#and decided i wanted to learn JavaScript

[crows-of-buckets]

GOODDD I hate when teachers give you subjects to pick from and all of them suck. My English prof is giving us a descriptive writing assignment which. Not hard, we only have to write 100-200 words it's great but HE GAVE US THE WORST FUCKING TOPICS IN EXSISTANCE I stg how am I supposed to write a decent paragraph about "something I think about often" and he wants us to set it up as an intro paragraph to an essay which like. Is fucking me up because a descriptive paragraph is most definitely NOT an opening paragraph. He wants us to follow the "intro sentence" "supporting details" "conclusion sentence" format which. Fine I'm good at that BUT NOT WHEN YOU GIVE ME THE WORST FUCKING TOPICS KNOWN TO MAN. MY GOD. I'm good at English I've always been good at English but I've been procrastinating for over an hour because idk how to format it the way he wants and these topics SUCK

[beekeeperspicnic]

I've got this colleague at my day job who keeps saying infuriating things, but they are so funny in the context of the fact that evenings and weekends I'm making a Sherlock Holmes computer game.

Me: Oh yeah I'm learning Javascript at the moment. Him: Pff you don't want to do that. You're an artist and graphic designer, that's where your strengths are, I think you'll find computer programming really boring, it's not for everyone. Me: *looks at fourth wall and shrugs*

Me: I read this really interesting paper about a project working with dementia patients, where they guide them through making a memory map of familiar places. Him: Ooh, like Sherlock Holmes and his mind palace. Him: See, Sherlock Holmes has a mind palace. Him: But I'm sure you don't read those sorts of books, you wouldn't be interested. Me: *Sitting on a zoom call, with my collection of Strand magazines and signed picture of William Gillette very visible behind me. Opens mouth. Decides I don't have the energy. Closes mouth.*

[saturnine-saturneight]

Holoatypical: Dev Log 1

Number one in what's hopefully going to be a pretty long series of updates!

So, first things first: Godot rocks. I've been using it for two weeks now, having switched from GameMaker (and before that, Twine, and before that, Java and JavaScript), and Godot does so much of the heavy lifting for you. It genuinely feels like an engine that's designed for making games. Unlike GameMaker, which was like wading through molasses every step of the way, while some sort of molasses shark is biting at your ankles. And I've coded in JavaScript.

Second, let me show you what I've been up to!

As you can see, I'm working on a prototype to try out the merging mechanic. It's got some (ha) bugs, and dragging things could be smoother, but the critters do actually snap into the grid and merge now, and I'm very pleased with that.

This chamber you see here is going to be the lab. As it's planned right now, the player will have infinite initial building blocks (eggs, spores, seeds...), which merge into different critters depending on environmental variables (artificially set in the lab) and on which other specimens are currently in the chamber. The challenge is to figure out the right parameters. I have no idea how big the chamber needs to be for that, but that's not really an issue, because...

This isn't so much a prototype as I'm just straight up building the foundations for a game, which is why it's taking me so long. The grid you see here is controlled with a few variables, and everything is flexible enough that I can simply change the grid size during playtesting and it still works.

The tile grid is an array of arrays, filled with slot nodes that I instantiate at runtime. Is this the best way to learn a new program and language? Haha. Who knows.

Specimens have a sprite sheet with all their stages on it, and when a critter levels up, the part that's visible to the player just needs to be shifted 64 pixels to the right.

That's x starting point, which is the specimen stage/level times 64, then y starting point, width, and height. Fun! So easy!!

As to the sprite sheet, I'm going against common advice and making these big. The 1bit style is super fast to do, and in my opinion, a certain level of detail is important to make the sprites look like anything. I'm moreso playing with the look than really wanting to make a retro game.

This sheet only took me an evening! I'm enjoying it because it really forces you to abstract the shape and focus on what's most important about the critter. (This is a style test - I haven't decided yet how weird I want to go with these vs making them look more natural.)

Next up will be ironing out the kinks, making an egg dispenser and a specimen incinerator so the field can be filled up and emptied, coming up with a few more specimen, and then going into play testing.

But in the next dev log, you're probably going to hear way more about the story and the characters. I am eyeing a visual novel extension for Godot (dialogic), which, if it does what I think it does, is going to take a lot of work off my hands and only leaves me with writing the actual dialogue, which I've already started on.

@tragedycoded @badscientist @curiouscalembour @writingrosesonneptune @gioiaalbanoart @monstrify @cowboybrunch @tsunamiscale @marlowethelibrarian

Was this format interesting? Less code? More code? Anything you specifically want me to talk about in this process? Let me know!

[izicodes]

After taking a "blog break," I’m excited to start sharing some of the projects I’ve been working on during my time away! One of the highlights is a custom widget I created for Notion—a photocard featuring my favorite band, PLAVE. This widget is perfect for fellow PLAVE fans (Plli), allowing them to display a "fanmade" photocard of their favorite band members right on their Notion pages.

I began this project not only to celebrate my love for PLAVE but also to dive deeper into the world of Notion widgets and explore what’s possible.

Let’s dive into the details of how I built it and the creative process behind it!

I started this project back in May, right after I discovered PLAVE in April! Around that time, I started following a 'photocard editor' on Twitter who creates these fantastic 'unofficial' collectible photocards of PLAVE. I fell in love with her edits immediately. I was also using Notion extensively to keep my Korean studies organized, so I thought, why not combine my passion for Korean learning with my love for PLAVE?

I wanted to create a public widget that other PLAVE fans could easily add into their own Notion pages. To be respectful and ensure proper credit, I reached out to the editor, Jane, to ask if I could use her edits in my widget. I explained my project idea and shared some Figma wireframes to show how the widget would look and function. Jane was excited about the concept and gave me her blessing to move forward. I didn’t start any programming until I had her approval!

For this project, I needed to create two main components: the widget itself and a webpage with information and installation instructions. Surprisingly, the info and installation page turned out to be more challenging than developing the widget! I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so I wanted to ensure the page was user-friendly, responsive, and easy to navigate. It was tougher than I wished for!

As for the widget, it was relatively straightforward to develop and only took me about two days. However, I did face some issues with broken links that I still need to fix, and I’m not quite sure why they’re not working. Usually, I’m a ReactJS enthusiast, but since this was a smaller project, I decided to use my "beginner combo": HTML, CSS (including SCSS), and JavaScript. I quickly realized how accustomed I’ve become to ReactJS because I kept writing code that didn’t work in Vanilla JavaScript—talk about a wake-up call!

In the end, I completed the project to a point where it was ready to present to both the PLLIs (PLAVE fans) and Jane. I found myself eagerly awaiting Jane’s feedback because her artwork was integral to the project. If she wasn’t happy with the outcome, I would have felt the same. Thankfully, she loved it! I officially posted the widget on Twitter/X, and Jane shared it as well. Although most of the users were Korean, reading their translated positive comments made me genuinely happy.

Who knows? Maybe in the future, I’ll work on another PLAVE-themed project. I really enjoyed creating this one!

Feel free to check out the project and try installing the widget on your Notion page:

The official tweet about the project

The installation page

The widget in template Notion page

fyi, it still needs work, I will get to it eventually~~~!

[su-codes]

Hi, I'm Su! 💫

I've been on tumblr for ages, but I decided to create this blog to document my progress with learning web dev!

About me:

I'm 25, mexican-american, and I have an orange cat 🐱 (hence the avi, although I'm well aware it looks more like a fox lol)

I really struggle with undiagnosed adhd, so sometimes I'll get in ruts that last anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months :(

I have a biochemistry degree but never used it because I thought I wanted to be a pharmacist lmao

Used to be a teacher but fuck that fr (me and the US dept. of education have beef)

I'm currently enrolled part time in a full-stack coding bootcamp

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Goals for this blog:

❤️‍🔥 keep me motivated and inspired

🖊 post updates on things i've worked on/accomplished

📚 reblog resources for future reference

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Languages I'm learning:

HTML

CSS

Javascript

node.js/express.js/handlebars.js

MySQL

[pebblethief]

coder friends, I require assistance!

basically, there is a tool I want that doesn't seem to exist, but it feels just simple enough that I feel like potentially I could learn the required skills to make it and I need a sanity check that it is as achievable as I hope, and also that I'm choosing the most sensible language (python from my vague google searching)

here is a rough mockup. 

step one: decide how many segments

step 2: decide how many little bumps per segment

step 3: choose your offset

step 4: choose a colour (ideally you can use a colour picker or hex code, but I can live with a predefined palette)

step 5: (image one!) click a colour onto one of the bumps, that automatically makes lines between all of those bumps (angle defined by the offsets)

[repeat that for all bumps] (image 2)

step six (stretch goal): clicking one one of the threads moves that to the top  (image 3)

this website is *kind* of similar to what im aiming for, it shows the way i want the colour to apply along the zigzag, and it shows how if you click somewhere the rotation changes? (sidenote: EXCELLENT website for inkle/tablet weaving!)

!

basically i want a sanity check that this seems like it'd be a Pretty Doable level of "learn 2 code", and that python is the most sensible language to learn?

i did also look at lua but idk if its a "slightly harder to learn python" but python could be more useful for other things sooo might as well work a little harder?

edit: a friend suggested JavaScript, plus they know it and have become Intrigued so will probably help me if I need it haha, so I shall start my quest with js

[hauntinginprogress]

neocities heracles trials: from a chaotic newbie

okay so i want to actually start posting here and i finally got it through my thick skull that this is LITERALLY A BLOG. i'm supposed to blog. so here's a blog post.

anyways, for context, i've been working on my neocities for a while now, recently started over to make things more original and more me. another thing to note is that i'm using VScode.

the issue here is that i have zero well not exactly zero but i lack any professional/academic background experience with making websites. the html isn't the issue (thankfully) but holy shit dude...css+javascript implementation . basic styling with css is no biggie, right? absolutely, however...may i introduce: smooth transitions + the absolutely tragic fact that the <marquee> tag is deprecated an accessibility issue.

so, my first goal day one was to recreate a marquee animation through css. so i tried to simply implement this incredibly useful bit of code into my site (in which if you're interested i totally think my failure to get it working was user error so please check it out it works great if you're not me) but, lo and behold, despite me getting it to work in my V1 project, i could not, for the life of me, get it to work. so i, not too familiar with css animation and completely lost when it comes to javascript, started grasping at straws. i ended up finding this tutorial and, with some improvisation since the tutorial is for webflow and i'm manually writing everything, managed to make my own css recreation of a marquee effect essentially from scratch, and even learned about the animation-play-state css attribute so i could pause the effect when the marquee is hovered over! victory, basically.

then, i looked around the many cool and absolutely awesome sites on neocities to get inspiration, and then i was like "hey what if i made a custom button background image" and with some trial and error, made myself a pretty decent base (for now) with aseprite, and learned more about the program in the meantime which is always a plus.

then i decided that i wanted to do more with the buttons. i wanted to make it animate on hover. not too hard right? you'll...you'll see why i struggled...in a moment...

anyways, i settled on a simple shrink animation. which THIS i could do with ease, messed around a bit, got the keyframes, assigned that to the button:hover and all of that and all was good!...until i realized that once i stopped hovering over it, it snapped back to its original scale instead of transitioning smoothly again. THIS is where the "fun" began.

see, although i can wrap my head around things easily when it comes to css, i have to constantly look up what the proper syntax for everything is because otherwise i'll mess everything up. and through my research i had conducted (aka surfing through multiple blogs and reddit posts alongside other things on random forum websites) i had discovered the very neat transition attribute.

but we'll have to return to this because i have adhd, and i ended up getting distracted during this process. see, originally i had decided that the button would change it's visual to appear like it was pressed when the user's mouse hovered over it. then i was like "i don't think this makes sense" so i changed it so that the button wouldn't change its background image unless the user actually clicked on it. so i did that. then i had to make sure that the button wouldn't magically scale up again so i had to transform the styling and blah blah blah those details aren't really that important ANYWAYS the actual important bit about this is that if you use the transition attribute and there's a change in background images that change will also be transitioned unless you set the transition to only apply to a specific change. and i didn't know that originally. so every time i tried to fix things up with a transition so the button wouldn't snap back to it's original size out of nowhere the background would slooowly change as well and i actually got so frustrated with this that i wanted to burn something down because that's a totally normal reaction i guess. anyways, then i started frantically searching for answers on the topic and EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THAT I FOUND. INCLUDED JAVASCRIPT.

i do not know javascript. i have not learned anything about it unlike css and html. it SCARES me and it is FRUSTRATING. but i thought i'd try it anyways. news flash that shit didn't work at all and i almost thought about scrapping the animation entirely especially when it randomly stopped working when i made certain changes, but i ended up eventually figuring out what i mentioned earlier (CSS transitions and the fact that you can assign them to only affect a specific change instead of everything) so with some dabbling here and there i eventually managed to finally figure out how to make everything smooth through pure css and although it still snaps if the element hasn't finished animating i'm happy with it.

moving on to another thing, i wanted to then make a sound effect play when you click the button. yes, we are still talking about buttons. THIS i could not do with css, like, at all. javascript admittedly is for interactivity and i had already been bending the rules quite a bit with the animations since those teechnically should've been done with javascript as well but this? this was impossible without javascript. so i found a free mp3, and searched up a nice little tutorial on the very basics of javascript.

little did I know that apparently, this would be my own personal little hell.

see, no matter how many times i tried a different script, the sound just would not work like at all. i'd do everything in what i assumed to be the correct way, and no matter what, it would not play. knowing that i'd just have to revisit this, i decided it was best to just sort of put it on the back burner.

and this is where i wish i could say this is the end of my absolutely gobstopping rant. however, i cannot.

see, one thing that i really like that i've seen in a lot of other people's sites is draggable windows. i think they're sick. but this ALSO requires javascript, but i didn't think this could POSSIBLY be that bad since so many people did it.

...right?.......right? guys. right?

MOTHERFUCKER I WAS SO WRONG.

see, it turns out that a lot of people do this sort of thing with jQuery, specifically for user interfaces. but vscode doesn't have a "user friendly" way to get jquery to work with it. and because i don't want to mess with program files, i decided that logically speaking jquery just makes writing things in js scripts less complicated and doesn't introduce things that are impossible in vanilla javascript so i decided i could suffer a little bit and try and do things without jquery.

this led me to looking at many sites with draggable windows to look at their own scripts, in which every single time i tried replicating things i FAILED.

i eventually stumbled upon a nice code that worked. but the issue with it - in which unfortunately i can't find it, else i'd link it - is that it works with not only element classes but also a specific ID. see, this would be fine if i only wanted ONE draggable element. but i want multiple. and i thought that maybe if i just duplicated the script and dedicated it to a different ID and changed function names it would work but nooo life cannot be this easy apparently. so after setting up my webmaster status window, getting that to work, i tried doing the aforementioned method for what will eventually be a guestbook of sorts. it failed.

so i decided, "hey i'll revisit this later!!" and i went on to finding a way to implement a status widget into my site. this honestly was really easy as i ended up stumbling upon status.cafe . so i registered, eventually got my account activated, and i got it working in my live port of vscode just fine!! all is good in the world.

well that's what i thought until i found out that since i had created my neocities account in march of 2024, and i'm unemployed since i'm still in high school hence i have a free account, that i could not. use the widget. in neocities. so i tried finding a work around, found this handy guide (which is genuinely useful by the way) and set up things through a RSS feed instead which is essentially just a work around that complies with the security restrictions of neocities that i'm bound by. anyways, this works great but i literally just can't customize it to how i want so this is another fail. then i find imood.com which, although is NICE, doesn't suit what i want on its own. so i'm at a loss here too.

so, again, another thing to put to the side i suppose.

so i started working on getting my guestbook, browsed through people's homepages again, and found chattable . and you probably think i have another paragraph complaining about this but honestly i can't write about something when i can't figure out how to even create a chat to implement onto my site in the first place so...y'know.

plus, i honestly have no clue if it'll work on my site either due to security restrictions so this is fun!!

anyways, after dealing with all of this, i finally decided it was about time i ported what i had so far over onto my neocities account. which isn't actually that hard i just had to wipe all of my files, overwrite the content in my index.html file there and paste in what i have now, and then upload my new files. but for some god awful reason after i went through all of this chrome just. kept depending on my old stylesheet??? so i had to clear some of my browsing data and eventually everything was loading properly for me.

and THIS is finally the end of my ridiculous documentation concering my neocities adventure so far.

i have no doubts i'll end up ranting here AGAIN about all of this but for now this is all i have on my plate...besides finally caving and learning javascript for real and continuing to learn more about html and css. hopefully one day i'll stop having such frequent issues but now is not the time and i doubt that'll be anytime soon either.

moral of the story, if you want to start something new and pick up a new hobby, please for the love of all that is of substance in this world don't go in completely blind like i've done if you're going to be making a project of some sorts. it will only lead to many misfortunes.

anyways you can see what i currently have done in my neocities here, make suggestions or give advice in the notes and whatnot i don't know.

[codemom]

I'm thrilled to share that I recently completed the SheCodes Basic workshop and earned my certificate! 🎉 This immersive online program provided such a great introduction to web development concepts and skills.

Over the workshop, I gained so much useful knowledge about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The hands-on coding challenges let me apply what I was learning in a practical way. I'm proud of all the web pages, interactions and animations I coded from scratch!

I'll be starting the SheCodes Plus where we'll dive deeper into HTML. CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap and more! Although I still can't decide if I want to be a Frontend Developer or go the Fullstack way😑.

Here is a link to my final Basic project:

[bloodsadx]

sometimes i think of that rpgmaker thing you did a while back, and how striking the style was. do you have any plans for anything like that again in the future?

i really loved drawing for that but i was put in a 3way suckage position:

1. making “manifesto rpg” before i finished making manifesto comics was like giving me an identity crisis bc i want to be primarily a comics artist and also to tell the specific manifesto story through a comic medium so i was writing like an obtuse semi canon story that involved those characters so that i wouldn’t like feel like i blew my load but also it was taking up so much time that while i was doing it i wasnt making comics and i was like man i should be making comics instead but ultimately i just couldnt do either at the time bc of my brain. but like writing the story for the game and adding enemies and plot details felt like i was walking through a minefield of longterm story planning where i was like “would i want the prospective audience of this game to know this detail before i finish my comics?” which is already something i struggle with in my comics with like nonlinear story telling and trying to decide the most optimal order of impacts to tell the specific story i want which changes based on my mood etc like it was genuinely stressing me out very badly so the story i ended up writing for that game bc this weird bloated thing that was simultaneously not going to be substantial but also felt like i was giving away my best kept secrets for free or something lol

2. i dont know how to write javascript very well so i couldnt make the class system as elaborate as i wanted and the battle system was extremely interesting to me to fabricate but learning javascript and also the like rpgmaker specific terms was really daunting and taking me weeks of time where i was doing bad at it and also not making any money and also paying rent

3. the amount of detail and one off art assets i was generating and the fact i was drawing everything traditionally in a specific style i was developing for the game then touching it up in specific ways and trying to hew as closely to red/black/white as possible was incredibly inefficient and incredibly time consuming and i have like an incredible litany of mental health disorders and at that time in particular i was extremely unable to genuinely focus on anything for very long and i basically hyper obsessed over that project for like 2-3 months and then completely crashed MOSTLY bc the feeling that i wasnt making money OR comics at the time made me feel like i was losing my way so i basically pivoted my entire shit back to screen printing soon after that so that i could make money

all of that being said, i would Love to do some shit like that again, i try to advertise that to people and put it in my portfolio and stuff, but i don’t have the time or money to do it, and also, the kind of art i make, the kind of ideas i have, in my experience are so like stylistically Me and like Strong, that often times i think people struggle to collaborate with me or are just patently uninterested in it bc it feels like “ivy stuff”, like it subsumes other stuff, and so i think if i did make something like that i would have to resolve the above 3 problems and do it mostly solo or have so much money that i could pay someone else to do coding stuff for me. idk. maybe one day. i do think ive gotten incredibly better at skills like project management and dedicating myself long term to finishing things in the years since then, like the hot sauce miku drop or a bunch of other personal projects ive taken on have taught me better. i have more friends and such. i am relatively optimistic one day something like this could happen

[lazar-codes]

25/08/2023 || Day 72

I decided that today is the day I learn Node.js, and by that I mean start watching a tutorial playlist on it. The videos that I'm watching are by the same guy whose videos on React I've been using to learn it, and he explains things nice and slowly, but also to the point. He also tells us why this technology is used so we get a better and deeper understanding of the tools we're using. Can't recommend him enough. Because of that, no real coding was done on my part aside from writing the traditional "hello world", but it still counts so I'm still writing this log entry (plus I wanted to share the videos/his channel).

[petricakegames]

Play This: DOL-OS

Play This is a place for me to tell you about games or game demos that I love and want everyone to play! Right. Now.

Year 3XXX, you discover an old computer, an antique, in some ruins. Surprisingly, it still powers up when you press its buttons. Wonder what you found within its files?

Play the game for yourself!

Y'all, this is a special game. Originally published in French, DOL-OS won Best Game of Concours de Fiction Interactive Frachophone. Luckily for me, @manonamora-if recently released a remastered and translated version of her game in English.

The narrative and story of the game are excellent, but I've gotta talk first about the UI and the loading screen because....dang. Just, mind-bogglingly good. I'm not particularly knowledgable/experienced/good when it comes to the combo move of css, html and javascript that is Twine and clicking Run Game for the first time--you know in Fallout 3 when the vault door rolls away and you're like wooooooah? It was like that. It's so impressive and neat and I've reloaded the game many times now just to watch it start. This game belongs in an art gallery for IF.

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor and started playing, another delight was in store for me. The game sparked the same kind of excitement and interest as Her Story. You are presented with a computer desktop and free to do with it what you will. It invites the player to explore (to snoop! I love snooping) and once you find what's there you can make of it what you will. There's no explicit instruction or implication in what kinds of opinions or thoughts you should form. Explore and think freely. And wonder, are you the player part of this narrative?

And solve puzzles! I love puzzles. I got so excited about the first one that I think I missed a lot of other world-building. Oops!

The more you play the more you learn about the history of this computer, of the world it came from and the influence it's had. Complex moral questions are raised again with no clear directive from the game. You'll have to decide for yourself how you feel about this machine...and what you do about those feelings.

There are so many great moments in this game. [SLIGHT SPOILERS] Though my favorite: while playing the game I enjoyed the ever-present sound effect of the gentle whir of a cooling fan--a nostalgic noise from my youth. Well into the game, a principal character starts suffering deleterious effects from something he refers to as "the Humming Machine" and I'm like !!! Wait, is that a gentle fan blade sound or am I hearing the Humming Machine, too?! It was so creeeeeeepy! Loved it! [/SPOILERS]

Also, there are minigames. Come on, people! Minigames!

DOL-OS is a great game and I highly recommend playing it. I'm excited to play again and discover what I missed the first time through. Give yourself a Sunday treat and play the game!

[sprictercatalog]

So, just heard of this “100 Days” Challenge

Since I won’t be able to get an accurate metric anyway I just decided I’ll start the counter now

I wanted to start this challenge so that I guess I’ll have somethin’ to put on the ‘Blr and to keep track of progress I think that’d be cool

Currently the only resource I am using is Codecademy with the Plus subscription

As of current:

I have finished the basic Javascript course, and after learning basic HTML and CSS, move onto intermediate Javascript.

This much through HTML, learned about the <form> and <input> elements, and the various types, well, inputs. And also about ‘Client-Side Validation’, basically letting you know that the input data is input correctly.

And to officiate it,

DAY 1/100 OF CODING

[katesprocessblog]

Week #3

Introduction

For this week I knew I needed to spend a little time narrowing down what I wanted my topic to be. Next week I plan on spending most of my time on that task but I still need to do some thinking now because I’m at a point where I’m encountering recurring issues:

Issue #1: I know I want to do something personal relating to finding one’s identity and how hard that can be growing up when you feel othered or like you don’t belong. I just don’t know if I want to use the lens of nostalgia, horror, or both to convey feelings of discomfort? I’ve enjoyed the research I’ve done but I just don’t feel totally set on that yet even though I spent the last two weeks largely looking into it.

Issue #2: I haven’t seen a lot of horror? It’s a genreI stayed away from for so long, and it’s only been a recent thing that I’ve felt like I want to explore more and I feel drawn to, but I'm not knowledgeable on the subject so I need to decide if I want to pivot off of this or not. I think the form of horror I’ve consumed the most is through video games so I could spend a week diving into that.

I am hoping my research this week leads me in the right direction.

Research

I sent out a google form this week asking questions related to horror/thriller genres in media people consumed growing up and how they might have been affected by them. I also wanted to know why people really like these genres or why not.

Do you consume media (games, films, TV, books, videos) containing horror/psychological/thriller elements?

When you were a teen/preteen, what were some of the memorable pieces of media in those genres that you consumed?

Are you drawn to these genres? Why or why not?

Do you remember any media in these genres being particularly nostalgic for you?

Are you easily scared or frightened? Did/do you have a lot of nightmares often now or when you were younger?

I sent this out on monday to some friends and as of writing my blog post I’ve gotten 8 responses. There is a wide variety of answers which I’m very happy about. I found it interesting that I had responses in all 4 quadrants of this table. 

Enjoys horror and gets scared easily

Doesn’t enjoy horror and attributes that to getting scared easily

Enjoys horror and isn’t scared easily

Doesn’t enjoy horror and isn’t scared easily

The question about nightmares led to some interesting thought processes and I might look into that more. Like I had one person say that they are super anxious and got a lot of nightmares as a kid but don’t like horror not because it’s scary but because they find a lot of it to be “cheesy”. Another person said they have to watch horror media during the day which I definitely relate to. It reminded me though how the dark is an extra layer of scariness because of the unknown that comes with not being able to see your surroundings well. 

Overall there’s a lot more that I learned from the responses so far and I think it helps me find some more things to look into as potential points of views surrounding maybe the eyes and identity or nightmares and identity etc.

Creative Research

One of my friends had mentioned I should look into OpenProcessing, which is an online platform that allows people to share and explore creative coding projects made with p5.js and other programming languages. It's like a social network for artists and programmers, where you can find, showcase, and collaborate on interactive artworks and visual experiments. I just started learning JavaScript and using the p5 library this year and the generative art side of the website drew me in.

Some examples of cool things that I was looking into on the website:

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/1270210

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/2065676

https://openprocessing.org/sketch/2095152

Over the week I ended up looking into tutorials on the basics of making sketches. This one guy has a good series on different topics like shapes, loops, color, trig functions, noise. I just spent time learning more about generative art and I think these skills can help me in the future of wherever I head in my project. 

Reflections

This week I think I gained some good insights. I know I want to work with identity and research something related to that pain and discomfort that comes with trying to find your identity, especially growing up in the preteen and teenage years. My creative research was not connected really to my reflection but I do think I will use what I learned in the future of my project. I know for next week I will continue to expand upon what we worked on in class with identifying a point of view and I have some really good ideas I just need to look for gaps in information now.

[izicodes]

My 2023 Projects

Wednesday 3rd January 2024

I thought it would be cool to share some of the projects I made last year that I liked and enjoyed working on! Most of them were small projects, some were projects I built straight after I learnt a new concept and a few are discontinued (I won't finish them anytime soon)!

I really hope, which I know I will because it's natural for me at this point, to make lots of more cool projects! This year, I want to make more with other people! Coding alone is cool and all but with other people I get more inspired!

Lastly = always remember to build projects that you're interested in. Projects you will have fun working on for a while. Every single one of these projects I've made, I was interested in somehow. And I had fun!!

Anyhoo, check out the projects below~! 🙋🏾‍♀️😊🖤

TumblrTextTint

Basically a formatter for Tumblr posts by adding custom colours to your text! Even learnt how to make FireFox extensions so I could add it as an extension to my browser - link 1, link 2

Web Odyssey

I looked at old Windows GUI on Pinterest one day and decided to recreate the GUI with HTML, CSS and JavaScript! - link 1, link 2

Cat Fact Generator

For one of the projects I did for the #3Days1Project challenge, I created a cute cat generator. Learnt how to work with APIs and a CSS library (Pattern.css) - link 1, link 2

Studyblr Valentines Gift 2023

It was valentine season in the Studyblr community and I participated! I made a poem webpage for a studyblr who was learning Russian! (I don't know anything in Russian but for a couple of weeks I learnt some of the poems!) - link 1, link 2

Saint Jerome Tribute Page

I made a page for my favourite patron saint, Saint Jerome, for his feast day (Sept 30)! I haven't had time to complete it fully and there's no live page for it but I did make posts about it! - link 1

Trigun Quote Generator

Just finished the Trigun anime series at the time so I decided to make a project for it for the #3Days1Project challenge! The anime is so good, it is my 2nd favourite (JOJO comes 1st place) - link 1, link 2

Froggie To-Do

Just came from learning the absolute BASICS of React.js, so I wanted to test my skills so far so I made this project! Shared it on my blog and some people started using it for studying (which made me so happy!) and it became a mini open-source project because random people started adding mini features to the app! Very special project for me! - link 1, link 2, link 3

[cheerstotheelites-if]

My cousin's wife is working from home as an ESL teacher (we are in Europe), teaching Chinese students. The pay is good and as far as I've been told, there is a good amount of demand from the Chinese job market for ESL teachers and, while having a degree in linguistics (foreign languages) or teaching is a plus for an applicant, it's not really demanded. You only need to have a good grasp of the English language and preferably have a document/certificate that proves your English level (either TOEFL or IELTS).

Another suggestion I'd give is learning and mastering a programming language if you manage to land a job as an ESL. Decide whether you want to be a front-end developer (basically developing/designing/maintaining the user interface) or a back-end developer (if you want to bother with maintaining the server side of things) and the area you want to focus on. If you go for web development then, considering your experience with HTML, CSS and Javascript, you could go with Node.js or Django/Flask if you want to learn something new for back-end development and go with React.js for front-end development. Otherwise go for mobile apps development using android studio. It's in very high demand, at least in Europe, but you have to be good at it. Create a good portfolio of programming projects which e.g are useful as a solution for a problem you or someone might have encountered in their daily life if you go for app development, or create user-friendly (this is very important) websites.

As for my last advice, is actually creating an account on Linkedin. You'll be able to connect with various professionals and companies throughout the world , gather information for various topics and see job listings for your preferred field of work, but most importantly, it will serve as a boost to the visibility/exposure of your skills or simply as a CV. It will increase your chances of finding a remote job.

A little question: When are you planning to take commissions?

Oh damn. Thank you so much for the advice and the suggestions, anon. I'll put it up for consideration, and see if I'll be able to do that

For the commissions though, I don't have a set date yet, since I'll have to rework what stuff I will and I will not write and up the prices a bit. Thinking $3-$5 with pay how you want from the initial $1 commissions, because needs have changed now. I am planning to take in 3 commissions, since this will be my first time using kofi to take them. I will inform you all when I'll be taking commissions through an announcement post, don't worry!

[dreammelter]

Speedrun Workshop Postmortem

I wanted to make a more detailed postmortem as I cleaned the project files up but I'll keep it simple today… If I take any longer, I'm sure to give up on it. (The year is ending so there's a lot of prep/wrap-up going on in other areas I'm responsible for. 🙃)

What I'll cover:

What was the project about? It's goals? It's products?

How did I approach it?

How did things change and why?

What did I like most of what I completed?

What did I wish I could complete?

What did I learn? (A LOT. But maybe make a more definitive list.)

What would be my tips/advice for next time?

(Project deliverables are up on GitHub.)

The One Day Workshop

I only vaguely remember what spurred the project and apparently don't have any journal entries for it either… so here's the gist of it!

My sister worked with City of Las Vegas/Strong Future to help teach some Office 365 basics. In July, she decided to start a small tech biz (now defunct) that offered more technical training. If I remember correctly, she asked if there was anything I'd like to offer, so I figured I could cover programming, 3D art, and game development. (I really just wanted an excuse to play with the things I liked lol.) The team at Strong Future took an interest in hosting the game development class, but they only had a small budget for it at the time. So we decided to host a workshop for middle and high school students on Nevada Day.

The idea was to introduce students to the process of game development as well as some careers and resources. Since the workshop would only last 5 hours, the students would follow along with the recreation of an arcade-like game. I originally wanted to require students have some experience with code since we'd be jumping right into a project. We decided to leave it open to those without it, though. I figured I could do a quick intro to scripting and wouldn't sweat it too much since students could either type-along or drag-and-drop the files.

The workshop had an additional constraint: the computers in the lab wouldn't be able to install any additional software, so I'd have to use a portable or web-based game engine. I've long held onto a list of game engines and dev resources, so finding one wasn't an issue. What was interesting, though, was seeing how some of them have changed over the years… Godot Engine was the first one that came to mind and the one I was sure I was going to go with, but I took a look at my old list anyway. Cocos2D was my second choice since I'd be able to use JavaScript and I was considering it for a future web project, but it required more setup and research than I was interested in bothering with. (The modern Cocos editor requires an install.) Defold, like Godot, doesn't require an install but I didn't want to write in Lua. (Read: I didn't want to relearn how to write Lua. I only have three months.) Game Maker, Construct, GameSalad, and GDevelop were some others I considered for their web versions and/or visual programming features, but I didn't want to force the students to sign up for anything.

So Godot it was. 😎 Long Live Open-Source.

We also named the workshop "Speedrun" some weeks later.

Expectation

The workshop needed three things: a prototype to remake, some slides, and a collection of resources the students could use and refer to later. I was also advised to create a printed handout students could follow along with.

There would also be 20 students at most.

I wanted to break down the five hours as such:

1 hour talking about the industry, careers, and development concepts

3 hours walking through the prototype

1 hour letting the students tinker and build their own levels

(I wrote a couple of different outlines with timestamps closer to the end of the project, too.)

I wanted to teach the students game dev was all about problem solving (and IID.) I'd pose a question or scenario, then walk them through the implementation. Once we built the base game, the students could use the extra resources to add to it however they pleased.

I also split up the 3 months of development time of this project:

1 month to get up to speed with Godot 4 and create a game prototype

1 month to polish the prototype and write up the written materials

1 month to polish the materials, practice the presentation, and prepare for the workshop day

Reality

So I ended taking two months trying to prototype. I briefly talked about it in the "mini postmortem" I included in the class handbook… In short: I tried out different game ideas to see what I could actually implement by the end of the first month. The second month rolled around so I started moving the desired game mechanics to a clean file… just for them to start falling apart. That's when I settled on just making a simple platformer. I used all of September and half of October putting the platformer prototype together, leaving two weeks to put the remaining documents together. Ended up skipping the handout, since I couldn't decide what to put on it… I had a couple different versions of the to-do lists I used to track progress of the game that I could use, but I wasn't sure just how much detail should be included for each task to actually be useful. I didn't complete the handbook in time for class either, so I spent an extra two-three days writing that up…

Dragging and dropping the scripts and resource files from the prototype came in super handy. Because, contrary to my expectation, 4 hours was not enough time to even get past the setup of the player character and tile map. I did not account for students who might not have had any experience with editors of any sort (and forgot to give them an actual tour of the engine. OTL) It wasn't the perfect presentation of "game dev as problem-solving" I hoped for… it was a scramble of remembering what to click and do next. I think the problem-solving sentiment still floats around in the docs and presentation… somewhat. But if there's anything I regret, it's that failure to effectively lead the students through the recreation of the prototype game. We were all pretty exhausted by the end. They said they learned a lot but I hope it didn't crush their interests in building games. 😭

I did spend about an hour and a half covering the industry and such (to my surprise. I wasn't sure I was going to have enough to say, but alas… we did. And it was just a debrief of the topics themselves.) I was also lucky that the students who came in later showed up at opportune times, when it was easy to get them up to speed.

I didn't complete the prototype, but we didn't get very far with the game in-class, either. Guess there's a bit of grace there… I was so worried I end up with a class full of students who were already so comfortable building games in the virtual worlds they hang out in. (But I only had one student who was actually enrolled in a game development program and he was just starting out. All of the students were.)

Reflections

All of that said… I think seeing the reality of how this went down was enlightening. When I get ideas they tend to be overly idyllic and lofty, so it was good to see the gritty, incomplete, and even a little ugly side of this. It was a nice reminder of how much effort goes into creating something that's really good. I mean… the burnout I got after rushing to get this together was 0/10… but the respect I gained for the craft went up 1000%. And seeing how much is available online: from support groups to free tools, the future of game dev will always be bright and exciting.

Part of my screw-up with the approach to teach the development part could have been alleviated if I knew we'd only tackle such a small scope in that time… I obviously couldn't have known how much we'd get through, but a back-up plan beyond "use the premade resources to speed things up" might have been useful in this case. Maybe I could have an alternate "lesson route" where I scaled back most of our goal.

Then again… I probably would've known this ahead of time if I actually practiced the full presentation with someone, rather than the dry run I did alone. 🤔 (One of those expectation vs. reality things.)

Favorite Things

I remember making my first digital game in Flash (though I have this sneaking suspicion there was something I used before it?) Godot's scene-structure was very reminiscent of it. I also liked that it meant you could structure you game basically as the way you see it, making it easy for students to conceptualize.

I also love that you can make tools for the engine using the same language you do to write gameplay code. The coin tool is probably my favorite thing, even though it's incomplete.

Wishes

I'd actually like to figure out what's going on with the double jump animation (which was working at first.) The player can double jump, the conditional block holding the animation just doesn't fire. (I think. I'd have to check the code again.)

It'd also be cool to get the coin tool to work properly in-editor.

Lessons Learned

You won't be able to fit absolutely everything into a project and you probably shouldn't try. 😆 Don't let your brain lie and say you can. Dipping into the longer list of "Nice to Haves" after finishing the "Must Haves" feels nicer than having a long list of "These things were supposed to be in the game--"

Conclusion

I'm gonna be 100% honest, I'm not sure I'd try to build a platformer on my own again. Maybe something closer to a visual novel, sure, but anything more than that? I'd probably enlist the help of some friends. (Especially a gameplay programmer. I'll stick to tools…🫠)

It's a stark position from the one I held as a teen building (fragments of) games… maybe it was the rush to get something together and the burnout that followed. Maybe it was the fact I was building something outside of my initial intention, so I didn't have the same "emotional attachment" I would for something more personal. I do primarily think it was the time constraint and the pressure to make something that I thought would be satisfactory for the students to start with. Sure, I can perform under pressure, but I can't say I do better work under it. And frankly, the pressure is only more bearable with a team, which I didn't have lol.

However, the most important thing is that I completed enough of what was required for this endeavor that I could see it as a success. It's not a smashing or career-changing one, but it's just big enough to be a meaningful experience. (For me and for the handful of students who made it.)