IvanVoid

Digital wind

[zevrans]

THE SIMS 2 (2004, dev. by Maxis) 🍂🍁

[kakhaev-ivan]

this is just incredible

[kakhaev-ivan]

2 More 4 hour games

So i did 2 more games(see below), they both took 4 hours each. I read a post on reddit where person was complaining about 20 games challenge, so I think I will make 20 games (21 because I started at 0) before I start developing at least 8 hours total.

With each project I feel that it so much more that I want to add, sometimes it's just bugs that I want to fix, or just spend more time on graphics music or a mechanic. But I feel that 4 hour deadline keep my ambitions and ego in check, and forces me to accelerate to finishing, that is more important. I have so many unfinished games that I wanna make ideal, but it never happened. So now I will take finished game instead of unfinished every time, to keep my sanity.

Links include source code as well.

4H-02 Packme by MazeSlug

packman clone, made in 4 hours

4H-03 Sandwich Pizzeria by MazeSlug

How many sandwiches u can sell? made in 4 hours

[kakhaev-ivan]

4 hour game, take 2

This time I will try Frogger, last time I really struggle with camera movements, so this time I will try to figure it out.

Plan for each hour: 1 - Implement main mechanics 2 - Add more features 3 - Add graphics 4 - Add sound and finishing touches

Actual progress: 1 - implementing actual movement + wall collisions 2 - camera movement + level generation 3 - cars collisions + small sprites (graphics) 4 - win/lose screen, finish part of the level.

Notes: Idea is to create blocks of the road and auto-generate them during runtime. Next one is packman.

4H-01 Froggor by MazeSlug

Can u cross the roads?

[kakhaev-ivan]

Breaking my teeth against reality

before making good game, learn how to finish a bad one.

last to weeks i started like three games to develop, with diminishing complexity every time. did i finished any of those? answer is no. u know what

u wanna make it a story driven and procedurally generated and not like other games. so u put really hard task in front of yourself.

in theory it should be easy, u take the sounds, u take the 3 colors and simple mechanics to create a game loop, and just like that you created audio visual experience eg game. everything else is up to debate. reiterate: visual + audio + interaction with a feedback, those are minimal requirements.

all the story elements, all the "looting" and killing, all the puzzle solving they all live in a higher level of abstraction.

why do i write all of that? can u find a mental framework that allows you not only start but also finish things?

let’s try to find analogies.

consider a color book, all the boundaries already drawn and the picture already finished, all you need to do is to color insides. first you pick color and what closed area you want to fill. then u go from one area to another until whole picture is finished.

main take away: define clearly what finished game will include, and u will fill those requirements.

u know when u start developing and next day u look at ur project and wanna abandon it and start a new one. so i’m thinking hope to make it work in 4-8 hours.

so assume you have 4 hours.

(my brain tells me to make smth like doodlejump but backwards)

hour 1: create all necessary objects

hour 2: write basic interaction between objects

hour 3: test and debug

hour 4: half hour on graphics, and score one on sound.

progress

hour 1:

I was creating objects for a 10 min then started coding. Main movement finished

hour 2:

minor bug fixes, updated graphics

hour 3:

I spend an hour trying to implement camera movement and failed.

hour 4:

adding sounds and finishing touches, like walls around the level.

so this was more interesting then i thought. still requires solving a lot of small issues and gives a feel of game development pipeline.

list of games to try:

- doodlejump

- frogger

- packman

- make a dish and serve it (papa pizza)

- point and click adventure, escape room

- boar fishing game

[kakhaev-ivan]

rehabilitation is inevitable

what you paying attention to that thing will gain power. who would thought that attention is actually power, different from physical power. you can have power in a physical sense: move rocks and another power: select what rocks you want to move.

it feels like magic. imagine that you have magical powers to transform matter into whatever you want, all u need is to apply attention power and physical power to it. now some things are more clear, for example why you can’t sit and do complex things that require a lot of attention, because your attention power is weak. it will be the same as pushing rock that you too weak to move.

now the question is how to train ur attention? continue with the analogy, for muscles you lift weights that you can lift and increase weights when it feels ez. so you will assume that you pick the thing that requires attention and do that as long as you can… to wage, but sounds like meditation.

i think anything that requires active participation from you can be seen as mediation. in a way you concentrating on writing/reading this text is an act of meditation. but why watching youtube doesn’t feel like meditation, it feels more like trance.

what is trance and how it’s different form meditation? you can just observe without any participation because you don’t have any intent, this is the trance. you losing yourself in a thing that you observing, just watching and listening without any inner thoughts or meanings. this is how youtube feels (or now tiktok). you even holding yourself to go in a bathroom till video ends, what a shame.

anything can be a meditation, like you concentrate on one point, you can concentrate on one thing (or thought) and dedicate your whole attention to it. but it should be a active attention not a passive one. again i want to point out differences between meditation and trance, in a first one you actively engaging with world around you(even if it’s just looking at a candle flame). second one it’s just a passive perception without thinking. you can think about it like a watching youtube whole day vs writing long essay in quiet room.(not sure if this analogy works well).

so i fully concentrate on a writing and trying to find this feeling of concentration and emergence into reality. all i feel is that i actually creating smth, feels good man. but writing about writing is not really interesting. it’s different, i can feel that i exist and small rocks of this world can be moved around.

i not saying that long concentration on one thing is good, i just think that you can choose action in a world or media consumption with reaction on the things that happens around you. first decision will help u steer life a little bit, where the second one is just drifting wherever it takes you.

stay alert, stay awake and beware of your surroundings. make a goal and consciously pursue it. you can go slow, but concentrate on your goal and don’t fall into trance. and i’m not saying work all the time, im saying that rest can be more enjoyable then just nut and watch youtube, just don’t run from your feelings and reality.

and i can feel that my attention is gone, i want to switch and do anything else but write. or start to compress this text into more pure and dense sentences. should i keep going? this is the exercise, and i tired. so i will write tomorrow and see how much i can do that without distractions. maybe we will have positive progress over time.

PS. Went all over the place with this one, i hope it will make sense tomorrow.

*** (notes)

you have intent and you acting on your intent to achieve smth

activly searching /persiving vs passivly persiving

like a remote on a desk

unconscious behavior vs trance 

nihilism leads to trance.

[kakhaev-ivan]

today every day

when i leave internet and go outside i get culture shock that i exist here in this boring world. i guess i fried my brain or whatever.

all the efforts seems useless to integrate and be normal part of the society. i know that i not really smart, because people who i think dumber than me live better, so i guess i doing smth wrong.

i’m outside again and writing, people are all around. and i feel again that i don’t know what to do anymore.

implementing small features like passing of time and dialogue system. first one is for events that will occur during your play. the second one is for communicating with different guests and stuff members.

spa make it best spa in a galaxy ？

it’s actually space station ？

minigame ask questions or do small puzzle to figureout what the person actually needs??? analyze?

[kakhaev-ivan]

Real to virtual

saw this graffiti outside. what is this mouse going off “cold turkey”, i think if you ask him anything he will answer with smth like “yea what? no, i already off that thing, you can tell right, man for sure, do you have any gum here? of 4 cups of espresso? why is so hot here, this guy makes me nervous why is he here? here, here, here such a strange word try to say it for 11 times it will lose its meaning, for sure, so what was the question here?”

it’s will be funny if he will be paranoid and say the everyone is following and spying on him, but being friends with group of sneaky agents that are actually spying on him. but this only helps him to work through his paranoia. he also steals gum from a vending machines i guess.

so mechanics of the game is to help creatures to become happy again. you need to determine what bothers them and give them a proper treatment. like massage, steam room(like ones where only head shows up), pool, bar, tea ceremony, yoga, tanning and so on. but for this dude you need replacement therapy, so maybe tea ceremony and psychotherapy where he just talk for a bit.

so now gameplay looks like you approached by a client/guest he tells you that he wants (to get detox), u put him into analysis machine or smth or just talk to him and try to figure out what to apply for him (like what procedures). and you can go around and see progress of each person around, talk to them and update their status.

what will be status for those creatures?

混亂 （chaos)

地球 （earth)

火災 （fire disaster)

澆灌 （water)

風能 （wind)

秩序 （order)

i think it will be funny to give players ability to check status of each guest, but make it cryptic.

i also think that u can select text or press on a trigger words as a part of a gameplay mechanics.

it feels like i’m not actually designing project part by part but just throwing bunch of incoherent thoughts and random words together hoping that at the end it will resemble something cohesive. i really want to create something new, beautiful and interesting, but i have no idea how to manage everything. ppl say that everything takes time, maybe it’s true and you just need to push forward and hope that at the other end everything is alright.

ok next step make dialogue system working, it’s displaying text and images already, now i need to make it progress and fill with right text and images. also start working on npc, they already walk but only in predetermined path and without any sprites. so 1) dialogue system(whatever it meant) 2) npc interaction with a player and with objects (i guess i need to make sprites into real objects now) 3) draw more objects for npc to detox.

list of possible machines:

Crystal therapy, levitation therapy, music therapy, sleep within a sleep focused sleep, drink all the water, full body sugar/salt/xenotoxins/chromosomes/genes extractor, intravenous antioxedents/prebiotics/postbiotics, all muscle activator, energy field cleaner , oxygen breathing room, social toxins eliminator, electromagnetic pollution remover, psyco toxins destroyer, bedrock recovery, bio energy enhancer , needle piercing therapy (fill holes in ur body with needles)

bio energy enhancer can be a big sphere on 3 legs with 2 antennas like a snail, in which person enters and lay down on a rectangular surface. also it has a big eye on a door which glows red when procedure is active.

detox machine, can be a big fridge-like machine with transparent tube coming from the top, this tube covers persons head and sucks all toxins out of the brain.

art reflecting reality.

[kakhaev-ivan]

traveling dev

what next? today is the concert day, 4 hour trip to Kaohsiung on a train. what i can program in this time? maybe a little dialogue display with pictures and text. also i wanna do actual npc that u can interact with, maybe will try that.

how to achieve craftsmanship in game development? as my old master said “finished work reflection of a crafter”. i also like another story where students made 100 jars and became good because of practice, so i guess message is to keep doing things and try to improve. but gamedev such a multifaceted thing, you have a story, graphics, gameplay mechanics, sound, and you need that everything worked together and was interesting and engaging. i guess you can work on one of the directions and try to improve on it.

i not really sure what makes ppl to make virtual representation of the world we live in.

[kakhaev-ivan]

small steps

spend whole day drawing and dealing with ysorting in godot, to draw different sprites on different layers dynamically. feels like a game now, but absence of light and flat colors doesn’t really looks great.

wanna add claw machine.

ok so idea is that u play as a pools manager, you have boss, workers (cook, pools cleaner, guy who boils water) and customers. do i wanna like a rating system? how do it fun? more interactive things but not tedious, ok how to do that?

what is the game loop? you meet a guest put him into a pool, set everything (food hotties of water) and ask him to leave when time is up. also you need to keep(order) supplies like coal or food, and check if you have enough for a day. so one gaming loop is one day. we also can have ppl who want to just join and hang out in the bar maybe.

time to think about first guest, i have no idea maybe 3 pigs, like from a tail. or spirit of the wall that can’t find a direction. also i thought about how you will get paid, so each customer have unique needs and if u fulfill them his satisfaction miter grows, and this will be main currency for accumulation. also maybe golden coins but only for wending machines and stuff like that.

saw this gate today, maybe will add it like a main entrance.

also wanna add dialogue system like in every cool game i played. when you have image text and choice.

[kakhaev-ivan]

who would think that writing every day will be hard af. it’s not just watching yt or scrolling feed. one guy on yt said be authentic and try to improve every day.

What story elements can i incorporate into my little game? symbolism?

ok i make this strange incoherent world with different things like tennis court and pool, bathtub with a giant man, how do i connect everything together? with a cohesive story line. so what this tv head doing in this world? im thinking about a closed environment like a cube, and you work there days/levels changing and you need to do different tasks each day. but you start to feel that you stuck and wanna escape this world and this is what you trying to do.

you work as a pool cleaner/maintenance person, but you a robot so you will die if you fall into water. and so every day you have different clients and you trying to fulfill they needs and escape at the same time. Voda pools sound like a nice game name, i can run with that.

what will the first day bring? first of all you need a pod where this person is living/sleep. on a first day three ppl will come, one will ask to make his bath some particular temperature (now you need thermometer for a pool, any way to make water colder/hoter) second one will ask for … now i’m thinking can i even make interesting characters or not and what if this idea will be not interesting enough. its like to play a game of digital service person, not that existing. so what can be better? usually ppl make ppl owners, because this is smth that not everyone can experience.

so what can be interesting experience? probably whatever ppl do on a north pole. nothing really… so hir motivation is to find. so ur brother lost a bet and now he must work at a pool house to repay it, u hear that and you say that u will help him to escape his deserved punishment . ??? but this story is not really about you.

how about this one, u just work at pool place when one day owner die? no. ok i just need to keep writing. i really overthinking simple game that i making do i? yes. ok what is the simplest that i can come up with that is also implementable? i wanna say, u will have different guests and you need to make their happy barometer high or you will die. simple enough.

[kakhaev-ivan]

living in a technocolored dream

it’s tomorrow again.

i feel like keep failing. every day is a boring mess filled with annoying things and people. I wish i could just fkg diai, is that easier than confronting and solving problems?

ok time for writing more lore i guess. so now you a vapor wave tvgirl for some reason.

[kakhaev-ivan]

K.I.S.S.

i wrote a lot of unfinished games, usually i start and then stop half way. this time i promise myself it will be different. simple premise, simple mechanics, simple graphics. hardest part is to converge on one idea and execute it well enough.

half a day was spent just to make little guy on a screen move and pick stuff up and put it down. now it start to make shape and i think i know what the concept will be. i think it will be funny to make a horder type game. where u go around your city village or whatever, and just grab all the things and bring them to your house

wow it took a whole day. so this thing can move and interact a bit with things. now what? a story about nameless blob that just holder objects don’t sound existing, but i think everything depends on implementation. in my creative journey i saw amazing games that i only wish i can came close to in a quality. but i guess i will just be myself.

so what is the idea? make uneasy but spacious (in vaporwave sense) game, and make gametime at least 10 minutes. the concept? you going around picking stuff up and using it on other things to unlock path forward, why do u need to move? what is the weakest motivation? you need to go find your “form”. like it’s a whole process to get your true form, like pokemon. it’s like initiation ritual but at the end you evolve into your true form.

motivation: you trying to get your true form.

now what? after motivation we can build story around it, because now we know beginning and end. so maybe it’s a big wiggly swimming pool in a middle of the village and you can’t get in until you pass your initiation and attain your true form. “no gooblers in the pool” sign says.

so you go to a old dude who sitting in a big steammy jacuzzi. and he will tell you how to obtain your true form. he will say smth like …

2am questioning my life decisions and thinking did i did anything right. . .

[kakhaev-ivan]

dance till you die

so me back to lab. i guess i will just write presentation on NeRF model without camera parameters. I wonder how long it will take me.

tomatos: 🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

two pomodors takes a fucking eternally. feels like i can do something actually productive instead of what im actually doing, but usually it’s not the case.

words cost nothing, so just write to your heart content.

i can share my insane theories here. do you think that all the things before where so organic and chaotic because ppl did everything with their hands. they just have to build a place where our authentic minds can rest from chaos? where symmetry and precision are ruled? i talking about churches of course. now you can find symmetry and precision everywhere. but i don’t really know history, i just think it’s a interesting thought.

i lived for so long, but it’s feels like i always alone. not sure if that is common thing or not. I like science but don’t really do anything with that, maybe i need to start to make observations on smth… i already living in this world for almost 30 years, hmm counting tiles on buildings are fun but useless. weather just changes. i feel like i can do with my obsessive personality, loneliness and data analysis skills, but not sure what.

all my things screaming “count random things” but i think finding patterns and correlations between things is more interesting. on all my ramblings chatgpt suggested me to join citizen science projects.

maybe i can make a wind speed monitor, or built small submarine to monitor water and see levels? pretty sure i’m not smart enough to do that, but i just tired of sitting and doing nothing while my body is slowly dying.

I remember being a boy in a village without internet and with barely functional TV.  just walking around and try to find things to do. reading was an adventure, even of old crappy books. putting leafs of a tree in a jar of water, too se for how long it will stay green, was a scientific experiment. working in garden was a lot of fun. never thought about my body or grinding work because I will not be able to afford food next month. 

tried to start my scooter, i think the battery is dead.

is money all that matters in this world? maybe i was wrong and all i need to do all along is just to spend all my time and thoughts trying to maximize amount of money i have? is that a good idea? nobody values fucking knowledge or care, or teachers and nurses will be the most valuable people.

***

Silence, no, wind and cars driving through the streets and alarms of the ambulances, this is my silence. your friend became a journalist and covers what is going on in the world outside, meanwhile me covering bullshit that happens in my brain, that no one cares about.

we track ppl across the web, on every website that you going, why not track ppl on a streets then? imagine you can open map and see where each individual person is, ohhh if you can see what they are doing it’s even better. oh well dreams. i wonder how easy right now to track ppl down, now it’s sounds like regular journalism. making same things in different categories makes different types of work.

i guess when ppl write essays about something they dig deep into one thing, like saying everything you can say about fallen leaf. should i do that? it’s sounds kinda a bit more boring then just went out about life. i would never read about other person life, usually it so boring, why do that if we have fiction. talking about the devil, i think i unable to write anything coherent about imaginary people interacting, i guess everything comes with experience, but i don’t really feel like doing that. what i feel like doing is to describe world around me with excessive details. so where do i start? 

comparing urself to others? only yourself

i totally forgot about TIL, so what do i learn today? huh i actually didn’t learn anything, because i didn’t actually seek it. let’s it to be first lesson for me.

what a day

[kakhaev-ivan]

Rhythm of life

feel myself life a mr clean. why every time when i feel better, it’s necessary for me to clean all the space around and eat not garbage food?

now i know what i should do for some reason:

make a work permit

get my health insurance money back

finally get a license (i tried to do that like for 4 years already)

publish a paper. this one is also weights on me heavily.

well it took a whole day to clean up mess around, but now i look around and everything looks like it’s supposed to. I even counted all the coins and separated them to the amount that i can spend on breakfast, 21 times.

i have a meeting this friday and i thought i can go try to pass driving license. i think i will prepare my presentation first and then go try license test as well. maybe this thursday.

main thing for me is to move slowly, because i feel like everything is so overwhelming.

everything online feels so boring and made out of obligation rather then fun. my brain scattered like a bullets out of shotgun. small progress today.

thinking about things is hard, and making real things are even harder. time when you could just cut the wood is over, now planning and design.

[kakhaev-ivan]

in the night

just write, keep writing if this will not help you, nothing will. how your friends treating you if you have some? oh wait they all just digital representations of ppl? what do you mean they don’t know you exist? so how do you communicate? just pretend that they talking to you, i see now.

maybe you have a hobby or a thing that you like to do? yes i trying many different things like drawing and gamedev but I’m losing focus and can’t finish anything.

my biggest fear that i will die and leave nothing behind. I don’t know what happened, when from a carefree lonely child I became depressed adult. no one teached me how to become happy or fulfilled. feels like my passion lasts for a week, i have no idea how ppl dedicate themselves to one thing for the rest of their lives.

how to follow your dream if you have no idea what it is? or just do what brings me joy? sleep watch cartoons and eat sugar with coffee is not a career, as last i get reality checked.

feelings of discovery, wonder and striving towards some meaningful goals, was replaced with repetitive routines/rituals, indifference and boredom. like my sister once said “if you criticizing then suggest some solutions.“ not sure if it’s applicable here but i feel like i bringing only negativity and sadness into already complex word.

i wanna stop complaining and start to make my life better, but every day sand of time just slipping through my fingers while i’m binge watching all 5hour movie factorio, why starwars sucks 50hour essay and so on. it feels like a trap for weak minds, apparently my mind weak and i can’t control myself. missing deadlines, going asleep at 4am…

*** tomorrow will be a new day to be yourself, maybe trying to be 0.1% a little better every day will make a bit of a difference. what does it mean i have no idea but maybe try to do something different and improve life in a way that you can/want.

[kakhaev-ivan]

Digital friend

He like sun, brainhutingly bright.

He noticed that he lives in the world of symmetry and even spacings. He like it.

He also was surrounded by nature.

He still couldn't understand why people avoid eye contact.

He still not comfortable in his boredom, reaches to internet people to see what they say.

He didn’t expect that boredom will bring a friend - looseness, or just realization of it.

His brain starts wondering, now memory is his medium.

Having all the navigation, he is still thinks that he lost, drawing his own maps.

No people, no text, no audio, he communicates only with himself and reality that surround him.

He writes, usually for himself,  but maybe digital space is better storage then closet.

[kakhaev-ivan]

Because life is fine

He don’t hear his own voice behind voices of others.

He just walks because running is hard.

He only knows how to combine, not to derive.

He given digital tools to solve analog problems.

He feels urge to move and document. Have no idea why.

No rivers only cars, he finds this annoying.

He want to discover what lays down on the bottom of the boredom... How deep is it? Is there a bottom?

His legs hurts, he still walks.

Legs take him further away, but his mind remind blank.

He contemplates giant industrial cubes, quite, all dark windows.

Rooms with no existence, no purpose - just to decay, left alone.

And he saw, as bright as day, machines taking care of old industrial cubes.

Making production work, repairing themselves and equipment.

“Wow, this sounds really hard“ - he said - “How do one build such a thing?“

“Slowly“ - I  answered.