Mark Andrade

Journal Entry 2023-02-03

This Week’s Notes

Since I’m working on multiple projects I have to break down my week and work on certain things per day. If I don’t do this I get lost and feel like I get nothing done.

In order to do this I have to keep notes on each project. More specifically, when I stop, I need to write down where I left off and what I wanted to focus on what’s next.

Routine

So far my routine looks a little like this. Of course it’ll change based on obligations, appointments, life, and eventual burn out.

I start the week easy. Monday I work on Photography, building my websites, and writing music.

Tuesday I work on rebranding my KaiOS games. Once this project is done I’ll use this day for swift game development or making new games for KaiOS if I feel inspired.

Wednesday is all swift game development.

Thursday is photography and working on my new photography based game idea. When the bulk of the game code is complete and the game is nearly done I’ll start using half of the day to write music.

Friday is writing, organizing my projects, and then focus on whatever I need that’s bugging me. This is just the morning. The rest of the day is to mentally center myself if at all possible.

Reading all that sounds easy but in reality it’s not. It take a lot of discipline and fighting off self doubt. I still have to all more time to write music which I’ve been neglecting. That thought keeps letting me know it’s there every time I work on something else.

KaiOS

Rebranding has started.

I finished a template project in GameMaker and started the port of a simple game Dino Run. Took almost no time to re-write the game in GML using the template. Not bad. I just have to add the score sprite and polish it up and it’ll be good to go.

The template uses on updated version of the rich HTML5 loading extension I made for GameMaker and also implements KaiAds. You should see a gif at the top of this blog post with the current state of the template.

Don’t think I’ll port the other KaiOS games to GameMaker though. I’ll just give them a re-skin.

Swift Games

Reimagining of my old games has started. I have a certain design ideas in mind but as always I’m plagued with doubt that I have to try and ignore.

This week I took the time to just read and refamiliarize myself with the code I wrote a couple years back. I totally forgot I started using protocols and threading in my games.

Photo Project

I started an Apple TV game that uses photography that I hope to release episodically. I had the navigation nearly complete but after testing I realized that I have to flush out the controls. I’d like the game to be as accessible as I could possibly make it.

I’m focusing on Apple TV to start with because it looks so damn good on a large screen. I will start thinking about adding in iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS support once I flush out the controls.

This post was originally on Taara.games website and was moved here for my simplicity.