vael

[vael]

Takeaways From Capybara GO

Capybara GO is a cute but evil, dark pattern-filled system-bloated dopamine-carousel mobile game. Here are some of the most valuable takeaways from my two weeks spent playing.

Central Progression Focus

All systems support the core game loop: progress through stages to unlock new features and higher idle-earning rates. Most of the player's time is spent in these supporting systems: obtaining and combining equipment, running dungeons to upgrade their mount and artifacts, opening pet eggs, PvP, guild, and festival events are just some of the systems. To stay optimized, a player has to play at a cumulative minimum of 30 minutes a day, not including time spent watching ads.

When it comes time to more actively play the game by Adventuring, it's a largely stats-based affair but luck and strategic planning can play a role in helping players progress through challenges their characters don't have the stats for -- or doom them despite their overall power.

This focus on a single core system isn't uncommon, but some game designers may forget the value of this focus as they expand their game's scope and introduce new systems. When first starting a new project, I recommend all designers start with a core system and get as many supporting systems feeding into it as they can. Only introduce additional core systems once the player has progressed past a certain point -- this also helps keep the game fresh.

Visual and Tactile Feedback (good vibrations)

Capybara GO makes you feel good when you get a rare drop or a super-lucky event while Adventuring. Light shines prestigiously from UI elements, the device vibrates, colors abound; even the text ending in an exclamation point sells the excitement of what you've gotten.

Pictured above was an exciting mechanic: you dig for these statues and when you find one, you tap four times to discover the rarity, and each bump in rarity is significant and feels more prestigious. Here's me getting a rare power-up during an adventure. Just look at the energy in that screenshot!

Most Events Have Leaderboards

When I launched Bean Grower, it was a decent game but what really kept people coming back was the leaderboard. They're simple to provide, and they serve as both a motivator and a means of showing what other players can achieve: therefore, so can you achieve.

Capybara GO cycles through events and in addition to upping your own personal reward -- say, by spending x amount of currency or finding x somethings while Adventuring -- you'd simultaneously be ranking up on the event's leaderboard. This leads to additional, rank-based rewards. Then, of course, this evil game offers packages for you to buy the event's currency and rank up higher.

Synergized Rewards

Often, earning a currency resulted in other systems triggering their rewards. Pictured above is the chest opening mechanic, and you'll see there's a bar at the top that rewards more chests for opening chests. Elsewhere, I'd spend 2,000 runes to upgrade my pet's build and trigger a reward which gives me more pet eggs, which I'd use to up my egg-opening score to trigger more things. Capybara was an effective dopamine carousel.

Reward synergy isn't anything new, and there's a good chance you can apply it to a game you're currently building. An RPG could offer 3 randomized quests each day, and the player may luckily roll for kill 20 enemies in Spiderton and loot 5 Giant Spider Eyes. Plug that into your achievement system for overarching progression, all the while dispensing commensurate rewards, and you have a pleasant system in which every action nudges the player toward multiple goals.

--

And that's a wrap.

Studio Site -- Discord

[vael]

2024 Annual Review

My 36th year on Earth, as always, did not go as expected. I learned in September that we are with child. My son is due mid-May. He was a surprise for us. :}

I lived the same lifestyle that I did in 2023: I wake up, get both girls ready (now 2, Olivia and freshly 4, Violet), eat breakfast, play for around 30 minutes, then sit down at my computer to work remotely. They get TV while I start my work day and then they do whatever for a while. Olivia was great about taking her first nap until around her second birthday. I make us lunch. My wife wakes up in the afternoon. I get both girls to bed.

The time my wife wakes varies depending on how severe her insomnia was that night, whether or not the kids needed her overnight, and/or if she especially suffered from pregnancy symptoms. She has trouble with insomnia and her other cocktail of diagnoses that keep her from being around in the morning. She takes care of the children overnight if they stir. I should disclaim that she is not lazy or depressed but rather just unhealthy, and every time she tries to course-correct, things get in the way. Further disclaimer that anyone who knows me knows that I would not marry nor love a lazy wastrel, so please understand this lifestyle is an inevitable struggle for all of us.

What went well this year?

Parenting

"Some people are worth melting for." -- Olaf, Frozen

Raising my two girls has been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. They bring me such joy every day. It's hard for me, at least succinctly, to articulate quite how good it is. I suspect this is the case for many enthusiastic parents. The banter between all three children, their mispronunciations of words, surprising me with newly learned words, it's all just great.

Violet. Fully potty trained (diaper at night) and meeting all milestones. Violet is sweet, quirky, loves her family, and just being a girl.

This year I totally accepted and confirmed that my little girl is higher on the neuroticism scale than most children. This means she's more sensitive to negative emotion. This is worrying because it will affect her ability to be resilient, which is critical on the path to greatness, but as long as we're aware of it, we may be able to turn her neuroticism into a positive.

Olivia. Truly all is good with Olivia. ♥ I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm having full conversations with her. She's sharp as hell, well-mannered, loves cuddles, loves Miss Rachel, she's really just an outstanding toddler that we're privileged to be raising.

Baby...? Well, I'm really happy to have a son who I can imbue all my masculine ambition into. I'm not happy that he'll likely end up as short as me -- 5'3 is a real struggle for dating, but I got lucky -- but in life, attitude and ability are more important than stature. So far so good on his health, and he's very active in my wife's tummy. :}

Work

Game development. So much was done this year that I can't even believe we did it. It's surreal. When Raigen joined work on the engine in March, it revolutionized everything for me. He's taken on something like 150-200 tasks and many of them were things I simply couldn't have justified doing for years, such as accessibility (a11y).

So surely I released a title? No. Black Crown:

The game is fully imported and playable, and some work has been done to make it present better. I missed the Halloween release by a large margin due to Hurricane Helene and a still-faulty import, but it likely wouldn't have been in such a good place that I would have been comfortable releasing anyway. What remains for gameplay is converting Failbetter's "Living Story" mechanics to GAM3's instance-based quality management and some playtesting to make sure every story path functions properly.

Bean Grower:

Development was to be in two phases: the necessary technical side, then gameplay improvements which would lead to a V2. I could only justify time spent on the technical improvements, and I'm sorry to say it's unlikely that Bean Grower will see a V2 this decade.

Engine licensing. Made my first contract, spun up a new server, and licensed the engine out for someone to start making their own game! Starting at $25/mo. Even if this first contract doesn't work out, I have confidence that I can get a few licensees under me by mid-2026. Once I'm making a few hundred a month, I can start to invest that back into Tinydark and do some proper marketing. The plan is still to bring in most of my income through actual games.

My workplace. Remains stable, and we started Version 3 of our software this year, guaranteeing another few years of stability at the company. We brought on a new guy to help and things are just dandy. The boss did worry that I wasn't going to be able to commit the hours needed for the project, given "Daddy Daycare" as we call it, but I proved myself.

Other

Made a new friend. Nice guy. He also sponsored Tinydark's new server for 15 months. Separately, something I consider positive is that I distanced myself from another, one-sided relationship but am still friendly with the person.

Spanish. In-line with expectations. Found it hard to show up at times; truth is I don't really need the extra burden in my life but I must reignite my cognition wherever possible.

We got three new cats. For a total of six. Objectively a mistake, but one thing lead to another, and here we are.

What didn't go so well?

Sleep. A mix of self-discipline and the reality of raising small children, but it's largely my own fault. It's a recurring theme: I'll say I have (eg.) 150 minutes before bed, and I can fit in [x] and [y] minutes of recreation time to be in bed no later than 11:15. Then I inevitably fail discipline, or ADHD myself out of those minutes and I'm left with something like 120 minutes of actionable time. Even if I'm doing well, I'll often just continue working "because I have only have 15 minutes for games."

Well, it is my own failure and I will try to get better this year. I'm really not more productive for it. I'm thriving only when caffeinated, and it's pathetic. I need more sleep and I think I'll just have to forget the gaming meme because the truth is that sleep is stress relief.

Caffeine. My only vice. The abuse, and dependence, worsened this year. I'm often "double caffeinating," but it's hard to gauge how much caffeine I'm consuming given it's all instant coffee mix. One win is this mushroom coffee, which lights my neurons up like no other with less caffeine than a typical cup of coffee.

My body. Forward neck posture is still a problem. I did see a(n expensive) physical therapist to help determine how messed up I am, and the verdict was: not very. So that was nice, but I'm forgetful or even lazy about the exercises sometimes.

I end the year just as physically fit as I did the last; I sacrifice workout time in order to make progress in game development. Typically if I have a protein-heavy day, I'll try to at least lift dumbbells.

My focus. Can only have worsened. There isn't a lot to do here; exhaustion exacerbates ADHD symptoms and I cannot use my desired Forest (focus app) solution with kids running around or people needing me. I context switch constantly.

Hurricane Helene. We lost power for 7½ days, and all the dining out + food replacement + emergency supplies totaled somewhere around $1,500. Thankfully we had a family friend send us some money to help or we'd be even deeper in the financial hole...

Finances. We're pretty deep in debt and we haven't even had to pay much for the baby yet. I thought we'd see some progress due to switching primarily to Costco for our grocery needs, and it really was a boon, but it wasn't enough. Kids, lifestyle inflation, inflation; it's all too much, and my brilliant idea of taking out a loan to pay our credit card debt wasn't very effective. With a new baby and a necessary new car on the way, it ain't lookin' pretty.

My son. A few years ago I just stopped mentioning my son Abel because I had nothing good to report. Our relationship, his role in the family, and he as a whole, have only gotten worse. We need him now the most, and he has now gotten to the point where he sometimes won't join us for dinner. I allow it because I'm tired of chasing him to participate with us. It's completely averse to the family focus we have, and we've talked, done so much, and there seems to be nothing we can do but wait and see who he becomes. Where I am excited for my other children's' future, I am worried for his.

What did I learn?

Wisdom. This year, I listened to more Meaningwave than I ever have. I also listened to a greater variety of it. It might sound weird that just listening to music improves you as a person, but Meaningwave is a genre of music that samples or speaks the words of the greatest thinkers in human history. Marcus Aurelius, Jordan Peterson, Jocko Willink, David Goggins, and Naval Ravikant are my favorite speakers.

If you do check it out, most people's complaint is that it's repetitive: yes, sort of the point, and it's mostly Akira's older work that suffers from excessive repetition.

Business. Especially in Q4 of 2024 I really got into studying business and entrepreneurship, largely due to my exposure to Naval Ravikant through Meaningwave. Naval has an amazing compilation of his podcast episodes here that essentially constitute a business course. I've listened to it twice and it gives me hope that I'm on the right path. It's been a long time without making profit, and I have my reasons that I can defend, but the fact is it's been a long time.

Personal growth. I feel great about myself because I'm doing everything I set out to do. I'm actively trying to "give people energy," understand what's ailing people, being a great man and father, absorbing the aforementioned wisdom and reflecting on it. I feel like when I see people failing and making excuses, or just struggling in avoidable ways, I have a framework to recognize the problem and offer solutions in the same way I'd solve a technical problem with code.

This all said, I'm growing impatient with weak people. I'm tired of sensitivity, excuse making, tribalism, self-centeredness. So many problems people face stem from just not trying hard enough, not being lifelong learners, or being closeminded. People have noticed I'm a bit strong when speaking lately; maybe it's a temporary thing, but I'm actively trying to not sugarcoat my thoughts nor be especially politically correct.

Goals and Expectations: 2025

Game dev. Releasing Black Crown is my only expectation this year, beyond more open-world support for GAM3. I don't see myself writing documentation for external developers until 2026 and I'm not sure how much attention Black Crown's release will garner. I think it's more than likely that I will at least begin the process of releasing Black Crown to mobile app stores.

Financial recovery. I think we'll get close to being out of debt this year. Perhaps Black Crown's a big hit or I'll finally get some work from my agency.

Web development. We're in a weird place: the job market is shrinking, along with our salaries, and AI is making it hard for good candidates to stand out. But web tech in general is just fantastic and only getting better, and AI makes us much more productive than we previously were. If I were to "read the writing on the wall," it would seem clear that this is the best time for ambitious individuals to work on their side hustles. Good for me, though the games industry isn't in a great spot either.

DOOM. I still believe "something" is coming for the modern world. Whether that's the effects of depopulation, another pandemic, AI replacing knowledge workers, who knows. Will Tarriff Trump solve anything? Who knows. Will DOOM arrive this year or in five? Who knows. Best to just be prepared.

And so wraps up my longest annual review to date. Vael Victus

[vael]

It's been a while since I ran through the PBBG scene, and the 2024 pbbg.com game jam presented a good opportunity to stop and spend some time playing new stuff.

Dialog Hunter was released as part of the jam but is a tool, not a game. I thought linking nodes together through the arrows was cute.

Game Jam Entries

Smokescreened was very well documented and I found the tutorial to be palatable. I was happy to see the usage of charting software and, separately, mapping software: these are underutilized in the browser gaming scene. It has a clean, clear interface.

I found the gameplay to be frustrating. All quests seemed to involve going from Point A to Point B and doing a thing, but the fog of war made it difficult to navigate the map and even without that, it seemed like a chore to simply walk around and turn in quests. Otherwise, it was alright searching an area's one location (if it had one) for items, but the hour-long cooldown on it was a bummer.

I appreciated the ambition behind it: plenty of items and some well-written NPC dialogue suggest the developer has plans beyond the game jam.

Cycles of Change was refreshing to see. It's a real-time cycling simulation game where you're expected to watch the races and adjust your speed, drop bananas and even (mechanically) shout profanities to discourage other riders. I watched the first race but even though I intended to watch the others I'd start, I ended up just zoning out and remembering the game after the race had ended.

You use your money to (inexplicably) increase your rider's power/agility/endurance/handling/aerodynamics after each race. However, each race also decays your stats, so you have incentive to win each race. I suspect it might be easy to soft-lock yourself out of meaningful progression through enough losses.

Rapidly changing weather and seasons help keep the game fresh, and I think the game design might be better suited for week-long game sessions with meta rewards for victors at the end of the session, before it starts again.

Detective Case Maker was more of a tech demo but I really liked what it had going for it.

Unfortunately The Mad Factory was down due to (I'd learn) being hosted on a home server, but the screenshots looked decent.

Released Games

The Ninja RPG They only allowed account creation via social media and I wasn't comfortable with the information each one requested of me. It shouldn't need more than an email to get started with a game. Also turned off by 'drama' on the front page's new feed, along with a page where you can bizarrely submit (their word) opinions on staff members.

Of note is that it's open-source but released without license on GitHub.

Cartel Empire is a full-featured mafia game that presents well but doesn't really do anything to stand out. The dog mechanic seemed interesting at first but was just hollow. I also never got my verification email even after resending.

[vael]

Remembering My Grandparents

Remembering

In early August, my grandfather (95) and grandmother (87) died on the same day: he, cancer, and she, cerebrovascular disease. I called him Nonno (Non for short, Italian for Grandfather), and she was simply Gram. My mother would instead take up the French Mémé for my children.

My grandparents were very present in my life from childhood to adolescence. I have many memories of them, and I'll share a few to help color who they were, at least to me. They'd pick up me, my sister and my cousin from school and we'd spend the evening there, eating supper and then leaving for home. My cousin and I would spend time on the computer and occasionally watching TV.

I remember Non looking over my messy room when I was ~8 years old. I gestured over the scene I'd made, telling him, "This is the city!" and he mirthfully replied, "No, this is the city dump!" I remember working on the bathroom sink with him and needing to remove some grime from the pipe. I didn't want to do it because it was yucky and he said, "Ah don't be a baby!" and reached in and just removed it with his fingers. He'd take me to and from community college in my loser days; indulge in fun snacks, ask if we wanted more. He liked to stay busy and while I don't know the details, I understand retiring wasn't easy for him.

Gram was cheerful and I have only one memory of ever being scolded. She took me to the chess club at the library and eventually to a chess tournament that I lost fairly rapidly. She practiced massage therapy and had worked on me a few times. The computer at her house was hers and she had decent computer literacy for a while. I want to say I sent her an email once but I cannot remember. When she was a girl, she'd walk with her classmates past a hospital (or medical building) and point to it saying she wanted to work there when she grows up. She became a registered nurse and did just that; this has always stuck with me.

I will regret not making it to their funeral. I moved away from Rhode Island and all family in February 2019, down to South Carolina to start the next phase of my life. I thought we'd visit more, but at that time, I didn't know we wanted more kids. Circumstances have kept me rooted here, missing my sister's wedding and now my grandparents' funeral. I didn't feel guilty, because it was unavoidable, but I still felt bad about it. I have a picture of them in a frame on my shelf. Mmm. What I should feel guilty for is not calling them since 2021. I could never bring myself to do it for some reason. I think there is some psychological effect of isolation and not seeing people for so long that contributed to my inability to do so. Still I will accept it as my own shittiness.

Legacy

A person is shaped by the sum of their life experiences and biological heritage. Our ancestors, therefore, transcend time; they live on within us. As I became a fully actualized adult, I started to draw parallels and be conscious of similar traits -- both good and bad -- that I had inherited from experience and biology. It's surprising how much I attribute to my grandfather. I'm grateful to have inherited his and my father's ambition and work ethic, even if it sorta drives me crazy. I don't imagine that I am directly continuing his legacy, but I am a reverberation. I am grateful for him and for the life I have because of my grandparents.

Pictured is a decorative sign with the words, "all because two people fell in love." It hangs on a wall in my grandparents' house, accompanied by many pictures of the family. Since their deaths, I have been thinking more than I usually do -- already a fair amount -- about ancestry and legacy. Their decision to have five children lead to seven grandchildren and (currently) four great grandchildren. It was a necessary sacrifice they made, and it's a sacrifice that many otherwise capable couples are opting out of in 2024. I cannot even comprehend the ripples that were made already, and certainly not what will be made, from their decision to have five kids. I wish I could have more. The love I feel from raising my children every day is something no one should opt out of.

I've decided that when the time comes, I will be 'Nonno' to my grandchildren. I do not have such a short memory that I should feel guilty about this because of how little communication I had with my grandparents in their final years. I was very satisfied with my grandparent experience and I will seek to be as great a grand-dad as him (or even better, as we all desire). I will continue making my ancestors' sacrifice worth it, and so shall, in time, achieve transcendence of my own.

[vael]

Minimum Knowledge Required to Use GAM3

Someone who I have some faith in recently asked about using GAM3, Tinydark's proprietary game engine, to make a game similar to Marosia with elements of Flight Rising. I'm still in stealth mode but I thought I'd offer a license, and endeavor to get them an installation running some time in December.

GAM3 is a no-code piece of software. The pitch for GAM3 is the same it was in 2013: you shouldn't need to be a programmer to make a game. Eleven years later(!), that has never been more true. But in order to achieve the flexibility required to build complex games, I have had to make features which closely resemble programming.

Here's a screenshot from the most complex thing GAM3's ever made, URPG's battle system. This is the skill Mighty Leap and what follows after this event is played, is a ton of logic smartly injected (and cached) to account for all the features that URPG's alpha combat requires.

Most events aren't nearly this complex, but if you look closely you'll see a lotta code-lookin' things. This isn't a tutorial -- that will come in 2025 -- so I'll leave it at that and proceed with detailing the minimum knowledge you'll need for a comfortable GAM3 development experience.

Programming 101

You should understand the concept of variables, conditionals such as if statements, and how to use functions. Any functions available to PHP are available to use, but there are restrictions on any functions that could be security issues.

In this (nonsensical) example, we say: if the player chose choice #2, set the variable [$foo] to the number of swords they have * 2. Next, we increase their dexterity by whatever that amount: if they have 3 swords, +6 dexterity xp.

Understand web technology: here's a cute explainer I generated with ChatGPT which analogizes web development to building a house.

Styling With CSS

Websites are styled with CSS. Each game has its own stylesheet for overrides. We're still working on making everything perfectly flexible, but you're able to customize/override anything with CSS and most colors are based in configurable variables. Right-click on anything in the game and select Inspect Element to try changing a few properties and see what happens. :}

The layout itself is configurable through CSS grid. That's a big topic, but chances are you'll be able to figure out how to move things around easily.

Regardless, rest assured Tinydark is here for a minimal (or perhaps more) level of support should you need some styling help.

Game Design

Gasp! Yes. Game design is a real discipline. Here are a few resources I recommend.

Game Design Vocabulary -- I never got to read Naomi's part, but it's a good primer.

Extra Credits -- I was thrown for a loop when I tried to find the link to EC and it turns out they rebranded the channel as Extra History. You'll have to scroll down to find the Extra Credits episodes. They were formative for me as a younger designer.

Lost Garden -- A great general resource; Dan Cook is a brilliant designer and I have a lot of respect for him and Spry Fox. I recommend looking through his posts to find any that catch your eye.

Otherwise, it's hard to say what got me to the point of confidence I have now. I've failed a lot. I've read a lot of post-mortems. I've written a lot. I'm happy to provide feedback and guidance on the design of your game as well as talk about GAM3's strengths and weaknesses.

Finally, you'll really want to learn how to write a Game Design Doc. It is absolutely critical that you get your thoughts all out on paper and get settled on design pillars, as well as how to pivot out of them and determine the risks for your game/design.

[vael]

Returning To Neopets

When you hear of all the work Neopets is putting into refreshing their web experience for their 25th anniversary, even launching new games beside it, you may be tempted to log back in. But where to start? Allow me to guide you on your nostalgic journey back to Neopets.

Step 0-1: Recover Your Account

I have an especial appreciation for improbable but necessarily practical circumstances, especially in corporate environments. You may think that it's impossible you'll ever recover your old account, which you barely remember the username of, let alone the email. Indeed I had tried a few times over the years and given up on ever getting my old account back.

Things are a lot different now. Despite being a fairly high achiever, I learned I had what was considered a standard account:

The number of security questions required during the retrieval process depends on whether the account is classified as standard or sensitive.  Standard accounts are those held by the average Neopets player. These accounts are unlikely targets for theft and require basic security questions to be answered correctly during the account recovery process.

I came armed with only a username and the city that the account was likely to have been created in. A few emails back and forth -- they even removed my PIN for me -- and I was in, with a brand new email.

Step 2: Install Ruffle

Ruffle is a Flash emulator. You'll need to complete a game for the daily. I honestly cannot tell you the games have aged well. I just play Kass once and move on.

Step 3: Determine a Goal/Battledome

For me, there is no point to returning to Neopets without the battledome. I found a handy guide for the best weapons and started winning some fights. Sadly my old, decent gear was no match for 15+ years worth of power creep. Good news is that strong gear is affordable and the better stuff is expensive enough to keep you grinding, but without being too out of reach.

Otherwise, who knows what you'll make your goal? Join a guild, hunt for avatars, perhaps play through NeoQuest again. There are still various contests running from time to time.

Step 4: Grind

It's worth noting that Neopets is a very "daily check-in" game. It can be a bit tedious, but when your inventory is getting full, you can at least use the Quick Stock feature to allocate items.

Do your daily each day. Aside from ~25k NP, sometimes very valuable items are given away simply for free.

Spin Trudy's Surprise daily. The amount of NP you earn per spin gradually increases day by day, and you'll be in the 10k range per day.

General Store for daily buys.

Quick links to useful activities: Swashbuckler's Academy Healing Springs Omelette (free food) Scratch Card Kiosk (sell the rarer scratch cards) The Lab

Check the overwhelmingly active news page.

Well, this should be enough to get you started on your return to Neopets. I wanted to write a little guide to help others and because I do feel I have a little debt towards Neopets for partially inspiring me to get into browser games when I was younger. I'd go on to develop MonBre and while Neopets wasn't a direct influence, I'm sure it was in my noggin somewhere.

[vael]

2023 Annual Review

"I might as well copy-paste last year's Annual Review..."

Of course, even last year I thought the same thing. "A tiger doesn't change its stripes," and now in my 35th year, it's apparent I won't be changing mine.

What went well this year?

Parenting. I'm very aware of the cost of lackluster parenting. "It's a terrible thing to do to someone." No matter how strained I am, I've said I am going to be a dedicated father. This year I dedicated myself to both my girls and continued my usual routine of rallying the boy to greatness.

When parenting, I track their milestones and development because I want the children to be able to play at (and somewhat over) the level of their peers so that they're able to play with the maximal number of children. Milestones are also easily measured: they can do the thing or not. My son still struggles to relate to his peers today because he's never been on their level, and it's a pitiable thing which I personally experienced as a child. It lead to my poor self-esteem and lack of ambition. When I celebrate milestones, this is why.

Violet. "My little storm cloud." 🖤 Violet continues to meet her milestones. She's ahem strong-willed, sweet, intelligent, curious, and funny: I think she's picked up on my ability to parody -- songs and such -- and she'll make up her own little parodies of various things. This year she became a lot less fearful.

Olivia. "Child of light." I thought Violet was an especially happy baby; Olivia redefined that for me. For her first year, we called her the colon D baby. This guy -> :D

Olivia is an absolute joy to be around. She took 13 months to walk, which was a surprise given that Violet was fully walking at 10 ½ months, but it looks like she instead allocated her effort towards speech, because this girl can talk. And enunciate! She's also good with her fine motor skills.

My wife was able to flawlessly breastfeed Olivia for six straight months, which is a big achievement.

Made two new friends. Each from different countries, and each of them web developers. I always love hearing about other cultures and it was because of my Argentinian friend that I...

Started learning Spanish; soft-quit PGO. This year I finally was able to put down Pokémon GO. Partially because I'm playing Pokemon Sleep now, but mostly that I was a little too obsessive about PvP and I felt childish being distracted in public so that I could play the PvE events.

I started Duolingo mid-November. My learning strategy is slow-paced and with frequent review. I fully achieve "legendary" on the current unit before moving on to the next. It's working, and it's got to be better for my cognition, and certainly for my life.

Rearranged the house. My wife came up with the plan. My son took my old office and my new office is in the study, previously our entertainment room. I could barely stand living in this house before, but now I'm comfortable.

Game development. I may have burned myself doing it, but I can't argue with the results. I don't think I've ever been better poised for a successful year than I am now.

This year I also received the most volunteer help I ever have. Aforementioned Argentinian friend wrote a robust weather script, and Tinydark's Raigen helped develop tinydark.com and Hub features; I'm also excited to announce we've been able to hire him to work remotely at my workplace. We even had an artist draw some holiday costumes for Tinyblob, our mascot.

Health. I took almost three months off eating "optional sugar," breaking my nightly ice cream routine. I'd felt like I was starting to get fat, so I simultaneously started focusing more on building my upper body. I went as far as to take before-and-afters for Facebook, but I eventually had to stop so I could focus on game dev. Though I stopped my upper body work, I did start jogging in the morning. I fell out of the habit once Daylight Saving Time hit, and the girls' circadian rhythms were an hour ahead.

Artificial Intelligence. Not exactly "my" win, but AI has been instrumental in this year's high production. To think it's only gotten better throughout the year and stands to get even better, it's such a privilege to be able to use AI. That's just code; assets have always been a problem for my game development, but AI trivializes some of my asset issues (it's still pretty bad proper asset generation).

What didn't go so well?

Relentless work ethic. I have a long, contemplative post on this here, but: I am too ambitious. "A good problem to have." Well, in August I had my first real panic attack at 3AM. I thought it was a heart attack at first. But what's mildly concerning is that I felt stronger for it after; I overcame it on my own and that now that I know what it is, I'm better prepared for it. I didn't feel like I should try to avoid this at all, but rather that I'm more prepared for a second panic attack. Seems kinda not-a-good mentality.

My body. I said my forward neck posture would be my focus of the year, and I did a passable job of it, but it wasn't enough. I still get headaches and they feel like they're getting worse. We don't have the money nor do I have the bandwidth to see a rolfer, and I'm not sure what to do other than try to keep my posture in mind throughout the day. I tried to train myself to sleep without a pillow but had minimal success. I typically lay down once a day, mid-day if work allows it, for about 15 minutes just to clear my head and alleviate some of the pain.

I also abused caffeine: by my definition, two cups/packets/sessions a day. That likely contributed to the panic attack.

My focus. Nothing new here. It's just hard to truly focus when my morning's waylaid by children and I'm needed throughout the day. Interruptions break focus, so that's that: I cannot truly focus. The time I get at night is rarely good for focusing considering it's so scarce, the girls could wake up at any time, and that's typically the bulk of time I get to spend talking with my wife.

Buried. Two-under-two, working my job, working tinydark, doing (it seems) more chores than the typical husband does, my crumbling body and keeping myself healthy are the primary stressors.

No sympathy allowed; I chose this path and would choose it again.

Finances. We had two kids in two years (I regret not waiting an extra six months) so it's to be expected, but we've found ourselves deep in the negatives at the end of the year. Inflation's a real killer. We (ie: my wife) made some progress with the decision to grocery shop at two different stores for our weekly shopping trip, but the extra store is Trader Joe's... full of novel temptations. We're still better off for it, anyway.

Released neither Black Crown: Exhumed nor Bean Grower. I did have to take two weeks off for some contracting, but ultimately I just decided to spend more time on URPG, and everything takes longer than I expect.

What did I learn?

I feel like this year, I didn't get too worked up about our lack of financial progress. It feels more like acceptance than complacency. I will be free, unburied when my dream is realized: we just need to save up enough money for a down payment on a new house build, then sustain our finances while it's built, and finally sell this house for a minimum of $100k in the bank when all is said and done. I have confirmed this is entirely possible, and I'm grateful to have moved South before the pandemic. This is why it's acceptance: achieving this peace of mind is the only way I can finally buy the ice cream.

Otherwise, I've meditated on it, and honestly: I don't know that I really learned anything notable. At least as far as wisdom vs. tangible knowledge.

Goals and Expectations: 2024

Game dev. I can at least guarantee Bean Grower's getting a final release, presumably onto an app store. I'm giving myself three damn months for it. Black Crown is also getting three damn months, but I will concede that Steam Store support might be a stretch goal. Either way, I'm ending this year with two full titles under my belt.

Financial recovery. Sort of a given, and who knows, maybe the 15,000 hours I've spent building a game studio will actually pan out this year.

-- --

Welp, figger that's it. Vael

[vael]

Worklust

I like to work. I like to produce results, to progress wherever possible, to optimize and be efficient. If I'm driving solo in the car, I'm listening to web dev podcasts. If I'm working out, it's in front of my computer with dumbbells, watching YouTube. I don't always choose edifying material, but if it's recreational, then it takes up my self-allotted recreation time for the day. Even when gaming, I play optimally: I'm reading guides, strategies, and news for anything I'm into.

I write this two weeks into my "vaelcation," a six-week period ending January 29th, 2024. In August, I decided to stop dedicating my usual ~5-7 hours of the week working out, and instead dedicate them to game development. This was to ensure Black Crown: Exhumed got finished on time. It didn't, and I wasn't even close. In September, I accepted that I would have to take December off and significantly reduce the Tinydark workload that month. I ended up working half into December before deciding to stop and take January off as well. I was burnt out, and that only became more apparent as I developed Black Crown. Despite its impending release, I found myself getting lazy and "acting out," as I call it: more easily falling into distraction.

I'm going to talk about my relationship with work. This is a companion post to 2023's Annual Review, so it's meant for me to look back on in the future.

You Could Be Doing More

When Jocko Willink was asked, "If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why?" His answer was: discipline equals freedom. That's a popular mantra of his, and it's true: if you feel like you don't have enough time, follow a more disciplined time-management schedule. If you're lacking energy, then have the discipline to eat and sleep well, and stick to a workout routine. Our daily lives are composed of decisions that result from our own ability to stay disciplined, or give in.

If asked the same question, my answer is similar and slightly less adequate: you could be doing more. Most people would assume it means that you could be a better person, kinder and more charitable with your time and resources. That's important, but for me it's a reminder that I can be performing better, and my life will be better for it. This is true for anyone. There's always more or better you could be doing. Most people are capable of far more than they're doing -- and I mean far more. My mantra serves to remind myself that I don't need three or more hours of recreation a day, and to stay focused on what fulfills me.

I Did Too Much

The most obvious and immediate objection to this mantra is that an adherent may believe they're capable of doing more than they actually are. I'd argue this makes a person stronger by pushing their limits. Another objection is that it leads to burnout, a term I've never wanted to acknowledge might apply to me. To me, burnout signals a lack of passion. It's common for people in software development to lose steam once they realize the undertaking is larger than they expected, or external factors make said undertaking difficult to make time for. I've never had a problem (at times to my detriment) "climbing the mountain," that is, working toward a goal no matter how long it takes, as long as I feel it's worthwhile.

Both objections would end up applying to me. I'm constantly finding myself bemoaning that I don't have enough time, and if I don't get enough time for my own work in the day, I sacrifice recreation time at night. The fact is there's only so much time to complete the day's tasks, and I'm not going to sacrifice my dedication to the kids (ages 3 and 1) in order to make more time for my hobby work; not that it'd work out well for me if I ignored them, anyway.

When I admit to burnout, it truly is not due to a lack of passion for Tinydark, but Tinydark is the reason that I don't -- like most people would in my position -- make time to sit and play games at night, and I'm more likely to push bedtime when I'm working than if I'm playing.

My self-care is abysmal but I'm more concerned for the cognitive effects than the mental effects. This year, I've made more stupid mistakes and felt an efficiency loss from physical fatigue more than ever. I'm unhappy that my own father's habits lead to an earlier death than necessary, yet I can't take proper care of myself, just to squeeze out extra hours of work per week. I'm very resilient to stress and I don't care if I suffer because I know that when I'm done, it will have been worth it, and I know that success itself feels good: just like gaming or watching YouTube, so I might as well keep chuggin'.

I believe AI is going to rock the modern world and by the end of the decade, we're going to see a dramatic ethos shift in the attitude towards work when AI can reasonably complete many "knowledge work" tasks. I think we're heading toward something worse than the pandemic (whatever it is) and I need to be prepared for higher costs and an eventual lower salary. This gives me only more reason to press on and make money with the studio, further fueling the fire.

Elements of Burnout

As this is a companion piece to my annual review, I want to detail what my life has been like all year and what the cause of the burnout is.

Tinydark's ace-in-the-hole has always been my 9-5 job. While I'm the lead developer there, traditionally the job has afforded me a fair amount of free time so long as there isn't work to do. Once our tasks from the client are complete, I'm free to do whatever I want. While this has sometimes meant I make unnecessarily ambitious projects (Tinydark's Hub), I've been able to do what I can because rather than slack off, I choose to work on my own software. Our client shifted executives this year, and that caused some new needs to be met by our software, on top of the work we'd already scheduled.

Then, I'm a work-from-home dad. Each morning, up until 10 minutes before I'm scheduled to go to work, my day is dedicated to (all 3) kids. That's breakfast and play-time. I sign in and begin work at 9. From 9 to 12 I'll be working occasionally stopping to change diapers, manage TV schedules so as not to give them too much screen time, dispense snacks and manage the baby's nap time. Then we all have lunch together and the baby gets a second nap before my wife is able to take over.

Ever since the third trimester with the baby, my wife's suffered with disordered sleep. This is pretty typical for that stage of pregnancy and the following months (especially breastfeeding moms) but it's been challenging to get a handle on an earlier sleep schedule that would allow her to take over. Since I need my sleep for work the next day, my wife takes the brunt of any night-time needs the kids have, and if the children are sick, it's just hell for her. Still, we're hopeful that 2024 will be easier on us and I'm grateful for the help I do receive, such as her cleaning and staging the house for the next day's play.

Ultimately I'm very grateful to be working from home so that I can be with the kids, and that I can have a job where I'm allowed the time to take care of them and fit in any of my own dev wherever possible. I don't think there's a lesson to learn from this year, and my vaelcation so far has proven that I will find something work-y to preoccupy myself with even if I'm not coding; such as this long post. I still believe we can all be doing more and if there was anything to learn, it's how to manage my expectations better.

[vael]

Notices like these are such a vibe-killer. This won't stop any trolls or creeps, let's just assume the best of people and save everyone a click.

[vael]

Sharing not for content, but for the comments section in which the author is dunked on.

[vael]

Well, we all know that dragon is a fictitious creature Reptilian, terrible, lives forever, breathes fire, hordes gold A strange combination of attributes Why would something terrible and ancient hold a treasure?

Billy Bixby was rather surprised when he woke up one morning, and found a dragon in his room It was a small dragon about the size of a kitten The dragon wagged its tail happily when Billy patted his head It's interesting, you know, in Chinese mythology, dragon is a positive figure In European mythology, the dragon is something to face in combat and destroy Billy went downstairs to tell his mother "There’s no such thing as a dragon," said Billy’s mother And she said it like she meant it

I remember once my daughter had a nightmare, she was about four This was at the time when she first started to notice graffiti and litter Both graffiti and litter bothered her She couldn't understand the motivations behind the graffiti artists And she didn’t like the fact that there was litter cluttering up the world's order Children are really, really dependent on order And the reason for that has been their realm of competence is rather restricted, so they don't like to see things messed up She came into our bedroom one night and said, "Dad, I had a nightmare." Now we all know, right, nightmares aren't real just like dragons Dreams aren't real, of course, which raises the question of why in the world you bother having them six or seven hours a night, every single day of your life She said, "I dreamt that there was a clear flowing stream, but in the stream there was all sorts of garbage, and it scared me and bothered me so much, I woke up." So, I told her, "Look, close your eyes and imagine the stream is full of garbage. What should you do about it?" And she said, "Well, I should take the garbage out on the stream I said, "All right, so picture the stream, picture yourself cleaning the garbage out of it." She calmed down and went back to sleep, why? Well, because dreams concentrate on threat, we know that they present threats to you Threats you haven't been able to deal with well There's a part of your brain that tracks threats, and it's not all that smart in some ways All it does is say, "Look, here's a problem," And it's waiting for the rest of your brain to conjure up some solution to that problem, and if it does it conjure up a solution, then it just presents the problem over, and over, and over, and over, and over, so people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, who've been really upset by their contact with something unexpected, dream about the same tragedy forever until they solve it And they solve it by facing it and living it Over and over voluntarily

So you see, Billy He's pretty much got it right, right off the bat, right?

[vael]

Meet Cody, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Codey, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Codie, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Code-E, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Kodie, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Qodi, your personal AI code assistant! Meet Čøđę, your personal AI code assistant!

[vael]

“I never once believed —  nor do I now —  that the purpose of instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion. Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought; to help them gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions. This is why I became a teacher and why I love teaching.

But brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.“

[vael]

go OFF queen

[vael]

Calling All Heroes: Blizzard’s Pernicious Diversity Initiative

I wrote my first Medium article. Reception was about as I’d expect; the side that needs it most would never agree, and anyone who isn’t a so-called “underrepresented gender” just doesn’t care. They want their free loot and don’t care about the consequences of CAH. It got some attention, mostly negative from who I’ll call the CAH-eligible crowd, and fizzled out quickly. I never got a worthwhile counter-argument because I’m right. CAH cannot justify its own existence beyond repairing Blizzard’s reputation.

Still, I’m quite proud of how well I wrote it and I got something of a high just for releasing it onto Medium. I think I will write something nice for the PBBG.com blog and I’m interested in doing a health benefit audit for Pokemon GO this year.

[vael]

2022 Annual Review

(shuffling papers) Pandemic, war, Musk buys Twitter, artificial intelligence... Humanity has certainly had an eventful year. Now age 34, here’s how 2022 was for me.

What went well this year?

Olivia was born. It’s remarkable that I’m able to have two consecutive annual reviews in which I say a new child was born! She was born completely healthy, with the exception of a congenital knee dislocation. Thankfully, it was a quick fix and she’ll be fine.

At the time of writing, she’s nearing eight weeks old and meeting her milestones. I want to publicly commend my wife Eve on her flawless dedication to breastfeeding so far.

Raising Violet. Violet continues to surpass her milestones. It’s so incredibly rewarding to watch her develop day by day, learning how to ask for something rather than scream and point at it. I don’t think we go a day without her making us laugh. The “two under two” lifestyle is a big challenge, but I’m able to give her sufficient attention.

Web development. I learned a good amount this year, and I’m happy to announce that as the lead developer at my job, I was finally able to start a new piece of software in Svelte! That means that in the next few months, a Fortune 500 company will be using Svelte in production; albeit for internal usage only.

Game development. I didn’t get all that I wanted done this year, but it was still a good year. I finally migrated Tinydark off Orbium; all games now live under tinydark.com and the Orbium is now known as the Hub. I upgraded the Hub until I was comfortable that it wasn’t an embarrassment. I’m also happy to say it looks like a friend I was mentoring will be able to step in and get some work done on the Hub.

GAM3 and URPG saw many upgrades. Details here. I really enjoyed making content for URPG.

Oh, and Tinydark is an officially registered company now. :}

Cursing. I’ve managed to keep my language clean around the kids. I’m still internally vulgar; I’ll be coding or gaming and I’ll curse. Will try to improve.

What didn’t go so well?

Lost contact with my mom. No details on this, but she’s made it clear it’s fairly permanent.

Focus, cognition, and fatigue. I could honestly write five paragraphs about this, but this was my worst year for cognition yet. I’m having a hard time retaining what I learn and I’m permanently on a “third wind” and desperately need a solid eight hours of sleep for pretty much a year straight. It just can’t happen with our present lifestyle.

I’m doing way too much stuff for someone in my state, but I just have to take the small wins where I can get them for now. Once Olivia’s sleep regulates, I can start moving toward eight hours of sleep.

I couldn’t release Black Crown: Exhumed. I did release a teaser website for it. There was too much left to be done, but the game is 99% imported.

Pokemon GO addiction. I still play, but I’m trying to limit myself. PvP is incredibly addicting for my gaming archetype and it’s just too easy to throw in a quick three-minute game here or there. I have to be careful because the rapid tapping required for PvP can end in hand pain.

My body. I kept up with strength training, but I’ve let my cardio and flexibility slide. I’m in pain as I write this because I picked up the baby the wrong way this morning. The pain I’m in is something of a distraction when working.

The biggest problem is my forward neck posture. I get a headache 4-5 days a week just from the condition my neck (and back) is in and this is a top priority for 2023.

What did I learn?

I would say I learned to finally accept that I don’t have enough time to do everything I want as quickly as I want to. This is tough for me to cope with, and I think there’s a risk that I’ll unlearn it in the coming years...

I spent a lot of time this year studying woke culture. I ramped it up again after my daughter was born; I think I felt similar to how some mothers “nest” before the baby’s born. I want everything to be safe and happy for my children, and it seemed that learning about this serious threat to democracy and quality of life was my way of coping.

Finally, I’m deciding to not give people more than I get in return. I’m a good friend, which means I’ll often reach out to people even if they haven’t messaged me in a while. I am no longer in the position to write lengthy emails and check up with people who don’t think about me nearly as much as I think of them.

Goals and Expectations: 2023

I’ve been developing games with the goal of living off them since 2007. I do not forget this important fact as I press on, building technology, trying to make a “browser game” that’s worthwhile, ethically designed, and that I could make good money with. When I accepted that I just don’t have time to guarantee a 2023 release for URPG, my mind quickly defaulted to Bean Grower. I need to start releasing, I need to start making money; I need to be a dragon.

Release Bean Grower on the app store. BG’s had a great response and it’s served its intended purpose: a supplemental game for the studio, one that doesn’t need a landing page and isn’t expected to be a game that someone plays every day. Yet experience shows that BG may have more potential than I thought, and I’d like to spend 100-150 hours finishing it off as Version 2 release. This will be a good opportunity to get a game onto the app store, which is a ToDo for Black Crown and URPG.

Release Black Crown: Exhumed in October. Making it for the Steam Halloween Sale is a stretch, but I’m confident I can get it done. 

Start building a new house... or at least find the land. After two new kids, inflation, and stylin’ and profilin’, our bank account’s not full enough for it. But I’m holding an ace: the house we’re in now has appreciated greatly since we built it. Everyone wants to live here. If I can use the equity in the house against the loan, we’ll be able to lay the first bricks this year. We’re stable now, but soon enough, Olivia will be too old to live in the master bedroom with us, and there are sundry things we don’t like about the place we live in now.

Healthy body, healthy mind. If I had my way, I’d spend this year eating as much meat as possible, strength training and cardio 6 days a week, and grinding game dev. Alas, I’m becoming my own bottleneck. I need to stretch daily, jog, take it easy on the caffeine, and see what comes of it.

For the mind, well. My ADHD is becoming a serious problem. I’m constantly making mistakes outside of the realm of IQ, and it’s affecting everything from my Pokemon win rate to the kids’ diaper changes. Aside from better sleep once it’s logistically possible, I want to get back to “information sponge” Vael. I want to spend time each week on intellectual YouTube and take notes. Some people want to read ten books a year; I want to listen to one JBP podcast a week. That’s 52 two-hour conversations with very smart people.

I’m also going to attempt to go back to my Sherlock-inspired habit of looking at my surroundings more and paying more attention in general. This means the phone’s going to stay in the pocket.

-- --

See you next year. Vael