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: Finished reading: Hidden Systems by Dan Nott šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures by Kel Mcdonald šŸ“š An excellent graphic journey through all sorts of couldā€™ve-beens: ā€¦

: Currently listening: War for Eternity by Benjamin R. Teitelbaum šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures by Kel Mcdonald šŸ“š

: I ā™„ļø BTRFS Subvolumes Iā€™ve been mucking around with my operating system setup for reasons too tedious to describe here. One hilarious bit of hijinx involved trying to use ā€¦

: Like I said, I donā€™t love my latest game, but it feels good to add something to the /games page after six months.

: The Invisible Alligator Iā€™m not that proud of The Invisible Alligator in its current form, but the Godot Wild Jam 82 deadline is here, and itā€™s nice to ship a game after ā€¦

: Finished reading: Drawing Blood by Kevin Eastman šŸ“š Confession: I picked this up thinking it was non-fiction and that Shane Bookman was a real author.

: 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 ā€¦

: Currently reading: Drawing Blood by Kevin Eastman šŸ“š

: Musings of an LLM Using Man I know, the internet doesnā€™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 ā€¦

: It turns out that echolocation has definitely been done before.

: It wasnā€™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 think I will ā€¦

: TIL I have an IMDB page, from supporting Adult Rappers on kickstarter 10 years ago.

: 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 ā€¦

: Iā€™m at the AWS DC summit today and tomorrow. Seems like people are really excited about this AI stuff?

: Rest in peace Bill Atkinson. Hypercard was the thing that really hooked me on computers as a creative tool.

: I want to apply for a job, not join your ā€œtalent communityā€

: Loopnik Begins Some progress on the ā€œbeat gameā€ remake (for the moment, called ā€œLoopnikā€). Itā€™s much easier now that I have a better idea of what Iā€™m doing and how ā€¦

: 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 Itā€™s Good Game Jam in July 2023. Until then, Iā€™d worked on tutorials, toy projects, and ā€¦

: Finished reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen šŸ“š

: OKā€“ 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 ā€¦

: My Drā€™s office has a small claim to fame. I think thereā€™s a display about the Lorton Meteorite at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

: DC Tech Events is Live Because you, as a person who reads blogs, are dear to meā€“ you get to be among the first to know that the new DC Tech Events site is live. Iā€™m still ā€¦

: Currently reading: The Notebook by Roland Allen šŸ“š

: 10 years ago, I shut down the most popular thing Iā€™d ever made (on my own). Iā€™m now back in a place life/career-wise where Iā€™m once again going to ā€¦

: Thereā€™s no escaping Microsoft Copilot

: I passed the AWS test today, so I can continue to be ā€œAWS Certified Security ā€“ Specialtyā€ until 2028.

: Abandoned for now: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter šŸ“š The core concept is really cool, but after a few chapters I found myself not really caring ā€¦

: April into May I think Iā€™m just not going to write about whatā€™s happening at my job again until thereā€™s some definitive resolution. Itā€™s too fluid, and that isnā€™t ā€¦

: I added an update to this morningā€™s post: the RIF is once again on hold. Or at least, access to systems isnā€™t being turned off and we wonā€™t be placed ā€¦

: RIF'ed update: things are on hold again. Along with 1,400 of my closest friends, I received a ā€œReduction in Forceā€ notice yesterday. At 6pm today, Iā€™ll no ā€¦

: Currently reading: Mister X: The Archives by Dean Motter šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Frank Millerā€™s Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller šŸ“š

: I passed the Security+ exam yesterday: Tip: if one of the options is ā€œrisk registerā€, the answer is probably ā€œrisk registerā€.

: Currently reading: Frank Millerā€™s Ronin (2019 Edition) by Frank Miller šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Berlin by Jason Lutes šŸ“š

: Lately Iā€™m still employed (and even doing some work, given that FISMA-related work counts as ā€œstatutory dutiesā€). The next milestone there seems to be ā€¦

: Who will do this work? Today, with my family, I watched the first episode of Human Footprint, which is about invasive species. Itā€™s full of US government employees (I ā€¦

: 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€¦

: Currently listening: Frostbite by Nicola Twilley šŸ“š Respect and fear the cold chain.

: Does that mean there are more marshmallow butt games?

: Currently reading: Berlin by Jason Lutes šŸ“š

: Robo Rampage Iā€™ve finished ā€œRobo Rampageā€, and thus Iā€™m done with the Complete Godot 3D course. Towards the end, I kind of wanted to just get it over with, so I ā€¦

: My day todayā€¦

: 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€¦

: Finished reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard šŸ“š Interesting book! In explaining ā€œgame magicā€, the author spends a lot of time delving into magic as ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š Done with Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection!

: Benjamin and I have started a game jam: Crazzzy 4X Jam!

: Become a Solution Architect looks promising: free training over 8 weeks, starts this weekend.

: 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€¦

: Cease'ed So far itā€™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 didnā€™t do much of ā€¦

: Rolling is Spinning Benjaminā€™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 ā€¦

: Game dev-ing lately Iā€™ve 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€¦

: Finished Listening: His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š

: Iā€™ve been checking out some older games in my Steam library that I havenā€™t played much. Iā€™m not sure exactly what Jazzpunk is about yet, but I got to ā€¦

: 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€¦

: It turns out, I donā€™t have to use the ā€œrawhideā€ version of Fedora just to get an updated kernelā€“ so now the new machine is on Fedora 41, and Iā€™m ā€¦

: If youā€™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. ā€¦

: 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€¦

: Dance like no one is watching, love like youā€™ve never been hurt, sing like no one is listening, and never give Brian Krebs a reason to call your mom.

: ā€‹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, ā€¦

: Finished listening: The Valley of Fear by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š I really enjoyed this one! It makes me want to learn some more about the Molly Maguires ā€¦

: Iā€™ve finished the Inkscape course I was working through. I think it was worthwhileā€“ the biggest aha! moments were: shape builder, the mesh tool, ā€¦

: Itā€™s unfortunate that itch.io got taken down because of an escalating set of automated processes and overreactionsā€“ but itā€™s got me thinking about ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Game Magic by Jeff Howard šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Light It, Shoot It! by Graham Chaffee šŸ“š Honestly this felt a little rushed, it was over before I had a chance to really care about ā€¦

: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 3 by Riad Sattouf šŸ“š

: I decided I was tired of faking my way through Inkscape, so I grabbed this course on sale a few days ago. Iā€™m about an hour into the course, but ā€¦

: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future 2 by Riad Sattouf šŸ“š

: Nora Reed says you should have a website If you donā€™t want to learn to use technology, other people will use it for you, and they will use it to ā€¦

: Iā€™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 ā€¦

: OK, Iā€™m pretty happy that the dethrace project exists so that I can play Carmageddon natively on linux.

: My ā€œchill mini golf gameā€ for the 1-Button Jam is coming togetherā€“ though I donā€™t think Iā€™ll be done for the 5pm deadline tomorrow. Luckily, the ā€¦

: I had hoped to complete a couple more obstacles/gadgets today, but only got this pinball-style bumper working. Iā€™m happy with the mouse graphic that ā€¦

: Iā€™ve added an ā€œattract modeā€ bot that plays plausibly but seldom successfully. It canā€™t really deal with obstacles yet.

: Iā€™ve migrated fediverse following/followers over to my profile on mastodon.gamedev.place. ross.karchner.com will now cross-post to that account. Iā€™ve ā€¦

: Working on a chill mini-golf game for the 1-Button Jam. [image or embed] ā€” RossK (Nellee Hooper Edit) ā€¦

: Finished reading: The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf šŸ“š

: 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€¦

: 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€¦

: Finished Listening: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Delights: a Story of Hieronymus Bosch by Guy Colwell šŸ“š

: I had a couple of ideas for the Github Game Off, but Iā€™m kind of feeling more motivated to work on SpinDocā€“ though I think my plan this month is to ā€¦

: Currently reading: Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman šŸ“š

: 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€¦

: Finished reading: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Little Black Book by Jeff McComsey šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Medea by Blandine Le Callet šŸ“š

: Maybe itā€™s time for for a little station ID? Even though you might be seeing this on Mastodon, Bluesky, or elsewhereā€“ youā€™re reading my (Rossā€™s) blog, ā€¦

: Finished reading: Air Volume 3 by G. Willow Wilson šŸ“š

: Who wants to start a news show with me?

: Finished reading: Air Volume 2 by G. Willow Wilson šŸ“š

: SpinDoc Some progress on ā€œSpinDocā€: ā€œringsā€ (aka, dots you can only use once) enemy wands that can move to appropriately colored dots By the end of this ā€¦

: Finished reading: Air Volume 1 by G. Willow Wilson šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Marvels šŸ“š

:

: How to Read Superhero Comics and why Finished reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock šŸ“š This was more academic than I was expecting (full of words like ā€˜misprisionā€™ ā€¦

: Iā€™ve been working through Firebellyā€™s new course: Create a Complete Grid-Based Puzzle Game in Godot 4 with C#. Why? I learned a ton by taking his ā€¦

: Itā€™s nothing to be too proud of yet, but Iā€™ve made some progress on my Spin Doctor remake/tribute/spiritual successor/what have you. This is a ā€¦

: Donā€™t worry about the smoke

: Currently reading: How to Read Superhero Comics and why by Geoff Klock šŸ“š Recommendation from Robin Sloanā€™s newsletter.

: Abandoned for now: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville šŸ“š I got about halfway through, but itā€™s been a few weeks since I picked it upā€“ just too many other ā€¦

: The kiddo and I have been playing some Warcraft 2. Itā€™s early yet, but Iā€™m a little surprised by how ā€œscorched earthā€ some of these scenarios are. ā€¦

: 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 ā€œoriginalityā€ suits me ā€¦

: Planet of the All My Apes Gone This morning I was thinking back on some videos Iā€™ve watched (like this) about abandoned NFT games, and it occurred to me that such a virtual world ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Sign of the Four by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE šŸ“š

: So, I had a serviceable puzzle game. The feedback in the Karchner household was pretty much: Thatā€™s boring. You should make the game less boring. So ā€¦

: Iā€™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 ā€¦

: Despite previous predictions, I havenā€™t gotten a chance to work on improving the art and adding sound, music, polish, etc yet. Iā€™ve got until 4pm ā€¦

: If Sour Patch Kids made a beer, itā€™d taste like ā€˜Volcano Sauceā€™. (please send more volcano sauce)

: Currently reading: Policy as Code by Jimmy Ray šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle šŸ“š (Iā€™m actually listening to Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, read by Stephen ā€¦

: Itā€™s not a game yetā€“ but itā€™s interactive! By tomorrow night, I should be able to have a couple of playable levels, and that will leave me most of a ā€¦

: 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€¦

: The theme is out for Godot Wild Jam #72. Itā€™s a good thing I spent time last night finally figuring out how to make 2D lighting and shadows workā€¦

: I decided to dip into Threads a bit over the last few days: itā€™s mostly people talking about Twitter, Elon Musk, and the new Deadpool movie. One of ā€¦

: 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€¦

: The previously seen water shader, applied to a sphere (by request):

: Finished reading: In Perpetuity by Maria and Peter Hoey šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers šŸ“š

: Switched the blog theme to Sumo by Matt Langford.

: Finishing up Godot 4 Shaders: Craft Stunning Visuals, here are some 3D shaders:

: Iā€™m enjoying Kaan Alparā€™s Godot Shaders course, and finished the 2D section last night. In this video, the animated background, greyscale, distortion, ā€¦

: Currently listening: How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport šŸ“š

: 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€¦

: Iā€™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 ā€¦

: In the NYT top 100 books of the 21st century, Iā€™ve only read the two graphic novels and a book about comic books authorsā€¦

: Currently listening: Slow Productivity by Cal Newport šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan šŸ“š Itā€™s been a while since Iā€™ve had the sensation of being sad when a book ends. I want to spend more time ā€¦

: Currently reading: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville šŸ“š Not my first time starting, but maybe recording it here will motivate me to finish.

: Finished reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Further Explorations: 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A Reed šŸ“š

: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris šŸ“š

: Got tickets for Fredericksburg Comic Con.

: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris šŸ“š

: Finished reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed šŸ“š

: Currently listening: Moonbound by Robin Sloan šŸ“š

: Ever since I started tinkering with gamedev (and Godot specifically), one thing Iā€™ve periodically attempted is a recreation of the mac game Spin ā€¦

: Finished Listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff šŸ“š

: Iā€™ve been waiting my whole life for this email.

: My excellent son Benjamin(10) has created BenKardian, his two-player take on the classic solitaire game Accordian.

: Sometimes I play games I still havenā€™t entirely kicked the Marvel Snap habit, but I feel like Iā€™ve made peace with it. Itā€™s a thing I enjoy, so I shouldnā€™t beat myself up ā€¦

: Currently reading: 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon by Aaron A Reed šŸ“š

: Finished reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy šŸ“š Much shorter than the ā€¦

: Currently reading: The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions: Essays on Dangers in Game Design by Alexis Kennedy šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy šŸ“š Good stuff, Iā€™ll probably go back to the more practical chapters ā€¦

: Current view:

: Finished reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers šŸ“š I skimmed some chapters, but will definitely keep it around for ā€¦

: GameDev.tv jam results for The Last Stan: Iā€™m happy to have gotten #59 (out of over 1000) in the mechanics category, and a decent showing ā€¦

: I donā€™t like this new world where swiping your credit card at a business automatically signs you up to receive their marketing emails.

: ā€œThe Last Stanā€ is live on itch.io and submitted to the gamedev.tv jam. Itā€™s a platformer, with typing. Itā€™s not my favorite thing Iā€™ve made, but I ā€¦

: Hey, an actual #screenshotsaturday : For the gamedev.tv jam, Iā€™m working on a platformer where you escape alien ships and defeat ground-based enemies ā€¦

: I spent the first part of my life in the Hazleton, PA area. Hereā€™s a really cool 10 minute video about the ā€œcity under the cityā€, a legacy of the coal ā€¦

: I never thought Iā€™d say this, butā€¦ I get too many emails from Run the Jewels.

: Whole Earth šŸ“š Currently listening: Whole Earth by John Markoff šŸ“š A year or two back, I listened to Tom Wolfeā€™s ā€œThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Testā€, and soon after, ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 by Steven L. Kent šŸ“š

: I think Iā€™ll try to make something for this yearā€™s gamedev.tv jam(which kicks off tonight), if the theme is interesting. Ten days to work, and every ā€¦

: Iā€™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 ā€¦

: Currently reading: Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations by Alexis Kennedy šŸ“š

: Star Trek: Deep Space 9, or The Continuing Adventures of Miles Oā€™Brien.

: 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€¦

: GameOps I used the Pong Wars deployment as an excuse to try out GitHub actions. Itā€™s nice! Almost too nice, like the fact that itā€™s free makes me suspicious. ā€¦

: Pong Wars Iā€™ve published my Godot re-creation of Pong Wars by Koen van Gilst on GitHub (and embedded it below!) Itā€™s not exactly a gameā€“ more of a ā€œvisual toyā€. ā€¦

: People who think the web is dead or dying havenā€™t used the Dominoā€™s Pizza Tracker.

: I recently updated my /games page so that each game has video.

: Finished reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris šŸ“š

: The kiddo and I had a good time at NOVA Game Developers Meetup this afternoon! It was fun to play games, show what weā€™ve worked on, and chat with ā€¦

: Today is Free Comic Day, for those who observe

: Itā€™s like they really see me.

: 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€¦

: Hereā€™s footage of gamedev and streamer ObsidianBlk playing The Zummoning!. Heā€™s got some (entirely fair) critical feedback, which I respond to (in ā€¦

: Currently reading: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris šŸ“š Part 2 comes out next month, and I want to refresh my memory of the characters and ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š

: Zummoning Redux Iā€™ve made many improvements in the new version of ā€œThe Zummoningā€ submitted to Godot Wild Jam. Unfortunately, the name isnā€™t one of them. Oh well. ā€¦

: More Zummoning Iā€™m cleaning up ā€œThe Zummoningā€ for submission to Godot Wild Jam this weekend (The GWJ folks usually disallow games submitted to other jams, but make ā€¦

: If this works, then this blog post was published with Godot!

: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š

: ā€œThe 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€¦

: I think Iā€™m onto something promising, but Iā€™m not feeling confident that this will actually be a fun game and not look like ass by the jam deadline ā€¦

: 19 or so hours into this 72-hour game jam, and Iā€™m only just starting to code. So far, Iā€™ve spent time researching demons, sketching out a magic ā€¦

: What privacy laws only apply to ages 13-15?

: Working on a Godot recreation of Pong Wars. I might write this up as a tutorial?

: I struggle to resist: Monte Cristo on a restaurant menu bread pudding on a restaurant menu audio humblebundles

: Currently reading: Make Your Own Pixel Art by Jennifer Dawe šŸ“š Iā€™ve started a few video tutorials on pixel art, but didnā€™t manage to stick with it. ā€¦

: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š

: I love that electoral-vote.com basically looks the same as it did in 2000.

: It seems like my schedule is clear enough that Iā€™ll be able to participate in Ludum Dare 55, April 12-15. It was fun last time. My goal on this one is ā€¦

: At the kiddoā€™s taekwondo class, where itā€™s ā€œblocking weekā€. Somehow, itā€™s never ā€œducking weekā€ or ā€œrunning away weekā€.

: Achievement unlocked: pirating the Webelos Handbook. (I swear, we have a copy in the house, I just canā€™t find it)

: We rejoined Netflix this week, and Iā€™m a little surprised by how big the included library of Android games has gotten. Any recommendations? Iā€™ve ā€¦

: 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€¦

: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š Heā€™s not ā€œtaking a bathā€, heā€™s in the bath tub.

: The hardest part is starting I still like my spoon-theory game concept (as amended), though thereā€™s a lingering skepticism over whether the thing Iā€™ve described will be fun and ā€¦

: 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€¦

: A Solution Me, a couple of hours ago: Is it possible to take what Iā€™ve described and actually make it fun and challenging? Or, will the right path (or a right ā€¦

: Idea File Found this list of ideas I had posted to Twitter over some number of years. Itā€™s not all gold, but I still like a few of them: a first-in, first out ā€¦

: Spoon theory game: initial concept and prior art Hereā€™s my initial concept for the spoon theory game: Each level/puzzle is a grid, with a starting location and one or more ā€œmust doā€ spaces, zero or ā€¦

: Finished reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer šŸ“š

: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š This is my favorite storyline in the whole Sandman seriesā€“ probably because ā€¦

: BuJoBook Finished reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll šŸ“š I skimmed or skipped some of the more philosophical material (like a chapter on ā€¦

: Currently reading: The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll šŸ“š Iā€™ve been using a bullet journal for a couple of years now, but lately, itā€™s beenā€¦ I ā€¦

: I was thinking about watching Midsommer, but reading the Wikipedia article was just enough horror for me.

: Finished Listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin šŸ“š

: Spending the evening at Fairfax County Government Center, shuttling election materials between the loading dock (where I found this sign) and offices ā€¦

: Currently reading: Game Design Deep Dive: Platformers by Joshua Bycer šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Dollā€™s House by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š

: A jam of my own One thing Iā€™ve learned about myself after participating in a couple of game jams: I like having deadlines. So, Iā€™m going to try setting a deadline for ā€¦

: Brakes Escape update Iā€™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 ā€¦

: Currently listening: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin šŸ“š

: Surprised that, for a published-this-month technical book, Thrift Books had more inventory on hand and a better price than Amazon.

: Results are inā€“ I was hoping for higher scores generally , but Iā€™m pleased with getting #14 in the ā€œfunā€ category. I am working on an update that ā€¦

: ā€œFlash of light-mode contentā€ is the new flash of unstyled content.

: Godot Wild Jam 66 postmortem Some lessons learned from my recent game jam experience: Donā€™t wait until the very end of the jam to download the export templates bundle (see ā€¦

: 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€¦

: 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 didnā€™t like where it was going ā€¦

: Iā€™m the PTA volunteer keeping an eye on our elementary schoolā€™s ā€œtech clubā€ again this session, and this time theyā€™re going to be programming drones ā€¦

: Iā€™ve been pretty lazy about static typing in GDScript - but itā€™s pretty cool to see that there are performance benefits.

: Want to read: My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris šŸ“š The first book was great, and Iā€™m excited to read what happens next. Maybe Iā€™ll ā€¦

: Nah Iā€™m good Samsung

: GWJ ideas Current thinking for the jam, either: starting over from scratch on the NS-Tower-inspired game Iā€™ve tinkered with on and off (see a GIF of it here), ā€¦

: Godot Wild Jam #66 Iā€™m signed up for Godot Wild Jam #66, with a theme of ā€œEscapeā€ā€“ which is pretty straightforward, as far as game jam themes go. I do think itā€™s quite ā€¦

: This post from @manton prompted me to finally try out Blueskyā€“ so far, it feels kind of like the uncanny valley version of Twitter? Iā€™ll keep poking ā€¦

: Currently listening: The Sandman Vol. 2: The Dollā€™s House by Neil Gaiman šŸ“š (actually, re-listening to Act I of the Audible adaptation of The Sandman, ā€¦

: Finished reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew šŸ“š

: #screenshotsaturday My son and I are still making tweaks to the roguelike that resulted from following @selinadev@indiepocalypse.socialā€™s tutorial: a new spell, visual ā€¦

: The lyrics to ā€œParents Just Donā€™t Understandā€ arenā€™t as lighthearted as I remember.

: Currently reading: Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement (A Norton Short) by Ashley Shew šŸ“š

: One of the more annoying differences between gdscript and Python: that Python capitalizes True and False, and gdscript does not.

: Finished reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith šŸ“š Checked this out for the kid, but Iā€™m a grown-up and I can read it first if I want to.

: Finished Listening: Story by Robert McKee šŸ“š

: Screen shake makes pretty much anything better.

: Donelike I did the thing! I finished all 13 parts of Selinadevā€™s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. There were a good number of things that were new to me: procedural ā€¦

: I generally donā€™t care much for professional sports, but I definitely feel some nostalgia for the time before sports betting was everywhere.

: 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€¦

: Currently reading: The Treasure of the Black Swan by Paco Roca šŸ“š

: Finished reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom šŸ“š Honestly, I skimmed quite a bitā€“ some parts seem more geared to engine developers. ā€¦

: #screenshotsaturday Iā€™ve finished part 11 of roguelike tutorial. Now, you can delve deeper into the dungeon, and the player gains experience points and levels. Iā€™m ā€¦

: This pepper has a pepper in it!

: This history of gamification within games was more interesting than I expected. These are the game-y things like experience points, levels, and ā€¦

: Seeing chatter about a new BBEdit release has me a little nostalgic. I used BBEdit Lite while HTML-ifying recipes for Hershey in the 90ā€™s. Iā€™m mostly ā€¦

: #screenshotsaturday Iā€™m up to Part 10 of @selinadev@indiepocalypse.socialā€™s Godot 4 Roguelike tutorial. Whatā€™s new? Potions to heal with Scrolls of lightning, fireball, ā€¦

: ā€¦ and that is the most words Iā€™ve written for public consumption, in quite a long time.

: Blogging retrospective Via CRASH THE ARCADE, I learned of Matt Mullenwegā€™s birthday wish: I want you to blog. Publish a post. About anything! It can be long or short, a ā€¦

: Finished Listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog šŸ“š

: Currently listening: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog šŸ“š I picked this up after finishing Herzogā€™s memoir, both because the story sounds interesting ā€¦

: Gamedev Goals for 2024 In the next year, Iā€™d like to: Watch less YouTube, watch more Udemy, more Oā€™Reilly Learning, more books, more blog posts and independent websites. ā€¦

: Ending the year by starting a course of paxlovidā€¦

: Finished reading: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog šŸ“š

: I couldnā€™t stay awayā€“ I once again have an account on the gamedev.place mastodon server. The main thing I missed was #screenshotsaturdayā€“ when I ā€¦

: 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€¦

: Currently reading: Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers šŸ“š Christmas present from the kiddo!

: Currently listening: Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog šŸ“š Forgot to add this, Iā€™m about halfway through. Contains more blood ā€¦

: CBS is missing an opportunity to point out that that they have Drew Carey followed by Mariah Carey

: fixed it I usually donā€™t consider myself very ā€œhandyā€, but Iā€™m proud of the job I did today switching which side the refrigerator door opens on. One of the ā€¦

: Iā€™ve been working through SelinaDevā€™s Godot 4 roguelike tutorial and I like it so far. I just finished part 4 (of 13). There are no enemies or things ā€¦

: Finished reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt šŸ“š

: Not sure I buy the ā€œdominos fallingā€ theory, but interesting/sad that Firefox might be about to fall under the USWDS 2% threshold for browser support ā€¦

: As of yesterday, Doom is 30 years old

: Itā€™s interesting that Newsblur, Pinboard.in, and micro.blog all make bookmark archiving part of their premium offering. Maybe itā€™s an easy way to add ā€¦

: 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€¦

: My favorite bit in the new Aesop Rock album might be where he spends a bar explaining the previous line (from ā€˜100 Feet Tallā€™, a story about running ā€¦

: twenty thousand milliseconds Iā€™ve submitted twenty thousand milliseconds to the 20 Second Game Jam. Iā€™m not even necessarily sure it qualifies as a game. Maybe itā€™s more like a ā€¦

: Bonus complaint: mastodon polls donā€™t translate over, they just disappearā€“ compare this to how that conversation appears on micro.blog.

: A month on micro About a month ago, I migrated my mastodon account over to this blog (via micro.blogā€™s built-in support for ActivityPub). Howā€™s that going? Mostly ā€¦

: What are your favorite websites that arenā€™t around anymore?

: Iā€™m not sure weā€™ll watch Merry Little Batman, but it brings me some joy to see Jingle Bells, Batman Smells in an official DC production.

: Decker Iā€™ve likened Godot to Hypercard beforeā€“ they arenā€™t directly comparable, but my experience using Godot brought back a sense of possibility and fun ā€¦

: Currently reading: Petrograd by Philip Gelatt šŸ“š

: My excellent co-worker Adam created this online tuner for community radio stations: www.ldial.org (which is also excellent)

: Troubleshooting before coffee I spent at least 30 minutes trying to figure out why the score in my game wasnā€™t updating past the first point. It would go from 0 to 1, but then ā€¦

: 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€¦

: Testing out Lillihub!

: Currently reading: How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk by Douglas W. Hubbard šŸ“š Two chapters in, and I really appreciate learning about: The ā€¦

: Currently reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom šŸ“š

: 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€¦

: Considering learning C#. I donā€™t even know who I am anymore.

: Deadly Class Finished reading: Deadly Class Vol 12: A Fond Farewell, Part Two by Rick Remender šŸ“š Some of the late-middle volumes were a bit of a drag for me, the ā€¦

: Long after Iā€™m dead, there will still be articles using this picture I took in 2004 www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2ā€¦

: Personal SEO Iā€™ve been spending some time trying to clean up search results for my name (yeah, kind of douchy, sorry), and one thing thatā€™s been vexing me is my ā€¦

: Back to making One week turned into three weeks, but I feel like Iā€™ve worked that particular digital addiction out of my system (and diving in to Snap has actually ā€¦

: Bowling with bumpers is underrated. Itā€™s a little more like billiards.

: DragonRuby, which usually costs $48, is free right now, as part of the 20 Second Game Jam

: 13 years ago we were at the Rally to Restore Sanity. Have we restored the sanity yet?

: 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€¦

: Currently reading: Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel by Rick Remender šŸ“š The first four volumes were a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a sort of ā€¦

: 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€¦

: As part of Space Day the kiddo and I got to check out the observatory at George Mason University. šŸ“· šŸš€

: Probably my last post about Ludum Dare 54 maybe The results are in, andā€¦ itā€™s nothing to brag about. I do like that innovation is my strongest category again. I donā€™t know exactly how many entrees ā€¦

: I took the plungeā€“ this is now my ā€œhomeā€ on the fediverse. I think micro.blog has a healthier vision for social media, and Iā€™m really drawn to the ā€¦

: The post-jam, cleaned up version of Donā€™t Get Crushed is now on itch.io rosskarchner.itch.io/dont-get-ā€¦

: Got a flier in the mail from Chris Decarlo for Sherrif, which reminds me of his history of rapping campaign videos: youtube.com/@CDRapperā€¦

: Iā€™m not lazy, Iā€™m just protecting the ecosystem www.nytimes.com/2023/10/1ā€¦

: Currently listening: Story by Robert McKee šŸ“š

: Finished Listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary šŸ“š

: Iā€™ve never really worn sunglasses, and now Iā€™ve got my first prescription pair. Meanwhile my regular glasses are at the optometrist to get new lenses ā€¦

: Even a ā€œbadā€ Futurama episode is usually pretty goodā€“ but the worst are the ones that try to be relevant for the time they were released, ā€œripped from ā€¦

: Currently listening: Think Like a Game Designer by Justin Gary šŸ“š

: Currently reading: Deadly Class - Regan Youth Media Tie-In by Rick Remender šŸ“š

: Don't Get Crushed updates šŸŽ® Here is some weekend progress on Donā€™t Get Crushed (post-jam version, to be released after the review window closes): Fixed the janky vibrations ā€¦

: Jumping Game progress šŸŽ® Not much visible progress since I lasted posted this game, but I have implemented both the spring platforms and the ā€œslamā€ mechanic (which can be ā€¦

: I temporarily experimented with importing my Mastodon followers to micro.blog. Sorry about the follow-spam!

: From a recent trip to the new LEGO Discovery Center in Springfield, VA šŸ“·

: After a couple of days on wordpress.com, I decided it wasnā€™t for me. So, after a journey in the wilderness, Iā€™m back on micro.blog!

: Morning progress šŸŽ® 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€¦

: 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€¦

: 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€¦