BLOG

here, i log my thoughts on just about whatever!
mostly just my interests like games, cooking, and comics...

those of a curious disposition, read on!

5/3/2025 - getting my sea legs!

first blog entry! niceee!!

honestly, im mostly writing this to see how text formats on my blog page and to make changes where they're necessary... but now's as good a time as any to just puke some thoughts out into this webpage!

it's been a big few months for me to say the very, very least. moved cross country, adjusted to cooking for two for most meals, got started on the process of getting my driver's license, and arguably the biggest of all, i landed a whole new job in a field that i never imagined i'd ever be getting into! somehow (thanks to the kindness of a friend), i became a gardener! before this job, the most ive ever nourished to life was an aloe plant my mom gave to me ages ago that was already doing well when i got my hands on it... i could forget to water that guy for weeks and he'd still be just fine by the time i noticed. now, im balancing pH levels, fertilizer, checking for pests, mildew, and yellowing, trimming back leaves, harvesting what's ready to be picked...

and that's just the first hour of my workday, usually...!!

it's been a fun learning experience though, and feels plenty worthwhile. didnt get much sun working the coolers at my last job for ten hours a day... and now im aflush with vitamin d! it's cool getting to see everything grow, too. i find myself taken by the natural beauty around me throughout my entire workday, even when im head-first in the hydroponic tanks trying to keep frogs from making a home there... it's just incredible how GREEN everything is.

have you ever born witness to the majesty of a young cucumber's gentle curl?!

before this month, i sure hadn't!

it really grounds you, getting to see these plants grow from seedlings and sprouts to mighty, winding stalks of green over the course of your workweeks. for the first time ever, i cant wait to get back to work! getting up at 7:00 AM every day has been a killer though HAHAHA.

in any case, now that im just about settled in on this opposite coast, i finally have the time to stretch my legs and get up to new, exciting stuff. this website is just the beginning... next up, driver's license! ...i hope!! maybe getting around to learing guitar again? guess you'll have to read all about that in the next blog post, huh.

wish me luck! see you at the next space time!

4/26/2026 - we're in development

gloom

can you believe its taken me this long to get into gamedev!?

this was a really enlightening experience, getting into the coding guts of game development, everything seems so simple and direct until you realize you have to code eeeverything. and i mean EVERYTHING. one moment you're mulling over the narrative implications of your magic system, the next, you're dreading the fact that you have to code, from the ground up, the concept of facing a direction.

i developed "gloom" over the course of a week in february for a small gamejam between a few friends where the voted on theme was "desire." i wanted to work on something dungeon-crawler-ish since i'd been playing some of the wizardry series at the time, and thought playing off the idea explored in wizardry iv with werdna escaping the dungeon sounded fun and resonant. so the witch and her escape from the labyrinth were born!

despite the limitations in what i could convey with "gloom" i still love the witch very much

things began with concepts for a sort of hand-sigil magic system, where you would cast spells by combining different hand motions together in a row, slot machine-style. i was really tickled by the idea of a spell formed by placing three middle fingers in a row which would annihilate an enemy's healthpool and entirely drain your mana. i figured, then, that the different hand signs would indicate different spell properties. the middle finger would signal wanton destruction and heavy mana cost. open hands would signal defensive properties. the index finger raised would indicate fire spells. etc.

then, i spent the first 3 days trying to figure out how to make the character walk in the dungeon.

the idea of that whole complex magic system and a whole host of enemies to randomly encounter went out the window... fairly quickly after that.

a sample of the rogue's gallery from the original concept of "gloom"

the following few days spent were ironing out errors, and toying with small, incrimental ideas like a fog of war on the minimap, and how to display a sense of life in the witch's sprite without an enormous additional workload. this was where things felt especially fun and tricky. once the fundamentals were nailed down and taken care of, adjusting how to bring a game to life without simultaneously exploding my ticking timebomb of spaghetti code was... kind of a blast!!

now that it's been almost 4 months since i finished "gloom" i'd really like to return to game development and try my hand at some more fun stuff. maybe even explore rpgmaker for the first time since middleschool... who knows? maybe you'll find out when i make my next yearly blog post lol!

wish me luck! see you at the next space time!