien.
May 17, 2024: Orchestrator I spent some time last night and this morning learning about Orchestrator, a visual scripting plugin for Godot. I was mostly taking a look to see if ā¦
May 15, 2024: GameOps I used the Pong Wars deployment as an excuse to try out GitHub actions. Itās nice! Almost too nice, like the fact that itās free makes me suspicious. ā¦
May 13, 2024: Pong Wars Iāve published my Godot re-creation of Pong Wars by Koen van Gilst on GitHub (and embedded it below!) Itās not exactly a gameā more of a āvisual toyā. ā¦
May 11, 2024: People who think the web is dead or dying havenāt used the Dominoās Pizza Tracker.
May 10, 2024: I recently updated my /games page so that each game has video.
May 6, 2024: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris š
May 5, 2024: The kiddo and I had a good time at NOVA Game Developers Meetup this afternoon! It was fun to play games, show what weāve worked on, and chat with ā¦
May 4, 2024: Today is Free Comic Day, for those who observe
May 1, 2024: Itās like they really see me.
Apr 29, 2024: GWJ 68 Results Honestly, I had convinced myself that I was going to rank higher in Godot Wild Jam #68, at least in the originality category. Being in the top third ā¦
Apr 25, 2024: Hereās footage of gamedev and streamer ObsidianBlk playing The Zummoning!. Heās got some (entirely fair) critical feedback, which I respond to (in ā¦
Apr 25, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris š Part 2 comes out next month, and I want to refresh my memory of the characters and ā¦
Apr 25, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman š
Apr 21, 2024: Zummoning Redux Iāve made many improvements in the new version of āThe Zummoningā submitted to Godot Wild Jam. Unfortunately, the name isnāt one of them. Oh well. ā¦
Apr 19, 2024: More Zummoning Iām cleaning up āThe Zummoningā for submission to Godot Wild Jam this weekend (The GWJ folks usually disallow games submitted to other jams, but make ā¦
Apr 16, 2024: If this works, then this blog post was published with Godot!
Apr 16, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman š
Apr 15, 2024: āThe Zummoningā (which only occurred to me when I realized I had to name the thing) has been submitted to Ludum Dare 55. It needs a TON of work, butā¦ ā¦
Apr 14, 2024: I think Iām onto something promising, but Iām not feeling confident that this will actually be a fun game and not look like ass by the jam deadline ā¦
Apr 13, 2024: 19 or so hours into this 72-hour game jam, and Iām only just starting to code. So far, Iāve spent time researching demons, sketching out a magic ā¦
Apr 13, 2024: What privacy laws only apply to ages 13-15?
Apr 11, 2024: Working on a Godot recreation of Pong Wars. I might write this up as a tutorial?
Apr 9, 2024: I struggle to resist: Monte Cristo on a restaurant menu bread pudding on a restaurant menu audio humblebundles
Apr 7, 2024: Currently reading: Make Your Own Pixel Art by Jennifer Dawe š Iāve started a few video tutorials on pixel art, but didnāt manage to stick with it. ā¦
Apr 6, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman š
Apr 4, 2024: I love that electoral-vote.com basically looks the same as it did in 2000.
Apr 3, 2024: It seems like my schedule is clear enough that Iāll be able to participate in Ludum Dare 55, April 12-15. It was fun last time. My goal on this one is ā¦
Apr 1, 2024: At the kiddoās taekwondo class, where itās āblocking weekā. Somehow, itās never āducking weekā or ārunning away weekā.
Mar 30, 2024: Achievement unlocked: pirating the Webelos Handbook. (I swear, we have a copy in the house, I just canāt find it)
Mar 30, 2024: We rejoined Netflix this week, and Iām a little surprised by how big the included library of Android games has gotten. Any recommendations? Iāve ā¦
Mar 28, 2024: Spoons, Brakes This feels a bit like cheating: but immediately after my last post on the topic, I built a paper prototype of the Spoon Theory game using index cards. ā¦
Mar 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman š Heās not ātaking a bathā, heās in the bath tub.
Mar 24, 2024: The hardest part is starting I still like my spoon-theory game concept (as amended), though thereās a lingering skepticism over whether the thing Iāve described will be fun and ā¦
Mar 22, 2024: I assumed that replacing our aged wireless router (whatever Verizon gave us, 12 or more years ago?) would improve performance, but kind of surprised ā¦
Mar 14, 2024: A Solution Me, a couple of hours ago: Is it possible to take what Iāve described and actually make it fun and challenging? Or, will the right path (or a right ā¦
Mar 14, 2024: Idea File Found this list of ideas I had posted to Twitter over some number of years. Itās not all gold, but I still like a few of them: a first-in, first out ā¦
Mar 14, 2024: Spoon theory game: initial concept and prior art Hereās my initial concept for the spoon theory game: Each level/puzzle is a grid, with a starting location and one or more āmust doā spaces, zero or ā¦
Mar 10, 2024: Finished reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer š
Mar 9, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman š This is my favorite storyline in the whole Sandman seriesā probably because ā¦
Mar 9, 2024: BuJoBook Finished reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll š I skimmed or skipped some of the more philosophical material (like a chapter on ā¦
Mar 8, 2024: Currently reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll š Iāve been using a bullet journal for a couple of years now, but lately, itās beenā¦ I ā¦
Mar 7, 2024: I was thinking about watching Midsommer, but reading the Wikipedia article was just enough horror for me.
Mar 7, 2024: Finished Listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin š
Mar 5, 2024: Spending the evening at Fairfax County Government Center, shuttling election materials between the loading dock (where I found this sign) and offices ā¦
Mar 4, 2024: Currently reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer š
Mar 4, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Dollās House by Neil Gaiman š
Mar 1, 2024: A jam of my own One thing Iāve learned about myself after participating in a couple of game jams: I like having deadlines. So, Iām going to try setting a deadline for ā¦
Feb 29, 2024: Brakes Escape update Iāve done a round of post-jam tweaking on Brakes Escape. The game no longer simply stops generating new platforms (and walls!) once you hit a certain ā¦
Feb 26, 2024: Currently listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin š
Feb 25, 2024: Surprised that, for a published-this-month technical book, Thrift Books had more inventory on hand and a better price than Amazon.
Feb 23, 2024: Results are inā I was hoping for higher scores generally , but Iām pleased with getting #14 in the āfunā category. I am working on an update that ā¦
Feb 20, 2024: āFlash of light-mode contentā is the new flash of unstyled content.
Feb 19, 2024: Godot Wild Jam 66 postmortem Some lessons learned from my recent game jam experience: Donāt wait until the very end of the jam to download the export templates bundle (see ā¦
Feb 18, 2024: Brakes Escape, my submission to Godot Wild Jam #66, is live on itch.io. There are a couple of bugs, half-baked feaures , and other compromises made in ā¦
Feb 18, 2024: Escape game Previously, I posted two ideas for Godot Wild Jam 66. I ended up spending a few days on the first one and realized I didnāt like where it was going ā¦
Feb 14, 2024: Iām the PTA volunteer keeping an eye on our elementary schoolās ātech clubā again this session, and this time theyāre going to be programming drones ā¦
Feb 14, 2024: Iāve been pretty lazy about static typing in GDScript - but itās pretty cool to see that there are performance benefits.
Feb 13, 2024: Want to read: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris š The first book was great, and Iām excited to read what happens next. Maybe Iāll ā¦
Feb 10, 2024: Nah Iām good Samsung
Feb 10, 2024: GWJ ideas Current thinking for the jam, either: starting over from scratch on the NS-Tower-inspired game Iāve tinkered with on and off (see a GIF of it here), ā¦
Feb 9, 2024: Godot Wild Jam #66 Iām signed up for Godot Wild Jam #66, with a theme of āEscapeāā which is pretty straightforward, as far as game jam themes go. I do think itās quite ā¦
Feb 8, 2024: This post from @manton prompted me to finally try out Blueskyā so far, it feels kind of like the uncanny valley version of Twitter? Iāll keep poking ā¦
Feb 7, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Dollās House by Neil Gaiman š (actually, re-listening to Act I of the Audible adaptation of The Sandman, ā¦
Feb 3, 2024: Finished reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew š
Feb 3, 2024: #screenshotsaturday My son and I are still making tweaks to the roguelike that resulted from following @selinadev@indiepocalypse.socialās tutorial: a new spell, visual ā¦
Jan 31, 2024: The lyrics to āParents Just Donāt Understandā arenāt as lighthearted as I remember.
Jan 28, 2024: Currently reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew š
Jan 25, 2024: One of the more annoying differences between gdscript and Python: that Python capitalizes True and False, and gdscript does not.
Jan 24, 2024: Finished reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith š
Jan 24, 2024: Currently reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith š Checked this out for the kid, but Iām a grown-up and I can read it first if I want to.
Jan 23, 2024: Finished Listening: Story by Robert McKee š
Jan 23, 2024: Screen shake makes pretty much anything better.
Jan 19, 2024: Donelike I did the thing! I finished all 13 parts of Selinadevās Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. There were a good number of things that were new to me: procedural ā¦
Jan 15, 2024: I generally donāt care much for professional sports, but I definitely feel some nostalgia for the time before sports betting was everywhere.
Jan 14, 2024: Anti-deliverabity I received a (legit) notice of eligibility for this Verizon settlement in my junk email folder. I know there are best practices and a class of ā¦
Jan 14, 2024: Currently reading: The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca š
Jan 13, 2024: Finished reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom š Honestly, I skimmed quite a bitā some parts seem more geared to engine developers. ā¦
Jan 13, 2024: #screenshotsaturday Iāve finished part 11 of roguelike tutorial. Now, you can delve deeper into the dungeon, and the player gains experience points and levels. Iām ā¦
Jan 13, 2024: This pepper has a pepper in it!
Jan 12, 2024: This history of gamification within games was more interesting than I expected. These are the game-y things like experience points, levels, and ā¦
Jan 11, 2024: Seeing chatter about a new BBEdit release has me a little nostalgic. I used BBEdit Lite while HTML-ifying recipes for Hershey in the 90ās. Iām mostly ā¦
Jan 6, 2024: #screenshotsaturday Iām up to Part 10 of @selinadev@indiepocalypse.socialās Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. Whatās new? Potions to heal with Scrolls of lightning, fireball, ā¦
Jan 4, 2024: ā¦ and that is the most words Iāve written for public consumption, in quite a long time.
Jan 4, 2024: Blogging retrospective Via CRASH THE ARCADE, I learned of Matt Mullenwegās birthday wish: I want you to blog. Publish a post. About anything! It can be long or short, a ā¦
Jan 1, 2024: Finished Listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog š
Jan 1, 2024: Currently listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog š I picked this up after finishing Herzogās memoir, both because the story sounds interesting ā¦
Jan 1, 2024: Gamedev Goals for 2024 In the next year, Iād like to: Watch less YouTube, watch more Udemy, more OāReilly Learning, more books, more blog posts and independent websites. ā¦
Dec 31, 2023: Ending the year by starting a course of paxlovidā¦
Dec 31, 2023: Finished reading: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog š
Dec 30, 2023: I couldnāt stay awayā I once again have an account on the gamedev.place mastodon server. The main thing I missed was #screenshotsaturdayā when I ā¦
Dec 30, 2023: Roguelike, Part 7 I just finished part 7 of the roguelike tutorial. New stuff: Baddies! ā¦ that chase you ā¦ and can also die (but you can die too) A user interface that ā¦
Dec 26, 2023: Currently reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers š Christmas present from the kiddo!
Dec 26, 2023: Currently listening: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog š Forgot to add this, Iām about halfway through. Contains more blood ā¦
Dec 25, 2023: CBS is missing an opportunity to point out that that they have Drew Carey followed by Mariah Carey
Dec 20, 2023: fixed it I usually donāt consider myself very āhandyā, but Iām proud of the job I did today switching which side the refrigerator door opens on. One of the ā¦
Dec 19, 2023: Iāve been working through SelinaDevās Godot 4 roguelike tutorial and I like it so far. I just finished part 4 (of 13). There are no enemies or things ā¦
Dec 17, 2023: Finished reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt š
Dec 14, 2023: Not sure I buy the ādominos fallingā theory, but interesting/sad that Firefox might be about to fall under the USWDS 2% threshold for browser support ā¦
Dec 11, 2023: As of yesterday, Doom is 30 years old
Dec 10, 2023: Itās interesting that Newsblur, Pinboard.in, and micro.blog all make bookmark archiving part of their premium offering. Maybe itās an easy way to add ā¦
Dec 8, 2023: I was a happy Newsblur user for a number of years, but decided to give it a break for while, trying out non-cloud options like Rad Reader. But, none ā¦
Dec 8, 2023: My favorite bit in the new Aesop Rock album might be where he spends a bar explaining the previous line (from ā100 Feet Tallā, a story about running ā¦
Dec 4, 2023: twenty thousand milliseconds Iāve submitted twenty thousand milliseconds to the 20 Second Game Jam. Iām not even necessarily sure it qualifies as a game. Maybe itās more like a ā¦
Dec 1, 2023: Bonus complaint: mastodon polls donāt translate over, they just disappearā compare this to how that conversation appears on micro.blog.
Dec 1, 2023: A month on micro About a month ago, I migrated my mastodon account over to this blog (via micro.blogās built-in support for ActivityPub). Howās that going? Mostly ā¦
Nov 30, 2023: What are your favorite websites that arenāt around anymore?
Nov 27, 2023: Iām not sure weāll watch Merry Little Batman, but it brings me some joy to see Jingle Bells, Batman Smells in an official DC production.
Nov 27, 2023: Decker Iāve likened Godot to Hypercard beforeā they arenāt directly comparable, but my experience using Godot brought back a sense of possibility and fun ā¦
Nov 23, 2023: Currently reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt š
Nov 22, 2023: My excellent co-worker Adam created this online tuner for community radio stations: www.ldial.org (which is also excellent)
Nov 22, 2023: Troubleshooting before coffee I spent at least 30 minutes trying to figure out why the score in my game wasnāt updating past the first point. It would go from 0 to 1, but then ā¦
Nov 22, 2023: This is a good bundle of security books. I can vouch for Threats and Security Culture Playbook being worthwhile, and Software Transparency is on my ā¦
Nov 21, 2023: Testing out Lillihub!
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk by Douglas W. Hubbard š Two chapters in, and I really appreciate learning about: The ā¦
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom š
Nov 21, 2023: I need to study this some more, but there are some good ideas in this cATO playbook, and the manifesto it links to: rise8-us.github.io/cato-playā¦ ā¦
Nov 21, 2023: Considering learning C#. I donāt even know who I am anymore.
Nov 19, 2023: Deadly Class Finished reading: Deadly Class Vol 12: A Fond Farewell, Part Two by Rick Remender š Some of the late-middle volumes were a bit of a drag for me, the ā¦
Nov 15, 2023: Long after Iām dead, there will still be articles using this picture I took in 2004 www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2ā¦
Nov 15, 2023: Personal SEO Iāve been spending some time trying to clean up search results for my name (yeah, kind of douchy, sorry), and one thing thatās been vexing me is my ā¦
Nov 10, 2023: Back to making One week turned into three weeks, but I feel like Iāve worked that particular digital addiction out of my system (and diving in to Snap has actually ā¦
Nov 6, 2023: Bowling with bumpers is underrated. Itās a little more like billiards.
Nov 1, 2023: DragonRuby, which usually costs $48, is free right now, as part of the 20 Second Game Jam
Oct 30, 2023: 13 years ago we were at the Rally to Restore Sanity. Have we restored the sanity yet?
Oct 28, 2023: I let myself get sucked into Marvel Snap this week, so spent more free time playing games instead making them. I have started experimenting with Godot ā¦
Oct 25, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel by Rick Remender š The first four volumes were a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a sort of ā¦
Oct 25, 2023: On the same day I learn about this gallery of Internet Artifacts, I also come across this bit about the worlds oldest continuously-seeded bittorrent ā¦
Oct 22, 2023: As part of Space Day the kiddo and I got to check out the observatory at George Mason University. š· š
Oct 21, 2023: Probably my last post about Ludum Dare 54 maybe The results are in, andā¦ itās nothing to brag about. I do like that innovation is my strongest category again. I donāt know exactly how many entrees ā¦
Oct 21, 2023: I took the plungeā this is now my āhomeā on the fediverse. I think micro.blog has a healthier vision for social media, and Iām really drawn to the ā¦
Oct 21, 2023: The post-jam, cleaned up version of Donāt Get Crushed is now on itch.io rosskarchner.itch.io/dont-get-ā¦
Oct 19, 2023: Got a flier in the mail from Chris Decarlo for Sherrif, which reminds me of his history of rapping campaign videos: youtube.com/@CDRapperā¦
Oct 19, 2023: Iām not lazy, Iām just protecting the ecosystem www.nytimes.com/2023/10/1ā¦
Oct 18, 2023: Currently listening: Story by Robert McKee š
Oct 18, 2023: Finished Listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary š
Oct 18, 2023: Iāve never really worn sunglasses, and now Iāve got my first prescription pair. Meanwhile my regular glasses are at the optometrist to get new lenses ā¦
Oct 18, 2023: Even a ābadā Futurama episode is usually pretty goodā but the worst are the ones that try to be relevant for the time they were released, āripped from ā¦
Oct 16, 2023: Currently listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary š
Oct 16, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class - Regan Youth Media Tie-In by Rick Remender š
Oct 16, 2023: Don't Get Crushed updates š® Here is some weekend progress on Donāt Get Crushed (post-jam version, to be released after the review window closes): Fixed the janky vibrations ā¦
Oct 14, 2023: Jumping Game progress š® Not much visible progress since I lasted posted this game, but I have implemented both the spring platforms and the āslamā mechanic (which can be ā¦
Oct 13, 2023: I temporarily experimented with importing my Mastodon followers to micro.blog. Sorry about the follow-spam!
Oct 13, 2023: From a recent trip to the new LEGO Discovery Center in Springfield, VA š·
Oct 13, 2023: After a couple of days on wordpress.com, I decided it wasnāt for me. So, after a journey in the wilderness, Iām back on micro.blog!
Oct 12, 2023: Morning progress š® So far, I've addressed a few items from the feedback list: There is now a visible score Players can restart the game after dying using the up arrow ā¦
Oct 11, 2023: Ludum Dare 54: Don't Get Crushed Don't Get Crushed was my submission to Ludum Dare 54, my second-ever attempt to enter a game jam. The game didn't end up much like what I was ā¦
Oct 11, 2023: Oh no, not again It's 2023 and I'm starting a blog. Again. Why? I'll write more later, but in the past I've enjoyed have a blog as a sort of public notebook, for ā¦