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I didn’t write a #DecemberAdventure update for day 12 because I was knee deep in potatoes making latkes.
I'm getting back into the swing of things after 2 days away from Decker. Today, Day 13, I added logic to the enemy in the combat system of my little game.
It is really boring, so I wanna tune it a bit, and maybe make it something other than just an “attack” or “rest” button. All the pieces are in place to start exploring different ways to handle these sorts of encounters, though!
I remain completely smitten with Decker and lil. Especially lil. It is a very pleasant programming system.
Tonight I’m going to read more of The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, too!
For today's #DecemberAdventure I took a hiatus from Decker. Instead, I dove into @Sandra's brev. I also explored her cst, that turns s-expressions into graphviz diagrams.
I’m not sure if I’ll pursue this, but I was noodling on making a little text-based toy where the object of the game is to create graphviz maps of some space you are exploring — like a traveling cartographer game?
I also continue to read The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs.
No adventure log for yesterday's #DecemberAdventure -- I went to bed early 
Today, I walked to the local library. There, I revisited the game in Decker for a bit — mostly I drew a silly map for it. Afterwards I started roughing in the bones of a game system in scheme.
Not much to show for it, yet, but I do always love re-visiting scheme. My brain isn’t in scheme-mode at the moment, so things that I think should be easy are proving mind bending, which is fun.
#DecemberAdventure updates!
I let myself become very waylaid by scheme this weekend.
I created a scheme page in my wiki, and I captured a few useful bits of scheme code on the forget me nots page.
Later today or tomorrow I’m determined to return to Decker and lil to get my weird game prototype into a shareable state by the end of the month.
Day 18 of the #DecemberAdventure wowowow!
It is so much fun reading all of the other adventure logs! Though, to be honest, I’m not sure how ya’ll keep at it! Especially on work days, after work I’m so wiped out I don’t have much mental power to apply to adventuring.
Shout outs to ya’ll!
I explored Decker’s contraptions today. They’re a way to make re-usable, custom widgets.
I also revisited my game thing today.
I think I’ve made an error in how player state is handled. I haven’t totally sorted out what is going on yet. Like I said, I’m wiped, but, will try to figure that out soon.
Day 19, #DecemberAdventure
I don’t usually like to do computer things in the morning — I try to preserve that time for reading. This morning, though, I woke up with an idea, so reached for Decker first thing.
I wake up between 4 and 5 AM to feed the cats and dog.
After they’ve finished eating there is almost always a strange and quiet moment where the cats sit right next to each other in the dawning light, and look out a particular window on to the street below.
The dog flops back to sleep, either under a desk or a bed.
Exploring my idea (to see if I could support @ratfactor's hiss stuff from within Decker) brought me to Decker’s pre-built module for visual novels!?
The kids are up now. The bustle of a day awaits! ONWARD ADVENTURERS!
Quick part two for today’s #DecemberAdventure, day 19 part 2:
Everyone should go read the source code for @ratfactor's hiss — it is so legible, and stylish — not as in “cool,” (I mean, it is) but it has a style and is consistent. I adore that.
I think I could implement hiss’ parser using lil, but I think updating Decker cards dynamically is beyond my capabilities…and potentially Decker’s abilities. I’m gonna keep noodling, though.
This will hopefully not be my only entry for today's #DecemberAdventure, but, early this morning I got the jump on something I’ve been meaning to start on for a while: while not directly a programming thing, I started reading on the math (and programming) behind large language models.
I started this, not because I’m particularly interested in making my own, or use them with any frequency, but because lately I’ve been drawn into more and more conversations where I’m finding the ability to talk about them as more than some sort of semi-mythical oracle a very useful skill.
So, with that said, this morning I focused on reading about embeddings, specifically the matrix operations that are useful in comparing and modelling large vector spaces against one another.
…and, I mean…this invites me to think “array programming, yo.”
Also, if you have any resources specifically about the math and programming around language models don't hesitate to send those at me -- especially *anything* written by someone who isn't just regurgitating stuff that's come straight-steaming-outta either OpenAI or Microsoft.
I've mostly been focused on resources that are 2+ years old, if at all possible to avoid some of that.
Day 21 of the #DecemberAdventure --
Solstice! Today I hung out with friends, ran errands, made a big dinner, and generally chilled.
I’m sitting down now for the first time of the day at a screen.
Over the course of this adventure I’ve been reflecting on how what I always want to build is a game and how I hardly ever do it. I have countless (almost literally) starts at it, and hundreds and hundreds of ideas for games, but, when I sit down to do it I generally get eaten by technical hurdles that, paired with limited time, are a bit too steep to scale.
But on the inverse side of things, if I sit down to bang out a web app (what I do for work) I can almost literally do it with my eyes closed. The thing is, I have little to no interest in doing that in my spare time.
No real ask, or next step, just sharing this observation about myself that, is itself, not really new, but, remains true for me.
For today’s #DecemberAdventure I did two things:
- I sewed a pink snake per my kid’s request
- I pulled together a basic IRC bot
I used to sew a lot before having kids; as an undergrad I actually TA’d for a bunch of animation and puppetry courses that involved a lot of sewing and practical sort of hand-making. I did a bit during the pandemic lock downs out of necessity, but not much. I’ve been staring at all my sewing stuff for years, though, and wanting to get back into the habit of making freaky little guys.
The IRC bot was inspired by some conversations I had on fedi: I’m wondering if it could serve as a good playground for making little narrative games, where, rather than having to build an engine and physics and and and on and on I plop some new interactive commands into an existing bot. I chose IRC because it is easy as pie (see what I did there?), but I could imagine migrating to something else one day.
So far today I’ve done no substantial computering other than writing this #DecemberAdventure update. I spent most of the morning toodling around Portland on the cargo bike with a kiddo. We did the entire back cove, most of our neighborhood, a bit of the peninsula, and checked out a new playground -- it was fun (thought wicked chilly).
This evening I’m hoping to make either General Tso’s tofu (’tis the season) or dumplings, depending on what is in our cabinets.
I also got a package from a friend in Japan! He sent me a Japanese copy of Final Fantasy Tactics for the Gameboy Advance. I am wholly unequipped to play such a thing, but you bet your thumbs I’ll try!
Instead of a #DecemberAdventure today, here are some photos I took at the very foggy beach.
I also took a gigantic nap with the dog.
For the last few days of the #DecemberAdventure I've been pretty quiet, but I've actually written the most code!
It isn't pretty, and it isn't even particularly useful, but I've continued to work on my silly little JavaScript game framework thing for making little sketches.
https://eli.li/_assets/bin/game-frame/
Don't collect the bike. It breaks everything...
As the #DecemberAdventure continues to wind down, I did an update on the last few days.
https://eli.li/december-adventure-2023
Happy adventuring ya'll!
@eli_oat Yes, but how do you know which one is the bike if you don't collect it? 
Neat. I like the random "word" generation.
@eli_oat You cannot stop me from collecting the bike! (I didn't seem to have any problems with it.)
<--- me, when I realized the map was bigger and it scrolls when you travel far enough
This is great!
@eli_oat thanks for organizing it again this year! It was a blast :) Lots of cool things to read about each day through the month!
@eli_oat how did you do the pictures for the card backgrounds on giblang.deck? I assumed they were canvases, but I can't manipulate them at all after switching into widgets mode.