It’s World Kidney Day. Not a day that I’d ever heard of (until actually today, in fact). And not a day I’d normally pay much attention to, except that in early February, I donated a kidney to my friend, Jen.
Still laughing about this, Katy.
I haven’t talked about it publicly (READ: on social media) because I don’t super like being a focus of attention and for a long time – several months – it wasn’t even clear if I would be able to donate.
In 2019, I saw a Game Design position posted at robotics company Embodied, Inc. The company was in stealth mode, so I couldn’t tell much about what they were doing, but I was intrigued. I applied, interviewed, and got the gig!
There was no way to know what an adventure was ahead of me.
SPOILER: This was ahead of me! We made the cover of TIME Magazine!
The Challenge: Swift Movement + Platforming + Light Narrative
Create a brisk Sonic-like level with double jump, leaning heavily on horizontal platforming, but including vertical elements, loops, branches, vistas, and a touch of narrative.
Itch.io is an indie game portal and there’s some really great stuff going on there. I made a creator account and will be uploading the platformer games I made for my Level Design classes.
I’ve decided to rebuild Mustachio again, so it’ll be a bit while I add that to the projects I’m juggling. I haven’t messed with Mustachio in a while! Seeing all those assets again was like visiting old friends. <3
I had no idea what a great title that was when I wrote it. I tried things and there were trying things. There were wonderful trips and concerts and shows. But there were awful things seemingly everywhere. Natural disasters. Unsettling revelations. A year of whiplash.
For starters, a quick review of the items on last year’s list.
The strength training that I do is taxing and concentrating on form is what takes most of my focus. With dozens of workouts stacked up in memory, sometimes I lose track of where I am in sets during a workout, particularly as volume has increased. Was that the 5th set? Sometimes I think an abacus would help, but have settled on using little tags of painter’s tape lined up on a shelf in my garage (where I work out). I move them back and forth as I finish sets.
It’s crude, but it works.
In strength training, I usually do only a few exercises per workout, but as many as 10 sets, depending on the exercise. My warmups and mobility routines have a lot more exercises. It was a lot to keep track of, so I created Continue reading “FitnessApp Begins”
I have long suspected that the boardgame Small World, with it’s wild juxtapositions, would make a terrific way to randomly generate a history for a game world.
As a hands-on exercise in my Worldbuilding class, we played a game of Small World on our lunch breaks to do just that. I need a game world just now, so this is timely!
What happened to 2016?! Man… it up and took off and took me with it. A whirlwind to be sure. Looking back at my game development goals… I give me a solid D for Doing Other Things. Important things.
GOAL ONE – Blog Reboot
Partial success. I didn’t hit the one-a-month pace, but it’s steps in the right direction.
GOAL TWO – Play my Game Backlog
Partial success.
Dark Souls
Castle Crashers [PLAYED]
Kingdom Hearts
Thomas Was Alone [PLAYED, FINISHED]
Shadow of the Colossus
Earthbound
Bonus game: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes [PLAYED]