As usual during the summer, life chews right into game development (it's kind of like WoW in that way), and not a whole lot has happened since I journaled twelve years ago or whenever it was. I am still working on the monster maker for Happyponygate. It's pretty cool being able to tweak the values and see the monster change before your eyes. I think I'm going to like using it myself. So far you can pick which sprite to use, and change its color and brightness. Massive options, indeed.
I wrote a short story this weekend! That's something I'm trying to take up in my spare weekend time, and a weekend is just about the right amount of time to create a first draft for a short story. I had been talking about doing that, and when I went out to the post office, I came back to find that Sol had created a challenge for me. That made it both easier and more fun. She listed a few conditions for the story to employ (In a junky old spaceship, 3 grizzled miner-types, and a mysterious glowing blue jar), and then a bunch of questions to spur thought of where the story could go (Where did they get the jar? What's in it?). That did inspire me, and I churned out something I like. I don't think it's well written (and accordingly, you don't get to read it! Besides, it's not Hamumu-appropriate anyway), but I do like the actual tale being told. Hopefully, I can edit it into something readable one day. But not now! The one piece of advice I remember from writing books is to set aside your first draft for a few months before you go back to it. And that means I get to write other first drafts. That should be fun, or at least more fun than editing would be.
For some reason, even though I'm a published game developer (if you didn't know, I'm not just a self-published one, I have games that are, or at least were, available in stores from a real publishing house), I've always had a dream to be a published writer. Not a
professional writer - I really just want to get one book published and be done. Something about having a book (or I guess a story would do... for a start) published seems more significant to me than a game. So that's something I'm always going for. I've tried Nanowrimo, even succeeded, at least in the sense of getting 50,000 words of a novel written. I didn't actually write the ending to that, though... Anyway, I think getting some short stories done, and
published, will move me closer toward that goal. Or maybe qualify as meeting the goal, in my head. Because you know how to get to Carnegie Hall? Yeah, you take a left on fifth, head down by the hot dog vendor, and you'll see a Macy's. Then you make another right, head 3 blocks, and... well anyway, another way you could get there is
practice. So I'm doing that, though I have no interest in Carnegie Hall whatsoever.
Done with my first day of Hundred Pushups, by the way. It went well. Let's see how day 2 goes on Friday (I forgot about it on Monday and Tuesday, so I started today). Doing exercise makes me feel more awake and energetic. It's good all around. Everybody should do pushups. Get to it!
We still have no fridge. Maybe on Friday, kinda doubt it. We do, however, have something that makes the first sentence of this paragraph a lie. Friends of ours let us borrow their mini-fridge, so we have a little space to keep some things cool! It's been quite nice. That's pretty much our summertime experience. That, and a lot of Netflix and expensive repairs to our Jetta (do not buy a Volkswagen. Ever).
Oh, and one other thing, I think I may not have mentioned that Hamumu Software, the
entire company (not counting dogs and cats, if you thought those counted as part of the company), will be attending PAX (The Penny Arcade Expo) in August. As hoped, Jonathan Coulton will be appearing! It should be a delight all around. I'm going to be bringing copies of games to give away, or maybe making a demo disc to give out instead (but the games are already made, it's so much easier...). I won't have a booth, so I am trying to develop some sort of t-shirt/hat combo that will make me look sufficiently like a human booth that people will talk to me and be interested in Hamumu, without actually making me super sweaty and uncomfortable. It's a delicate balance, and all I know for sure is that I need to buy a white baseball cap to convert into a Yerfcap ASAP. I had an idea of making huge WoW-style shoulderpads, with giant foam HAMUMU sticking up from them, but I think that has a good chance of violating my comfort rules. And I don't think I could make elegant foam lettering. It would look bad. Too bad, because I think it's a cool idea.
In a random IRC chat, I encountered what is the coolest drink ever: Mana Energy Potion. I wouldn't actually drink it, since it's incredibly expensive, inconceivably tiny, and absolutely jampacked with caffeine. But boy, isn't it cool!?
And you know that you can't visit ThinkGeek without wandering around marveling at all the overpriced but wacky things. Which is how I stumbled across something we can only presume is Hamumu-themed: Wee Ninjas! They're cute too. Let me take this moment to plug the ever-exciting and totally-free crowdsmashing game Wee Ninja upon which these must surely be based.