So a while back I created this PICO8 game Picowars and it did pretty well. Some people liked it wow! I even still get around a dozen people playing it daily which is pretty awesome if u ask me. Better than I would have originally thought!
I’m even going to be a panelist at PAX East 2024 in Boston (Sunday 24th @ 11pm) with several gamedevs who have made de-makes before, including the Portal64 guy who I’m really looking forward to meeting. It was a surprise, and I’m so excited and glad that I’ll be able to make it work.
Anyways, here are the spoilers I promised. This isn’t an easy screen to reach as you have to beat the entire game to get here, but I want to have it online because I put a lot of time into it and it makes my heart feel when I watch it.
Blessings and be safe out there with the existing and whatnot
Animal Planet and Robi are queer, trans, polyamorous creatures of the night who can be found across Rochester, dressed conspicuously, making music, art, and animal noises. The series “At Least Forever” explores the artists’ sense of self, their relationship with each other and shows a visual journey of love through time and space.
My bus is pausing at a rest stop in Ovid, NY.
It’s a small farm town between Ithaca and Rochester, and a town that I have found myself driving through often over the last year to visit my partner Cai in Ithaca.
Ovid was the ancient Greek writer who wrote Metamorphoses. I don’t know much about Metamorphoses other than that its primary theme is transformation. Change.
So I find myself thinking about change when I pass through this small town. I make a point to think about the things in my life that are changing, and have changed, and the changes that are coming and that I would like to move into.
There’s been so much change for me over the last couple years.
It’s been a lot, and I’m truly not capturing it all of course. That’s not possible. Not with words.
Some of the feelings of love I’ve felt this year especially escape words. But some of that energy has been finding it’s way into my art. I’ve been painting a lot with Robi, and feel so grateful to have been able to share our exhibit at a local cafe last weekend.
This article was going to be all super reminiscical, but now I’m tired and done and it’s time for band practice so as per usual with these kind of
things
.
END
Listening closely to my own music is something that I’ve never quite understood capably. I tend to become a blue squirrel if I’m left out in the sun for too long. I doubt you’d comprehend that given the kind of mischief I’ve gotten out with.
Hard. Core. Porn.
That’s the kinda agency I’d like to sing a song with.
Interested in a contraption like us? I’d make use of it if not for the seven swirls of failure that I’m caught with naked outside swilling ancient medallions releasing riddles perpetuitously sanctioned around the back door.
What? “Perpetuitously” isn’t wordy enough for you? Look(and listen.): We’ve got nothing with priceless cankers.
Do you have it?
I zen’d out blank when your response came.
Give me a millet or two, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never vacation peacefully outside of this wild, untamed hillside again.
Words can’t just flow. It’s unbecoming of them. Do it for long enough and it’ll be unbecoming of you.
Listen, I’ve got nothing of mine elsewhere for the giving. It’s, none of it, leaving away to become nothing greater than them.
So take out! Bring about the beginning moment. Force rapture on your own titties.
Really. It’s worth it.
Wiggle uncontrollably one time in a room full of peaceful idiots and you’ll experience a life of bliss.
You’ve got this.
They doubt me.
Just kidding.
Ohm.
Hello good human or machine that reads blogs! I have developed a contraption to replace my noggin so that I am a human or machine that writes blogs!
Fuck you!
There’s a new sneaki boi in the bushes and its name is Charnel Fontaine
It likes typing on terminals, inventing evil super intelligences, and pushing big pink heads around on the floor to solve puzzles.
It’s been 6 days since day one of Minijam 113, and after all six of those days, I am now able to announce:
I mean it’s my 3rd published game now.
So it was pretty rad!
The biggest difference between getting through this game jam, and getting through my first Ludum Dare, was that I moved much, much faster. There were a few reasons. To a degree, there were assets from past projects that I could re-use, like the dialogue system. At this point, I’ve re-used the same dialogue system for my last three games, though it’s changed wildly between Picowars and Overworld because it was a change from Lua -> GDscript, but still.. it’s the same code, just translated.
But more importantly than the reusable assets, was the fact that I just knew what I was doing. That big bad Godot interface just isn’t as spooky as it once was, and to be fair it was never as spooky as Unity’s interface once was 🤮
Godot feels like home now. And I feel productive in it.
ye thts rite.
Half the time I was staring at my screen hating everything I saw, and the other half of the time I was really excited and thinking “oh wow.. maybe this has some kind of potential!”
Granted every time I thought that, I’d shortly after rescind the statement.
Puzzle design is tough, and every time I’d think I had a puzzle that was somewhat cool, I would realize that it’s actually pretty:
The first few puzzles I made have been entirely thrown out, and I actually REALLY LIKED them at some point too!
Like, I shared one of them on social media.
When I finished that level, I thought it was so sly and that I was going to save it for the final level, but…
After making a few other levels, I started to learn my own game better, and learn what made fun puzzles, and what made shitty ones.
Here’s what’s wrong with each room of that level above that makes it a bad level:
Beyond the design of each individual room, the level as an integrated whole is just boring.
I made this level right before I realized the intrigue of backtracking.
As an example of a level that heavily utilizes backtracking:
Every room in this level(other than the final room) is interacted with more than once. Heads are shuffled between rooms, and backtracking is needed to accomplish things in other rooms that you previously couldn’t.
It’s weird to implement backtracking as a mechanic in a game in which nothing but the last 8 moves are significant, but it works surprisingly well, even though the implementation can be very tedious.
I’m going to finish this fucking game
It’s probably another week of dev out from a version 1.0.0, but we’ll get there! I’ve had Overworld on hiatus for this project, and honestly I’m itching to get back to it. I’ve put so much work into Overworld.. and there’s a lot more work left.. but I like where it’s headed.
I’ll post here the results from the minijam ratings. I think there’s a good chance of taking a second or third place!
(pst.. for a more not old-as-fuck build, play the game on ITCH.IO 🛹 )
I haven’t shared on here in a while, though it’s mostly because Hakyll won’t compile on my work laptop, mostly. The other reason is that blogging is a surreal experience for me, especially when I don’t know my audience. I have literally no idea who you are, or why you would be stalking this blog.
But from past experience, the highest probability is that you’re literally stalking me.
The second highest probability is that you’re someone I left a neat impression on and you wanted to find out more about the weirdo in makeup that you met at a party last weekend.
And I truly in my heart of hearts believe that the lowest probability of all is that you’re actually here for the content.
Maybe it’s hard for me to accept that anyone would actually like anything that I create. Even though I seem to consistently be proven wrong on that notion, it still surprises me every time.
Speaking of people liking something I’ve made, I put a short clip on social media(which I for the most part have successfully avoided for the majority of the last year), and… people seemed to like it. Enough for it to go viral. I mean my social media followers have more than doubled from that one post.
It was this one btw:
So that happened!
But I do gain value out of blogging. Personal value. I mean, writing in a way that sorta ignores my audience. If you guys get value out of what I’m saying too then that’s great but,
Pandering doesn’t feel right to me.
And I’m done pandering.
I want to create what brings me into the flow state.
For a long time I had a great disconnect between myself and the things that bring me joy. It was to the point where I wrote out lists trying to figure out what I enjoy, but it never felt right.
Losing touch with what you enjoy is a real thing, and I wouldn’t wish it on any body.
But it has been a powerful learning experience for me. Through it, I’ve learned to value inspiration, and art, and doing these things for their own sake rather than for some other hidden purpose.
I’m fortunate to have been gifted the time and space to work on my personal projects. It’s a great place to be, and I hope that we’re all able to achieve that.
May art follow you where you may be
Hey hey hey!
Life is shifting fast lately. I’m all “they/them” these days, and getting my own space away from my “primary partner” who is now more of a “just-like-all-my-other-partners” partner. It’s good though. It’s all really good. Going to burns a lot; spinning fire a lot; and I won 3rd place medal in a booty pagent at the last one I went to. Check it, parentals!
Bam. Content. Feeling content.
Also so much roleplaying this year. I met these hella sweet kids and we roleplay character shit. Fun stuff. Good therapy too. Really got to know myself by being not myself.
Some of my characters:
Other than that, progress has started back up on my Gamedev project: Overworld. Here’s some in-game aesthetics showoff:
It’s a video! Watch it!
Also working on a couple top secret art projects for burns. Super excited to talk about them, but not yet! Soonish for sure.
The four armed, four legged, four eyed, four ribbed, two mouthed god-dess Allahweh floated alone through the void.
Desperately alone; s-he was the only thing in the void.
Tortured by hir loneliness, s-he sought to create companionship. However, being the only thing in the void, s-he knew that s-he would have to use hirself as the matter from which to spring forth new being.
And so, with hir four mighty arms, s-he grabbed ahold of hir ribcage and pulled with all of hir strength.
S-he pulled until s-he began to tear at the seams. S-he ripped and ripped, splitting down, down, down.
He pulled her and she pulled him, until they were two.
Allahweh, now in two parts, looked at themself. However, as they stared into each other’s two eyes, they felt one hole in their hearts filled and a new one open up. Where they once were consumed in loneliness, they now felt a deep feeling of loss and need.
They reached out for each other, tears streaking down their faces. As they embraced, their wounds began to re-heal together and they felt more and more at one, while also being more and more confronted with their eternal loneliness.
Terrified of returning to the void, they pulled back, looking at each other again in the eyes, this time with a terrible realization.
If they wished to escape the void, they would have to forget their identity, lest it pull them back into itself.
They would have to see each other not as one in the same, but as opposites. They would have to forget Allahweh entirely.
Feeling and seeing this, their weeping thickened. Their tears ran down both faces, into the void.
As they cried, their tears fell and began to encircle each other in the most miraculous ways. They orbited each other, circling and circling into the darkness.
After aeons of falling, the tears became curious and looked up at the sky where they had come from, however they had fallen for so long that all that they saw was eternal blackness.
So they began to wonder. What eye did we pour from?
As they wondered, they began to speculate.
As they speculated, they began to decide.
As they decided, they began to divide.
As they divided, they began to fear,
As they feared, they began to hate.
As they hated, they began to consume.
They tore through each other, splashing salt and water hither and thither until there was scarcely anyone left.
In their desperation, they decided to put aside their differences and meet in order to find a solution.
At the meeting, the tears that believed they had all fallen from the right eye of Allahweh were on one side of the room, while the tears that believed that they all fell from the left eye of Allahweh were on the other side of the room.
After much debate, discussion, and even some half-hearted attempts at compromise, it seemed that there would be no point of agreement. Tempers were rising, and it may have been the last day on Earth for the tears.
At this point is when the most preposterous thing happened.
One tear, who had been sitting alone in the corner this entire time, stood up suddenly and announced: “I am Allahweh.”
The other tears all gasped in unison and looked on at this one preposterous, blasphemous nut.
He repeated himself calmy “I am Allahweh, and I remember that we are all Allahweh. For nothing in the void is without God.”
Completely misunderstanding the poor tear and believing solely that he was himself claiming to be a God, they united together and lept onto the boy, together ripping the lad asunder.
As he was torn into two, he wept.
As he cried, his tears fell and began to encircle each other in the most miraculous ways. They orbited each other, circling and circling into the darkness.
This is a place for me to share fictional discourses and scrawlings on topics related to infinity.
Player 1
: Thats sounds a bit like ██████, except with ██████ there’s no “I” at all, just a big joke, a secret that you can’t be permitted to know since it ends reality . Like realising you’re just watching a movie and you can just walk out of the theatre. I really struggled with this stuff when i was into ██████. I’m not religious, but I can only think of it like the Buddha supposedly did, now you’ve seen the machinery of the universe you can leave this world behind as a bad joke or a fake, or you can willingly go back into the illusion and help the beings trapped there, fix things, be creative and show kindness.. i think they call it Tikkun in Kabbalistic thought, humans were an accident, made by God unconsciously to fix the mistakes he/she made in creation. We’re caretakers.
Player 2
: Yes. I remember also knowing the secret, and having a terrible feeling as though I’d broken reality.
The thing is, you can get up and leave the theater, but when you look down the street, it’s theaters all the way down.
So at that point you can decide to sit on the sidewalk and be completely alone with nothing to do forever… or….
You can enter another theater.
And start the show over again.
When you’re out on the street of infinity, it’s not a difficult choice. You made the choice. You made it an infinite number of times.
And that’s why we’re here once again friend.
Player 1
: Its so weird that it feels so real sitting on the sidewalk, with dream lives in the theatres, but when you enter the theatre, the sidewalk becomes a dream
Player 2
: Yes yes. While we’re on this topic I’ll fling another thing at you.
There’s only one guy on those streets, and no matter which theater we leave from, we’re always that one guy on those streets. In a sense, we’re just one guy that is constantly entering new movie theaters and putting on new costumes in order to act and play as new characters.
We’re all that one guy.
This reddit conversation between us “two” people is really just that one guy who entered the theater at different times, wearing different costumes, in order to talk to himself on Reddit.
This is of course only one way to look at it.
Player 1
: Yeah… i work with alcoholics and street drug users. I like to think when you look into the black of peoples eyes, its the same thing looking out of all the eyes and out of me
Player 2
: God bless. Thank you for this discussion.
Over the weekend I dove into the world of Mastodon bot building and came up with a simple customizable script that reads the global Mastodon timeline, listening for new toots tagged with specified hashtags, and retooting them as they show up.
My use case was to use it to connect with the gamedev community on Mastodon by sharing gamedev content, and I’m very happy with the result.
If you’d like to use it yourself, clone the source code from Github and rename the config_example.py
file to config.py
. Fill that file in with your own account credentials and the tags you wish to retoot, and run the rebooster.py
script with Python.
It’s really that easy.
For updates, follow me on Mastodon at lambdanaut@mastodon.gamedev.place