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Jun 22, 2025: The Invisible Alligator I’m not that proud of The Invisible Alligator in its current form, but the Godot Wild Jam 82 deadline is here, and it’s nice to ship a game after …
Jun 19, 2025: Finished reading: Drawing Blood by Kevin Eastman 📚 Confession: I picked this up thinking it was non-fiction and that Shane Bookman was a real author.
Jun 17, 2025: One of the nice things about going to events again is seeing the fancy offices people work in. (brought to you by the seltzer dispenser at The College …
Jun 16, 2025: Currently reading: Drawing Blood by Kevin Eastman 📚
Jun 15, 2025: Musings of an LLM Using Man I know, the internet doesn’t need more words about AI, but not addressing my own usage here feels like an omission. A good deal of the DC Tech Events …
Jun 13, 2025: It turns out that echolocation has definitely been done before.
Jun 13, 2025: It turns out, it wasn’t that difficult to adapt my little loop programming system to 3D. Maybe the year of 3D is back on? For the moment though, I …
Jun 12, 2025: TIL I have an IMDB page, from supporting Adult Rappers on kickstarter 10 years ago.
Jun 12, 2025: How DC Tech Events works The main DC Tech Events site is generated by a custom static generator, in three phases: Loop through the groups directory and download a local copy …
Jun 10, 2025: I’m at the AWS DC summit today and tomorrow. Seems like people are really excited about this AI stuff?
Jun 8, 2025: Rest in peace Bill Atkinson. Hypercard was the thing that really hooked me on computers as a creative tool.
Jun 7, 2025: I want to apply for a job, not join your “talent community”
Jun 6, 2025: Loopnik Begins Some progress on the “beat game” remake (for the moment, called “Loopnik”). It’s much easier now that I have a better idea of what I’m doing and how …
Jun 4, 2025: From so bad it's good to so good it's good My first game jam entry was beat game, submitted to the So Bad It’s Good Game Jam in July 2023. Until then, I’d worked on tutorials, toy projects, and …
Jun 2, 2025: Finished reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen 📚
May 30, 2025: OK– I feel pretty good about the state of DC Tech Events. The newsletter system seems to work, users can submit new iCal feeds in addition to single …
May 22, 2025: My Dr’s office has a small claim to fame. I think there’s a display about the Lorton Meteorite at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
May 20, 2025: DC Tech Events is Live Because you, as a person who reads blogs, are dear to me– you get to be among the first to know that the new DC Tech Events site is live. I’m still …
May 15, 2025: Currently reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen 📚
May 5, 2025: 10 years ago, I shut down the most popular thing I’d ever made (on my own). I’m now back in a place life/career-wise where I’m once again going to …
May 2, 2025: There’s no escaping Microsoft Copilot
Apr 30, 2025: I passed the AWS test today, so I can continue to be “AWS Certified Security – Specialty” until 2028.
Apr 22, 2025: Abandoned for now: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter 📚 The core concept is really cool, but after a few chapters I found myself not really caring …
Apr 22, 2025: April into May I think I’m just not going to write about what’s happening at my job again until there’s some definitive resolution. It’s too fluid, and that isn’t …
Apr 18, 2025: I added an update to this morning’s post: the RIF is once again on hold. Or at least, access to systems isn’t being turned off and we won’t be placed …
Apr 18, 2025: RIF'ed update: things are on hold again. Along with 1,400 of my closest friends, I received a “Reduction in Force” notice yesterday. At 6pm today, I’ll no …
Apr 12, 2025: Currently reading: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter 📚
Apr 12, 2025: Finished reading: Frank Miller’s Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller 📚
Apr 4, 2025: I passed the Security+ exam yesterday: Tip: if one of the options is “risk register”, the answer is probably “risk register”.
Apr 3, 2025: Currently reading: Frank Miller’s Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller 📚
Mar 28, 2025: Finished Listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley 📚
Mar 28, 2025: Finished reading: Berlin by Jason Lutes 📚
Mar 20, 2025: Lately I’m still employed (and even doing some work, given that FISMA-related work counts as “statutory duties”). The next milestone there seems to be …
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. It’s full of US government employees (I …
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 …
Feb 26, 2025: Currently listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley 📚 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 📚
Feb 22, 2025: Robo Rampage I’ve finished “Robo Rampage”, and thus I’m done with the Complete Godot 3D course. Towards the end, I kind of wanted to just get it over with, so I …
Feb 22, 2025: My day today…
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 …
Feb 20, 2025: Finished reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard 📚 Interesting book! In explaining “game magic”, the author spends a lot of time delving into magic as …
Feb 17, 2025: Finished Listening: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚 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 …
Feb 13, 2025: Cease'ed So far it’s been four days since I and most of my colleagues were ordered not to work. I started the week getting over a cold, so didn’t do much of …
Feb 3, 2025: Rolling is Spinning Benjamin’s 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 …
Jan 25, 2025: Game dev-ing lately I’ve been helping my son on an entry for the Boss Rush Jam 2025– the concepts are his, most of the art is royalty free stuff from a humble bundle, …
Jan 18, 2025: Finished Listening: His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚
Jan 17, 2025: I’ve been checking out some older games in my Steam library that I haven’t played much. I’m not sure exactly what Jazzpunk is about yet, but I got to …
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 …
Jan 3, 2025: It turns out, I don’t have to use the “rawhide” version of Fedora just to get an updated kernel– so now the new machine is on Fedora 41, and I’m …
Jan 3, 2025: If you’ve 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. …
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 …
Dec 31, 2024: Dance like no one is watching, love like you’ve never been hurt, sing like no one is listening, and never give Brian Krebs a reason to call your mom.
Dec 28, 2024: 2025: 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, …
Dec 23, 2024: Finished listening: The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚 I really enjoyed this one! It makes me want to learn some more about the Molly Maguires …
Dec 19, 2024: I’ve finished the Inkscape course I was working through. I think it was worthwhile– the biggest aha! moments were: shape builder, the mesh tool, …
Dec 11, 2024: It’s unfortunate that itch.io got taken down because of an escalating set of automated processes and overreactions– but it’s got me thinking about …
Dec 10, 2024: Finished Listening: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚
Dec 10, 2024: Currently reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard 📚
Dec 10, 2024: Finished reading: Light It, Shoot It! by Graham Chaffee 📚 Honestly this felt a little rushed, it was over before I had a chance to really care about …
Dec 8, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 3 by Riad Sattouf 📚
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. I’m about an hour into the course, but …
Dec 3, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 2 by Riad Sattouf 📚
Dec 3, 2024: Nora Reed says you should have a website If you don’t want to learn to use technology, other people will use it for you, and they will use it to …
Dec 3, 2024: I’ve 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 …
Dec 1, 2024: OK, I’m pretty happy that the dethrace project exists so that I can play Carmageddon natively on linux.
Dec 1, 2024: My “chill mini golf game” for the 1-Button Jam is coming together– though I don’t think I’ll be done for the 5pm deadline tomorrow. Luckily, the …
Nov 28, 2024: I had hoped to complete a couple more obstacles/gadgets today, but only got this pinball-style bumper working. I’m happy with the mouse graphic that …
Nov 27, 2024: I’ve added an “attract mode” bot that plays plausibly but seldom successfully. It can’t really deal with obstacles yet.
Nov 27, 2024: I’ve migrated fediverse following/followers over to my profile on mastodon.gamedev.place. ross.karchner.com will now cross-post to that account. I’ve …
Nov 26, 2024: Working on a chill mini-golf game for the 1-Button Jam. [image or embed] — RossK (Nellee Hooper Edit) …
Nov 20, 2024: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf 📚
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 …
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 …
Nov 10, 2024: Finished Listening: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚
Nov 8, 2024: Finished reading: Delights: a Story of Hieronymus Bosch by Guy Colwell 📚
Nov 5, 2024: I had a couple of ideas for the Github Game Off, but I’m kind of feeling more motivated to work on SpinDoc– though I think my plan this month is to …
Nov 5, 2024: Currently reading: Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman 📚
Oct 31, 2024: Not much obvious has changed since my last post about SpinDoc– I did rework a lot of how the wands work behind the scenes. I had been rotating the …
Oct 28, 2024: Finished reading: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚
Oct 26, 2024: Finished reading: Little Black Book by Jeff McComsey 📚
Oct 25, 2024: Finished reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet 📚
Oct 23, 2024: Currently reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet 📚
Oct 19, 2024: Maybe it’s time for for a little station ID? Even though you might be seeing this on Mastodon, Bluesky, or elsewhere– you’re reading my (Ross’s) blog, …
Oct 17, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 3 by G. Willow Wilson 📚
Oct 11, 2024: Who wants to start a news show with me?
Oct 11, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 2 by G. Willow Wilson 📚
Oct 8, 2024: SpinDoc Some progress on “SpinDoc”: “rings” (aka, dots you can only use once) enemy wands that can move to appropriately colored dots By the end of this …
Oct 8, 2024: Finished reading: Air Volume 1 by G. Willow Wilson 📚
Oct 5, 2024: Finished Listening: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚
Oct 4, 2024: Finished reading: Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore 📚
Sep 26, 2024: Finished reading: Marvels 📚
Sep 23, 2024: How to Read Superhero Comics and why Finished reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock 📚 This was more academic than I was expecting (full of words like ‘misprision’ …
Sep 21, 2024: I’ve been working through Firebelly’s new course: Create a Complete Grid-Based Puzzle Game in Godot 4 with C#. Why? I learned a ton by taking his …
Sep 21, 2024: It’s nothing to be too proud of yet, but I’ve made some progress on my Spin Doctor remake/tribute/spiritual successor/what have you. This is a …
Sep 21, 2024: Don’t worry about the smoke
Sep 11, 2024: Currently reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock 📚 Recommendation from Robin Sloan’s newsletter.
Sep 9, 2024: Abandoned for now: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 📚 I got about halfway through, but it’s been a few weeks since I picked it up– just too many other …
Aug 30, 2024: The kiddo and I have been playing some Warcraft 2. It’s early yet, but I’m a little surprised by how “scorched earth” some of these scenarios are. …
Aug 25, 2024: Postmortem: Quack Circuits / Godot WIld Jam 72 The ratings are in, and Quack Circuits… ranked near the bottom in most categories (there were 156 submissions). Getting 21st in “originality” suits me …
Aug 25, 2024: Planet of the All My Apes Gone This morning I was thinking back on some videos I’ve watched (like this) about abandoned NFT games, and it occurred to me that such a virtual world …
Aug 24, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sign of the Four by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 📚
Aug 18, 2024: So, I had a serviceable puzzle game. The feedback in the Karchner household was pretty much: That’s boring. You should make the game less boring. So …
Aug 17, 2024: I’ve 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 …
Aug 16, 2024: Despite previous predictions, I haven’t gotten a chance to work on improving the art and adding sound, music, polish, etc yet. I’ve got until 4pm …
Aug 16, 2024: If Sour Patch Kids made a beer, it’d taste like ‘Volcano Sauce’. (please send more volcano sauce)
Aug 15, 2024: Currently reading: Policy as Code by Jimmy Ray 📚
Aug 14, 2024: Finished Listening: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle 📚 (I’m actually listening to Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen …
Aug 12, 2024: It’s not a game yet– but it’s interactive! By tomorrow night, I should be able to have a couple of playable levels, and that will leave me most of a …
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 …
Aug 9, 2024: The theme is out for Godot Wild Jam #72. It’s a good thing I spent time last night finally figuring out how to make 2D lighting and shadows work…
Aug 6, 2024: I decided to dip into Threads a bit over the last few days: it’s mostly people talking about Twitter, Elon Musk, and the new Deadpool movie. One of …
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. …
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 📚
Jul 25, 2024: Finished Listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers 📚
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: I’m enjoying Kaan Alpar’s Godot Shaders course, and finished the 2D section last night. In this video, the animated background, greyscale, distortion, …
Jul 21, 2024: Currently listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers 📚
Jul 19, 2024: Finished Listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport 📚
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 …
Jul 15, 2024: I’m working on a tech-company name generator for a project, some examples from a recent run: Vibrant Institute The Logic Company Urban Mammoth The …
Jul 12, 2024: In the NYT top 100 books of the 21st century, I’ve only read the two graphic novels and a book about comic books authors…
Jul 9, 2024: Currently listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport 📚
Jul 9, 2024: Finished Listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan 📚 It’s been a while since I’ve had the sensation of being sad when a book ends. I want to spend more time …
Jul 6, 2024: Currently reading: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville 📚 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 📚
Jul 4, 2024: Currently reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 28, 2024: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚
Jun 26, 2024: Got tickets for Fredericksburg Comic Con.
Jun 26, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris 📚
Jun 26, 2024: Finished reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 24, 2024: Currently listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan 📚
Jun 22, 2024: Ever since I started tinkering with gamedev (and Godot specifically), one thing I’ve periodically attempted is a recreation of the mac game Spin …
Jun 22, 2024: Finished Listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff 📚
Jun 22, 2024: I’ve 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 haven’t entirely kicked the Marvel Snap habit, but I feel like I’ve made peace with it. It’s a thing I enjoy, so I shouldn’t beat myself up …
Jun 18, 2024: Currently reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed 📚
Jun 18, 2024: Finished reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy 📚 Much shorter than the …
Jun 17, 2024: Currently reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy 📚
Jun 17, 2024: Finished reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy 📚 Good stuff, I’ll probably go back to the more practical chapters …
Jun 13, 2024: Current view:
Jun 10, 2024: Finished reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers 📚 I skimmed some chapters, but will definitely keep it around for …
Jun 9, 2024: GameDev.tv jam results for The Last Stan: I’m happy to have gotten #59 (out of over 1000) in the mechanics category, and a decent showing …
Jun 7, 2024: I don’t like this new world where swiping your credit card at a business automatically signs you up to receive their marketing emails.
Jun 4, 2024: “The Last Stan” is live on itch.io and submitted to the gamedev.tv jam. It’s a platformer, with typing. It’s not my favorite thing I’ve made, but I …
Jun 1, 2024: Hey, an actual #screenshotsaturday : For the gamedev.tv jam, I’m working on a platformer where you escape alien ships and defeat ground-based enemies …
May 30, 2024: I spent the first part of my life in the Hazleton, PA area. Here’s a really cool 10 minute video about the “city under the city”, a legacy of the coal …
May 29, 2024: I never thought I’d say this, but… I get too many emails from Run the Jewels.
May 28, 2024: Whole Earth 📚 Currently listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff 📚 A year or two back, I listened to Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, and soon after, …
May 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 by Steven L. Kent 📚
May 24, 2024: I think I’ll try to make something for this year’s gamedev.tv jam(which kicks off tonight), if the theme is interesting. Ten days to work, and every …
May 19, 2024: I’ve 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 …
May 19, 2024: Currently reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy 📚
May 18, 2024: Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or The Continuing Adventures of Miles O’Brien.
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 …
May 15, 2024: GameOps I used the Pong Wars deployment as an excuse to try out GitHub actions. It’s nice! Almost too nice, like the fact that it’s free makes me suspicious. …
May 13, 2024: Pong Wars I’ve published my Godot re-creation of Pong Wars by Koen van Gilst on GitHub (and embedded it below!) It’s not exactly a game– more of a “visual toy”. …
May 11, 2024: People who think the web is dead or dying haven’t used the Domino’s 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 📚
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 we’ve worked on, and chat with …
May 4, 2024: Today is Free Comic Day, for those who observe
May 1, 2024: It’s 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 …
Apr 25, 2024: Here’s footage of gamedev and streamer ObsidianBlk playing The Zummoning!. He’s got some (entirely fair) critical feedback, which I respond to (in …
Apr 25, 2024: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris 📚 Part 2 comes out next month, and I want to refresh my memory of the characters and …
Apr 25, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman 📚
Apr 21, 2024: Zummoning Redux I’ve made many improvements in the new version of “The Zummoning” submitted to Godot Wild Jam. Unfortunately, the name isn’t one of them. Oh well. …
Apr 19, 2024: More Zummoning I’m cleaning up “The Zummoning” for submission to Godot Wild Jam this weekend (The GWJ folks usually disallow games submitted to other jams, but make …
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 📚
Apr 15, 2024: “The Zummoning” (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, but… …
Apr 14, 2024: I think I’m onto something promising, but I’m not feeling confident that this will actually be a fun game and not look like ass by the jam deadline …
Apr 13, 2024: 19 or so hours into this 72-hour game jam, and I’m only just starting to code. So far, I’ve spent time researching demons, sketching out a magic …
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 📚 I’ve started a few video tutorials on pixel art, but didn’t manage to stick with it. …
Apr 6, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman 📚
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 I’ll be able to participate in Ludum Dare 55, April 12-15. It was fun last time. My goal on this one is …
Apr 1, 2024: At the kiddo’s taekwondo class, where it’s “blocking week”. Somehow, it’s never “ducking week” or “running away week”.
Mar 30, 2024: Achievement unlocked: pirating the Webelos Handbook. (I swear, we have a copy in the house, I just can’t find it)
Mar 30, 2024: We rejoined Netflix this week, and I’m a little surprised by how big the included library of Android games has gotten. Any recommendations? I’ve …
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. …
Mar 28, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman 📚 He’s not “taking a bath”, he’s in the bath tub.
Mar 24, 2024: The hardest part is starting I still like my spoon-theory game concept (as amended), though there’s a lingering skepticism over whether the thing I’ve described will be fun and …
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 …
Mar 14, 2024: A Solution Me, a couple of hours ago: Is it possible to take what I’ve described and actually make it fun and challenging? Or, will the right path (or a right …
Mar 14, 2024: Idea File Found this list of ideas I had posted to Twitter over some number of years. It’s not all gold, but I still like a few of them: a first-in, first out …
Mar 14, 2024: Spoon theory game: initial concept and prior art Here’s my initial concept for the spoon theory game: Each level/puzzle is a grid, with a starting location and one or more “must do” spaces, zero or …
Mar 10, 2024: Finished reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer 📚
Mar 9, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman 📚 This is my favorite storyline in the whole Sandman series– probably because …
Mar 9, 2024: BuJoBook Finished reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll 📚 I skimmed or skipped some of the more philosophical material (like a chapter on …
Mar 8, 2024: Currently reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll 📚 I’ve been using a bullet journal for a couple of years now, but lately, it’s been… I …
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 📚
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 …
Mar 4, 2024: Currently reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer 📚
Mar 4, 2024: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman 📚
Mar 1, 2024: A jam of my own One thing I’ve learned about myself after participating in a couple of game jams: I like having deadlines. So, I’m going to try setting a deadline for …
Feb 29, 2024: Brakes Escape update I’ve 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 …
Feb 26, 2024: Currently listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
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 in– I was hoping for higher scores generally , but I’m pleased with getting #14 in the “fun” category. I am working on an update that …
Feb 20, 2024: “Flash of light-mode content” is the new flash of unstyled content.
Feb 19, 2024: Godot Wild Jam 66 postmortem Some lessons learned from my recent game jam experience: Don’t wait until the very end of the jam to download the export templates bundle (see …
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 …
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 didn’t like where it was going …
Feb 14, 2024: I’m the PTA volunteer keeping an eye on our elementary school’s “tech club” again this session, and this time they’re going to be programming drones …
Feb 14, 2024: I’ve been pretty lazy about static typing in GDScript - but it’s 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 📚 The first book was great, and I’m excited to read what happens next. Maybe I’ll …
Feb 10, 2024: Nah I’m good Samsung
Feb 10, 2024: GWJ ideas Current thinking for the jam, either: starting over from scratch on the NS-Tower-inspired game I’ve tinkered with on and off (see a GIF of it here), …
Feb 9, 2024: Godot Wild Jam #66 I’m signed up for Godot Wild Jam #66, with a theme of “Escape”– which is pretty straightforward, as far as game jam themes go. I do think it’s quite …
Feb 8, 2024: This post from @manton prompted me to finally try out Bluesky– so far, it feels kind of like the uncanny valley version of Twitter? I’ll keep poking …
Feb 7, 2024: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman 📚 (actually, re-listening to Act I of the Audible adaptation of The Sandman, …
Feb 3, 2024: Finished reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew 📚
Feb 3, 2024: #screenshotsaturday My son and I are still making tweaks to the roguelike that resulted from following @selinadev@indiepocalypse.social’s tutorial: a new spell, visual …
Jan 31, 2024: The lyrics to “Parents Just Don’t Understand” aren’t as lighthearted as I remember.
Jan 28, 2024: Currently reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew 📚
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 📚
Jan 24, 2024: Currently reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith 📚 Checked this out for the kid, but I’m a grown-up and I can read it first if I want to.
Jan 23, 2024: Finished Listening: Story by Robert McKee 📚
Jan 23, 2024: Screen shake makes pretty much anything better.
Jan 19, 2024: Donelike I did the thing! I finished all 13 parts of Selinadev’s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. There were a good number of things that were new to me: procedural …
Jan 15, 2024: I generally don’t 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 …
Jan 14, 2024: Currently reading: The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca 📚
Jan 13, 2024: Finished reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom 📚 Honestly, I skimmed quite a bit– some parts seem more geared to engine developers. …
Jan 13, 2024: #screenshotsaturday I’ve finished part 11 of roguelike tutorial. Now, you can delve deeper into the dungeon, and the player gains experience points and levels. I’m …
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 …
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 90’s. I’m mostly …
Jan 6, 2024: #screenshotsaturday I’m up to Part 10 of @selinadev@indiepocalypse.social’s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. What’s new? Potions to heal with Scrolls of lightning, fireball, …
Jan 4, 2024: … and that is the most words I’ve written for public consumption, in quite a long time.
Jan 4, 2024: Blogging retrospective Via CRASH THE ARCADE, I learned of Matt Mullenweg’s birthday wish: I want you to blog. Publish a post. About anything! It can be long or short, a …
Jan 1, 2024: Finished Listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog 📚
Jan 1, 2024: Currently listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog 📚 I picked this up after finishing Herzog’s memoir, both because the story sounds interesting …
Jan 1, 2024: Gamedev Goals for 2024 In the next year, I’d like to: Watch less YouTube, watch more Udemy, more O’Reilly Learning, more books, more blog posts and independent websites. …
Dec 31, 2023: Ending the year by starting a course of paxlovid…
Dec 31, 2023: Finished reading: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog 📚
Dec 30, 2023: I couldn’t stay away– I once again have an account on the gamedev.place mastodon server. The main thing I missed was #screenshotsaturday– when I …
Dec 30, 2023: Roguelike, Part 7 I just finished part 7 of the roguelike tutorial. New stuff: Baddies! … that chase you … and can also die (but you can die too) A user interface that …
Dec 26, 2023: Currently reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers 📚 Christmas present from the kiddo!
Dec 26, 2023: Currently listening: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog 📚 Forgot to add this, I’m about halfway through. Contains more blood …
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 don’t consider myself very “handy”, but I’m proud of the job I did today switching which side the refrigerator door opens on. One of the …
Dec 19, 2023: I’ve been working through SelinaDev’s Godot 4 roguelike tutorial and I like it so far. I just finished part 4 (of 13). There are no enemies or things …
Dec 17, 2023: Finished reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt 📚
Dec 14, 2023: Not sure I buy the “dominos falling” theory, but interesting/sad that Firefox might be about to fall under the USWDS 2% threshold for browser support …
Dec 11, 2023: As of yesterday, Doom is 30 years old
Dec 10, 2023: It’s interesting that Newsblur, Pinboard.in, and micro.blog all make bookmark archiving part of their premium offering. Maybe it’s an easy way to add …
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 …
Dec 8, 2023: My favorite bit in the new Aesop Rock album might be where he spends a bar explaining the previous line (from ‘100 Feet Tall’, a story about running …
Dec 4, 2023: twenty thousand milliseconds I’ve submitted twenty thousand milliseconds to the 20 Second Game Jam. I’m not even necessarily sure it qualifies as a game. Maybe it’s more like a …
Dec 1, 2023: Bonus complaint: mastodon polls don’t translate over, they just disappear– 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.blog’s built-in support for ActivityPub). How’s that going? Mostly …
Nov 30, 2023: What are your favorite websites that aren’t around anymore?
Nov 27, 2023: I’m not sure we’ll 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 I’ve likened Godot to Hypercard before– they aren’t directly comparable, but my experience using Godot brought back a sense of possibility and fun …
Nov 23, 2023: Currently reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt 📚
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 wasn’t updating past the first point. It would go from 0 to 1, but then …
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 …
Nov 21, 2023: Testing out Lillihub!
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk by Douglas W. Hubbard 📚 Two chapters in, and I really appreciate learning about: The …
Nov 21, 2023: Currently reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom 📚
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-play… …
Nov 21, 2023: Considering learning C#. I don’t 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 📚 Some of the late-middle volumes were a bit of a drag for me, the …
Nov 15, 2023: Long after I’m dead, there will still be articles using this picture I took in 2004 www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2…
Nov 15, 2023: Personal SEO I’ve been spending some time trying to clean up search results for my name (yeah, kind of douchy, sorry), and one thing that’s been vexing me is my …
Nov 10, 2023: Back to making One week turned into three weeks, but I feel like I’ve worked that particular digital addiction out of my system (and diving in to Snap has actually …
Nov 6, 2023: Bowling with bumpers is underrated. It’s 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 …
Oct 25, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel by Rick Remender 📚 The first four volumes were a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a sort of …
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 …
Oct 22, 2023: As part of Space Day the kiddo and I got to check out the observatory at George Mason University. 📷 🚀
Oct 21, 2023: Probably my last post about Ludum Dare 54 maybe The results are in, and… it’s nothing to brag about. I do like that innovation is my strongest category again. I don’t know exactly how many entrees …
Oct 21, 2023: I took the plunge– this is now my “home” on the fediverse. I think micro.blog has a healthier vision for social media, and I’m really drawn to the …
Oct 21, 2023: The post-jam, cleaned up version of Don’t Get Crushed is now on itch.io rosskarchner.itch.io/dont-get-…
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/@CDRapper…
Oct 19, 2023: I’m not lazy, I’m just protecting the ecosystem www.nytimes.com/2023/10/1…
Oct 18, 2023: Currently listening: Story by Robert McKee 📚
Oct 18, 2023: Finished Listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary 📚
Oct 18, 2023: I’ve never really worn sunglasses, and now I’ve got my first prescription pair. Meanwhile my regular glasses are at the optometrist to get new lenses …
Oct 18, 2023: Even a “bad” Futurama episode is usually pretty good– but the worst are the ones that try to be relevant for the time they were released, “ripped from …
Oct 16, 2023: Currently listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary 📚
Oct 16, 2023: Currently reading: Deadly Class - Regan Youth Media Tie-In by Rick Remender 📚
Oct 16, 2023: Don't Get Crushed updates 🎮 Here is some weekend progress on Don’t Get Crushed (post-jam version, to be released after the review window closes): Fixed the janky vibrations …
Oct 14, 2023: Jumping Game progress 🎮 Not much visible progress since I lasted posted this game, but I have implemented both the spring platforms and the “slam” mechanic (which can be …
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 📷
Oct 13, 2023: After a couple of days on wordpress.com, I decided it wasn’t for me. So, after a journey in the wilderness, I’m back on micro.blog!
Oct 12, 2023: Morning progress 🎮 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 …
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 …
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 …