april fool

time skip.

What's that? Another few months of not updating this here blog? Trust me, it hasn't been that exciting. I've made next to no progress on my main project (WLDIG) but I did make a wedding game, get blown about by a cyclone, and earn a bit of cash. More below!

it's fkn wimdy

That's right, not one but two cyclones passed through Darwin this cyclone season. This time it was Narelle and thankfully she only blessed us with a high crosswinds (which were not fun to navigate on the motorbike) and a donkload of rain. So much rain that it ended up flooding the pumps that operate the dam, resulting in a boil water alert across the Darwin area. At work we had to isolate our drinking water and test the absolute shit out of it (somewhat literally) to make sure chlorination levels stayed high enough for safe consumption. It also happened to be the on the shift where I was...

long shift is long

...working for three weeks straight. A lot of people don't quite understand that when I say 'three weeks straight' I do actually mean three weeks straight. 21 days of 12 hours shifts, plus about half an hour either side of stressful travel time on the motorbike. I always have to keep an eye out for feral pigs (not joking) and the headlights that people are running these days are criminal. Which brings it to around 270 hours of work, equivalent to 7 and a bit weeks of regular office hours, in those 21 days. It's brutal, and my body really does take a hit these days.

Unfortunately it also reduces my break afterwards; they just pay me more to make up for it. So I've had a short (for me) 12 days of leave this time. Half of which I've been slightly sick with a cough that won't go away, and half of which is going to be taken up with chores and annoying stuff like doctor's appointments and dentist drills. Ah well, the privilege of getting older.

the wedding game

One highlight of this off-swing was finally getting to present the simple idle game that I made for my friends Tim & Bri on the occasion of their wedding. I know what you're thinking: an idle game for a wedding present? It's weirdly long tradition that I started when I was a little shit of a university student of making people solve puzzles to get their real present: cash money. I think it began with making my dear friends Dino and Irene watch almost a full season of X-Files listening out for a fart noise (don't ask) and now, here we are. Spending almost 4 months in Godot to make a funny little game that Tim has solved (and broken, multiple times!) in about, oh, 96 hours.

Gamedev is fun, guys. 😑