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Entries from August 2026

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l August 32 (31 Aug at 23:55)

September already! I have been making progress on a video, but also enjoying the summer and a little travel, and also in one of those traps where the project is *almost* good enough, but still takes like 3 years to run. Very easy to get in an Optimization Hole in that kind of situation. Filmed some live-action stuff outside today.

The best game I played this month (perhaps this year) is Derelict Star. This is a an exploration-based precision platformer and it asks a lot of the player, but it's just my kind of game. Fundamentally you have a strange physics engine with precise (but mysterious) feedback, and all of your progression comes from understanding its nuances. It's a big game with lots to explore, and an impressive variety of puzzles and challenges given the seemingly small rule set. Some of the puzzles are incredibly elegant (I'm thinking of the green key rooms). Sometimes you will know what you need to do but spend 45 minutes grinding it out! I got all the power cells without any hints or assists. I'm not above using an external map or hint, but I do admire when a game can be self-contained but still feel like you're discovering a lot. I think this game might be too hard for people who aren't really into platformers, but I loved it and would recommend it if that sounds like your jam.

I also finally finished Unbeatable, which is a ... well I'm not even sure what. It is ostensibly a rhythm game, but the story mode is mostly an anime-like walking simulator? The game is super buggy and has a lot of confusing rough edges, like sometimes it'll just rapid-fire show you a bunch of background scenes and then roll the credits, which is especially confusing since the story is disjointed. It must sound like I didn't like this game, but I actually did: Some of it is quite funny; it's got a lot of good original music, and the rough edges mostly come across as "punk rock" more than cutting corners.

I also played through Olija, an adventure platformer (vaguely reminiscent of the far superior Another World). It had some good art and some mediocre art, but mostly it was pretty mid. I usually like Devolver games more! Along similar lines I played Primal Planet, which is more explorey and did have generally quite good art, but the combat and platforming was a bit too clunky. I finished both but I would not particularly recommend them.

I saved writing this blog post until it was too late, having forgot that August does not have 32 days, and now I'm in danger of losing points!

(3 comments — 2 days ago) [ comment ]

Entries from July 2026

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l In fact: (31 Jul at 23:05)

I can tell you this: I did that talk for A.E.O.U.D. in New York and then inhaled Manhattan wildsmoke/miasma for a few days and then came back. I'm trying to finish up that project and make a silly video about it, but freed from the constraints of deadline I'm also letting it wander a bit (not smart; I have at least 3 or 4 other rather-in-progress things that I would still like to finish) but who cares? It's summer.

And also: I did videogames. I finally fully finished Moonring, which I recommend. It's a well-made game that has a few flaws (the late game is a bit "ambitious but incomplete," Wind-Waker style) but a lot of good stuff. I also got through Evil Egg, an overstimulating twin-stick shooter. I loved the graphical style and figuring out its quirks, although it was unclear to me how/whether I was finishing it. I also finished Returnal and was not tempted to 100% it, which is good. I think I'm close on Ball × Pitt, which is fun and has clever things but is also a bit "Mobile Game Hell" at times, so I will withhold judgment for now.

And now: I regret to inform you that I am very tired from having woken up way too early to receive water company maintenance plumber, and so I cannot think of anything additional to say before just fully falling aslee

(6 comments — almost 3 weeks ago) [ comment ]

Entries from June 2026

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l Again, yes (30 Jun at 23:59)

Hello my blog, my ball and chain, my primary source of -1,000 points for lateness. Did I know the month was ending? Yes. Was I sitting at my computer doing something else? Yes. Did I then just get tired and go to bed, forgetting about my chore? Again yes.

One piece of cover is that my site was down yesterday. I foolishly rebooted my server without looking at it, and learned this morning that my magnificent TLS reverse proxy httpv was not actually configured correctly to restart when the server came back online. My invincible website! It had been running continuously since that video, which now seems like a million years ago. I simply had never done systemctl enable httpv. Anyway, that should be okay, but might as well take another -1,000 points.

Next up: I initiated and got deep into a new stupid project, which hopefully I'll have ready for AEOUD in Brooklyn. The project part is "almost done" but I also need to make the story/visuals, which I basically just have the long 4th of July weekend for. So it's getting tight. I'm probably the only idiot in the world who does a new topic for every single appearance, which is probably why I usually just get stressed out and don't even respond to people who kindly e-mail me inviting me to talk somewhere.

But I like newness, which is why I also made myself run out of time by downloading Returnal, which I thought was going to be a straightforward single-player third-person shooter that I could just play through in bits when I needed a break. Turns out is actually a single-player Roguelike bullet-hell third-person shooter, which random-reward genre is known to be addictive to accomplishment-driven players like myself. Might as well take another -1,000 points for that error while we're in the mood. It is a good game, although it is funny to me how incredibly slow the walking-simulator sections are compared to the normal twitchy gameplay. I'm sure that as video game professionals they did this on purpose, but it's impossible for me to imagine someone who likes twitchy dodgy bullet-hell also being patient enough to enjoy a ten second long animation of the player picking up a piece of paper. I have picked up paper multiple times in my life, and done so in at most one second, even wearing a spacesuit.

We've got some record-level heat here! It had better at least reach 100°F if it's going to flirt with that level.

(12 comments — almost 2 months ago) [ comment ]

Entries from May 2026

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l Stereolithography (31 May at 11:20)

Hi!

I'm currently in STL (not the 3D printing format, although can we really be sure that we're not inside an enormous stop-motion 3D-printed simulation?) for a friend's 40th birthday / Festkolloquium. It's at the City Museum, which is a place I highly recommend and which is certainly rekindling my warehouse fantasies. I gave a talk about another geometry problem I got sucked into, which might end up being a video but I think is more likely to just be a project I tinker with and gracefully avoid going in a math hole about.

In June I'll be in NYC presenting something at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail again!

I finished Oeuf, Stephen's Egg Roll, which I liked. I didn't know if I was going to want to finish it when I started, but the game is good at teaching you its moves and encouraging you along the way. I also played through the entirety of Lone Fungus: Melody of Spores and Minishoot' Adventures this month, which is how you know I was substantially vegetating. The first is a straightforward sequel; I think I liked the original more because it was less polished (in particular, movement power-ups allowed for significant sequence breaking). I liked the gloomy synth soundtrack in this one, and the bonus levels, but it was mostly quite easy. (I only upgraded the strength stat for a little extra challenge!) Minishoot' (yes with the apostrophe) is a genre mashup of "twin stick shooter" and "metroidvania," and was quite charming. I probably should have played it on the hard difficulty (yes I am so good at video games!!!), but I had a lot of fun exploring that world. My chief complaint is that essentially every secret is of the same type. I played The Cabin Factory, which is a one-session horror game with a smart structure, and it creeped me out the right amount. And now I'm pretty deep into Moonring. This is a strictly turn-based "RPG" with lovely low-color graphics that makes me wish I was playing on OLED. It reminds me very much of the old DOS Ultima games, and I expect it was inspired by them. I admire the design of this one; it exercises a lot of restraint in its mechanics and expression. The leveling system is pretty neat (essentially all "achievement"-based; no xp), and the interface is well thought out. It recreates for me the feeling of playing these underexplained games in the 90s and not being sure if you're "supposed to" go through this dungeon yet.

OK! Now it is time for Brunch with friends.

(2 comments — 3 months ago) [ comment ]

Entries from April 2026

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l SIGBOVIK 2026 [✓] (30 Apr at 11:55)

Good evening!

I posted my project, which again if you are looking here to find first news of such things, I admire your commitment to the olden days, but you are doing it wrong. Speaking of the olden days and doing it wrong, my project is No one can force me to have a secure website!!! and it has both a paper and video:

A pre-paid self own

I also gave a talk at SIGBOVIK that you can dig up if you want. They did do a good job of recording video and audio this year! I'm sick of this project now and on to other stuff. I already have two low-key talks scheduled (friend's festschriftish thing and another unnecessary detail) so I'm essentially already back in project mode. But: Since I stayed up too late before remembering how short April is and about my blogbligations, I think I will just leave it at that.

Category: videos

(11 comments — almost 3 weeks ago) [ comment ]

... Apr 2026 continued

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6 Posts from 2026

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5 Posts from 2025