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| layout | tabtitle | author | pub |
|---|---|---|---|
| corrupt_now | Now | Bill Niblock | 2024-12-26 |
Life In Progress, as of {{ page.pub }}
- Started a business!
- Morrowind, Deus Ex, and Pathfinder
- Another game jam!
Overall, while it has been a few months, changes seem to have slowed a bit. Looking back on the past several months, there are significant changes, but also fewer of them.
My Own Business
I have officially started my own business, Niblock Technology Solutions. I even have a few clients! Exploring this new world has been exciting. There are a lot of new challenges, and certain a demand of time, attention, and dedication. As someone who loves working with others to solve problems, this seems to be a great development. I've been enjoying looking for my own technology solutions to some of my own wants, in addition to helping my clients solve theirs.
I'm also beginning work on another business idea I have. The area I live in could benefit from a game shop. I want a community space that people can come in, play games, enjoy company, and otherwise relax. That's a significant departure from my experience! I have some baby steps towards that business that I think will make significant impacts on the success!
Gaming Updates
Recently our Pathfinder game had a fun and rewarding side-quest, for which I made a summoner. What a powerful class! Mine is a Tengu, but from an Egyptian-themed region, and thus more ibis inspired than crow. Summoners get an eidolon, so naturally mine is themed after a crocodile. This side-quest had us achieving mythic power, and so I've had an opportunity to explore not only a new class, but a whole gamut of new powers. Very fun, very exciting!
The character really inspired a lot of creativity. Part of this character's mythic powers are tied to the Proteans, denizens of the maelstrom, Pathfinder's plane of chaos. They're a really interesting bunch, seemingly conflicted in their own right (they are of the primordial chaos, and yet adhere to a strict hierarchy of power). In exploring the lore about them, I imagined a visual novel of sorts, playing as my summoner acting as a scholar and historian traveling the maelstrom, interacting with these beings. They are described as civilized enough that I don't think it's a stretch for them to be welcoming and cordial of guests. Could make for a fun game!
I properly finished up Morrowind. As I mentioned previously, a fantastic game. There is so much exciting modding happening in that community that I am very interested in diving back in soon! However, I decided to tackle another old game I've wanted to play but never have: Deus Ex. I'm probably 80% through the game, and I have been enjoying it a lot. I've bounced off playing it a number of times, and I think a big part of that was this unnecessary expectation to play as a silent, non-violent type. Instead, I've been loud when I want, running around with a kick-ass nano-blade. I haven't been taking the play-through too seriously, but I have been relatively thorough. Again: there's some compelling mods which are already making me excited to give it another play-through, and some game-play and story choices which I'll look forward to doing differently next time! However, there are several games I'm looking forward to in the interim. I've seen several streams of Heroes of Might and Magic II, and it made me consider if I'd ever played through the campaigns of Heroes of Might and Magic III. I know I haven't for II, since I've never played it! I picked it up, and I want to give each a campaign play-through. I may do that along side another game. Oblivion is definitely calling me, and I'll probably setup a "vanilla-plus" mod-pack for it to play through with. Despite my love of Oblivion, I've never actually played through the main story, nor many of the DLC's!
Autumn LISP Game Jam
Capping off the year in game development is the second of the bi-annual LISP game jams, the Autumn LISP Game Jam 2024. I implemented some of the ray-casting code I've been working on in my submission, Escape the Crash. I had a lot of fun learning and developing with this one. Ray-casting still fascinates me, and I look forward to understanding it better; at least well enough to get some floors and ceilings into the game! I also believe that I can use the ray-casting algorithm to draw a sky-box of sorts. Essentially: note the first wall interaction, and use that to draw the walls as per usual, but extend to ray until a "stopping" signal, at which point draw the sky-box. I also want to implement some sprites! I've also never played around with sounds, and I want to explore that more in Love2D. The game was received surprisingly well, given it was incomplete and also suffering from some performance issues. That's very inspiring! I'm looking forward to playing with it some more.
Signing Off
I let slip a few months of updates, which will be a focus of mine for the new year. A monthly cadence will be nice. Though, I'm also now considering re-adjusting my approach. This page can be a summary of a post containing the full content (as it currently shows). I'm not holding myself to a goal, but writing two posts a month would be a nice flow. One of them could just be this monthly update, with a second being a game review or technology review or something.
Regardless, this marks the end of both this update, and this year! 2024 was a doozie! Here's hoping 2025 isn't too bad...