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crussel

@[email protected]

Another lefty mastodon gamedev! 🥳
British, middle-aged and gay (of the generation that still winces slightly at 'queer') 🌈
Adopted by Dora the cat in 2022 🐈‍⬛

Slowly making a cosy iOS game about archaeology in a terrarium.

I 'like' a lot of #CatsOfMastodon posts. I don't usually repost though, to prevent my feed being All Cats.

Profile photo is Dora, my daft cat. Header is concept art for my game - a cute little house in a terrarium full of plants.

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@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

Made a post-jam slightly updated version of Space Cats with redefinable keys and joystick support, among other things. Thanks to my nephew Ed for finding a glaring bug no one had yet spotted (you could fly through the doors in level 3 without keys! Wrong wall tiles, bah)

https://crussel.itch.io/attack-of-the-space-cats/devlog/1278732/post-jam-slightly-updated-version

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

Dora’s christmas advice is much the same as her advice during the rest of the year: have a nap

Dora the black and white cat snoozing on her left side on my lap. Her left paw is curled up around her right shoulder and her right leg is extended out across my leg toward the camera. Some back leg toe beans are visible at the bottom of the picture.
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@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

One of the early trials of cat ownership is getting used to being stared at

crussel OP ,
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@calicoday years ago an old housemate and I looked after our neighbour’s dog while they were on holiday. He quickly got exhausted going between our respective rooms to stare at us and eventually took up residence on the landing, so he could steal a stare whenever we came out ❤️

@joyousjoyness@mastodon.social avatar joyousjoyness , to random

✨ A Sprinkle of JoyousJoyness ✨

Mesmerizing!

Have a JoyousJoyfulJoyness day!

video/mp4

crussel ,
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@joyousjoyness proof, if it were needed, that prairie dogs have evolved for a life on the High Seas 🏴‍☠️

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

30 years later and I’ve finally got mode Y working (with hardware scrolling, gasp!) Extremely unreliable emulator numbers claim this is managing ~50fps on a 386DX/25 - though most of the time is spent playing the Cannon Fodder MOD 😂

Me, typing ‘thing’ into a fullscreen dosbox window on a laptop. Music starts playing and a picture of my black and white cat Dora’s face fills the screen and pans around.

crussel OP ,
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Anybody got any tips on the most straightforward/automated way to match a bunch of images to the same indexed palette? Gimp can do it, but I think only one at a time. I suppose there’s always ImageMagick. Trying to remember what I used to do 30 years ago… I think it involved NeoPaint 😀

crussel OP ,
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I went with imagemagick in the end. Knocked up a little script that sticks all the blender exports into a tiled image, then reduces that and the background to a common palette. Fun part now is rendering multiple sprites - because my code doing just one is right on the edge of acceptable perf 😬 Think I'll have to investigate Mr Abrash's technique with the VGA latches. I'm really enjoying this 😂

A DOS program that displays a scrolling image of Dora the black and white cat in the background, while in the foreground a small, lime green vaguely-cat-head-shaped 3D rendered sprite spins across the screen. With flashing red ears.

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

Looks like I’m going to be spending the day tracing through Unreal’s undo system. Please ignore the angry swearing and muffled sounds of breakable objects being breakabled

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar aeva , to random

jesus fucking christ as&s is shutting down https://sciplus.com/important-information/

crussel ,
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@aeva I had one of those as a kid. I noticed if I put one hand on it while the other was on the mouse, the pointer went all jumpy! But after a while it went all dead. So maybe don’t do that

@nocontexttrek@mastodon.social avatar nocontexttrek , to random

Star Trek The Next Generation scene. We're on the Enterprise bridge, point of view from the captains chair facing forward. We see two officers at their consoles facing the view screen. On the view screen is shown a shiny and black non humanoid looking alien, hard to make out how it looks, more of a silhouetted shadowy future space alien vibe. Behind the figure is cascading blue lights. Closed caption reads, "Conversation is neither required, nor desired."
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crussel ,
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@nocontexttrek “you humans do not discuss, you gibber” is still one of my favourite insults.

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

I can never type 'inertia' correctly the first time. My fingers automatically insert a 't' after the 'n'. My brain notices, but my fingers won't be stopped and keep typing the rest of the word. Like a sort of inertia 🤔

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

May have bought the soundtrack to Star Trek: The Motion Picture on vinyl, because I’m an unbearable hipster. And because it’s a stone cold banger, obviously

@shivoa@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar shivoa , to random

I just had to ask for "the pointy not-spoon" because I'd forgotten the English word "fork". It's going to be one of those days.

crussel ,
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@shivoa I once went with "garden spoon" because I couldn't remember "trowel"

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Every time I cycle under this bridge I think “I’m having that”

For the terrarium game I mean, I don’t want the real one. I’ve nowhere to put it for a start

A path through a sunny park, thick with bushes and trees either side. In the middle distance a long-disused railway bridge stretches across the path. The bridge is overgrown with plants, which are trailing down almost to the path below. The sky behind is bright blue with some fluffy white clouds visible.
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@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

If you’re wondering if a metaphor in something you’ve written might be a bit heavy-handed, this is a polite reminder that 28 Days Later opens with a chimp in a lab being forced to watch the news

crussel OP ,
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@VileLasagna it’s a fair point. I remember reading a review of Starship Troopers that was furious that the costumes were “glorifying the Nazis” - it is possible to miss the point even when it’s spelled out in neon lettering

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

A spokesperson for OpenAI said: "Fixing issues bad enough to render the software unusable is something we might look into later, or not. In addition to informing users that our software is riddled with bugs, we're continuously adding workarounds"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/18/whatsapp-ai-helper-mistakenly-shares-users-number

Quote from the linked article: 'A spokesperson for OpenAl said: “Addressing hallucinations across all our models is an ongoing area of research. In addition to informing users that ChatGPT can make mistakes, we’re continuously working to improve the accuracy and reliability of our models through a variety of methods” '
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@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

Trying not to be too NIMBY about the radio 1 event that’s walled off half the park and turned the surrounding area into a clusterfuck of cones and diversion signs. Cycling past it today and they’ve covered the walls in adverts for BBC shows. Eye… twitching…

crussel OP ,
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@shivoa the noise is annoying, but I can put up with it every now and then. Other music events that happen in the park wrap up at 10-11 and everyone goes home quietly-ish, but the sheer scale of this one implies that might not go so smoothly - I guess we'll see! But yes, I think the part that rankles the most is the walling off (and covering in advertising!) of a section of a public park. Wall was pretty quickly covered in anti-capitalist graffiti (Liverpool ❤️) but they've cleaned it off now 😆

@aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar aeva , to random

im learning how to paint with sounds. when i complete my unified theory of pictuers its' gonna be over for you fools

crussel ,
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@aeva 🤯

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

People wondering how Microsoft can make such awful programming decisions when they hire such smart coders. I witnessed this firsthand working with [name of large US game company omitted] - you talk to any individual coder, and they Really Know Their Stuff. Put 30 of them on the same team and - I think this is the key - tell them the game has to be ready by last Thursday or you’re all fired, and they become One Collective Idiot

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

One of my art books for Proper Artists arrived yesterday. I am still reeling from its contention that many artists believe the colour green, generally speaking, should be avoided.

Wot

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

I realise this might be a bit heady for a Tuesday evening, but what’s everyone’s favourite pasta shape?

It’s conchiglie for me. Their spoon-like shape provides my ideal ratio of pasta to sauce.

crussel OP ,
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@VileLasagna huh, not heard of those before - they look pretty good, thanks!

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

Rare day using the PC. “Windows needs to update”… went to start dinner and came back to find it had turned into Linux Mint. I’d do a gag about “these are the sorts of updates I can get behind” but sadly I found out last night there are no Linux drivers for my sound card, wifi or bluetooth. Oh well.

@crussel@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar crussel , to random

When I was a kid I probably imagined game development was all spaceships and explosions and cool aliens. Today I have been mostly holding a terrarium up to my face so I can recreate the look of compost.