Yes, I’m still alive and tinkering, despite not having posted anything here for six months. There will be many more posts in 2022. But as per tradition, here’s the “state of the Scratch” address that goes over what was accomplished (however little it might have been) in the past year.
I’m making progress on my video game, I swear! Anyway, it’s been almost 4 years since I first purchased my beloved Surface Pro 3 tablet (my initial review can be seen in this blog article), and after the screen finally cracked, I found myself upgrading to the new Surface Pro (2017) model around March 2018. I also just purchased and have been testing the new Oculus Go, a standalone device from Oculus and Facebook that doesn’t require a high-end phone, computers, or cables to allow a user to experience virtual reality. I have thoughts on my experience using the Surface tablet for four years, thoughts on the new version of the tablet, and thoughts on the new VR headset.
I got some buggy new toys…
AR (Augmented Reality) has been experimented with for almost a decade. I recall in 2013 working over the summer at a app-development company that was playing with the idea of using smartphone cameras to overlay an animated character overtop a QR-code trading card. We’ve seen games like “Pokémon Go” in 2016 giving us cute little monsters seemingly in the same space as us. The applications have been simple so far, relying on simple overlay of CGI, but I suspect we will see greater innovation and growth in this field in the next 3-5 years. This is because both Apple and Google are starting to heavily promote the applications.
Apple and Google used AR to excite audiences for their new devices in Fall 2017
There are a handful of conferences that talk about the research and innovation behind the game industry. Unlike other professional subjects, there are virtually no published works like other subjects in Mathematics or Computer Science, but there are still talks and presentations to attend.
One of the biggest conferences is GDC (Game Developer’s Conference) in the USA. And I just discovered via friendly reddit commenters that they have a YouTube channel with many of their talks uploaded for free, including some very specific animation talks that I was excited to watch.
Windsor, Ontario is known for a few things. Mostly car manufacturing and gambling at our hotspot city casino. If you live in Windsor, you probably work in one of these sectors. Windsor also has a vibrant comic book community that I hope continues to further define the city. Chances are these things define you if you live in the area for long.
Windsor also has a growing technology sector (well, the entire world does). Game developers still gravitate around Vancouver, Montreal or Vancouver to work in Canada, and living in Windsor I only knew of a couple other like-minded creatives in the area. Thankfully, directory website WEIG (Windsor-Essex Indie Games) and its related weekly meetup at Hackforge is helping bring this secluded community together. I’ll be giving a talk this month in May as its featured developer, the second of many more speakers to come.
