Ross Karchner

Gifts

I’ve added a new page for virtual events
improved the layout on mobile
I took a little troubleshooting journey into figuring out why NovaLUG events weren’t working– and now DC Tech Events can handle iCal recurrence rules AND calendars can have a url_override, which in this case is because the NovaLUG iCal feed was sending the URL for the location (and not a correct one), in which case the main “meetings” page is the most useful place to send people.

Without saying the “v” word, with LLM coding assistance I recently experimented with a couple of more ambitious visions for this site and codebase: for example, expanding into a broader network of similar sites for different cities, and/or making DC Tech Events more of an active community hub and meetup.com alternative. Ultimately, I decided against both. I enjoy the simplicity of the current site, and I don’t want a web project that eats more of my time and attention. My hobby is making games, not websites.

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awww

Auto-generated description: A user named bartalonmew comments on a jam game, praising its enjoyable gameplay, programmer art, and sound effects.

Bird Bonkers is live on itch.io. It’s not going to win any awards, but I think it’s fun and challenging, and it let’s me cap off a weird year with at least one non-embarrassing jam submission.

Still needs… all of the polish, but Bird Bonker basically works. Flapping uses “fish power”, bonk birds to get them to drop fish, which you need to grab to replenish your fish power. I am not an ornithologist, so I may have made some incorrect assumptions about how birds work.

Not a bird

Cool that Zork is now open source, but it’s kind of wild that Zork is now a Microsoft property.

this gog.com survey is pretty weird

Auto-generated description: A survey question asks respondents to rate their agreement with statements about changing game reviews and feelings towards GOG, with options ranging from Not at all to To a very great extent.

Still making birds

Currently listening: Apple in China by Patrick McGee 📚

I don’t know why I was thinking about this just now, but almost exactly 15 years ago there was a mini-scandal involving DC Tech Events.

New on DC Tech Events: Per-week pages, like this week.

Wife: Whatcha doing?

Me: Making a bird

Wife: For a game?

Me: Yeah

Wife: What’s the bird going do?

Me: …

… bonk other birds?

Wife: you should call the game Bird Bonkers

Finished Listening: Altamont by Joel Selvin 📚

like a room without a roof

I was playing Glypha the other day, and wondered if an “endless Joust” game would be fun– instead of discrete levels, you keep proceeding upward. It turns out, Joust Revival is exactly that. I can’t get it to work with Wine, though, and if a game isn’t playable on Linux, does it really exist?

Either way, Revival is otherwise a re-creation of the classic arcade Joust game. I have something different in mind, but definitely with the DNA of Joust. Or Glypha. I’m pretty sure I played Glypha first. I think I’m going to give it a try in the upcoming GitHub Game Off.

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Finished Listening: Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software With GenAI, Chat, Agents, and Beyond by Gene Kim and Steve Yegge 📚

This is apparently a legit organization– but something seems off about this letter. I found the tone a little… menacing? Maybe it’s my imagination.

Currently listening: Altamont by Joel Selvin 📚

back on my bullshit: I know I change my mind about this every 9 months or so, but I once again have a mastodon account, and have forwarded my fediverse followers over there: @16DBatteries

Six years ago, I was in Vegas for Splunk .Conf, and took the opportunity to see a Willie Nelson show

Overrated

Picked this up at a library sale. Getting the enhanced CD stuff working on Linux, in 2025, feels like a challenge.

I’m happy with lighting system and movement, and exploring the map actually… feels fun?

It’s still far from a “real game”, but I’ve got some ideas on how to handle equipment, combat. effects, mob movement, and character building/stats, etc, and I think I’ve got a good platform for that now.

Crossing the streams

At work, I’ve been diving into AI/LLM stuff, and I’m still pretty much always using coding assistants when I work on DC Tech Events. I hadn’t really attempted to bring that into game development, though. Last week, I decided to try it on my current roguelike project.

This game began life as part of a 10-day game jam, and I was beginning to regret some of the architectural compromises I made under the time pressure. In particular, the lines of responsibility were pretty murky between the class that generated maps, and the one that displayed the map and tracked positions. I gave Github Copilot some direction on what functionality belonged where, and it did a credible job cleaning things up, which made it easier for me to move on. Neat.