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 didn’t put much effort into decorating the level (in fact, most of the decoration you do see was added by Benjamin). Still, I like that it’s got enemies that chase you, some interesting lighting effects, and two different guns that recoil and spawn little sparky-effects where the bullets impact.

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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 projects (a digital version the Balanced Attack Model game). My current thinking with that game: spend some time making the best version of that I can, then reaching out to the creator of the BAM deck to see if there’s some way we can collaborate and/or if he’d be OK if I make it available online.

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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 note Monday or Tuesday. Yesterday, I registered to take the AWS Security exam in April (my certification expires in May) and took a practice exam.

Will this last days? weeks? months? I have no idea.

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 also did the art/animation for the ball that represents the player.

The theme of the jam is “spinning”, hence the name, to remind the judges of that rolling should count as spinning.

• 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, and I do most of the coding and Godot-wrangling.
• I’m on the last project of Compete Godot 3D, which is a first person shooter. I’ve got a world to run around in, an enemy that follows me if I get too close, and a gun that can shoot then enemy and recoils when fired, and has a muzzle flash. There’s more to do, but it’s a satisfying project.

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 time, I built the dang thing!

Component-wise, the most interesting part is probably the GPU– I was able to get my hands on an Intel Arc B580 (Battlemage!) and it’s spent the last two weeks sitting in my office, unloved. Last night, I trekked down to Microcenter to buy the rest of the computer and, after some drama (it took me a while to figure out where all the screws were, how to attach the CPU cooler, and that the motherboard wanted the 8 pin OR 8+4 power connection, but not BOTH), I have a nicely specced little PC next to my desk.

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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, and perhaps develop some expertise in something like Blender.

From talking to people at gamedev meetups, it seems like maybe that story is nonsense?

To test that theory, I’ve been working on a Godot 3D tutorial and finding that things generally makes sense. Coming from 2D, I was surprised that:

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