Did you approach Atlantic, or did they approach you?

I’ve had a word game in-mind for years, and several attempts to implement it. It’s a tricky one but I’ll crack it one day :)

My plan is to be acquired by a news company.

So, how did you go about this? I have some ideas myself

I feel like this is going about it the wrong way. This puzzle game licensed by The Atlantic for example, was made because they wanted to provide a fun game experience for their patrons.

With games, the best games come from an organic experience. Its almost worse to have a preset plan.

Not to mention, making a game is work - you have to have approachability, rules think through alot of scenarios even for "simple" games to make sure things make sense etc - and if you haven't even done it before I highly suggest you actually try and make a game first

But I had all the game logic and flow mapped out long before I thought about platform.

Yes games are tough to make, I’ve made a few so far and it’s always a struggle

Anyways I mention it because if one can focus on selective tasks, like working on a side project, I think adhd is perhaps an easy/lazy diagnosis but maybe not the correct one.

People with adhd have lots of side projects because of adhd

But most jobs are tough - in some way.

Software Engineering is one of the most information-volatile industries in history that I can think of.

You have to aggressively keep pace with potentially, and I’m guessing here, the fastest shifting industry in history in terms of practices and knowledge and improvements.

Not only that, it is constant failure and obstacles - bugs, frameworks, features, platforms, what have you - and constant layers of abstraction. A lot of the time you cannot visualise any outputs.

Software Engineering is a highly skilled industry, and probably the most competitive industry in the world, with a very high rate of uncertainty and layoffs and change. We are working with some of the most complex systems created by man in history.

I don’t think you can make a broad generalisation that we are coddled lol. Software Engineers in the USA in certain population centres earn a large salary, sure, but look overseas and comparatively that is not the case.

Seriously, by what metric is Software Engineering one of the easiest careers? I’d like to hear your viewpoint because I think it’s so off-base that I must be missing something.

It has its definite perks like work from home.

But Software is up there as one of the toughest knowledge-worker industries there is.

There are much tougher careers like anything Electrical Engineering, but by no yardstick is Software easy

It may be fair to say that it wants to work its way towards that as the industry matures, but that hasn't been the case. People have been able to make insane amounts of money in software. You cannot make money in a competitive industry.

This doesn't necessarily correlate to skill at writing software, but I've also encountered a higher ratio of poor performers from this growing demographic, as well. The end result is that the median skill level seems to go down over time.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and seems like it should be expected as the pool of people working in software development grows.

But as time goes on, there are definitely more and more people who are trying (and succeeding!) at doing it.

https://github.com/con-dog/chunked-z-level-raycaster

You can never have too many mobile app generators

A ray-casting engine is an old style of game engine (think 1990 - Wolfenstein or Duke Nukem). The most famous, well-known example is probably Wolfenstein-3D created by ID software (John Carmack and John Romero etc!) You don’t see these engines used anymore in modern games.

So to me, they are novel and a great challenge to try and modernise. Especially as a solo dev! And for further context, raycasted levels are usually teeny tiny (Wolfenstein 3D or Shadow Warrior are the largest worlds I’ve seen, so nothing impressively scaled). I have never ever come across a raycaster with levels the scale of something like Minecraft. So that’s what my ambition is.

I spent a period of 2-3 months roughly 8-10 hour days every day on this project, not knowing much C and not knowing anything about game engines or graphics, and average at mathematics.

But I’m on a break from the project and coding after my 7 year relationship broke down. Realised I had tunnel vision with my life and ambitions, and am now “touching grass” daily instead. It’s hard to put effort into your hobbies when you feel other areas of your life are suffering.

So now I’m lifting weights and doing cardio and reading books instead, trying to keep active and my mind occupied.

I do want to pick this project back up, I’m really proud of what I was able to achieve with no knowledge coming in and I think the project has good bones.

And I loved coding, still haven’t found a hobby that scratches a similar itch

[0] - https://github.com/con-dog/chunked-z-level-raycaster/blob/ma...

Eg if someone can’t handle alcohol -> don’t drink

Fat? Eat less and exercise

ADHD? Get medicated and embrace the condition and understand it

I think you can pick and choose to work on your flaws. I certainly am after a life event, but sometimes it requires an external strong force to make you realise you want to change for the better

I couldn’t run, I sometimes couldn’t walk. People used to think I was a personal trainer because I was so fit. Diagnosis was 5 years ago.

Went through grief/trauma getting diagnosed with arthritis.

Now 5 years later, from just walking shorter distances more often and processing the grief, I’m back at the gym and started soccer and ran for the first time in ages. Felt very weird but I just work within my limits. I also cycle at least 30 minutes of intense cycling 6 days a week.

You’ll learn to adapt and adjust, it does get better, you just have to become a child again and approach it differently.

I ultimately will still need joint replacements at some point in the next few years, but I’ve had a complete mindset shift. My current goal is to become even fitter than my previous state.

I agree, there is a big mindset shift needed to make peace with our body not being entirely under our control. To me, that mindset change is a big part of what it feels like to not be young.

If think of a lifespan as an arc, it's something like:

1. In early childhood, you are gradually mastering the physicality of your body. Learning to control elimination, getting more coordinated, learning physical skills, etc. I think of it like learning to control a sailboat, harness the wind, operate the sails, etc.

2. When you hit young adulthood, you're at a sort of peak where your body can be an abstraction. You can do what you want in the world without having to worry too much about your body getting in the way. At this point, you are a skilled sailor on the open ocean.

3. Then as you get older and/or unlucky, things outside of your control happen to your body in ways that materially limit your own agency. You may want to do X, but your body means that's off the table. You can still do Y. Now you are navigating shoals. You can still control the sailboat, but there are rocks there and you must navigate around them whether you want to or not. Some places simply can't be reached anymore.

4. I'm not there yet, but assume that as we age, the number of rocks increases and we increasingly focus our attention on the sailing we've already done in the past and make peace with our limited journeys going forward.

That first time you crash into a rock and move from 2 to 3 is hard.

On paper I am doing all the “right” things, but inside I am a shell of a person. I’ve been in this situation before, and I’m always proactive, but I’m just a husk of a human being at this point.

Cultural background is western, family background is that I’m from a very fucked up dysfunctional family.

In terms of liking myself, I’ve never been able to answer that question. I thought having solid morals would do that, but I’ve broken my own morals several times - so that’s a no go. I thought getting fit would do it, but it became quite disordered. I thought making friends would do it, but I fundamentally can’t connect or relate to most people. My best friend is an elderly academic Chinese man, I’m a 30 something white guy.

My inner dialogue is pretty horrible. I’m extremely hard on myself and it’s only gotten worse with age. When I achieve things I say I’m proud of myself but that’s it. Yes I feel like I have to earn my confidence.