Development Blog

Initial Commit

September 18, 2021

This is the first entry on my new Development Blog. Today, I spent some time updating the product page for Ludus Numerous, adding some details about it's concept. I will be adding another game to the product list as well. Both of these games are games I wrote when I was young but never fully released.

Update

October 9, 2021

I have done some more work on the website over the past few months. Today, I added my other game 'SpaceTravel' to the product page and also added more detail to the Home page. I also fixed a few Typos on the Privacy and Cookie policys as I get ready to go live with this entire section. At the current time I am writing this blog entry, the entire blog is still not yet live! I am looking forward to moving all these changes to Prod.

Communication Silence and a return to GameDev

July 16, 2022

It is hard to believe that it has been over half a year since my last entry. Sad to say I haven't made much focus on any sort of game as my real life job has taken priority and I have spent the rest of the time gaming.

...

Or that was what I had written on June 26th. Since then, I have started revising my old game from 2013, SpaceTravel2D. I have now updated it to Unity 2021 and have also fixed a bunch of bugs. Finally, I have gotten it working on Android in a playable state.

Reading through my old code is definalty interesting. This game was made in 2013 and one of the things I did is do almost everything in code. This includes writing a bundle system since the unity bundle system was not available at the time to users without a Unity paid subscription.

What inspired me to start working on this game again after so much time was attending a local game Development meetup and showing off the game. I realized that the game was already very close to release, just needed a bit of polish so I started working on it again. I hope that I can release a beta build on the android store sometime in the next month or so.

In addition, I have started doing Unreal Engine 5 training (last few weeks) to get myself more familar with that engine. By going along with a training, I hope it will also give me some inpiration for future games by going through the process of making a game.

Attending GDC next week!

March 17th, 2023

When I wrote my last entry, I was planning to make more updates between then and now but life and time got away from me. For the last few months, I have been focusing more on my real job than any Game Dev stuff. In this job, I am doing more with terraform and kubernettes and far less programming. With that being said, when time allows, I have spent some time learning Unreal Engine 5 and have completed a few courses, both in blueprints and C++.

However, as March slowly winds down, we get closer to GDC (Game Developer Conference). I don't think I have prepared as much as I should and am a bit nervous but plan to have a great time. Networking is never easy for me but I plan to put my best foot forward towards meeting new people! This will be the first time I attend in-person since about 2017.

As for my old Space game, I put it on the backburner again as I wanted to focus more on Unreal Engine and less on Unity. Also, the code is a bit of a mess since I wrote most of the logic back in university...

All in all, I hope to have a great time at GDC and meet new folks!

A year in review

March 11th, 2024

Once more, it has been another year since my last post. GDC went well and I returned home to my day job in better spirits and no longer feeling weighted down by past projects. While I tried to focus on game dev during my free time, I often had motivation issues and writer’s block. Despite that, I did make progress a few times including participating in the Epic Megajam with a diverse team in September. Together we developed a game focused on automation and potions called Automagica After (and before) that time seemed to blend as my day job tended to take all of my mental energy leaving little left over. I made some progress here and there on learning Unreal but nothing significant.

An end of an era

June 12th, 2024

After much review, I have put redoing my old projects on hold in favor of working on new projects. I eventually came to the realization that both projects were technically released and it is time to move on and stop them from bogging down my creative processes.

Experience gained...

Aug 19th, 2024

2 months ago, I connected with a local unity developer and worked on assisting him on an existing game he was working on. While this ultimatly did not work out due to us not being a good fit for collaberation, the 6 weeks I spent on the project allowed me to gain some experience working in a more expansive unity project than I have worked in before.

I plan to leverage this new experience to work on my own game. I am still not really sure what I want to create a game about so, I think I will start with remaking and fleshing out Ludus Numerous into a larger game. I also have learned a bit about myself and this has taught me that I don't do well with verbal communication, expecially early in the morning. I have learned I should avoid early meetings, and if I need to have one, I should dillegently take notes as best I can or leavage a recording / transcribing service to keep track of what happened.

In addition, I plan to work on adding a Services page with professional services that I am able to provide. I want to keep this mostly game dev related, but I also have a lot of outside experience in Java Development (Spring Boot / Angular) as well as experience in DevOps and kubernettes.