Category: Video Games

  • 2023 Game of the Year

    2023 Game of the Year

    In my 2022 year-end blog post, I thought I was going to focus more on finishing up the narrative video games I started in the prior years. I definitely made some good progress on Disco Elysium, but not nearly as much as I wanted. I didn’t finish any of the narrative games. In January, I…

  • What 8bitDo can learn from the Competition (and also what 8bitDo is doing better!)

    What 8bitDo can learn from the Competition (and also what 8bitDo is doing better!)

    I’m all-in on 8bitDo. Prior to getting on the 8bitDo train, I was mainly focused on PC gaming, so I would get Xbox controllers (whatever the latest was at the time). But with 8bitDo supporting PC, Switch, Android, and (I think) the Xbox and PS4/5 with addaptors – it’s a no-brainer to go with 8bitDo,…

  • 2022 in Video Games and 2022 Video Game of the Year

    2022 in Video Games and 2022 Video Game of the Year

    1. Gwent (1 day, 5:50:44): Around May I found out that CD Projekt Red had changed the rules around the Gwent Journey, so that journeys were no longer time-bound. This meant I no longer felt pressured to play every day in order to progress. Freed from feeling forced to play, I once again caught the…

  • 2021 Video Games and 2021 Game of the Year

    2021 Video Games and 2021 Game of the Year

    This year I played a LOT less; partly because I wasn’t home as much as I was in 2020 due to the COVID mitigations. Also, it was partly because I focused on programming with older Advent of Code challenges. Last year I wanted to make a list of games and go in order, but that…

  • Making sure video games can be played by the widest group

    Ever since a class during my undergrad which mentioned technology that can help make sure the real world is accessible to all folks no matter what their physical limits may be, I’ve been very interested in the topic. It’s led to my interest on web accessibility (although I’m not always perfect when it comes to…

  • 2020 Video Games and 2020 Game of the Year

    Because the pandemic left me at home for a couple months, this year I played about double the amount of games from my previous record. You can watch the video below or read the text below that to find out what I thought of the games I played this year and which game I named…

  • Unity and JetBrains Rider on Fedora via Flathub

    As I mentioned last year in my 2019 in Programming post, I created a bunch of 2D games in Unity by following along with the Gamedev.tv classes. I would watch the videos on Linux and jump over to my Windows computer for the programming, learning how to use SourceTree and Microsoft Video Studio in the…

  • 2019 in Video Games

    This year I’ve added some narration to the video which is duplicated below for the hearing impaired. Below all that you’ll find my favorite video game of 2019!! Stardew Valley: I was a big fan of Harvest Moon when it came out on the GameCube. My future wife and I spent way more time than…

  • Unity 2D Game 6: Tilevania

    The sixth, and final, game of the Udemy class on Unity 2D was a tileset Metroid-Vania game which the instructors named Tilevania. I never played Metroid and maybe only played Castlevania once, but its legacy does persist in some newer games like Spelunky. This was the closest I’ve come to making a Mario clone. My…

  • Unity 2D Game 5: Glitch Garden

    The fifth video game I made in Unity was another clone of a game I spent a lot of time playing, this time as an adult – Plants vs Zombies. For comparison, here’s Plants vs Zombies: and here’s my finished Glitch Garden: We learned a lot of techniques and reinforced even more, but the biggest…

  • Unity 2D Game 4: Laser Defender

    The fourth game we worked on was another game that I spent a lot of my childhood playing. We made a Galaxian/Galaga clone: My mom’s youngest brother had a Nintendo and lots of arcade ports. When I was young he lived in the condo above my grandmother’s condo and whenever we’d go visit her, I’d…

  • Unity 2D Game 3: Block Destroyer

    My journey through 2D game development using the Unity engine continued with our third project: a clone of Brick Breaker or Arkanoid. In case you’ve never seen it before, this is Arkanoid: It’s got a pretty important legacy, Breakout, the version that Atari created, was an important stepping stone for the two Steves of Apple…

  • Learning how to make 2D Games in Unity

    I’ve been playing video games since I was somewhere around 5 or 6 years old and got a Nintendo Entertainment System for my birthday from one of my aunts. I also inherited a Tandy computer from my dad when I was younger. We had a bunch of edutainment games – like this Sesame Street game…

  • 2018 Video Games Report

    2018 Video Games Report

    In 2018 I played a little more than double the amount of video games as I did in 2017. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, now that the twins are older I don’t have to watch them as diligently. I can’t be as off-hands as I was when it was just…

  • Scarlett’s idea of Spelunky

    Scarlett drew this back in September when the kids were playing a lot of Spelunky. It’s interesting to see which parts of the game imprinted on her mind.