Yousef – Page 2

Purgatory Purgers

Here We Go Again!

Back in May, my life was starting to slow down enough to spend some time on game development again. Shortly after, I reached out to my old friend Eric to reconnect.

After a few weeks and several emails back and forth, we decided to start again, this time on a new project.

Game Mechanics

Eric suggested Chip’s Challenge (specifically, the Windows 3.1 version) in brainstorming ideas, which incorporates a few key elements:

Collecting McGuffins (computer chips)
Pushing things (similar to Sokoban)
Avoiding enemies

While Chip’s Challenge is more complex than that, we decided to focus on those 3 design ideas and start there. Eric proposed the idea of the player controlling an angel and a demon trapped in limbo. The two would have to work together to solve puzzles to advance to the next level.

The McGuffin would be souls, which would be set free from limbo to either ascend to heaven if collected by the angel or descend to hell if collected by the demon. Collecting all of the souls would allow the player to exit the stage and move on to the next level.

We incorporated a Sokoban-like push mechanic and decided to give this ability to the demon. Blocks would be used to obstruct enemy movement/line-of-sight and also to solve key/lock puzzles.

But we also needed something for the angel to do, so we decided to include water tiles that only the angel could traverse, using the same key/button that the push mechanic utilized.

After getting these features working, I had the idea to introduce bridges that the angel could lower, allowing the demon (and, by extension, blocks) to traverse areas that would normally be cut off by water.

Next Steps

With most of the core mechanics working, there’s a lot to do insofar as creating assets (art, music, etc.), levels, and the like. Eric is primarily responsible for level design, so I leave it to him to work on cranking those out while I work on polish.

Beaster’s Dungeon Revisited: Part III

When I last left off, I managed to get the trap placement mechanic working as designed. Of the core mechanics I needed to get working, the last one remaining was enemy platform pathfinding…

Platform Pathfinding Challenges

As previously stated, the game’s object is to ward off hoards of enemies trying to navigate their way to your treasure vault by placing traps and barriers in their way.

The player can navigate the environment by moving left, right, jumping, and falling. I wanted to give the enemy a similar capability:

In this scenario, an enemy character can walk left or right and can clear obstacles up to two squares (32x32px tiles) high and three across. Each scenario is numbered and represents the following:

All possible ‘jump’/walk movements from a platform (1-3 across, 2 up)
Walk left or right 1 square
Drop down left or right
Jump up left or right 1 square
Jump up left or right 2 squares
Jump up left or right 2 squares, illustrating that the platform might be floating (i.e. allows free movement beneath it)
Jump across left or right 1 square and up 2 squares
Jump across 2 squares (same height)
Jump across 2 squares and up 1 square
Jump across 2 squares and up 2 squares
Dropdown 1 square left or right from any height to a platform below (this is implied in 3, but I wanted to illustrate it explicitly)
Drop down to a platform of any height, 1 square left or right across
Drop down to a platform of any height, 2 squares left or right across

While I found a couple of examples of this working/implemented in GML using a modified version of the A* Search Algorithm, I could never get them to work within my project. I discussed the problem with my friend Jason, who created a working prototype for me that met all of the design specifications. But not fully understanding how the code worked, I failed to integrate it.

Now that I have the time to troubleshoot it, I’m reluctant to do as I fear that I don’t understand it well enough to support it. Instead, it might be better to build something simpler…

Possible Solutions

Thinking through the problem, there are many other ways I could have solved this. Wrecking Crew for the NES comes to mind:

Enemies (and the player) in Wrecking Crew use ladders to navigate up and down platform levels. Why couldn’t I implement a similar feature?

Ladders

For example, instead of trying to make the enemy AI smart enough to navigate obstacles with a preset of constraints/scenarios, I could have them wander left and right across vertical planes, moving up or down when they reach a ladder, depending on whether the vault was above or below them.

Alternately, rather than placing ladders in fixed places, perhaps some enemy types could create erect them?

Stairs

Another option would be to use teleportation in the form of background staircases:

In this example, the enemies could access specific floors using “staircase” objects that would move them from point A to B and B to C, and vice versa.

Either scenario would necessitate creating two extra animation frames for each enemy sprite. Not a deal breaker, but something to consider…

Revisiting the Triple Threat

About ten years ago, I distilled video game development into three core skillsets (i.e., the triple threat):

Art
Music (and sound effects)
Programming

I’ve always been interested in art (drawing, sculpting, and to a lesser extent, painting). I taught myself how to play simple melodies on a cheap Casio keyboard in my teens. I learned to use, repair and maintain personal computers in the early 90s out of necessity (I didn’t have much money, so my choices were to fix it or do without).

Eventually, I started entertaining the idea of combining my love of art, music, and computers to try my hand at making video games instead of just playing them. Thus began my journey of self-discovery.

Art

I’d always been able to draw relatively well by hand. I lightly scribbled rough shapes, then fleshed them out with strong lines. As technology became more accessible, I’d digitize my art using a flatbed scanner.

I even purchased a digital camera and some clay in the early 2000s to sculpt models and photograph them from different angles in much the same fashion as Adrian Carmack did for DOOM. I could never get the hang of 3D modeling or translate these analog skills into digital media. In time, I abandoned that track in favor of pixel art.

At first, I was terrible at it. But by studying examples, watching tutorials, and practicing, I developed proficiency using Pyxel Edit. I started with a 16-color EGA palette, then later expanded this to the 52-color NES palette.

This has become my niche and primary medium for artwork creation. Tile sheets are relatively quick to make, which is important when you’re a one-man operation. There are 40 years of examples to draw upon for inspiration.

Music

I’ve been writing music for almost 30 years on the Amega Module format, beginning with tunes written on Fast Tracker II using samples ripped from other people’s files. Later, I sampled some high-quality instruments – these were used in the publication of my first album.

Unfortunately, the songs and samples used were lost to time, but I still have a 20-year backlog of my previous work, dating as far back as 1997, all written for games that existed only in my imagination.

These days, I use a Windows port called “Skale Tracker.” It’s based on FT2, can export to .WAV and .OGG formats, and supports up to 64 tracks (although I rarely need more than eight these days and write chip tunes with half that). I’ve mixed and mastered my exported works in Audacity and have been very satisfied with the results.

Programming

Programming has always been my biggest weakness. I’ve never been the kind of person who can read a book on a subject and put that knowledge into practice. At best, I can look at examples, then adapt those to my needs once I understand how.

Someone once told me that DOOM was programmed in C++ and that I could do likewise. I remember seeing a boxed copy of Borland Turbo C++ at the local Best Buy, retailing for $300. I remember thinking then that if only I had the money to buy it, I’d have everything I needed to program my own version of DOOM. I was woefully ignorant back then…

Many times over the years, I’d hoped to get around my limitations by using a game creation engine, my first exposure to this was around 1995. I’d gotten ahold of the Pie in the Sky Software’s 3D Game Creation System for MSDOS.

It was a 2.5D game engine capable of creating games slightly beyond Wolfenstein 3D (floor and ceiling textures, angled walls) but fell short of DOOM (no height variable). While I had limited success designing very simple levels, I didn’t understand its limitations or advanced features and gave it up in frustration.

In my late teens to early 20s, I experimented with 3D Game Studio.

I could create primitive shapes, texture them, and use those objects as building blocks to create a castle out of modular pieces. I could render the map and fly through it, but I had no idea how to use its scripting language. I continued to toy with it for a couple of years, but again, I got discouraged as my imagination outpaced my ability.

In 2014, I picked up GameSalad, and created this website. I had no idea what I wanted to create, so I groped around aimlessly in the dark, bumping into bugs and lacking support.

At the time, GameSalad was primarily marketed to Mac users, and the Windows version lacked many core functions. By the time it caught up to the Mac version, they had stopped offering the Standard Edition for free and switched to a subscription model. I didn’t feel comfortable paying for something I wasn’t entirely sure I could learn to use, so I abandoned it and moved on.

I discovered Game Maker Studio in the spring of 2016. I teamed up with my old friend Eric, and we set out to learn the engine. Eric volunteered to do the programming, I would do everything else (artwork, music, design, documentation, project management).

In the early days, YouTube tutorials were our primary source of GMS programming information. Later, I would compare these to “let’s play” videos rather than proper lessons. Thankfully, I eventually discovered John Janetka’s Game Programming Course (GPC). This was a game changer for us (well, me anyway). While the second half of the lessons became disjointed, it was enough to see me through the creation and publishing of my first game.

Unfortunately, I’d run out of time (and money) and had to start working again. Work became all-consuming, and after spending 10-12 hours of skull sweat a day on technical matters, I didn’t have the energy or drive to devote to game programming when I got home. On the weekends, all I wanted to do was sleep.

I tried to pick it back up several times but couldn’t get back into the habit…

When Stars Align

That all changed this year. I have…

Started a new job with a pension, so now I have a future and retirement to look forward to.
Rid myself of $117,000 of student debt.
Nearly paid off my mortgage (8 months to go).
Lost 43 lbs. of excess weight through diet and exercise, and I am on track to be back to my ideal weight by the end of the year.

I’ve finally reached a point in my life where I can resume my pursuit of game development now that I have the time, energy, and resources to do so.

More to come…

The Whimsical Whibsy

Ignorantia Neminem Excusa

Years ago, an acquaintance I’d met on a Discord server expressed interest in working with me [in game development]. He went on to tell me about a negative experience he had when trying to recruit a team to work on his ‘game idea’ for him…

That should have been a red flag, but I kept quiet and let him continue… His approach was to create an account on a (now defunct) forum and showcase his ‘ideas’ in the form of a bulleted list of features/characteristics from other games he wanted to incorporate into his own. He posted a single storyboarded scene and spent about a paragraph explaining it, followed by screenshots posted from other games, comics, and pictures of scribblings from pages of his notebook.

At the end of the post was another list labeled ‘MAIN GOALS,’ which was just a list of vague, arbitrary tasks (e.g., form a small team with enough members, sign a contract between members, develop enough concepts needed with the overall project).

Predictably, the responses ranged from practical advice (e.g., here are some books on beginner programming) to outright hostility (i.e., you expect me to work for free?). He was obliged to dismiss the practical advice given to him, arguing that he didn’t have the time to learn how to use development tools nor the money to pay for them.

One of the forum members pointed out that his Steam profile showed 100 hours of playtime over the last two weeks since his initial post, challenging his assertion that he didn’t have time to learn new skills. After some feeble excuses and rebuttals, he relented and asked which tools to look at (remember, these had already been suggested to him). After the previously made suggestions were quoted back to him, he persisted in asking for additional information (i.e., what are the differences between the X tool and Y tool? etc.).

By now, those who responded to the thread had written him off as a lazy troll, and whatever questions he had were dismissed as further evidence of his unwillingness to work for the answers he sought for himself.

###

I’ve come to refer to this young man as a “Wouldn’t It Be Cool If… Guy” or Whibsy for short. Derek Yu refers to them as “…a dreaded Idea Person, stalking the internet for unwitting artists and programmers to make their dreams come true.”

Wibsy didn’t understand that there is no shortage of ideas (or Idea People, for that matter). There is always a shortage of time, money, and talent.

Armchair Game Developers

Recently, I’ve encountered Wibsy under a different guise, the armchair game developer. You know, the one who hangs out on forums, calling for nerfs and radical redesigns of game mechanics while explaining to the rest of us how easy these would be to implement and that any “competent” programmer would be able to do it in an afternoon. All this tells me about this person is that they’re neither a programmer nor competent.

Those who can’t, criticize…

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t do or teach, criticize.” – Marsha Hinds

Conclusions?

It didn’t take long for Whibsy and me to grow tired of each other. Although it was his decision to break off the acquaintance by putting me on ignore, I obliged him by reciprocating. Although he attempted to re-establish contact a couple of times since then, I decided it was best just not to engage.

How can I help anyone who can’t help themselves?

Beaster’s Dungeon Revisited: Part II

Continued from Part I...

With Eric gone, I eventually re-coded everything, but never could work out how to implement the trap mechanic, so I shelved it and there it sat…until now…

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I was talking with a friend who was admiring some CGA-16 color palette pixel art, which lead me to showing him the artwork I’d done for Beaster’s Dungeon. He asked if I had any intention of picking the project back up, to which I replied that I might, albeit with a reduced scope. I explained the difficulties I encountered with the trap mechanic, specifically, getting the cursor to snap to a grid.

This lead to a discussion of where I got stuck, and in order to illustrate this, I fired up GMS and started creating a prototype to illustrate the problem. I reached out to my friend Jason (who did the programming for ‘Milk Smugglers’) for suggestions, and he linked a forum post containing the floor/ceiling functions.

In that post was another mysterious function called, move_snap. Here’s what I did for the prototype:

o_cursor Object

///step event

//set coordinates of the cursor to the mouse's x,y position:
x = mouse_x;
y = mouse_y;

//snap the object to nearest grid coordinate 
move_snap (16,16);

Why is this important? Because it allows for precise placement of objects in a map comprised of 16×16 pixel tiles (or any predefined ‘snap’). Around this, additional rules and checks could be incorporated to ensure traps could only be placed where they were meant to be!

At long last, I was finally able to implement the trap mechanic! The only thing left to complete the prototype was enemy path finding… This turned out to be far more complicated than any of the other mechanics combined.

Stay tuned for Part III!

Beaster’s Dungeon Revisited: Part I

Naively Ambitious

Beaster’s Dungeon was to be a 2D platformer where the player would try to stop oncoming hoards of enemies from reaching your treasure vault by collecting resources to build and place elaborate traps.

It was conceived by my friend Eric and myself in late November of 2016. We sketched out a rough outline and slowly refined it into a proper (read: laughably inadequate) design document by early December.

Progress was slow as Eric and I both had very steep learning curves to overcome. I (arguably) had the easier job of creating the artwork and animation, and had plenty of references to lean on for inspiration. Eric, on the other hand, had the dubious honor of trying to cobble together code from various YouTube tutorials and the results were about what you’d expect.

We were getting nowhere fast, and even what [naively] seemed to me to be the simplest features were a puzzle of Gordian complexity for which I decided to apply the Alexandrian solution: cut it all loose and start anew.

Somehow, I stumbled across John Janetka’s Game Programming Course, and by the third lesson, knew enough about GML to solve many of the programming problems Eric was stuck on. Encouraged by a possible way forward, I suggested to Eric that we complete the coursework together. For Eric, this would serve to build the foundational knowledge and concepts he needed to master in order to get predictable, repeatable results. For me, well partly as a show of solidarity and encouragement, but mostly so that I could help troubleshoot when he got stuck.

Eric [reluctantly] agreed and we set off – what follows are details I haven’t really shared before, but I will try to present them objectively in the hope that someone, somewhere will learn from them.

Sullenly Inevitable

Over the next few weeks, I dove head first into the well of knowledge, occasionally coming back up to share what I’d learned on this blog. Eric was less enthusiastic about this, seeing it as a chore, but went through the motions – at least for a while.

To me, each lesson represented one step closer to accomplishing my goals. To Eric, each assignment was a step backward, taking us further and further away from a completed project.

Toward the end of January, I was eager to test what I’d learned by making a simple game from start to finish – that game was Porker: The Quest for Tastiness, more on that below. Eric on the other hand was thoroughly demoralized, having completely given on up on the GPC, and would soon after withdraw himself from the project altogether. What went wrong?

Rowing in the Same Direction

“Much like a relationship, I don’t think a game development team works if the designers aren’t on an equal ability and similar mindset”
– ‘3kliks’ Philip Dyer

From the beginning, I recognized that if I wanted to develop games, I would need to develop my skill set which, as I often lamented, was lacking. But I worked on it and improved, little by little.

As an individual hobbyist, you can work at your own pace, are accountable to no one but yourself and your project(s) can drag on for months or even years on end. You can pick up where you left off, start over or let it collect dust in the dark recesses of a forgotten folder.

In a team of unpaid amateurs, some are genuinely passionate and are prepared to commit time, money and resources to realize their shared dream. Others are only along for the ride, hoping to be carried across the finish line. Somewhere in the middle are those who start strong, but lose steam quickly and eventually drop out.

This could be due to:

Change in personal circumstances
Distractions
Lack of commitment
Loss of interest
Discouragement
Unrealistic expectations
Disagreements and disputes…

In part 7 of his YouTube series called “The Game Making Journey,” Philip Dyer (AKA 3kliksphilip) begins by stating that, “Game design has a reputation for being a boring and lonely activity (probably), but it doesn’t have to be this way! Making them with other people is an exciting bonding experience that almost always ends in disaster. Much like a relationship, I don’t think a game development team works if the designers aren’t on an equal ability and similar mindset.”

For Eric and I, there was a disconnect. When I committed to working on the project, I threw everything I had into it. Between working sessions, I read everything I could get my hands on related to the subject from game design theory to level design concepts to lessons learned from other indie game developers, and tried to incorporate this into my thinking.

Eric wasn’t really interested in what the outside world did or thought, and to my knowledge, never actively sought information or did research. Perhaps he was afraid his ideas would be polluted by outside influences and lose their originality, or perhaps he was afraid that doing so would somehow detract from the magic of it.

A Kind of Magic

To him, creating videos games was a kind of magic – you simply needed to learn the incantation, wave your arms about and the computer would either reward you with your desired outcome or punish you for your insolence by refusing to work, or worse yet, play a trick on you and give you something you didn’t expect.

“One dream, one soul, one prize, one goal
One golden glance of what should be
It’s a kind of magic” – Queen, It’s a Kind of Magic

Having spent the last 20 years of my life (and career) working with computers, I knew this couldn’t be further from the truth. If something didn’t work right, it was my fault for not understanding the syntax or behavior – garbage in, garbage out! The computer had no will of its own, and had no choice but to interpret the commands I gave it in the order they were received, and the order of things mattered.

Larger problems are broken up into smaller problems, and smaller problems can be solved, provided they’re well-defined – no room for ambiguity here!

Never Say Never!

By February 1, 2017, I’d completed the GPC. I wasted no time and dove into re-coding Beaster’s Dungeon. By this point, Eric had stepped down from coding and wanted to try his hand at game design. I created a Game Design Document (GDD) template for him and set him to work while I tried to build a prototype.

By the end of the first week, basic movement was finished, and I was struggling with the trap placement mechanic. I had no idea how build this, and had to take a step back.

Despite all of the effort I put forward insofar as music, graphics and now code, I still wasn’t a “Game Developer” because I had not yet produced “a Game.” This bothered me a lot.

I was discussing this with my friend, Jim, and while talking about GMS, I pulled it up in Google Hangouts and started showing him things. He was drunk, and we were having a great time – he’d shout out silly ideas to me while I coded the game. The artwork was mostly modified from open-source images found here and there. Still, it had that late 90’s flash game charm and worked well enough – it didn’t have to be a great game, but I did have to finish it, and after two days of work, the result was, “Porker: The Quest for Tastiness”, which we released under Jim’s website, porkcircus.com.

###

I never did get back to Beaster’s Dungeon – forever confounded by that damned trap mechanic – until yesterday!

To be continued…

I’m Still Here!

It’s the last day of 2018, and I thought I ought to do a quick retrospective to evaluate where I’ve been and where I’d like to go next year.

In late 2017, I’d decided to get back into game development. I’d returned to work and established myself in my new role. Once I’d caught my breath, I was hit with the itch to create again and took stock of my situation:

There was just one of me, and that’s the way it would likely be (unless money was involved).
If I had to go it alone, I was going to have to re-learn GML – I’d forgotten most of what I’d previously studied

I got back into the swing of things easily enough, but once again, game development took a backseat to other responsibilities.

Around June or so, I started on a spiritual successor to Porker – a Legend of Zelda-style action RPG. I’ve been working on it on and off as time permits, the majority of which has been spent building tiles and character animations.

In early August, I approached a friend and co-worker of mine to see if he had any interest in working together in game development. Being a professional developer, I figured he’d take to GML quickly seeing as how he already had a grandfathered copy of GMS.

We decided it was best to start with a simple game just to see how well we’d work together and aimed for a project that would take no more than 2 weeks.

We settled on a remake of Rhett Anderson’s Arcade Volleyball:

Arcade Volleyball for DOS gameplay animation

Weeks turned to months (about 4 so far) and what we ended up with was…well…very different :)…

It’s called Milk Smugglers – it’s about a pair of inter-dimensional travelers trying not to get caught with a contraband gallon of Grade A Goat’s Milk!

All of the assets are created – there’s a bit of programming that still needs to be done, but all of the game assets are finished (music, sound effects, artwork etc.).

So What Happened to Beaster?

The short answer is that my imagination exceeded my capabilities. I have a lot more growing to do before I’ll be able to tackle that project, and will return to it after completing Porker II and Milk Smugglers.

That said – I wish you all happy new year, and hope that 2019 brings with it some new releases!

Porker Let’s Play Campaign – Post Mortem

In the wake a half dozen or so key requests on WeaselZone.com which yielded no Let’s Play videos, I decided to do a post-mortem on my advertising campaign to evaluate what went right and what went wrong.

###

It’d been a little over a year since I programmed Porker: The Quest for Tastiness. That little game was never intended to be a serious endeavor, but rather a means to get some experience creating and publishing a game.

All of that changed on on February 12, when I’d noticed a couple of kids had:

Found that obscure little game on GameJolt
Installed it
Played it
Posted it on YouTube

They did this all on their own, without any prompting, incentive or instruction.
I was so inspired and encouraged by their Let’s Play that I decided go ahead and expand the game significantly into a fully-featured game.

It took about 2 months to finish the game, and I was very proud of the result. We started looking at ways to advertise and I’d settled on engaging the YouTube Let’s Players community. After all, that’s where it all began, right? What follows is how I went about it and what I learned from the experience in hopes that this may help another fledgling game developer…

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The Popularity Paradox

Although I did not coin the term, “Popularity Paradox,” as far as I am aware (as evidenced by the entire 2 minutes of Google Fu I spent looking) I’m the only person who has applied to the term to this context:

…many indie games become popular because they receive a lot of YouTube coverage from Let’s Players, but Let’s Players tend to only review games that are already popular…

Therein lies the rub! While I sent keys to the usual 1M+ subscriber Let’s Players, I doubted any of them would ever see, let alone play my game. My research seemed to indicate that their backlog of Let’s Play games was dictated by their audiences, usually by popular request via Reddit or some other medium.

So instead, I focused on smaller to medium sized channels, who I hoped would be willing to do a fellow small-fry a solid. Here are the numbers…

I started with the [now defunct] YouTuber Gaming Megalist, a spreadsheet of over 5,000 YouTubers and their demographic information. As I went through the list, I was able to prequalify about 100 or so potential YouTubers, spending about 5 minutes each on their channels to answer the following questions:

Do they post frequently (at least once a week)?
Do they cover small indie games, or just the ones everyone else is playing?
Does their ‘about’ page encourage developers to contact them, or state that they play indie/random/rage games?
Do they have an email address?

If I could answer, “Yes!” to all of these questions, they received a..

Personalized message, tailored specifically to them (no mass-mailing)
Game key for Porker to use for a Let’s Play video
Let’s Player’s guide (PDF)

Of those original 100 or so emails sent out, 25 clicked the link to view their key, and of those, 14 claimed their key. Of those, only 3 went on to make Let’s Play videos.

So how do those figures stack up? Well according to Mail Chimp’s Email Marketing Benchmarks*, the Games industry average was a 19.71% open rate, and a 3.19% click through rate.

Since I emailed my recipients by hand, one message at a time, I can’t really say how many of the 100 odd that I emailed a key to actually opened the message, so instead I’m going to consider “key views” to be my open rate and “key claims” to be my click through rate.

Using those metrics, my open rate is 21% higher than the industry average, and my click through rate is nearly 4.5x greater than what I should reasonably expect.

I suppose that a 21% conversion rate (i.e. ~ 1 out of every 5 people who claimed a key made a video). That’s not terrible, but that was result of about 80 hours of work on my part…

I don’t have a full-time PR person, and have no way of distinguishing between people who are serious about exchanging services by helping each other grow versus dishonest scammers who just want something for nothing.

Going forward, if I do hand out keys, I will use a service like distribute() to do it.

Changes

“Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.” – David Bowie

About 8 weeks ago, I celebrated my 1 year anniversary in my new role. A week after that, my manager resigned and I was tapped to take his place. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of changes and new responsibilities.

By all accounts, this is old hat for me, but the demands on my time have increased significantly, becoming greater and greater as I unravel years of mismanagement and willful neglect.

While I’m very happy in my new position, I am busier than ever, and even less inclined to do anything productive when I get home after 10-12+ hours of skull sweat…

Pressure requires a release valve, and lately, my pressures had been relieved by playing games rather than making them. What’s worse is, these games introduced a whole-new set of pressures and demands on my time – so much so that it felt like a second job, albeit one which I wasn’t being paid to do.

###

While playing games can be fun and interesting, that part fades quickly. What keeps me interested is the social interaction; meeting and spending time with new “friends”. What I found was that for the people I was spending a great deal of time with, the opposite was true – they had no interest in camaraderie, just a person to occupy a seat at the table so they could carry on their game.

Maybe it’s the age gap speaking here, and relationships have given way to instant gratification – maybe I found myself surrounded by the “single serving friends” of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club…

So what did I do? I withdrew…

Credits: featured image, “Butterflies” by M.C. Escher

Dreams and Doldrums

“…there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all… and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites…” – Robert Heinlein

These days, I find myself short on energy. It’s hard to concentrate on programming when my office is in shambles and there is no shortage of housework to be done: Painting, decorating, yard work, hauling off lots of junk left – some of it mine, but the majority belonging to my former house sitters and their extended family – all of it needs to go!

Despite so much to do I find I have little time or energy to do much of anything after a long day of work… Mostly I just lay about and watch videos until I fall sleep.

When I sleep, I dream. My unsatiated creativity gives way to restless nights of dreams, urging me to return to my unfinished work. Somehow, distractions always seem to overtake me, and before I know it, a whole day is wasted with nothing to show for it but writers block.

In other news, my code-signing certificate has been renewed despite having a few new hoops to have to jump through.

I need to find inspiration, and I need to organize my office into something conducive for productive work.