Ross Karchner

2026: The year of...

Exactly a year ago, I declared that 2025 would be the year of 3D. Not so much– it became a year of worrying about my job and finding the next one, and games took a back seat for most of it.

My goal: 2026 is going to be a year where I finish something, outside of jams. Maybe I’ll take a jam entry and try to make it into a complete, polished thing, or one of my other experiments or projects (remember the roguelike? Spindoc?), or it’ll be something from my notebook, or maybe a brand new idea.

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Gifts

recently on DC Tech Events:

  • 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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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.

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.

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

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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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.

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

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.