I am not in the curry house... but my own home-cooked efforts are a decent substitute! 😋

Okay, so even the most zealous anti-AI campaigners should be supporting this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDpo...

Kudos to @debugmag.com for giving the #selfpublished #indiegamedevs the spotlight!

Congratulations @grassomaniac.bsky.social on his affiliate anniversary, and also his publicly admitting he is "Greg"... :D :D :D

Latest game launched (2024): sunk into oblivion. First game launched: still getting attention: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhPP... I launched The Curse of Bolda in 1995 on the Atari ST. A puzzle platformer, it ended running a bit slow but I was still proud of it - and I still am!

In order to not use day-job leave while looking after my kids this Easter, today looked like this: Get up 6am, start day-job at 6:30, brekkie with kids 8:45, work until 1pm, lunch then with kids in the afternoon/evening. Don't think there'll be any gamedev until the weekend!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCkU... This could be huge. #Mobilegaming would be hosed - no bad thing, IMHO! And it could create some interesting gaps in the AAA sector - which hopefully some of the "indie-in-name-only" games could fill, leaving some room for actual #indiegames in the indie sector...

Decided that instead of trying to refactor all that old code to handle variable frame rates, it would be a better bet to try writing new base classes designed to allow the game classes to lift-n-shift (as close as possible) onto them. Thanks @embershadow.bsky.social for the co-work discord hangout!

[Thread] Never expected interest in a half-joking post about remastering my old games! But I've had a few replies, so here's some info. First: if this happens, it'll be for shits-n-giggles - I'm a broke solodev! So out of respect for artists (and I love you guys), I wanted to get that out there...

Okay, so I now have an official request to remaster my old Atari ST games from 30+ years ago... Gee, thanks @antaeus000.co.uk! Anyone fancy doing some 2D art/animation for shits and giggles? Remastering Curse and Kev's would be a blast, but I need better art...

It's #AutismAcceptanceMonth / #AutismAwarenessDay - time to blow some minds... - Evolution does not stop - Progress requires trying multiple approaches - The brain is the key to the human species' success Conclusion: Autism is evolution trying to figure out humanity's next step. #NeuroEvolved

Have I ever mentioned how much I loathe the clock changes? ... okay, maybe I haven't on here!

Back after nearly 10 days completely unplugged in Spain drinking rum... wonder if that's gonna make that old code easier or harder to work with!

First major stumbling block... all that old code was based on a fixed frame rate of 30fps, and all the updates work by counting the number of frames rather than actual times... this is gonna take some work to fix!

Getting deep into the weeds of this old @monogame.net code now... OH MY GOD WHAT THE FECK-FECKING-FECK WAS I THINKING!!! Inheritance chains six-plus layers deep! Horrible variable naming conventions! A total mish-mash of bits cobbled together! ... I'm in danger of having fun with this! 🤣😱

Well, the 13+ year old code is... readable, I'll give it that: I can see what it's doing and how it all hangs together. Structurally and best-practice-wise, it's utter dogshit, but.. I can read it! Okay, so step 1 is to get it working again. Then we can refactor and sort out the mess!

So let me get this straight - an "independent" publisher that publishes "independent" games (thus creating a dependency) is now owned by - and therefore is dependent on - an investment company? ... a Princess Bride quote springs to mind...

Great time at Bristol VGE yesterday: 1st gaming con in 10+ years I've not been exhibiting at! Great job all involved, esp. @debug.org.uk for the indies. Top moment: watching kids trying to play R-Type on the PC Engine & getting absolutely schooled! 😆

Time for some #BristolVGE! My first event for over a decade where I'm not exhibiting a game! Gonna be a nice change of pace and it's not too far to travel... www.bristolvge.com

Decided to scratch an itch and see if I could get some old retro/arcade games I wrote for mobile working on PC. Written in @monogame.net, code is 13+ years old... Load it up and OH MY GOD WHAT WAS I THINKING BACK THEN?!?!? It's readable - but the structure... Still - it adds to the fun! 😅

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I saw there were precious few self-financed/published nominees at the @debug.org.uk awards last nights, and no winners... which is disappointing. Lots of talk about how "anyone can make games" - true, but precious few can afford to promote them.

It's been a while... Bullion is dead: my game promo knowledge is way out of date and we've not found anyone to assist; it's not covering costs to keep it going so that's that. Gonna try and keep it on stores, but can't make any promises. Thanks all who believed - we tried!

If you're a true #indiedev ie: no dependency on funding grants or publishers - the Debug team are well worth talking to!

I'm old enough to remember when Google's search first came online and "don't be evil" was actually believable... I remember about 10 years ago saying "Google has become the new Microsoft" and getting all kinds of crap in response. "Judge Mehta" is a tad ironic. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Update: got a rental car, took the "courtesy" car back and told the guy (who was with another customer at the time, what a shame!) that if my car wasn't ready by next week I'd have my money back.

So after holding my new car for a week (I knew there would be a delay but was told it would be 1-2 days), GL1 Car Sales have given me the nastiest, dirtiest "courtesy" car I've ever seen! Tiny, scratched, used McD's bag in there... but what choice do I have when I want to see my kids this weekend? 🤬

Was intending to post something else, opened a new browser tab to double-check I had my facts straight... #Firefox: "Restart required to install update" Fuck you Firefox, I'm done with this block on further use whenever you update. You're now relegated to second-string browser. Fuck you #Mozilla.

Every time I see a post on any social media about how the poster is pissed off with ads, I just smile... Desktop browser + adblockers. A winning combination! 😁

#gamedev objective today: tweak the AI players to do better at the first boss battle. AI players currently use a generic codebase, so they're crap in boss battles. So I've made a factory that can inject a chunk of code that modifies their behaviour depending on situation. Now to write that code...

Chillin' in Whetherspoons, doing some #gamedev and abusing the hell out of the refillable coffee... 😜 No screenshots though as I'm elbows deep in the AI code, so there's nothing really to see!

Am I the only one who thinks that #Firefox hard-blocking any further browsing whenever it needs to install an update is the worst software design decision ever? I mean even Windows lets you defer the update until it's convenient and carry on working, FFS... 🤬

Seeing posts about Christmas trees now it's November... Mine went up in January... up into the loft, where it will bloody well stay until mid-December! 🤣

Gonna have to bite the bullet and dive into AI... ... the AI that drives the computer-controller players in Bullion; need them to be a bit smarter in boss battles! 😜

Let's cause some controversy... If an artist can use blueprint or similar visual scripting tools to create a game with Blueprint or similar visual scriping tools, why shouldn't a programmer use generative AI to create 3D art for a game?

That moment when the artist hands over a document full of ideas on how they want their characters/environment to work and you look at the code and go "uuuuuuh......" 😅 #gamedev

Wish I'd thought of this last night: 1) Post on here at half past midnight. 2) Post again 45 mins later. At 1:00am last night, the UK clocks rolled back an hour, giving post 2 a timestamp of 12:15am - so which post should have been displayed first? Or we could just stop this archeic practice...

Question for #gamedev people: what would you call the dividing line between an #indiegame and "homebrew" game?

What got you into #gamedev? Arcade cabs - from the age of about 6, I was intrigued by these magic boxes and how they might work. Fast forward 3 years: my primary school had the foresight to teach programming to a select few. I wrote my first game (guess missing words) at age 9 - never looked back!

Starting to see (not on here, unfortunately) Global Game Jam ramping up for the 2025 event. Hope there's more "in-person" sites this year. The idea of remote jamming just kills any enthusiasm I have for taking part. @globalgamejam.bsky.social

This week, my younger daughter's been staying with me; her sister is on a school trip and their mum wanted to go away. For the first time in two years, I felt like a regular dad again. Tonight she's back at her mum's and it's back to access times etc... I miss her already. #mentalhealth #family

You know you've played too much #PlanetCrafter when you start thinking of "cleaning" as "terraforming your house"... 🤣

Something really refreshing about BlueSky: So far, I'm not seeing a flood of #indiegame hashtags from games that are actually supported by publishers, 3rd party funding etc. Let's take this chance to #KeepIndieIndependent, rather than let these big players drown everyone else out!

For the first time I can say that I'm not procrastinating on Twitter instead of cleaning my bathroom... 🤣

Shameless #selfpromo: Up for gaming in-person with mates? Want to support real #indiegame devs rather than ex-AAA that backed by 3rd party publishing/financing? Just plain fancy some good old fashioned fun? Check out Bullion on #Steam and #NintendoSwitch! www.bulliongame.com

Why hi Blue Sky! Anyone from "the other side" who follows Bullion will know me (this pic is probably one of the only ones with someone else in the Silverside head!) - I'm here to check this place out for the team... ... and because my own account on the other side was blocked. No explanation... 🤔