Jun 6How to Overcome to “Curse of Knowledge”Discrete, actionable tips for explaining things when you know too much — I first saw the term “curse of knowledge” in a blog post by a software engineering retiring after a 45 year career: “When you know something it is almost impossible to imagine what it is like not to know that thing. …Curse Of Knowledge3 min readCurse Of Knowledge3 min read
Aug 1, 2021Pixel Art For BeginnersLessons learned from my first time creating pixel art for a game — “Do a lot of work. Finish a lot of work. Share a lot of work.” I participated in my third game jam last month, this time working with a team (shout out to Zackavelli and…Pixel Art8 min readPixel Art8 min read
May 25, 2021How To: Fix Gaps Between Tiles in GodotTL; DR: Turn off “Filtering” on your imported image for the Tileset. The Problem: Gaps are showing between tiles on your Godot TileMap, something like this: The Solution: There are a couple of potential problems that could be causing this behavior. One potential problem is that “Filtering” is on for the imported image that…Godot2 min readGodot2 min read
May 15, 2021How To: Fix “apksigner error” When Exporting for Android with GodotIf you go to export your Godot project as an Android .apk file and you get the following error ‘apksigner’ returned with error #1: Ensure that in the Android -> Export -> Options you either: Left ‘Debug’, ‘Debug User’, AND ‘Debug Password’ blank (in which case, Godot will fallback to…Godot2 min readGodot2 min read
May 13, 2021Game Dev Journal Entry 4: Second Game Jam Postmortem“Do a lot of work. Finish a lot of work. Share a lot of work.” For my second month-long game jam, I was a bit more ambitious with the scope of my project and made a game with a small narrative. …Game Development4 min readGame Development4 min read
Apr 12, 2021Game Dev Journal Entry 3: First Game Jam Postmortem“Do a lot of work. Finish a lot of work. Share a lot of work.” I participated in the Game Dev Field Guide’s 2nd Monthly Game Jam in February. This was the first step in my resolution to dedicate time to game development and publish games. I consider the project…Game Development5 min readGame Development5 min read
Feb 1, 2021Game Dev Journal Entry 2: Why This Time Will Be Different — Strategies for Finishing a Project“Do a lot of work. Finish a lot of work. Share a lot of work.” I’ve dabbled in game development for a long time but I haven’t had much to show for it. I don’t finish, let alone publish, projects because I get bogged down with questions like, “Am I…Game Development4 min readGame Development4 min read
Published inCompass True North·Jan 26, 2021Catching Up with the World — Go Modules in a MonorepoNovember, 2020 — Go Modules (the standard for Go dependency management) had been out for over 2 years since its experimental release in go1.11, but Compass was still vendoring dependencies. Changing the dependency management tool for a monorepo isn’t an easy task, so we put it off for as long…Golang9 min readGolang9 min read
Jan 26, 2021Game Dev Journal Entry 1: Deciding on a Game Engine“Do a lot of work. Finish a lot of work. Share a lot of work.” I am a software engineer today because of the Starcraft Campaign Editor. Back in 4th grade, my friends and I played the original Starcraft everyday before school, after school, and on weekends. We often played…Game Development4 min readGame Development4 min read
Published inThe Startup·Jul 18, 2020Code Review Tips for Junior DevelopersWhy you should review code & how to get started — Why review code? I perform code reviews because: It gives me practice reading code. I learn more about the code base. I learn different styles and approaches to writing code. I understand what people are working on and what is changing. It helps my teammates improve their code, catch bugs, and get their…Code Review5 min readCode Review5 min read