Inky

Once Upon A Time I’ve updated a small interactive game I wrote, you can play the Lost Key game in a browser window. There’s a feedback form at the end, but any constructive thoughts are welcome on Twitter or similar platforms where I know you. Why? Why a fairy story? I can save space, which helps maintain the player’s interest, because the tropes are so familiar. Also I can save time by not doing any research, because there’s very little I need to explain to the player, but also the setting is so vague. As for the “lost key” theme… ...

My further attempts at “working out loud”. I realised this should be called “weeknote”, learnt from Matt Ballantine’s latest post; I appear to be three years behind the trend. Last week 90% done with a new layout for my company website, but still with what feels like 90% of the work left to do. Looked for a new office chair, but I appear to be the wrong shape with the wrong height table Apparently random things starting to fail due to age, my Xbox360 and my lower back being the most notable this week Looked again for a new keyboard, my requirements don’t feel that unusual but I can’t find anything that matches; I’ll blog about that at some point A few nice chats with new contacts and new customers; I appear to have been carrying out “relationship marketing” by accident over the last few years I’m still amazed, thinking about a couple of communities I belong to, on how such smart people can under-estimate or downplay their own abilities I’m still surprised, even after so long, on what smart and useful friends I have if I just make the time to ask them something Ostensibly to relax, I played some Rocket League and Spellbreak for free on Nvidia’s GeForceNow service. Doing so is partly just a break, but it’s always interesting to see how well or how badly ad-hoc teams work together, I’d love to see some statistics. Similarly, I wonder how well teams co-operate in Hell Let Loose under more organised conditions. Contined playtesting of an online game set in the Vietnam War, interesting to see how far the game has diverted from the direction I expected already This week Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect. Those work opportunities are still “hovering”, this is the best and worst aspect of freelancing. Condense the scribbled set of “to do” lists next to me into one list, preferably by doing some of the things on it Actually read a book, again Update that Inky game, make it a little easier: Lost Key

Looking forward and back, 9th August 2021 I’m very wary of journals and journalling, but “work out loud” keeps being recommended more and more, and I’ve seen friends and contacts manage to navigate the line between self-promotion and bluster successfully. Last week Kept fighting software, won as often as I lost this week I think. Contined playtesting of an online game set in the Vietnam War, had to change my initial plans immediately. Continued discussions of what a general course on strategy would look like with some contacts. Continued thinking around bots, either written in code or “card based”. These would be for my own games, or as an unauthorised addition to other’s games. But this looks like a deep area that should be a sole area of study, and I’m not sure its financially viable. Discussions of applicability of traditional Business Continuity Management and Disaster Recovery principles to a modern organisation based on cloud services. Had that weird freelancer thing when opportunities look bleak, and then three people contact you in the same morning ( and therefore laughed at the Law of Attraction once again ). Moved and resized some logical volumes and re-learnt just how easy that can be. Learnt the difference between microboredom and existential boredom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEQTrW9NP68 Watched Alita Battle Angel, which was underwhelming, but I was temporarily intrigued by how the sport of Motorball would work - for example, how to stop it just being a fight but on a track, what strategies teams would use, how to balance teams but allow variation, and so on… I’ve an initial idea together. Watched Ted Lasso, still too dangerous to watch while eating. Finally finished a little “game” in Inky: Lost Key This week Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect. More chats with the consultancy umbrella. Other work opportunities are “hovering”. Try to take off more items from my “to do” lists than I add - that didn’t go so well last week. Read a book, again