Kai's Stupid Website

Monthly Update 2026 May

Sun, 31 May 2026 18:25:53 -0700

Whoops. I may have forgotten to update for a while. My bad! We’ll just consider this the march-april-may update.

Disco tools official store page

We’re on the godot asset store! I’ve been constantly working on disco tools as well, and we’re sitting solidly at version 0.4.2. (Check out the patch notes for more info)

Comfortably Numb

I did a game jam! You can check it out here.

I actually used disco tools for this game jam, which helped quite a bit both with my writing process/ flow, as well as with figuring out what disco tools sorely needed. (a key value store. Dear god it needed a key value store).

Human.json

I found a neat web protocol, human.json. It’s on my website now, and you should add it to yours!

Slashpages

These are neat! Check out https://slashpages.net/ if you’re curious about them! Check out mine here and add the ones you like to your site if you’re inspired!

Codeberg Migration

Websites

Fireye.coffee is now hosted on codeberg, using grebedoc/ git-pages for its http server. GDT (https://gdt.fireye.coffee) has also fully moved to codeberg. Feel free to inform me of any malformed or legacy github mentions or links that may persist, as I may have missed a few!

Github

Pretty much all of my personal projects that were previously on github are now live on codeberg. You can find me and them here: https://codeberg.org/Fireye

Nodeletter

The april nodeletter is out, you can find it here: https://godot.news/archive/the-nodeletter-april-2026-0745

Homelab

Huginn

I set up a huginn instance on the homelab! The thing is working super smoothly, and with any luck you should see its debut on my mastodon and bluesky accounts soon! Actually, this post should be the first one that is sent out in this method so we’ll see how it goes. The goal here is to centralize my presence on the web a bit more to my website, and less externally. Eventually, I’m hoping to do most of my microblogging to a personal status page on my website and have the posts mirrored to mastodon and bluesky in a similar way to how i’m doing these announcements here.

Basically for those curious, it grabs relevant RSS feeds off my website (and staging site, so I know it’s working well before I completely blow up my own social media accounts), and selects the article title, description, and url, then throws them together and sends respective POST requests to each service, automatically. If it works and if people are interested, I’m happy to share the scenario publicly, though I did have to make some edits to the bluesky publish agent specifically so that it could render links. The bluesky backend is incredibly stupid about these, and you need to literally tell it exactly where URLs and mentions start/stop. Ugh.

And no, there is no predictive model use involved in this. Just good-old reliable web scraping and logic, and the outputs are deterministic.

SearXNG

Fuck these search engines, I’m out. I set my personal SearXNG instance to my default search engine on my laptop, and with a few hiccups, it’s been going great!

I think I like the results themselves better, and the level of control it gives me is just great. Especially given that google has turned from shitting on the open internet to straight up smothering it to death, it’s good to have a solid self-hosted alternative. Google fucking with the indexes themselves might be a problem eventually but we’ll get there when we get there.

I tried librey but the lack of configuration was a real problem for me, and rendered the engine essentially unusable. I’ll be keeping my eye on it, but XNG seems like the only viable selfhosted option at this point.

Mumble

I’m working on building my community infrastructure, so a mumble server just makes sense here.

FreshRSS

This shit is NICE! I’ll get into it more in my Manifesto™ but RSS is incredible.

Spec Ops: The Line

This was a really good play. You’ll have to find creative ways to acquire this game these days, as it’s completely de-listed, but trust me, it’s totally worth it.

As many of you know, I live to be pretentious, so this game was naturally right up my alley. I love how it takes the simple “on rails” nature of your bog-standard military shooter and simply by twisting the course of events, it’s able to pretty deeply alter the substance of what it’s saying as a piece of media. This game doesn’t give a shit about what the player wants; it’s an anti-war satire. Its counterparts don’t give much player choice, so it doesn’t feel the need to either. But in its counterparts where you would be doing reprehensible acts for the “greater good,” and be justified in their execution, spec ops does not allow you this peace of mind. In Spec Ops, you too are doing these acts for the “greater good,” but critically, it dares to ask “what if that’s not good enough?” “What if there is no justification or peace of mind for what you’ve done? Only regret. And the horrors that you have brought into the world, well-intentioned or not.”

The game gets incredibly meta, but given that it dealing with themes of post traumatic stress, I think it works incredibly well. It is my reading that the game’s firm refusal to provide the player with endogenous decisions, speaking of “choice” all the while, is a coy jab at the player for continuing their playthrough despite what the game continues to force upon them. This is, of course, another decision, and perhaps the most important decision: In games especially, but also all media. There is a base level of buy-in when you continue to sit watching a movie, or flip to the next page of the book, or especially, shoot an NPC. There is something to be said for entertaining ideas without accepting or endorsing them, but in continuing to engage with the reprehensible, or in the case of games, participate in it, we are normalizing it. We are saying it is alright, however slightly, to continue doing these bad things. In my case I can justify killing these virtual people in the pursuit of knowledge. I want to study this game and see what makes it tick. But I have still done something wrong in playing “spec ops: the line” to completion, no matter to what ends. And it very much wants me to know that.

Many thanks to the team at Yager for this work of art. Well fucking done.

The Manifesto™

Treatise… Manifesto™… Treatise… Manifesto™…

Oh hey didn’t see you there. I cooked on this for way too long, and now it scares me. It’s now a 4 part blog post that I hope to put out soon:

Kai’s Epic Guide to Ethical Technology

This is an insane schitzo-post on ethics in tech. It’s intended as a resource for people who know literally nothing about any of the topics it discusses, so it can exist as a primer to send to people who want to improve the ethics of their usage, but don’t know how or why.

It focuses on actionable changes and things you can do ranging from small tweaks to how you use things, to full on alternatives, and provides resources and suggestions therein. It gets specific, down to individual artifacts and services. The idea is for each thing, to non-judgementally lay out a) what it is, b) the problems with it (with citations), c) hard alternatives to it, and most importantly, d) what little actions can be taken while still using it to improve your situation.

Please forward any artifacts/ services that you would like to see included in the above to kai@fireye.coffee, as well as any resources that you think would be helpful. I want to make this thing as well-written and comprehensive as it can be.

Slop

God is dead, and I must finally put the idea that talking about slop will legitimize it to rest. Thinking about it is depressing. I didn’t want to talk about it here, as that’s not how I want to spend my free time. But begrudgingly, I have put up non-permissive guidelines for contributions to my FOSS projects, and put up disclaimers that they were, in fact, made by a human. This is no longer the default, and the disruptors by and large have skirted the responsibility to label machine generated output as such, so the onus falls upon the rest of us. I have a pretentious /ai slashpage now. And soon I will finish this essay. I hope it is the last time I am compelled to write about slop, but somehow I doubt it.

Media

Frankly, I’m concerned about how we get our information.

This is an essay on profit-driven algorithms and epistemology, as well as an argument for the indie web, RSS, the humble forum, and heck, even the newsletter.

Make a Website

An argument for custom personal websites and a step-by-step tutorial for how to set up a completely free one for the complete beginner.

Foot

I swapped my terminal to Foot. It’s hosted on codeberg for one, and Kitty is getting a concerning amount of LLM-authored code merged as of late, and I don’t want to be reliant on such software where it can be avoided. I will get into why in the Manifesto™, don’t you worry.

Retrospective

Last semester was pretty cooked; I’m definitely alive though! Trust!

I’ve done a lot of the things I said I’d do in February though! Ignore how long it took please :3

Plans

I’m making a custom game jam. It’s happening. Contribs are welcome here: https://codeberg.org/Fireye/Game-Devs-Together/projects/50598

More Manifesto™ work.

Niri PR should happen.

I’ve been tempted to do some twine work. Stand by for that maybe?

Treehouse if I have time.

Conclusion

I probably missed a bunch of stuff. Time isn’t real. Peace!

Oh god It happened again

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Content

Added May Monthly update
Added a bunch of slash pages
Added makertube account to About

Fixes

Moved the entire site from github & cloudflare pages to codeberg.
Updated homepage with better RSS references. (Holy shit /index.xml has a global RSS feed and I didn’t know; thanks to ch0ccyra1n for pointing this out to me lmao)

Features

I now support the Human.json protocol

Monthly Update 2026 February

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 14:53:23 -0700

Agh, another month! How do these pass so fast?

Disco Tools

Disco tools has not only released, but has already recieved its first major update!

Essentially, Disco Tools is a system that handles State and RNG to facilitate the creation of games in the vein of Disco Elysium. It builds off the splendid narrative base provided by Nathan Hoad’s Godot Dialogue Manager, to minimize the amount of work required to craft a narrative heavy game in godot.

This is the tooling from Gas Station, fully refactored into a solitary plugin from C# to GDScript and everything. I cannot tell you how much work this bitch has been, but I’m so glad it’s out there.

Codeberg Migration

You might notice that I’ve been migrating off github. Progress is slow, but it’s going little by little.

This is an ethical and political choice I’m making, as I dislike the proprietary nature of github, and the rapid enshittification therein, in addition to a general reluctance to use anything microslop-related due to the boycott. Moreover, Git federation is the way forward, and github will not be a proponent therein, so I would much rather support an alternative service that is.

Codeberg hasn’t been flawless (It’s down as I write this haha), but overall, it’s been working just fine.

Selfhosted forgejo has also been awesome, and I’d definitely recommend it. I’ve been running a generational dwarf fortress game off it with a friend, and it’s been super fun and convenient to have a personal git server for stupid shit like that.

Nodeletter

The February Nodeletter is out! Took a second but we should be reliably going every other month.

Games

I played some stuff. I got a good way through The Outer Wilds (That game has deprogrammed my object permananence), finished act 1 of baldur’s gate 3, and have been playing way too much timberborn (beeeeeeeavers). I should probably have waited till the thing’s 1.0 comes out later this month but my god I may be cooked.

Should probably uninstall all of it because that time sink is horrendus but gee whiz I just love games.

Music

I made a sick as fuck synth patch in cardinal for the game soundtrack that I’m working on, so hopefully I can get that out soon! Music is awesome but recording is just exhausting and I keep forgetting that when I go to play haha.

Retrospective

I think I did stuff this month. Probably.

I think I definitely needed to do more treehouse, I just got really sidetracked this month. Probably just a skill issue.

Plans

Further work on Disco Tools for sure. I really need to make a demo video showcasing some basic usage and the utility. I also need to get an asset store build out at some point, which requisites some assets and graphic design (the horrors).

I want to set up a Huginn server deployment on my homelab for content syndication. Also some much needed server maintanence. I’m not the best sysadmin, but I have kept my VPN and router up to date so at least my outdated deployments are secure.

I’m planning on testing out some XMPP clients as well to see how the user experience stacks up to matrix but haven’t had the time yet either.

That Niri PR is glaring at me so that needs to get done aghhh.

Treehouse! Treehouse! Treehouse! Get it out! Finish it! Make thing!

Conclusion

Imma go make things. You should go make things, and vaya con queso.

Disco Tools

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 14:52:57 -0700

Disco tools is a collection of helpful scripts and tools that help you create games similar in nature to disco elysium, or as I like to call them: disco-likes.

Current Documents

Update 26 Feb

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 14:52:02 -0700

Content

Added February monthly report
Added Disco Tools (RAHHHH)

Hostile Games

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:16:06 -0700

Content

Added Difficult, Hostile, and Ambivolent Games blog post
Added Mastodon account to About page

Features

Added mastodon attribution

Difficult, Hostile, and Ambivolent Games

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 12:44:19 -0700

I was talking with a friend the other day and the idea of hosile games came up. Hard cut to me pondering it in a blog post, I guess!

What is a Hostile game?

A hostile game is a game that doesn’t want its player to be there. My favorite examples of hostility in games would be some of the games contained within The Beginners Guide, which I wholeheartedly recommend playing. (Slight spoilers ahead, nothing major or game-ruining though!)

In the game, many of the shown games gate content behind arduous or impossible tasks, vast time delays, and some simply just hide the vast majority of themselves from the player. These games are hostile because they specifically do not want the player to experience them. They do not care about being worth the player’s time, or being an enjoyable experience. In fact, they work to make it the exact opposite. The player must act in spite of the game in order to experience what it has to offer.

Further, I think I can categorize games that are made for a specific person or group of people, but are hostile to all others as hostile games as well, as they contain the constitent element of hostility. I’d argue this kind of game only falls out of the hostile category when it stops acting hostile towards the majority of its playerbase.

Thematically, this kind of game has so much promise, but entries will never be successful or maybe even ever played once, intentionally. I think that’s both sad and beautiful.

What a hostile game is not, however, is a difficult game.

Difficult games

Difficult games may appear similar to hostile games on the surface, but contain one key difference: Deep down, they care about the player. They put thought and effort into crafting an engaging gameplay loop. They make sure bosses are difficult, but still beatable with sufficient mastery of the systems. Like a good TTRPG GM, they provide the player with challeneges but with the ultimate intention of giving them a good experience.

Difficult games lie on a completely different scale to Hostile and Ambivolent games, that I’d like to label “Caring” Games. This is where most games lie. Difficulty is simply an aspect of caring games. Caring games can vary in difficulty, many may even offer the player difficulty choices so they may customize their experience. However, only the difficult ones are frequently confused with hostile games, due to the end results appearing similar on the surface. The process and intention of creation between the two could not be more diometrically opposite though. Spend an amount of time playing both, and you’ll feel the difference.

Ambivolent games

These games a lot of the time are just crafted for the sake of creation. These are my favorites of the bunch, as they kinda just exist.

Ambivolence and hostility seem similar on the surface, but interestingly, I’d argue that hostility shares more with difficulty than it does with ambivolence. Both Caring and Hostile games, explicitly care about the player experience. Either making it as good as it can be or as bad as it can be. Ambivolent games… don’t care. Ambivolence is pure craftsmanship, Art for art’s sake.

In games, that craft may still have a lot to do with the player experience, but its intention is completely divorced from fun, enjoyment, or lack thereof. My games specifically focus on thematic intention, with little regard for player enjoyment.

I do hope players enjoy my games, but in their creation, I don’t really concern myself with the reception. I want the piece to speak for itself.

Conclusion

More people should make ambivolent and hostile games.

Caring games may be the only ones that really sell, but there’s so much more room in the space to experiment and create! If all we create is what is deemed profitable, either in fiat currency or social currency, we’ve unknowingly shackled ourselves and our creative output to the system. We all have to make a living under the system somehow, so don’t kneecap your capacity to put food on the table, but if you have the money and time to create without constraint, I’d urge you to give ambivolence or even hostility a shot.

Especially if you’re looking for social currency and approval in your art, I’d urge you to think about why. As far as I can tell, almost everyone craves some form of social approval, me included. However, tying your perception of your art to the external response that it gets from others is fragile. As a rule, people are unreliable creatures, and I don’t want to tie my art, and by extention my perception of my own skills, to that which I cannot control. I love sharing my creations and I love both giving and getting feedback, but I don’t count these things as a given, nor do I base any intrinsic value upon their existence. They’re pleasant experiences, and ones that I can leverage and use to improve my craft in the future, but that’s all they should be.

As a sidenote, that’s how I’m able to put out these blog posts without pretty much any response whatsoever. I write to write. I get value out of these by simple virtue of the time I set aside to write them and think about them. The process is what becomes valueable, and I stop caring about the result.

Anyway, thanks for pondering with me. Have a good one and vaya con queso.

Update 26 Jan

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 21:17:02 -0700

Content

Added jan monthly update
Added An Unnamed Gas Station (in the middle of nowhere)

Gas Station

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:31:46 -0700

Neat disco-like RPG I made for Global Game Jam. The stats on the check success prediction is literally the most hellish thing I’ve ever done.

Current Documents

Itch.io

Monthly Update 2026 January

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:07:18 -0700

Alrighty here we go.

Global Game Jam

I put together An Unnamed Gas Station (in the middle of nowhere) for GGJ this year, and helped organize the event at my uni, so we could jam in person. If you haven’t done an in-person game jam, you haven’t lived.

Treehouse

Got a lot of progress on the treehouse done over january. Lots of refactoring done, a lot more to do. Gonna let the thing mostly speak for itself though, so you’ll have to wait till I release it.

Open Source

Noctalia

I finally cracked and swapped out my waybar setup for noctalia. It may be more customizable, but my god I just don’t have that kinda time. It does everything I need and looks great! Well, almost every thing. It’s still missing reverse scrolling. FOR NOW! MWAHAHAHA!! (I did this instead of stats homework)

Niri

I got an event stream for the hot corner pressure PR implemented! That’s a big step towards completing the damn thing, and I can feel myself getting closer. The last big thing I need to do is pointer capture on corner enter, so it gets stopped, doesn’t overflow into adjacent monitors, and can actually impart pressure onto the hot corner. Otherwise, should be coming soon(ish)!

Looking at hot corner bindings at some point as well though!

Framework

My old LG gram has finally died! And a framework 16 rises from the ashes! This thing is actually beautiful, and I absolutely love how customizable and user friendly this machine is. The BIOS is custom too! Really neat stuff!

Overall, there have been a couple hiccups, but the hardware is open, and that’s all I need. The PCIE lanes in the back are super appealing, so I might actually try modding the thing. An audio card for low latency audio would be super cool. A wireless access point would also be totally sick for LAN multiplayer game testing! The sky’s the limit!

And finally, the swap between computers took maybe 10 minutes. NixOS is fucking sick.

Retrospective

It feels like I got a lot done but it sure doesn’t look like it! Sorry again I’m late on this, hoping I’m on this more for febuary’s monthly report, but we’ll see!

The nodeletter specifically is ready but we’re running into pipeline issues, so we’ll see how it goes.

Plans

Again, more treehouse! Gotta finish this one up; I want to get it out.

Cabin is gonna go on back-burner a bit. I’ll work on it if I feel like it, but no guarantees!

Gas station was an interesting project, and I liked the tooling quite a bit. I might take a week to polish up the tools to publish them. I want more people to make disco-like RPGs so if I can make a toolkit for it, maybe I can inspire more creative work in this vein!

Conclusion

I can feel my brain melting okbyeeeeeeeeee

December Update 2025

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:32:50 -0700

Content

Released December Update a bit late (oopie).
New Music track
Added more GDT (My webring!) links around here.
Updated neighborhood.

Fixes

Music now actually sorts by date! What an idea!

Monthly Update 2025 December

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:15:58 -0700

Heeeeey everyone. So… January 7th. No December update. What gives?

Not to worry, I’m here! I think what happened is I finally passed my discreet math class and got back so much free time that I promptly got lost in the sauce. Imma be real, this one’s gonna be silly, as I’ve been in the goddamn trenches since new year’s. Happy new year by the way!

Twee narrative

Yeah the thing is fucked. I crunched for at least a week straight trying to get that thing done and it still crashed when I needed it most. Very depressing.

If you’re down for some github trawling, you can find it and play it on my github, but I’m not gonna fully put it out there till I can polish it up a bit more and add a couple more random events.

New year, new Niri PR

I’ve started up on another Niri PR!

This time, I’m working on adding pressure-based hot corner triggering. I should look at adding spawn-sh to hot corners as well though.

GDT Logo

Remember that open source game developer webring I made awhile back? No? Game Devs Together anyone? Well it does, in fact, still exist!

And even better, GDT Member mailoeckchen contributed some splendid art for the thing, as well as some much needed widget code updates. We even have navigation buttons now. Snazzy!

Treehouse TTRPG Design

I’ve been chippping away at the treehouse game here and there to hopefully get the thing released at some point. Nothing huge, but we’re seeing incremental progress.

Blog Posts

I made a couple blog posts this month!

D&D isn’t for everyone is a pretty comprehensive piece on 5e as a system, who it’s for, and what you can try to play instead!

On Mediums is a bit of a meta piece where I just sorta yap into Nvim.

Music!

I DO MAKE MUSIC, I SWEAR!! I even have Ardour open right now! Trust!

I keep meaning to record, but unfortunately all of my time spent playing music is for relaxation, and the moment I start trying to record it I stop relaxing. I think that means I have to dedicate some project time to it as well. Drat.

SIKE! After writing this I got inspired and started making music and I released something that should be up now!

Codeberg

I’ve been considering migrating a lot of my code over to codeberg from github. I hate how reliant I am on a microsoft service, not to mention the endless copilot throat shoving.

No thank you.

Retrospective?

That’s it! That’s all I did in december, and absolutely nothing else. Please don’t scroll down past this poorly plagiarized hbomberguy segue…

ah you saw it.

THE OPENVPN SERVER… WITH A STEEL CHAIR

I WON! I BEAT IT! I’ve been bitching about this thing since at least june!

I’ll keep specific details light in the interest of security, but I’ve got pretty seamless LAN Access and I’ve been fucking around with some old laptops!

Deployments

First we got a forgejo instance (fuck microsoft). They seem to be the only ones working on some form of git server federation protocols and I want to support that how I can.

Jellyfin is a no-brainer (fuck spotify), and etherpad is actually so damn neat (fuck google).

Rocket.Chat is great as well (fuck discord), and finally, I still need to figure out freshrss (fuck social media algorithms) and syncthing (fuck google/microsoft again), but they both look incredibly helpful.

As far as future deployments go, openproject (fuck atlassian) is almost certaintly coming soon, and Memos (Actually, idk with this one) looks really neat. Please feel free to send me any suggestions though!

Colmena

Colmena is this crazy neat little deployment tool for NixOS based systems! It’s unfathomably useful, and I only see its utility growing as I add more hardware and software to my stack.

Basically, it lets you build and deploy a NixOS derivation remotely via SSH. Running servers on Nix is both really great (because nix is really great), and also a tadbit awful, as not everything’s packaged and compose2nix doesn’t work 100% of the time (though it’s absolutely incredible with what it can do).

Other stuff

I think I’ll save a lot of the ranting for a later blog post so I can provide a bit more of a resource for others who might want to set up something similar. OPNSense + OpenVPN + NixOS + Colmena is such a neat combo and I’d love to show other newbies what little I’ve learned so far.

Retrospective (for real)

Ok that’s it for real this time. Sorry again the thing is late!

But hey, in my defense, the nodeletter is late too! (It’s coming soon, and we’ll be back on the schedule for the rest of the year, promise!)

I did a good amount of treehouse work, and more TTRPG work is definitely forthcoming! I’m looking at getting treehouse done as soon as I can, then hopefully moving to wild west, but that’s still TBD.

Plans

More Treehouse! I also want to do more music, so expect maybe another song or two?

I want to do more work on my cabin game but I almost certainly won’t be able to, so consider this a bonus point.

Also, I’ll be doing GGJ so I’ll probably be a tadbit late on january’s monthly so I can cover that there as well :3

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back next month, have a great one!

Content Post

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 17:23:24 -0700

Content

Add post on content and mediums.
Added youtube channel to About page links.

Fixes

Moved rss blurb to the bottom of changelog pages.

On Mediums

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 15:26:31 -0700

I write blog posts because they’re easy. They let me get my ideas down in one place with the lowest possible barriers to publication. I’m able to write something and a couple git commands, some staging proofreading, and a pull request later, the thing is just out there.

The downside, of course, is that nobody sees these. Except you, of course, Mr. AI webscraper. (Tell Sam Altman I said “Die in a hole”)

Regardless, it’s a lonely business, shouting into the void. So, I figured I’d ponder the void a bit on my little corner of the internet.

Why am I here?

I hate the idea of marketing, but as much as I make broad platitudes about these posts being helpful solely as resources for friends, or as organizational tools, I can’t lie. Deep down, I know I need to develop some sort of social following.

I’m a game developer. I want to make games for a living. And the sad truth is that the only damn way to do that these days, outside of getting shafted by every AAA studio known to man, is by growing an online following.

Past that, having a group of people that care about what you’re doing sounds really nice. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable releasing games and projects to resounding silence, as I don’t make them for social validation, but rather to engage in the creative process. I do genuinely just love making things, and even if I can’t live off them and nobody gives a shit about any of them, I’ll still keep making them. But, heck, social validation is pure gas for pretty much anyone, even if they don’t want to admit it, and I’m certainly no excepiton.

So what do I do about it?

Well there are a few options. The first is nothing! I just continue blogging, like normal.

The second is pretty appealing. In this one, I just stop blogging entirely, and just focus on making things. That’s the peaceful way to go, I think; I get the most time to just create, and don’t get bogged down in the administrative overhead of publicating things. The downside here, of course, is that the afformentioned benefits are completely abandoned, which is, as they say, “Not a vibe.”

Finally…

Youtube

I’ve stuck off youtube, as it’s so much work to get something out there and also “google” (need I say more?). However, as sad as I am to say it, that’s where the people are. Perhaps here’s where I dip my hat and surrender to visual media. I definitely wouldn’t retire my blog, but perhaps I could intermittently make videos from blog posts, to attempt to tap into youtube’s much wider userbase.

My main concern here is that blogging already takes up a good amount of the time that I dedicate to project work, and adding a whole recording and an editing component would just eat far too much to justify, especially if I like making things. Which I do.

I can’t say I’m not tempted to at least give it a shot though.

Conclusion

Not much of a conclusion here, mostly just musings. If I post something on youtube I’ll let y’all know as well of course. Here’s the channel I’ll be using.

https://www.youtube.com/@fireye.coffee

Maybe I’ll see you there.

Nixos and Ttrpg Post

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 23:45:01 -0700

Content

New nixos blog post! (finally)
PLAY INDIE TTRPGs, YOU ANIMALS!!! (a blog post)

D&D 5e is not for everyone.

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:10:41 -0700

One thing I get a lot from D&D 5e players is the statement “What’s all this about non-5e systems? 5e is all I need!” Or at least something along those lines. This is a bummer of a statement from just one person, let alone an entire population, so I’ve dedicated this blog post to all of these 5e players out there.

Please, just hear your friendly neighborhood game designer out on this one: There’s a world of fun out there that you’re very likely missing out on, and my goal in this piece is to show you the possibilities!

What you do from there is up to you.

D&D 5e is not for everyone

Have you ever thoght about what TTRPG system would best suit you and your group?

If you’re here, the answer is either “Definitely, yes. It’s actually the second thought my brain goes to whenever I start a TTRPG” (The first being “who’s bringing snacks?”) or “No, never. You specifically sent this to me and told me to read it, and I’m now doing so begrudgingly due to some polite society, social contract bullshit (thank you!)”

Well, either way welcome! I’ve split this one up into two sections. One of ’em (this one) breaks apart what 5e is, and who it’s actually for, and the second goes ahead and starts bringing back the curtain on the possibilities out there.

But before we begin, I wanna state clearly: I’ll talk about TTRPGs for years to come on this blog, but this is probably the only time I’ll ever make a focus of 5e or D&D in general. So, I’m putting everything 5e-related in my brain down here, and going forward, I’ll only look in earnest at various indie systems instead. Little designers deserve the world.

Let’s get into it.

What even is a TTRPG?

This sounds like a relatively simple question, especially for someone already familiar with the medium, but bear with me for a second. (Especially you, random GM that says “Oh i’ll just modify 5e for this,” every time you want to tell a different kind of story.)

A TTRPG is a collection of rules and mechanics that when put together create a system for often collaborative storytelling.

There are many others, but this definition is mine. The key point of which that I want to point out is that the end goal is telling a story. This end goal is super important, as your system’s collection of rules and mechanics is, essentially, a well-oiled machine tailor built and tested to make a specific kind of story. (Yes, patrick. Combat is a story)

See, in game design, (specifically TTRPG design, but many concepts apply more broadly), well-built systems are intentionally made up of mechanics that build towards a central thesis. This thesis can include critically important things, such as genre, setting, mood, tone, and even themes for the stories made within that system.

We designers just simply don’t have the same level of narrative control that other artistic mediums do, however, what we have, that they don’t, is a direct line of communication with the player (or players). So instead, we put a living shit ton of work into making arrays of mechanics that work together to build towards our thesis, as that’s how we convey artistic vision in place of raw narrative.

My main point here is thus: in modifying rules and mechanics, you are fundimentally sacrificing the designer’s thesis.

Or put simply, when you change shit, our designs no longer do what we designed them to do.

At the same time, it’s your game, and you are 100% within your rights to modify, tweak, and break things to your heart’s content. I encourage such behavior actually! It’s probably one of the best ways to learn game design! However, in doing so you should at least acknowledge that, at least to some degree, you are killing the designer’s child, and with it, their intentions, design, thesis, and all of the elements therein.

Specificity and vagueness by design, a sidenote

Some systems are intentionally vague or broad to expand the number of stories that can be told with them. Genesys and FATE (which, in turn, is based on “fudge,” The more you know!) are good examples of such systems. And they definitely have their uses; Edge of the Empire was built on Genesys, and that system uses the genesys dice system quite well.

However, broader systems fundimentally sacrifice their capacity to carry out their mechanical vision when they choose flexibility over specialization. In short, when you try to do everything, you do nothing well. Would you rather have one multitool that kinda handles everything kinda ok, or an array of specialized tools, each designed specifically and lovingly with their own hyperspecific application in mind?

D&D specifically is designed primarily as a system for combat, and has been slowly adapted into an everything system by its community over the years. 5e is designed vaguely, and if anything, continues to specialize in combat, as that’s the core identity of D&D. But heck, it doesn’t even do that extraordinarily well, due to its lack of focus!

In a world where people are lovingly crafting games about high school drama and gossip, games about sailing on trees on a chainsaw boat, games about living dungeons that gaze directly into the characters’ very souls, games about kids hoverboarding between dimensions, and infinitely many more, each with its own new ideas, mechanics, vibes, artistic visions, and themes… GASPS FOR AIR

Why would you want to play with a multitool?

RP enthusiasts, I’m looking at you.

Hey. I’m talking to you, roleplay enjoyers that just default to 5e because you don’t want to learn a new system. And I’m especially talking to you RP-focused 5e groups out there that simply just don’t run combat. Or do so very infrequently.

Because like it or not, 5e is a medival fantasy-based system designed primarily for combat.

So, if you’re looking to do anything else, you’re genuinely missing out on a system that was specifically designed to mechanically create the story that you and your party actually want to play.

The medival fantasy focus is self explanatory (A standard modern setting, for example, wouldn’t have pack horses as items and “arcana” as a skill), however, on the combat front, I expect I’ll get a good amount of pushback. Nontheless I stand by that; 5e is built for combat first and roleplay second. Allow me to elaborate:

The entire system centers around combat

In 5e, what percentage of class features, conservatively, center around combat mechanics? How about Feats? Items? How much session time does combat take up? It certainly depends on the group, but I’ve certainly run 7 hour combat sessions before.

Further, the sheer moment-to-moment detail of the system is nothing short of a second game mode. One must keep track of player & enemy positions, initiative order, player & enemy action economy, hit points, and everything must be done within ~6 second actions within the fiction. I’ll have more to say about the combat later on, but if you’re using this for RP it’s like hammering a nail with a wood saw: it’s overbuilt in all the wrong ways, and you’d be much better off investing the budget in a nail gun if all you wanted to do was nail nails.

The balance of the combat system is built for numerous combat sessions between long rests. And from personal experience running low-combat 5e campaigns, I don’t think my party ever went more than two bouts of combat between long rests, rendering the built-in combat balance way off (casters rarely ran out of spell slots, making them far more powerful than martials, etc…).

If you want to add something or have a player come up with an item or a trait for their character, as a GM, you either

have to be concerned with how it will be balanced/ abused in combat, or
don’t run combat anyway, and end up ignoring the many many 5e mechanics that center around it.

Its roots are literally in war gaming.

The creators of D&D were members of the international federation for war gaming (one of which co-founded the thing), which then branched off into a subgroup called the castle & crusade society, which then set the foundation for the chainmail system, which was a foundation for the original D&D ruleset. Go figure. (source)

The very basis for the 5e system is anchored in war games. It has indeed evolved to encompass much more, but it has almost certainly kept its roots. As a baseline, all the non-combat is a design addendum compared to combat, which is what the system was made for in the first place!

In short, D&D will never be a roleplay-focused TTRPG system and still be D&D.

A small capitulation.

This isn’t to say that you can’t use 5e or any other D&D based system for incredible RP-based storytelling. You totally can! I’ve done so myself, and I absolutely adore what GMs like Brennan Lee Mulligan do with the system.

However, just because a system is popular, doesn’t mean that it will give the most enjoyment to you and your party or be the best mechanical compliment to the stories your table wants to tell.

Since my fascination with tabletop RPGs hit, I’ve had so many incredible experiences and told so many beautiful stories that never could have ever happened in 5e, raw or modded to the teeth. And, as I stated above, my goal with this piece is to hopefully share that with you.

You don’t gotta take my advice, or heck, do anything with it. By all means, play what makes you happy, even if it is 5e. I clown on it a lot, but if it does make you happy, I don’t want to get in the way of that.

Combat enjoyers aren’t off the hook either

Remember all that stuff about multitools? Your favorite mechanic may be 5e’s design focus, but that focus has become a lot more fuzzy in recent times (especially with the recent influx of all you RP enjoyers).

Wouldn’t you like to just play a game that was made specifically for combat and nothing else? Look at something like Lancer and tell me that fucking mech combat wouldn’t be incredibly badass. Or perhaps if you like 5e’s medival setting, mythic bastionland might serve as a splendid alternative! And both place combat at center stage, so their systems are hyper-focused on providing a clean, well-oiled combat experience.

Even if you do genuinely enjoy 5e’s combat, it’s only one style of combat, designed to tell stories of combat in one way. The options out there for handling combat could create completely alien situations and encounters the likes of which you could have never done in 5e. Aren’t you curious what else you could experience?

Perhaps newbies?

Nope! I’d honestly recommend pretty much anything over 5e for sheer noob friendliness. 5e has a bunch of unecessary verbosity and specifics, and, again, gets bogged down in its combat far too easliy. So many other systems flow infinitely better than 5e and can communicate the awesomeness of the hobby much more fluidly, and directly.

Now, in terms of actually recommending an individual person a game, that depends entirely on what gets them excited. I’ll pitch them a bunch of stuff and see what they perk up at, regardless of difficulty. People are so much happier to sit through rules if it gets them to a place they’re genuinely excited about.

If that system is 5e, then so be it, but a lot of the time, that’s only the case because it’s the only thing they’ve heard of!

Who is 5e for then, bucko?

In summary, 5e is for you if you

already use the system & don’t like learning new things,
enjoy mideval fantasy settings, with a 60-70% combat tilt,
like vague, unopinionated sytems,
don’t mind overly corporate media,
just kinda like it (which is totally fair)

And if you do fit the bill here, I truly do wish you all the best in your 5e adventures…

But just because one system is for you, doesn’t mean others aren’t! pulls away curtain, exaggerated

Other systems and why you should play them

Every time I hear someone who likes TTRPGs say they’re not interested in learning other systems, I die a little bit inside.

In my brain, that sounds like someone who enjoys art saying “Nah the mona lisa is my favorite, I’m not going to go look at anything else.” Or someone who likes movies saying “I really like the avengers im not going to watch another movie ever.” Like what????

Come on, lil guy! We’ve got so much to explore, and we’ve only just begun! Off we go into the wild pale yonder!

The wild pale yonder

Hey. (I’m dressed in a trench coat beckoning you from a nearby alley) Hey, c’mere. Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to you. You wanna roleplay as a fucking mouse?

I produce the box set of mausritter from the folds of my trench coat

Or perhaps you’re more of a “journal on my own from the point of view of a vampire losing their memories over the course of a thousand years” kinda person?

I manifest Thousand Year Old Vampire from a brick wall

No? Then may I interest you in modern detective horror?

Your bag of groceries transmogrifies into Delta Green and Triangle Agency

Hmm, scifi horror perhaps?

The Mothership box set, having grown spiderlike legs, scuttles up your leg

Or maybe, just a bunch of kids on skateboards. *Hoverboards. In portals. (Slugblaster)

a portal opens up to your right and at least four teenage kids on hoverboards pile into you, sending both you and them sprawling into another portal.

Ah, well I guess not then. Try not to peel out. Nasty business.

Other systems

The variety and creativity of the game design community is simply too vast for words. If it’s in your brain, there’s a system for it, and sometimes if you’re lucky, the designer has cooked up at least one mechanic that’ll change the way you see tabletop RPGs, and thus the way you play them.

However, a lot of the time, the true beauty is in games that would never have even entered your brain. Features, settings, mechanics, and themes that never would have even pinged on your radar, pulled full-focus by a designer who cares about them more than garlic bread.

That shit, my friends, is the good stuff.

So what should I play?

In short, whatever gets you excited! The options are so numerous and diverse, that it simply comes down to personal preference.

What kind of story do you and your party want to tell? How do you want it to be told? Do you have your heart set on a specific setting? A specific vibe?

If so, look for that! If not, go picking around and see what you can find! Read descriptions and check out options! See what gets your brain gets jazzed up about! What makes it buzz with interesting characters, plotlines, and ideas! And as discouraged as judging books by their covers is, TTRPGs feature some of the most beautiful art out there. And very often, a game’s overall vibe is encapsulated incredibly well by the art it puts on display, so if all else fails find some cool art and go from there!

My silly recommendations

As a quick disclaimer, this hobby, like many others, is a matter of taste. I, like everyone else, am biased towards a certain kind of game. Specifically, I absolutely adore games that place roleplay at center stage. Games that deal with the complexities of identity. Games with innovative mechanics. Games that present deep ethical quandries. Games that make everyone at the table ponder something menaingful. If you like similar games, you’ll probably love my recommendations. If you don’t, then don’t worry! There are so many more games out there that will be for you and not for me, (5e included!), and I absolutely love that about this hobby.

I listed a good few options above, but also, I’d encourage you to take a gander at a few of the following games, most if not all of which I will write full reviews for eventually:

Spire: Rise against the opressive high elves in a revolution destined for ruin, in an attempt to make a difference. Check out the fallout system in this one, it’s genuinely a game changer.
Blades in the Dark: Gang warfare: the game. Run a gang in a dark, steampunk, ghost-ridden world, and execute sick heists. Prep is for losers when in-scene you can just flashback to that time you prepared for this exact eventuality.
Slugblaster: TEENS ON HOVERBOARDS! DOIN’ SICK TRICKS! GOIN’ THROUGH PORTALS! GETTIN’ THAT SWEET SWEET INTERNET CLOUT! RUNNIN’ FROM INTERDIMENSIONAL POLICE! YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Lichcraft: You’re trans and the wait for gender affirming healthcare is 300 years. Welp time to turn to the dark arts and become a lich!

In addition, I wholeheartedly recommend the youtube channel “Quinns Quest” for incredibly well-made reviews of these kinds of games.

Conclusion

Well that’s that. I hope I’ve made a compelling point here, and I hope you get out there and find games that make you happy! If you find anything cool, please let me know!

Another interesting trend that’s almost identical to this one that I hope to write about soon is the broad retiscence to swap operating systems to linux, which is something I figured I’d prod at as well ehehe.

Finally, I alluded to this earlier, but I intend to do more TTRPG-related blog posts going forward, probably reviews as well as deep dives on mechanics and designs. If you’re interested, please feel free to add me to your RSS feed!

Thanks once again for reading, and I’ll see you next time.

Nixos Is for Crazy People- A beginner's experience

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Alright, you (nobody) asked for it, and here it is. I’ve swapped to NixOS as my main operating system from arch, and I have concluded that Nix is for crazy people. I also happen to still be happily running it ~6 months later. Let’s get into it.

Setup

Imagine, if you will, me waking up, configuring nixos, going about my day, configuring nixos, and going to sleep… For two weeks. (Now, this did include a full port of every single significant arch dotfile into nix’s homemanager, which was no easy task.) BUT STILL, THAT’S CRAZY.

The learning curve

Believe me when I say the nixos learning curve hits you like a goddamn brick.

The official docs seem written for experienced users, unlike arch, so you end up totally confused. You just want a simple config that works, but everyone keeps saying things about flakes, but flakes are marked as unstable??? Everyone also keeps talking about homemanager, what the fuck is that? Do you need it?

At this point I can say with certainty that you should use both. Also here’s a competent guide to actually getting everything working in a sane way, written in (mostly) plain english: https://nixos-and-flakes.thiscute.world/

*kisses your forhead* Everything’s gonna be alright, buddy. It gets so much better from here.

What’s a flake?

Flakes are experimental features of nix that allow users to define the nix equivalent of a function. These are widely used in the nix community to provide additional support for programs that don’t exist in nixpkgs yet, add native homemanager configuration for certain programs, provide out of the box configuration for certain programs (for example, nix-citizen provided me a fully optimized SC/wine installation without any config on my end. Neato!), and much more.

The best way to manage your system config on nixos these days is by defining a flake to act as an entrypoint. This allows you to define other flakes as “inputs” (read:parameters), that you can feed into your “outputs” (read: other function calls).

What’s homemanager

This is what you use to manage userspace, including dotfiles! Many programs are included by default, many more have a supporting flake, and worst comes to worst, homemanager lets you just place raw files wherever you want in your user’s ~ directory. Quite splendid.

This is super neat, as it allows you to make almost everything about your system, down to the user-specific configuration and customization, completely reproducable. chef’s kiss

Initial impressions

I was a bit cooked early on, as you can tell from my original ranting back in august. However, now that I’ve got the bulk of the learning curve behind me, even the downsides I saw back then have faded with time and I continue to reap the incredible benefits of this beautiful operating system. Here’s how things currently stand:

FHS environments? One shell command away.
Never having a broken system? Incredible.
Being able to have certain programs on stable branches and others on unstable? Immaculate.
Full state control? YES PLEASE
System rollback? Hell yeah.
System duplication? god yes.
Development? Crazy easy once I figured out how nix develop worked. And now, no more “It works on my machine” state garbage to worry about.
Packaging? Nixpkgs+Flakes pretty evenly rival the Arch repos+AUR. I think the AUR does edge out flakes in quality due to the size of the community, and the extra features that flakes must maintain in addition to simple packaging, but that’s balanced out by the sheer dedication that nix developers have to nixpkgs, which definitely tops the native arch repos in my opinion.

So should I use it?

Depends! How much do you value the benefits of nixOS? If you really like the way that arch gets out of your way and lets you just do stuff, you might not love nix. Nix has opinions, and not following those is totally possible, but does make your life a little harder. System config does take a little bit longer, but none of it is “OH GOD I FUCKED SOMETHING AND I NEED TO FIX IT NOW.” There are ups and downs.

Nix is still a tradeoff. If you think you’ll get real value out of the benefits, I’d say do it. But if you’re happy where you are and don’t feel like subjecting yourself to a silly amount of head-banging, you really don’t need to!

If you’re an operating system nerd (derogatory) like me, i’d definitely recommend it though, it’s such a wonderful little thing.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Sorry this one took me awhile, but I’m glad it’s out now!

I’ll chuck some tips & tricks below if you’re follwing in my footsteps. Nix is beautiful and definitely my end-game linux distro, that I’ll almost certainly be using for years to come. And I still have so much to learn! (Time to start making my own derivations ehehe)

Have a good one, and I’ll see you next time!

Tips & tricks

Here’s some nix specific stuff i figured out that I’d find super useful if I were learning from scratch again.

My Big notes

Set up git in your /etc/nixos folder. very very handy.
In userspace I’ll use a quick sudo -i to get root access to /etc/nixos for painless editing
This website is god https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=unstable&
This website is also god for homemanager https://mynixos.com/ (Omg god yuri :3)
Like running raw binary files like a goddamned maniac, but can’t figure out how? Looks like you didn’t read this page on the guide I posted above, silly!
nix-shell -p package-name lets you test out a package in a temporary shell without actually enabling it system-wide! Super neat!
nix develop is also god for all you devs out there dealing with dependency hell (God polycule; shit is getting real, y’all)
And finally, nix-collect-garbage actually frees storage space of unused packages (but also clears out old versions of stuff so you can’t roll back to them anymore without another download)

Shell Shortcuts

I have ninit mapped to cd /etc/nixos;nvim .
gupdate to git add --all; git commit -m "rev"; git push; sudo nixos-rebuild switch (still haven’t gotten the time to make a bash script with dynamic commit names, whoops)
nixupdate to git branch -d update; git checkout -B update; git add --all; git commit -m "update"; git push; sudo nix flake update; sudo nixos-rebuild switch

Nov Update 25

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:03:33 -0700

Content

November monthly update is here. (Did I copy this from last update’s message? You’ll never know mwahahaha)

Monthly Update 2025 November

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 23:26:07 -0700

Heya! Welcome back to another month of crippling burnout. This discreet math class, as stated earlier, will end me.

Cabin work

I did some work on that open source cabin game, then had to refactor as I had built everything on the grid3d node in godot, which does not support nodes, but only meshes. Oops. Luckily I have feature parity with the original design using a world grid snapping system instead. Yippee!

I’ve got some simple construction in, but not yet at the fidelity that I want for this vertical slice. I still have to figure out how to apply an incomplete shader to placed objects and also allow materials to be added to them, which is probably as simple as just toggling the render style on certain nodes in the object as items are placed. Still, on the todo list. Also resource gathering and processing are still on the todo list but that’s still a long way off.

Niri v25.11

She’s out and she’s a beauty! My little change is in here somewhere, but it’s just incredible to see what the open source community can put together. Patchnotes here!

Twee Narrative

This is technically for school, but it gets a pass to be in here because it’s so cool.

Essentially, I’m to make a little 10 minute narrative experience in twee. (Technically the class wants twine but GUIs are for losers & I have the power of CI/CD on my side). I have hopelessly overscoped this bitch and am now gazing down the barrel of having to write content for the thing.

Basically, it’s trying to tell a story through random events. And I added a weather system because immersion (someone kill me before I scope creep myself onto olympus). Purely text based, but I hope to make something genuinely cool here (and if you’re any good at github scraping you’ll probably be able to see what I’m cooking up). Looking forward to sharing more details when I get the thing out by finals!

Them

Fresh new cyberpunk hot off the press! I love me a little creative short story here and there, and I hope you enjoy this latest entry into whatever the fuck I’m making these days. Here it is!

November Nodeletter

Back at it again, the godot nodeletter for november is out! Thar she blows!

Retrospective

Ok guys, I know. Nike’s.

How about this: I’ll make you a deal, if any single person, one (1) person, including people that know me IRL, I’m not picky, sends me an email at kai@fireye.coffee saying that they care about Nike’s and want to see it finished, I’ll work on it in any little spare time I have, and aim to finish it by the end of the year.

As for that nixOS post, I got no excuse on that one either. I just didn’t get the spare time to chill and do some blogging. At some point I’m going to have to cut out the time though, sorry about that, if anyone happens to care. ADHD is tough shit for consistency.

Plans

I’ve been feeling the TTRPG itch a bit in recent days, so I might look at picking up an old TTRPG project soonish. Probably going to have to wait until after finals though.

Also apparently “Wild West TTRPG system” puts one of these blog posts on the first page of search results, holy SEO batman! I think that contractually means I have to work on it again, so maybe expect more of that soon.

Conclusion

And that’s the game! It’s about midnight at time of writing so I’m off to get some sleep. Thanks for reading once again, and have a great day.

Add Story and Git 2

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 18:06:20 -0700

Content

New Story! It’s cyberpunk!
Added MORE new shit to my git article! Featuring more multi-user content and best practices as well as a list of reasons to use git in the first place.

Them

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 16:08:30 -0700

Content Warning

This story contains content involving death and suicide.

The first time I met them was in middle school. They walked up to me, step by deliberate step as I hung in the boy’s restroom, our eyes meeting somewhere far away. They stopped; I felt a whisper of their outstretched hand caressing my cheek.

There was a profound sadness in their eyes, a longing for a time long past. A deep pity for the broken husk that hung before them. That sadness carried a profound weight to it. Had I made a mistake? I managed to crack my mouth open to ask. Nothing came out.

My vision began to ebb. Frame by frame, their had moved to close my eyelids. One last echo of desperation cried out of the depths of my chest begging for a single word, a smile, a tear, yet nothing made it out. I liked to believe that they knew how thankful I was; I was always terrified that I’d die alone. And as my conciousness receeded perhaps for the last time, I burned their face into my mind: my last and only friend. Then with a loud “crack!” I came crashing back to reality.

When I woke up, the doctor told me there was nobody else in that restroom. My mind reeled as she chided me about how bad the school would have looked if their suicide count had hit 50 that year. I wasn’t listening; I was already keenly aware of the statistics. Thanks dad.

Instead, as it would be for the rest of my life, my mind was firmly locked on Them. They were real. I was certain of it. Nobody I asked seemed to recognize them. I must have hacked into the school’s various data systems at least a dozen times, all to no avail. The mystery person simply didn’t exist. Ironically, my search for them kept me going for another couple of years, but like a moth to a flame, they found their way back to me.

I’m an engineer. I’m a programmer. I’ve worked with cyberware as far back as I can remember. The week before, I had just figured out how to modify my ears to only hear certain frequencies of sound. I was damn good at what I did. What I do.

However, one thing I am not is a chemist. Perhaps I should have tested my creations on a mouse or something first, but I was desperate. So, it took me a moment to process things when I saw a ghost of their figure in the bloody mirror fragments.

I gasped and moved to sit up, giving a little lurch instead, making a little “plish” as I landed back into my growing pool of blood and tears. My arms simply refused to do as I told them, keeping me strictly anchored to the ground. The slits in my wrists that were supposed to free me choosing to instead root me in my awful body.

I gave a slight chuckle, glancing around at my failed experiment. I was damn foolish to believe that some half corrupted old webpage that I had dug up from the old net would adequately instruct me on the nuances of hormone structure. I glanced a reflection of myself on the volumetric flask containing the concentrated essence of failure. The damn thing kept following me around. My vision flashed red in sheer self hatred. I wanted it gone, my failure, the flask, but most of all that awful, evil face that looked back at me. My hands of course did nothing, so I opted instead to writhe in desperation.

A soft “splash” of a boot making contact with my pool of misery put my useless movements to a stop. They were back.

“Destroy it all” I felt my hoarse voice say. They finally came into view, kneeling by my side, that look of melancholy still present on their face as I had remembered it all those years ago. They placed a hand on my shoulder, grabbing and shaking it slightly. Their eyebrows were pressed together in a look of concern. A plea of some sort. I couldn’t parse it. Decyphering things had gotten rather difficult from all the blood loss, and i had gotten rather exhausted from all the movement.

“hmmm?” I asked drowsily as they sat me up wrapping their arm under mine. “Wherarewegoing?” I mumbled as they stood me up and began to move toawrds the balcony. They creaked the door open and moved us outside, setting me down with my back propped up against the wall. They sat down next to me gazing out over the vast cityscape, the city staring back at us beautiful, haunting, and uncaring as ever.

I hated the city. It ground people up and fed them to its proverbial wood chipper just to squeeze out a couple extra dollars in corpo market cap. But somehow its regular cursed glow had abated at the mere sight of Them, resulting in a beautiful view I had never quite seen before.

I shfted my weight as best I could, manging a semi-controlled slump onto them, my head resting on their shoulder. They placed an arm around me. A tear rolled down my cheek; I hadn’t been this close to another person in my life. Fitting, perhaps, that it would occur in death.

“Thanks,” I whispered. They gave me a little squeeze in response. We gazed out over the endless city till I lost conciousness. How long that was, I couldn’t tell you. When I woke up, they were gone, and my wounds had miraculously scabbed over. After dressing my injuries, I laid back in my chair, pensively surveying the blood pool, the shattered mirror, and (against my best efforts), my still intact experiment.

One more try.

After I graduated high school, I had been taking side gigs netrunning for cyberwatch’s intelligence wing just to keep the food coming while I searched for Them. They had become an obsession of mine, which was probably a good thing. You can’t survive in the modern day without something keeping you going; Some have lofty ideals, some have hard drugs, i just had Them.

My experiments had eventually succeeded which certaintly didnt hurt either. I liked to think that plea that they had given me was one of encouragement; a vote of confidence. Every failure, every setback brought their face into my head, making giving up impossible.

I had been evicted from my cargo crate the week earlier; Just one of the 120,995 that would be evicted in such a way this year. As a result, I had deemed that cyberwatch gig necessary. I needed the scratch to afford a roof over my head. There’s a reason everyone tells you to avoid gig work for corps (12,492 “work related” deaths this year), but I was young and thought I could get away with it. All I know is that one moment I was under, and the next I was wrenched back into my body, looking directly into their eyes again as they lay next to me. How I had missed those eyes. Hello again they seemed to say, regretfully. The sting of the dozen or so holes in my torso was reduced to little more than a subtle tone that echoed across my body. Like the dial tone on my dad’s old rotary phone he bought after the old net collapsed. I managed little more than a weak cough and a “Who?” carried over the whisper of whatever air happened to remain in my tattered lungs. I think I already knew, subconsciously, but the little smile they gave me all but confirmed it.

Death.

How anyone could fear such a beautiful and delicate creature was beyond me. I inched my hand towards theirs and they took it tenderly. I smiled, the muted tone echoing through my body subsiding to a fuzzy static. I didn’t care. Bleeding out in an abandoned building, like that night on the balcony, I was alright again. Content to spend the short remainder of my life laying there motionless, holding hands with them.

The immediate pity in their eyes was obvious but behind that I could clearly identify a heavier sadness, grounded in an ocean of exhaustion. How long had they been alive? What had they seen? Experienced? Felt? Fuck, now I was the one pitying them. Had they had a single break? Or were they forced to witness statistic after statistic? And why me? I knew these numbers like the back of my hand: there were at least twenty other people in that city dying at that very instant. Why spend precious time lying in the dirt with some fucking idiot? Whatever the reason, I slowly mouthed a word of thanks at them. They squeezed my hand, which for some reason brought tears to my eyes.

A million miles away, a noise played. Almost a recording of a glass vase falling, shattering, played back as quietly as speakers would allow. Then voices. Annoying voices. Like the voices that played on dad’s post-old net radio. Dad. I think i forgave him a bit in that moment. He must have met Death as well. He must have known them like I did. Why else would you kill yourself with a 13 year old kid to take care of? Especially with a motto like “Don’t add to the statistics.”

I felt my body lurch. Odd. I certainly didn’t have the strength for such things. A pinch on my arm echoed across my hollow consciousness, followed quickly by a burning sensation that rapidly replaced the comfortable radio fuzz. The lurch happened again. Wait, I was moving. Death! Where were they? We couldn’t be separated again. I wouldn’t allow it. Ignoring the fire in my veins and the screaming voices in my head I lurched up, writhing back and forth. Loud shouting ensued. I spotted them back on the ground where we laid seconds before, sitting up, looking at me with a hopeful smile. I felt another pinch as we locked eyes. They mouthed a silent “go”, and the world melted away.

I awoke pissed in a hospital bed. Someone was going to pay.

“Your rescue wasn’t cheap, kid” a voice stated behind me. I turned, conealing my seething anger. A woman in a dark black suit, seated at my beadside studied me with a jaded look. Fucking corpo.

I knew the deal:

“What do you want.”

“Information. What you were doing for cyberwatch, what you got, contacts, names, the lot.”

“Done. I have full logs and stats on my cyberdeck.” She smiled. She must have been desperate, going after a contract worker like me; corps always keep us at an arm’s length to protect against this kind of stuff. She rifled through a bag, pulling out my cyberdeck. She handed it to me along with a chip.

“Address and instructions are on here.” I nodded, taking it and typing in my passkey. A screech leapt out of the device, high pitched and unbelievably loud. Her hands involuntarily leapt to her ears as the monotone sound poured out of the device. Those modifications I had made in high school had paid off; I was unaffected. She was not so lucky, doubling over in pain.

I inputted a few keystrokes, and was met with my usual list of options. I disdainfully picked the quickest, affording her a short glance of pity, and shut off the audio. She removed her hands from her ears, glaring at me.

“You little…” A loud electrical pop emitted from her head, and the left side of her face went slack. Poor bastard, one of 83 this year. I slowly eased my way out of the bed, as she fell to her knees behind me, a slurry of biomechanical sludge beginning to drip from her nose. I took a few weak steps towards the window as a dull thump signaled the end of her short journey to the floor. I took an apprehensive sigh as I inputted a couple more keystrokes into my device, opening the window to the outside.

“I’m coming back, honey,” I mutter as I gaze out over the city once again. It really just doesn’t look the same without them. I give it one last little smile as I finally contribute my tick mark to the statistics.

Git for the Layperson

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Updated October 20th and November 9th with some new stuff! Also I would be remiss to not include a link to oh shit git, which you should definitely refer to if you ever run into trouble.

Preamble

Hi! First off, welcome to git! Git is huge, and there are any number of guides out there, but this is mine.

If you’re using a UI to interface with git, there will be buttons and other input methods to execute the commands that I’ll be listing. Rest assured, this information is still incredibly pertinent for you as well, and can be translated with the simple internet search: “do git ‘command’ in ‘UI here’”. (eg: github desktop, gitkraken, sourcetree, vscode plugin, etc…).

Why do I need to use git in the first place?

A previous version of this guide assumed you already knew the value of git and generally VCS, but seeing as the target demographic is the layperson, I’ll assume you are walking into this blind. If not, feel free to skip this section! Perhaps you don’t know what git is, or assume it’s a programmer thing for programmers, or perhaps are generally skeptical of adding additional steps to your workflow, and see git (or VCS) as optional. I assure you, it is not. Trust me, regardless of your vocation, level of experience, or general computer knowledge, I am confient you can benefit from using git. It’s an integral tool in working with others in teams, and as an added bonus, once you learn it, you’ll never worry about losing work ever again. Allow me to elaborate.

First, show of hands who’s lost work on something before? Proficiency in git makes this occurence a relic of the past.

Not only that, you also gain the power to time travel back to every single iteration of your project, without losing any work, no ctrl+z required.

Further, you get the ability to simultaneously have multiple “versions” of your project that you can swap between. That way, you can have one version that always works, and others that you use to add features and fixes, merging them together when desired.

If you’re using a git server (like github) to upload your git repositories, you also gain an invaluable backup project that allows you to retain your full project state even if your hard drive gets lit on fire (no doubt from your nvidia 12 volt high power connector), you’ll still be able to get your project back just fine.

It also allows you to work on the same project seamlessly from multiple computers!

Sounds great right? Well those are only the benefits for solo developers. If you’re on a team (2 or more people), or working at any moderately sane software job (games or otherwise), git goes from “incredibly useful” to simply “mandatory”.

Why?

Well, let’s imagine what collaboration requires, without git. The project needs to live somewhere, and more often than not, it ends up finding a home on a flash drive or portable drive of some sort that gets handed around based on who needs to work on it. But if you don’t have the flash drive, what happens? If you have a copy on your computer and make changes how do you know that something you’re working on hasn’t been updated by someone else? Who has to throw away their work or spend hours of their day getting the two versions working together? Whose edits are the “real” version? And worse, if the thing breaks does anyone have a working, up to date version anywhere? And you’re still dealing with all of the problems above in the midst of this chaos!

Proficiency in git almost fully trivializes these problems. Where does the project live? Github. How do different people get the most recent version? Pull from github. How do you reconcile changes? Merge branches and resolve conflicts. What’s the “real”, working version? The main branch.

The nuances of all of this are of course a bit more complicated, but I hope this generally gave you an impression of the value of git and why you’d want to put the work into learning it. Now, let’s get into exactly that.

What is git?

Diffs

Git is a tool that keeps track of the changes made to files, and lets you manage these changes. A change in git is called a diff.

If you have a text file containing the text “hello world”, and you change it to say “goodbye world”, git says “ah it looks like ‘hello’ was deleted and ‘goodbye’ was added on line 1 of file.txt”. This is a diff. Git automatically takes this diff and holds onto it. You can look at these diffs by using git status.

Staging

Git also features a stage where you can put these diffs. Diffs are collected off the stage by default, but you can add them to the stage by using git add (thing). Regularly you’ll want to stage all of your changes so usually you’ll run git add --all or git add . Once you take a diff and put it on the stage, git stores that diff. This means that even if you wanted to make more changes to the staged file, It just creates a new diff off the stage with these new changes. You can combine the two by unstaging the staged diff (git restore --staged), or staging the other diff.

Be careful running git restore on unstaged diffs though, as in certain circumstances you can lose work if you do this flippantly.

Committing

Once you’ve finished work on something, you’ll want to save a snapshot of your work. Go ahead and add everything you want to save to the stage, and now you can commit. This is done by git commit. Committing yoinks every diff that you’ve staged, and gathers them together in a little box, and asks you to give it a name. This box is known as a commit.

Naming conventions for commits are a hotly contested subject matter, but however you do it, make sure to aptly describe what changes are contained therein. This is the first thing everyone sees when looking at your changes, and allows you to know what was in that commit later on, when you might need to revert to it, or diagnose a problem.

Stashing

Additionally, you can stash staged diffs to ignore them right now and save them for later. This sounds mostly banal, however becomes very very useful on occasion so it’s good to know. git stash creates a stash containing the currently staged diffs, git stash pop kills the stash and restores those diffs, and git stash drop deletes the stash without restoring changes.

Log

Ever need to see a history of your commits real quick? git log happens to be the default option, however I’ve got a little treat for you. If you run the following alias command on your terminal you unlock access to git lg which is a super trimmed down git log with a pretty looking graph!

git config –global alias.lg “log –color –graph –pretty=format:’%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset’ –abbrev-commit”

I had a mentor at work give me this one, but I found the alias command again after redoing my system config here. Beautiful little alias that’ll save you so much annoyance.

The main things to look at in git log, are the commit name, so you know what’s in there, and the commit hash, so you know how git referrs to it. All you need to know is a hash is a bunch of (not so) random characters that represent a commit in git’s brain, like an id of sorts.

Why is it useful to view your repo’s commit history and have access to commit hashes though? Stay tuned.

Reflog

Listen.

Pay attention.

Reflog. Will. Save. Your. Ass.

Reflog is similar to log, however instead of viewing your commit history, it looks at everything. See, every time you take a major action in git, reflog saves your state. Which means, if you did anything in git, reflog has it. Reflog is your homie, reflog wouldn’t do you like that. Reflog has hashes. So many hashes.

But what does one do with a list of hashes that represent the history of a repo?

Reset

git reset <commit hash here> is very powerful, but newbies can pretty easily mess it up and cause fixable, yet very distressing problems, so make sure you’re pretty confident in what you’re doing before doing it.

Notably, RESET is not RESTORE. Restore is for staging and unstaging. Reset allows you to restore your repository to a previous state. That state could be a commit, or it could be a hash you found in the reflog.

This means, if you fucked up real bad, you can fix it. Just reset the repo!

Reset comes in two main flavors (with some more minor ones you can look for yourself if you’re curous): --soft and --hard.

git reset <commit hash here> --soft resets the repo, however keeps all of the changes between your current state and the other one as diffs. tldr: it keeps your work.

git reset <commit hash here> --hard resets the repo. git reset –hard does not care. git reset –hard will kill your children (commits).

If you do end up accidentally calling in a git reset –hard, remember your pal git reflog, and be not afraid. Git reflog will help you, git reflog is there for you.

Branches

Alright now we have a bunch of these commit boxes in a line, tracking the history of the project in little chunks. What now? Well let’s say that we want to keep this line of commits as the “source of truth” in our repository. That’s to say, with few exceptions, this is the version of the code that everyone is sharing. This means that it needs to be kept in pristine condition. Absolutely no bugs, no half implemented features, no failing tests, no shenanigans, etc… This means, if all else fails, we still have this version of code to fall back on. We will call this the main branch. “Main” because it’s central to everything, and I’ll get to the “branch” part of that in a second.

That’s all well and good, but now how do you develop on it? Development is messy! Not perfect and beautiful like this main branch! True! This is where Branches, plural, come in.

A branch is essentially a copy of the codebase at a certain point in time, that can be used independently of other branches. So if I went ahead and created a branch off the main branch, I could do whatever I wanted on it, without having any effect on main. And the reverse is true as well: If one of my friends comes in and puts code on main, it doesn’t affect my branch.

Checking out

This one is super simple, but it deserved a pointer here. When you checkout a branch, you move from looking at your other branch to the new one. This actually changes the files around to be what they are in the other branch, but it keeps any local changes you’ve made. As a beginner, you’ll want to stay on a single non-main branch as much as possible, till you’re more comfortable with git.

Merging

In standard development environments, you want your working branch to always be up to date with main. If there’s code on main I want it on my branch! How, You ask? There are a few ways of doing this, but the simplest, is just a merge. A merge grabs the state of one branch and plops it onto another. In this case, you want to merge main into your branch so if you’re currently using your branch you can run git merge main. This will usually work, but in some cases you may have edited the exact same location in a file as someone else! Git has no idea what to do with this so it stops and asks you. This is known as the feared merge conflict. To resolve it, you can check which files conflict with a git status, and open any offenders in your text editor of choice. You’ll notice some weird symbols in this file:

<<<<<<< branch1
# branch1 code here
=======
# branch 2 code here
>>>>>>> branch2

If you want to keep both, just delete all three lines with the weird symbols (<, =, and >), save the file and you’re good to continue merging! If you want just just branch1’s code, you can delete the line that says branch1, along with everything between the equals signs and the branch2 line. If you want brach2’s code, just do the opposite. Bottom line, as long as the arrows and equals signs are gone, git doesn’t care. Just make sure the file is syntactically correct once you’re done! After that, just go ahead and readd everything to the stage, and run a git merge --continue. You just killed a merge conflict! Yippee!

If you want to avoid these entirely you can specify a merge strategy in your command taking either yours or theirs in the event of a conflict, but this will override someone’s work! I’d recommend you try to resolve it manually if you can.

Rebase

I would be remiss for not bringing up the humble git rebase. Strictly speaking, Rebase is Merge but cooler. Merges are rough and ugly, Rebases are clean and beautiful. In terms of sheer good practice, always prefer rebases over merges. Your coworkers/ team/ fellow open source contributors/ future self will thank you for it.

However, early on, rebases can introduce many many problems if not used in a repository that has general good practice and as such I don’t reccommend them to newbies. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed, skip this section, and come back when you’ve got some git under your belt.

For the rest of you, here’s a simple summary of a rebase: Where a merge simply grabs all of your changes and shoves them into another branch, a rebase takes the point where a branch was created and moves it around. This essentially rewrites the commit history, so make sure you’re not on a branch used by someone else or that makes problems.

This is especially useful for getting your branch updated off main, if main has been updated. Generally it’s good practice to rebase off main every time you sit down to do some work, to make sure you’re working off the most up to date stuff as possible, as well as to update your branch before merging to main.

Both of these actions are also doable by merges, but merges create really ugly merge commits that end up both:

causing a shit ton of merge conflicts at the same time (ESPECIALLY if you don’t regularly update off main) and
obfuscating commit history so it becomes super difficult to parse later on.

A well rebased commit history is literally just a line of commits and their names, each adding an incrememntal change to the project. Very simple, and very readable, so when the day comes that you need to regression test a stupid ass bug that won’t go away, you can rest easy knowing that you won’t need to crack open any commits to see what’s actually inside.

Moving on, another beautiful use of the rebase is the…

Interactive rebase

git rebase -i allows you to interactively rebase your branch step by step. What the hell does that mean? Well, it means you can do something like this: git rebase -i HEAD~3.

Let’s go through what this does step by step. First, What is HEAD~3? HEAD referrs to your current position on the commit history. Usually, this is the most recent commit on your branch. The “~3” means “including 3 commits back”. This is the total number of commits that will be displayed to you, including the one you’re currently on.

Now what are you doing to these 3 commits? You’re rewriting history, silly! You’re the time lord! Reality bends to your will! Wanna rename a commit? Done. Wanna combine two commits into one? Easy. Delete a commit? No worries.

Once you’re done, if you have a remote, you’ll have to force push. Again, make sure nobody else uses this branch, and if not, then go ahead and force push your rebase. You can make both your and someone else’s day really bad if you mess this up and push to remote so be very careful! You almost certaintly won’t lose work, but you will lose time and sanity, so it pays to think before acting.

Lingering Questions…

What if I want to put my code on main? Is it the same as a merge? You ask. Well yes but actually no. If you’re running locally, all alone, sure (though I’d recommend against it). But, if you’ve got friends, you need something that allows you to share code and work together. You need…

Github

(Or another git hosting service. I’m not picky, but I’ll be referring to this type of service as github, despite there being other options out there in the interest of beginner friendliness. If you understand that, check out my essay on why we need git federation!)

Regardless, Git and Github are often misconstrued to be the same thing. They are not! Git is the thing running on your computer tracking files and doing merges. Github is where you can send your git repository when you want to back it up on the cloud and/ or share it with others. How does this work? Good question!

Pushing

Is your commit on your computer, but your friends don’t have access to it on github? push it! Push is the third command in the classic git three-hit-combo:

git add
git commit
git push

This is the quickest way to get your code from your pc to the remote where other people want it! Notably, push only works on commits! It won’t do shit on diffs, even staged ones. Pushing will push your local branch to the linked branch on remote, usually of the same name. Generally, it’s impolite to push directly to a branch that someone is using without asking permission. Instead, consider a pull request, or sending them a message.

Wow! Can I push to any branch, you definitely didn’t ask? No! Never ever ever ever, ever ever ever push directly to main. Unless you know exactly what you’re doing, avoid this like the plague. Local code has cooties, and we can’t have that on our precious main. Set up branch protections on github to make sure this never happens. Now. I’ll wait.

How do you get code on main if you can’t push to it?

Pull requests

A pull request is just a merge happening on github, rather than your computer. What makes it special is that it allows other people to review your code before it’s approved and sent off to main properly. They’re generally abbreviated to just “PR”. Generally, on larger projects, it’s good practice to keep these open for the duration of a feature or fix’s development so that other people can track your progress, rather than just opening one up once the code is ready for main.

Pull/ fetch

These last couple commands are how you get code from github onto your computer. Fetch is a glance at what’s out there without actually doing anything, while pull actually grabs changes from github and gets you them locally. Generally you want to be pulling code whenever there’s updates, especially to main, and if there are, merging main into your current working branch to keep yourself up to date with the project.

Best practices (Especially for teams)

Here’s a little addendum here, as there are a lot of little things that contribute to a better experience using git, especially with teams, that I didn’t fully comment on above.

1. Little changes over big ones.

This applies to both commits and pull requests. Split up diffs into discrete commits. If you made some big map changes and also fixed a UI element, those two should probably be on seperate commits at least. Ideally, you’d open individual branches and pull requests for both, seperately.

That way they can reach main faster, for your teammates to access more quickly. This also really really helps the readability of your project’s history.

2. Feature branches over monolithic branches

I alluded to this earlier, but it’s worth repeating: make different branches for different things. Individual branches do work for jams and the like, but hardcore break down when working on any long term projects with a team.

The convention here is to prepend feature/ to branches adding a feature of some sort, and patch/ or fix/ to branches fixing bugs and the like. (eg: feature/add-shops) Feel free to come up with your own conventions for your own projects though! Many more professional workplaces will have a task management or ticket system (github projects is a great free option!), with branch names mirroring ticket numbers. (eg: tickets/DM-38901)

This also allows teammates to base off your feature branch if they desperately need to build off an in-progress feature, without getting inundated by 83 other changes you happen to have made.

3. Update off main frequently.

Always, always, always work off the most recent version of the project. Whenever you sit down, checkout main, pull, checkout your branch, and either merge main into your branch, or rebase your branch on top of main.

Seriously, do this. People will complain that git has so many merge conflicts; If your team is constantly updating main, and always updating your local versions to track main, I guarantee merge conflicts will become unfathomably easier and vastly more infrequent.

This also resolves the problem of whose job is it to resolve merge conflicts, as main is the source of truth, so once it’s on main, everyone else has to deal with it on their own branches. (Which conincidentally really incentivizes smaller branches; if you’re keeping up a big branch, whoop de do every time someone makes a change to something you’ve edited you’ve gotta update your branch. Split it up buddy!)

4. Git is built for text.

This one is good to know, as git isn’t the only VCS (Version Control Software).

Git handles everything through text, including big binary globs. This makes certain software significantly more annoying to work with, especially proprietary software. I’ll call out Unreal engine specifically here. Things like actors, map files, etc… gets serialized into an unreadable jumble of characters. This makes them totally unmergeable (if conflicts exist anyway), which is bad. I personally don’t recommend using such software, as merging is incredibly powerful, (and open source software is simply better), however if the choice of software is set in stone, here’s the deal.

Git is not great at handling these files, however, other VCS solutions don’t really do much more than git in this realm, other than baindaid the problem a bit better. Essentially, other VCS solutions will allow users to “lock” files so that other people can’t edit them, which you can emulate in git by just communicating with your team. If the files are not locked, and two people do work on one such file, one person will simply have to abandon their work on that specific file, and start over. If you do have to work with these, I recommend looking into other VCS software and doing some research. Git is still a great option, but the playing ground does get a bit more competitive in this realm.

If files are openly serialized to readable text, such as in godot, this is not a problem and merging can be performed as normal in git.

5. Git is open source!

Just a quick reminder that git is free software developed largely by volunteers! It’s licensed under GPLv2, which means that you can use it as a tool to develop whatever you want with no strings attatched, though i’d definitely reccommend reading through the details of the GPL becuase it’s fascinating! (that sentence is the nerdiest shit I’ve written in a while dear god)

Conclusion

I’m finishing this thing up super late and I’m incredibly cooked, so if there are errors, or any points of confusion please let me know.

They/them out; ~ Peace! ~

Cabin

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:15:50 -0700

Notice: This is an incomplete GDD attempting to represent a complete version of this game, most of which is likely not happening for a while, if at all. For a complete roadmap on what is actually realistically planned, see the “Roadmap” at the bottom of this document.

Elevator Pitch

Design, build, and decorate a cabin with friends, strangers, (or alone) in a community-focused, labour intensive, cozy architecture construction sim.

Quick Summary

Design cabins, collect resources, craft resources into items, place items into designs.
Host worlds to the public and make new friends or keep it to a controlled friend group.
- Make your own designs or work together on the same designs for additional productivity
Webfishing inspired
3d low poly art style
- COZY COZY COZY VERY COZY
lofi-style music
- perhaps some country/ folk vibes as well
Low stakes survival for productivity boosts.
- Eat food, drink water, Maintain comfort, & remain inspired

Game Philosophy

Players should be pushed to do things together, rather than split up
- Avoid “Minecraft Syndrome” in which everyone playing ’together’ promptly split up and spend hours of gameplay without ever seeing each other
Players should be rewarded for idle time, and spending that time with others as much as they are for active construction
- Aim for Webfishing players sitting around a pond, friends at a campfire vibes, or sitting and watching the sunset
The Journey is as important as the destination
- The fun of the game is watching something you and your friends put time and effort into grow into something neat.
- something something friends along the way
Immersion
- Yes.

Core Systems

Multiplayer

Server authority is determined by world ownership
- Creator is designated the owner of the world and given full permissions
- Owner can designate roles and permissions to other members
- Ideally, If you’re running a world, you can control and designate pretty much every permission there is.
- Defaults (for public lobbies):
  - Owners can ban anyone at any time
  - Strangers joining can fully impact world (gather resources, craft items, place objects) but not architecture their own buildings until given proper roles.
- Technical implementation:
  - Server-client model
  - Server hosted on Owner’s PC or elsewhere, remotely controllable by owner.
  - Further Specifics TBD
Full world rollback/ history within local save files
- Use git as backend
  - We’re open source so we can just use git (GPLv2) as a part of our source code mwahahahaha
- Serialize world generation and track diffs
  - Ideally users can specify how much history they want to keep and rollback if necessary
  - This is a tough problem, but I want people to be able to open their worlds to the public without worrying about griefing.
- Allow for in game merge conflict resolution (pipe dream)
  - display world state through spectator-mode viewport, and allow users to toggle between diffs (a/ b/ both/ neither) and see their outcomes & accept their preferred outcome.
  - Allow two offline players to play on the same world then resolve any conflicts after booting back online.
    - Offline changes should automatically be uploaded to central world if user is trusted, however merge conflict resolution uploads should require confirmation from owner/admin by default.
  - Without this, offline play on a world will be limited to the world owner.
    - Could also stop-gap an “offline token” that can be handed around among players that gives sole permission to play offline.
  - More importantly, allow bans to roll back griefers’ actions with minimal impact to the work of others.
    - eg: if you ban a griefer and rollback the past in game day, everyone loses progress. If you just roll back the griefer’s behavior that risks breaking stuff (eg: they placed something that someone else placed stuff on) Merge conflict resolution gives a best of both worlds approach.
  - Not coming on release, but I do want to design with it in mind.
Land claims?
- Unsure about this feature but it might be nice to have for some people.
  - Off by default
- Allow players to claim land.
  - prevents other players from editing claimed land
- Scope creep: whitelists/ blacklists
- Owner can still edit claimed land but will be informed that they are doing so.

Resource Gathering

Resources must be gathered by hand by aid of simple tools.
- Plant and cultivate trees and crops
  - requires seeds, water, and time.
  - hoe/dig earth, place seed, and wait.
  - process is sped up if watered regularly.
- Chop trees with axes and saws for wood (two player saw minigame anyone?)
  - Trees must be felled, then cut up into carry-able pieces to take back home for crafting later.
- Mine rocks with picks for stone and other minerals
  - similarly, rocks must be broken into carryable chunks with a pick then hauled home
- Forage for food and other assorted items.
  - take a walk and gather up what you find along the way
- Gather water
  - use a bucket to deliver water from a stream to your cabin
  - store it in a barrel to store it for longer
Gathered Resources must be stored if not immediately used.
- can just be littered on the ground, organized in piles or placed in specific storage structures
Inventory limited to tools and small items.
- Larger items must be carried
- multiple people can carry items in order to move faster.

Construction

Players with appropriate permissions will be able to architecturally design buildings which will display as a incorporeal wireframe.
- Object placement systems similar to no man’s sky or satisfactory
- Individual pieces can be placed onto this wireframe by anyone, building up the design piece by peice.
Grid-based design.
- Non-physics based.
  - Shit will float (I’m not that crazy)
- Figure out some way to combine object colliders when placed together to avoid performance nightmares
- Allow breaking off the grid for tryhards
  - Optional, try to design systems with space to add this later on though
- Allow certain items to define custom subgrids that are prioritized over the world grid.
  - Enables storage mechanisms (eg: packed wooden plank storage)
- Allow item-based grid focusing
  - eg: by default building items should be placed on the world grid, but decorations should be placed on a subgrid
  - Subgridded items should be children of the object with the grid

Crafting

Players can craft simple items into more complex ones.
- Whoa mama wooden planks
  - Holy fuck
- Resources into tools
- iron ore into nails beautiful
- cooking food
- making instruments and trinkets (Whittling minigame?)
Generally, inputs -> minigame -> outputs
- More people make minigames easier/faster
- Broad strokes, spiritfarer crafiting, but higher fidelity
Crafting types
- Raw crafting
  - Similar to the minecraft crafting table in your personal inventory
  - useful for crafting small stuff as you go
- Station crafting
  - Requires a workbench or an item of some sort.
  - More involved, & more difficult
  - Allows creation of more specialized items or just bulk versions of hand crafted options.

Survival & Vibes

Players will have a series of statistics that all contribute to a greater productivity stat. The more these statistics are looked after, the faster your movement speed, crafting speed, gathering speed etc…
- Hunger- Eat food, bar goes up
- Thirst- Drink water, bar goes up
- Comfort- Increase by investing time and effort into improving quality of life
- Inspiration- Increase by crafting things or taking a second to stop and smell the roses
No big punishments for not maintaining stats, just lower productivity and some visual effects
day night cycle
- Nightfall results in drastically reduced visibility and productivity
- Encourages players to gather around a campfire in the night time
- Alternatively, add a “campfire boost” that greatly increases productivity as a function of other players in the area when they visit a campfire.
Most actions should be significantly easier with multiple people rather than just one.
- More than 2x easier; it should not be META for 2 people to do the same thing separately rather than work together on the same thing.

Monetization

Game will be free and open source (GPL probably, due to git dependency)
- This game will be made for communities. Friends who want a place to hang out, and strangers looking for new friends alike.
- I’d like it to also be made by a community.
- If you find value in the game, give back by working on the project yourself.
Additionally, players can optionally pay for feature bounties to fund project development
- eg: if you want fishing mechanics, you can put $20 on that bounty that will be paid to the developer who completes that feature.
- Official bounty channels might additionally take a small cut off bounties to help fund the main project.
Finally, donations will be accepted as well.

Roadmap

Tech Demo

Host-able multiplayer
- Bare minimum to make it work.
- No perms, no online discoverability
Tier 1 save system
- built on git
- should be hyperscaleable to handle the mountain of features that I’m going to throw at it down the line
Resource gathering
- just wood
Crafting recipies
- wood -> planks
- planks -> stairs, flooring, walls, roof, doors.
Construction system
- Only implementing world grid, no subgrids
Productivity stat
- determined by Inspiration and campfire mechanics.
- No Comfort, hunger or thirst yet

Minimum Viable Product

TBD

1.0.0 Release

TBD

Monthly Update 2025 October

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hey I did almost nothing interesting in october I think. I’m literally only writing this out of moral obligation to keep up the streak.

Cabin GDD

I put together a GDD for a new project that I’ve been contemplating for a while. I’m not sure if I’ll actually be doing this anytime soon but I do want to do it at some point. You can check it out here.

Optimization shenannegans

Do y’all run your entire operating system while gaming? Lame! You’re wasting frames! I’ve run up a series of custom gamescope sessions on my greeter that literally just spin up a gamescope instance running my game of choice, and nothing else. I have the current iteration in my nix config at the moment, but it’s still very incomplete. Currently systemd still runs up the same stuff as my main config, so I’m considering making a new user account to limit what systemd ends up running. I really don’t need a full pipewire instance here, for example, pulseaudio or even ALSA would work just fine.

Drumset

I got some digital drums so I don’t have to emulate drums on a keyboard. Nice! Unfortunately the MIDI integration that this drumset uses isn’t interpreted correctly in Ardour, so I’ll have to do the signal processing for the MIDI signals into raw XML so that my hi-hat pedal works correctly. That’s a project for later, because that’s a goddamn pain in the ass. Luckily the thing still works for simple drums, and I don’t fully need a hi-hat pedal to play better than on keyboard so I’m content with how it works at the moment. Mostly.

The only way I can get Ardour to recognize it in the first place is to swap the IO from pipewire into ALSA which is so inconvenient. I’m not sure why pipewire can’t handle MIDI input via USB, but who the hell knows. I’ll have to look into that as well.

October Nodeletter

I helped out on the october nodeletter, check it out here

Retrospective

The schoolwork this semester has been crazy, so I’ve been unfathomably busy with that, work, climbing, etc…

Definitely going to reduce my credits next semester though, as I really need to do more stuff.

Plans

I’m literally just trying to survive at the moment so I’ll just put stuff on pause at the moment. Sucks to do, but I really need to pass this discreet math class lmao.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading, hope you have more free time than I do haha. Imma go take a hike, have a great day.

Oct Update 25

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 13:06:10 -0700

Content

October monthly update is here.
Cabin project GDD is here.

Git Update

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:11:31 -0700

Content

Added a bunch of new shit to my git article! It’s now much more comprehensive, and acts much better as something I can confidently stand behind.

Sept 2025 Update

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 22:48:57 -0700

Content

September 2025 monthly update is out! Check it out!
Added some friends to the fireye.coffee neighborhood!

Monthly Update 2025 September

Mon, 29 Sep 2025 20:42:43 -0700

It’s september time, and I’m unfathomably cooked. This is gonna be a short one, and I think I need sleep.

Why so short, batman?

Well, I got really really really sick for about a week, then was buried under the resulting schoolwork for the next two, and here I am. I’ve done what I could in that time, but have been largely cooked.

Niri WM Hot corners

WE’RE MERGED BABY!!! Compile the WM from its main branch to grace your eyes with fully configurable per-monitor hot corners courtesy of yours truly. Doccumented here!

Eventually I’m looking at potentially adding spawn and spawn-sh functionality to hot corners as well, but that’s closer to a thought marinating in the back of my head than an actual thing that’s happening. If it catches my fancy on a cool autumn day, perhaps I might pick it up. Until then, enjoy!

Motherboard update

Well, the mobo might be cooked. After ordering and consulting an annoyingly silent POST beeper, I’ve come to the conclusion that somehow the POST circut is simply just not triggering in the first place, which SUCKS, as that’s the thing that’s supposed to start everything and/ or tell me what’s gone wrong. Might try to do some contact tracing if I can find a half decent schematic somewhere but who the hell knows. If anyone knows the Strix Z-690-F Gaming Wifi moderately well, or knows how a POST circut works, please feel free to reach out!

Music

I played music! I recorded stuff! I haven’t recorded stuff since I was on arch, so I had to reconfigure my audio setup on nix, but ardour works great now, and I’m getting to work!

Did you finish anything?

Next topic!

Games!

Hades 2

I’ve been selfishly saving myself for the full release of Hades 2 through the open early access, as I loved the original hades and wanted to experience the second completely fresh. And seeing that it released last week I’ve been doing so! It’s been genuinely one of the best games I’ve ever played and I don’t think I’m even halfway through. I’ll almost certaintly do a post on it once I finish the thing, but suffice it to say I’ve been having an incredible time with it and the chaos redesign was literally life changing.

Hollow Knight

While I was sick I was able to 104% the original hollow knight. I haven’t done the true ending yet, but I thouroughly enjoyed it, with a few annoyances here and there. I might do another post on it as well, but I’ll wait till I get that true ending to do so. The writing is unfathomably powerful and it’s fucking bonkers how much they’re able to do with so little. I ended up crying twice through my playthrough and each such encounter had a number of dialogue lines that you could count on one hand. Truly impressive work, and I’m looking forward to picking up silksong when I get the time.

Where’s the NixOS post, Jon?

It’s being worked on, I promise! I’m still learning things about nix (yes even a whole ass month and a half after switching, NixOS is one hell of a rabbit hole, let me tell you), and I’d like to make it as good as it can be. I have an open PR to nixpkgs and I’d love to have that merged before I do the full post so I can fully write about what I’ve learned from it (though nixpkgs is huge and might very well take a while).

What I can say is this far in, I don’t regret the switch. NixOS makes so much sense and I’m delighted to say the bad stuff get so much better with time. I did half regret switching at first but I think the brain worm finally ended up taking hold, so I’m grateful for that at least :P.

Retrospective

I think I did well considering the circumstances. Mostly just annoyed that I didn’t work on nike’s. I think the scope is intimidating me a little bit, but that’s just a matter of making myself sit down and chip away at it little by little.

Plans

Alright here’s the deal. I’m going to put some stuff on the back burner as little as I’d like to do that, so I can focus on what actually needs to get done.

Main list:

Nike’s
Open VPN Config
Music Recording

Backlog:

Treehouse RPG
NixOS Blog post
Motherboard Repair
Niri Hot corner updates
Hollow knight blog post

Conclusion

Thanks for reading again! If you made it this far, go look up a picture of chaos from hades 2 as a reward. You’re welcome, and I’ll see you next month! Vaya con queso!

Update and Federate Git

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 17:36:27 -0700

Content

August Monthly Update
FEDERATE GIT!!- My argument for a federated git server protocol. We need it. Real bad.
Eldritch Wager- New jam game!

FEDERATE GIT!!!

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 12:26:12 -0700

Background

In the modern day, git servers are a must. Even on the smallest of solo projects, one can greatly benefit by using a git server to host it, collaborative projects are nigh impossible without git servers, and more importantly, git servers are the backbone of the vast majority of open source development. And among git servers, github is by far the most prominent, which is moderately saddening given that the main location in which most open source development occurs is not open source itself. This isn’t without reason, though. Free hosting, baked in support for issues, forks, pull requests, and anything else one might need to work in a git repository, and even free and easy access to github actions which are unfathomably powerful CI-CD tools. And at the same time, willingly or not, all the code hosted on it is also almost certaintly being used as free real estate for the microsoft AI teams to train off. It’s been pushing copilot nonstop, and will likely only get worse from here.

Self hosted git repos like sourcehut, gitlab, gittea, and many others serve as a great alternative, given you have the skills, know how, and/or resources to run one up. However they do have their downsides, as I’ll get into later on.

The Problem!

So what does one do when they want to switch off github to an alternative? Well you find and host a new git server! It’s just that easy! Jokes aside, if you’ve used github at all, setting up a new git server and migrating is nontrivial on its own. However, that’s not all. Like it or not, everything else will still be on github. So now you’ll still have to use github to contribute to most other projects, but now your own projects will suffer from the reduced traffic of not being on github due to its sheer size. Some choose to mirror their repos, which tries to reach a best of both worlds approach, but suffers from the partitioning of the community, and more often than not the mirror becomes higher traffic than the actual repo!

All this to say, you have been for all practical purposes cut off from the vast majority of the open source community. This, needless to say, sucks. Self hosing should certaintly provide more freedom, but also MORE connection to the community, not less. Open source is made and broken by its community, and this problem desperately needs some sort of solution, as looking at, well… microsoft, github will continue to enshittify, and if we don’t solve this problem, we risk either being trapped on github or losing a whole bunch of traffic to open source communities.

The Solution

We need global git federation.

I’m proposing Mastodon’s ActivityPub but for git development. On Mastodon you can live on server A but still get information from server B. We need this for git servers. I like to joke that git is my social media, but in this sense it really needs to be copying off social media’s homework. I’ve said this already but open source development lives off its community. Thus, we need to be pushing to expand these communities, making it easier to get involved in open source and reducing barriers to entry. As one does more open source work over git, one naturally gravitates towards wanting their own git server, as it’s freer and it gives the user back more control of their software. I completely agree that more people should be self hosting, which is why this means so much to me. We NEED to make this a no-brainer decision, but as it stands, all it really serves to do is separate an individual from the very communities that would otherwise help them. We need to FEDERATE GIT!

I found a few tidbits on gittea potentially implementing something along these lines, but everything I found dried up around 2022, and even if gittea, or any other git server provider for the matter, had implemented a perfect federation model, the issue of cross-provider federation persists until a critical mass of other providers also subscribe to the same federation protocol. As nice as it would be, one provider having federation does not fundimentally solve this problem.

The onus, instead, should fall directly on git. Git itself needs to define a server federation protocol, to clear up all confusion among the server providers and push all of them to adopt it so that they can claim to support the full git protocol, federation and all. The added benefit of course is that there’s no toiling over which protocol to use or how to implement it, there’s only whether or not they can implement the official one, which makes actual implementation much more straightforward.

What should it look like?

Actual implementation should certaintly be left up to the designers, but from a user perspective here’s what I would like to see:

I run up a git server. I can define the visibility of all my repos, ranging from private to local to global. My global projects show up on github and other git servers, and I can search others’ global projects in this way as well. I can create issues, comments, and pull requests on others’ servers and vice versa. Forking a repo on another server creates a fork on my server. Critically, If I have a gittea server (host) and someone on github (remote) leaves an issue, the issue should be created on my server! There should be no duplication, and the host server should have full authority. The remote server’s job is to display my repo to users and make API calls to my server when an action is performed on the remote. Rather personally, I’d also want a global subscriptions/watch/star list, so that I can watch or star repos across servers and get updates on new releases, comments, issues, PRs, and the like, regardless of server. Heck, built in RSS functionality could handle that last one just fine. (I know that a lot, if not all, git servers support RSS, however I’d like to see a first party reader as well so that you don’t need to be an RSS nerd to use it. Eg: Click the star button, and your account on your home server is automatically subscribed to that repo’s update feed.)

In summary

We should be splitting off github more but the communal nature of open source is harmed by this fracturing of the community, as beneficial as self hosting may be. We need a way to preserve that community in the process and we need to work to make that happen.

Thank you for reading and go forth and spread the good word of git federation!

Eldritch Wager

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:33:03 -0700

Eldritch Wager was made in a week for the brackeys game jam https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-14.

I made this one because I could. I don’t love the balance and level design but the mechanic itself is definitely sound. I just need to refine this and actually make real art, and this is just a game. Wow!

The little tidbit at the beginning was all I had time for narratively, but if I ever finish the thing, I want to make a full 3d environment and metanarrative to the thing.

Feedback is of course welcome.

Current Documents

Monthly Update 2025 August

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:29:35 -0700

Welcome to the august monthly update! We’re a bit late on this one, but not without reason.

Eldritch Wager

I Made a game! The brackeys game jam came around and I ended up decideing to make something simple because I could. Check it out here!

This is generally why I missed the monthly update deadline I’ve set for myself, as I was neck deep in this game jam. (Now I’m neck deep in homework catchup, as uni started last week, but que sera sera).

NixOS

I did it. My arch partition is gone, I’m running NixOS on my laptop, and it’s for the totally insane. I’m in the process of writing up a blog post on it at the moment, but suffice it to say, if you are not totally insane, stick with arch. Arch just works. Trust me. If you are not regular insane enough for arch, stick with mint or some fedora spin. Thank me later.

As for me? I might be clinically insane, because I’m getting things working slowly but surely. NixOS sounds like a straight upgrade from the outside (Namely Arch), but I would caution against this perspective. Rather, there are tradeoffs.

Determinism in system state? Upgrade.
Effortless rollback? Upgrade.
Packaging? Oddly enough, despite the size gap between nixpkgs and the AUR (Nixpkgs unstable is significantly larger by sheer number of packages!), I’ve actually had a more seamless experience on the AUR! Flakes are nice but they’re still experimental and purely community driven, and you can’t yet fully rely on them existing for your project that happens to be absent from nixpkgs. (3dslicer, zen browser, nirius, etc…)
Learning curve? Literal hell. This took me weeks of work, and I don’t think I’m even halfway competent at this operating system.
Literally just running software? Whoa there buddy. You want to run a piece of software? I hope you’re ready to dig through wiki pages for hours to get a working fhs environment. Dependencies? I hardly even know her! (Cooked)
Development? Harder. It’s just harder. Dev containers are definitely a thing, but I’ve had problems testing Niri, as on arch I’d just replace the system version with mine, but on nix you need to figure out a way to package your version somehow… I think.

More ranting to come though.

Federate Git

FEDERATE GIT DO IT DO IT DO IT RAAAAHHHHHHH :3

Website update

I got a huge website update out in which I was able to knock out a whole bunch of quality of life improvements for the website that you can view here. I’m super happy with this though!

Clear Thoughts

I also did a bit of writing, as I felt inspired to do something short to dip my toes back in. Cyberpunk is good, cyberpunk is friend. Check it out here!

Motherboard repair

Tried to fix a motherboard! Unfortunately the debug lights are concerningly not doing light things (completely dark) but I do get board power (pretty RGB) and power on works in at least some capacity (we get fanspin, but no video out). Looking to get a motherboard speaker to see if we’re getting beep codes in any respect. If anyone has any idea what could be happening please please please let me know!

Open source contribs

Godot engine

I’m now working on the official Godot nodeletter! Check out the latst entry here!

If anyone reading has anything they want potentially featured in there, please reach out to kai@fireye.coffee!

Niri WM

Multiple monitor hot corners are functonal! If I have time I’ll see if I can add custom actions on hot corner but As it stands I really just want that PR merged (Yalter notice meeeeee). PR can be found here.

Retrospective

So. You may have noticed a couple things are absent. Oops. First and foremost, Nike’s. I still want to work on it, I just didn’t have the time. Don’t worry it will happen, I will fight god (adhd) to make it happen. Further, I didn’t do enough music this month. Expect more of that going forward. OpenVPN is still T Posing over my sobbing corpse as per usual, and the treehouse did not progress at all. Cooked.

On the other hand, I did get that website update out, I started working on that motherboard fix, and I embarked on the long painful NixOS journey, so not a total loss!

Plans

Here’s the list:

Nike’s
Treehouse
OpenVPN setup
Motherboard fixing
Music
NixOS Blog post.

Let’s see how I do.

Conclusion

Thanks again for reading, see ya soon!

Clear Thoughts

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 23:44:35 -0700

Content

Wrote a new cyberpunk short story called Clear Thoughts.

Clear Thoughts

Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Man I’m bored.

So bored.

Ah shit, you’ve gone and stepped in a puddle, great job, ya gonk. Now your socks are wet.

Why the hell is it even rainy, anyway?

Those dumbasses at Auracorp aren’t doing their damn jobs.

Ugh, squish, squish, squish, Ick, Ick, Ick.

God I can’t with these damn socks.

I’ll take em off at the stop.

…

Bored!

Bored, Bored, Bored!

Bororororeedddddd.

Boooooorrrrrrr–

Oh hey wait Mac said they were headed to the ripperdoc yesterday; I should check in to see how they’re doing.

Ah shit, right, my fucking HUD is gone, great.

Fuck this HUD upgrade, man I thought it would be easy.

One day without your HUD, how hard could it be?

Pretty damn hard as it turns out. Preem.

Shoulda gone for that loaner HUD, cheap ass gonk.

How did people even survive without HUDs back in the day, my god.

…

Thank goodnesss those socks are off, ugh.

Did people back in the day just sit at train stations and… do nothing?

Like, everyone’s on their HUD and I’m just… sitting here.

Awkwardly.

Real awkwardly.

Ugh make it stop.

Oh shit I zoned out staring at them didn’t I– oh shit oh shit did they notice? oh where do I look.. NO DON’T LOOK BACK AT THEM IDIOT! WHERE’S THE TRAIN ALREADY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.

…

Guess what? Still bored.

bored bored bored

So bored that the word bored is starting to mean nothing.

bored.

board.

browed.

broad.

borrowed.

I wonder how the word bored became a thing.

Like what’s the history behind bored.

barred.

brine.

bork.

Oh hey train’s here… finally.

What a day.

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever gone this far in the day without hearing the news one way or another.

Honestly in a really weird way, it’s kinda relaxing.

And now I have a categorical list of slant rhymes for “bored” in my brain for some reason.

Are those even slant rhymes?

Maybe I should write a rock song.

Ditch this cushy corpo job, get out there, and live life.

Learn Guitar.

Hit the stage.

What do musicians sing about?

Usually their favorite kinda soda or something like that.

That sounds… fine?

Maybe?

I think?

I guess I don’t really know.

Well, can I sing about other stuff?

Is that allowed?

Do I know any musicians that do that?

Hmmm…

Dad used to listen to a girl that sung about other stuff when I was a kid I think.

What was her name?

Lightning J or something silly like that.

I should have a cool rock name.

Something like chrome eyeball… no.

Ripper axe… no.

Eh, I’ll workshop it.

But yeah, what did she sing about again?

Something about corpos this capitalism that.

I don’t think she liked corpos much.

Which is silly, I mean, how would anyone survive without the corps.

Like if you don’t get a corpo job the streets would eat you alive.

Corps are necessary.

.. right?

I mean… Nomads do perfectly fine without corps.

But they steal stuff from the corps, if we didn’t have corps they wouldn’t be able to survive either.

Ok then case closed, corps are good.

.. But mac’s brother did get his skull exploded back in march because he got promoted to counterintel.

Like the world is definitely not better off for him… Or for his loved ones for that matter.

Poor mac. I hope they’re doing better.

I should reach out… Ah shit, yep no HUD, that’s right.

Well, as a mental excersise, let’s just see if we can create a world that exists without corps and we can compare it to what we have now.

So, let’s start by—

FUCK

FUCK FUCK FUCK!

I’m missing it! Shit! Where’s my HUD when I need it? Damn it!

Everyone’s getting the fucking points but me!

Why is the ONE GODDAMN DAY I don’t have my HUD, they show a rare ad on the train?!

I bet it’s for some hot new chrome or something too, damn lucky bastards!

Gahhh aaaand this is my stop.

How did people even survive without HUDs back in the day, my god.

Big Ol Update

Sun, 10 Aug 2025 17:38:26 -0700

Fixes

Fixed an odd spacing bug on mobile
Reorganized link order (blog over projects)
Removes word count from projects for clutter cleanup

Features

Added TODO list here! Automatically assembles itself from this repo’s github issues via REST API call.
- Also auto sorts itself from issue tags
Split off neighborhood section from my about page. It now lives here!
Added full guestbook page so full guestbook history can be viewed. Does not yet support pagination, but it is planned.
Added rainbow links because I can :3

Backend Updates

Guestbook entries are now length restricted; Name and website are max 50 characters and message is capped at 250.
Guestbook now implements rate limits to observe backend good practice.
Regular use of the backend should not be significantly impacted by the above safety measures, please inform me ASAP if they are causing problems.
Newsletter now supports music! (I architectured that thing like a beast! Just had to tweak my database and frontend and it just worked!!)

July Mothly Update

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:56:07 -0700

Content

Features

Game Devs Together, my new game developer focused webring, finally launched! Check it out here!

Monthly Update 2025 July

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 15:51:47 -0700

Hello and welcome back to my monthly update series! It actually has a publishing cadence so I actually released a sequel! Wow! I’m getting good at this “doing things” stuff!

Alright, let’s go ahead and kick things off.

Game Developers Together

I finally got the juice to go ahead and finish my webring! I started this months ago and rediscovered the repo a couple weeks back, so I decided to get it working! It took me about a weekend or so, but it’s up and running at gdt.fireye.coffee, and you can read my announcement blog post on it here. We’re open for applications, baby!

Nike’s House

Work is progressing steadily, but slowly on nike’s. I wrote a couple solid paths, but I’m not fully happy with the character voices that I put down so I may have to do some significant editing later on. Further, there’s some personality in this game that’s starting to shine through, especially in flynn’s dialogue options that I’m presenting to the player that I’m starting to like quite a bit. Unfortunately, leaning into this further than I already have would require some nontrivial rewrites in act 1 that I don’t necessarily want to commit to, however the disco elysium vibes of these new options is really calling to me like the green goblin mask. Still, I think I want to keep the scope creep to a minimum and keep focusing on the writing. I hope to start up some local writing groups in which I can share what I have with other writers to get feedback on what I have and points of improvement.

However speaking of nike’s let’s move on to:

Open source contribs

Godot dialogue manager

I think i’ve well and truly got the bug; I was writing for nike’s the other day and ended up finding a bug in godot dialogue manager, which I found a workaround for… then promptly ignored, opting to dive straight into the plugin’s source code fixing the bug itself. I made a few other contributions to godot dialogue manager as well, most of them C# oriented.

Godot engine

I continued testing godot PRs for regressions and reproductions. I don’t have any experience with C++, so as a way of getting familiar with the engine source code I figured I’d do some simple testing labour. I poked around in there a bit and tried to fix a bug in custom resource resolution, but C++ just isn’t my cup of tea. I do want to keep contributing to godot though, so I reckon I’ll go ahead and learn it anyway, It’ll just take a bit longer than I’d like.

Niri WM

Niri has been amazing, and I’ve loved using it so much that I’ve started to actively contribute to the project. Yalter, the maintainer, looks a bit cooked in terms of their spare time, which is a shame, however I can only see the project going good places, given they have the capacity to review people’s PRs in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve already submitted one adding a much needed update to hot corners and have fixed another PR’s failing testcases, and I’m hoping to expand the hot corners to per-monitor hot corners, when I have time.

Rust

Further, Niri is written in rust. Oh boy do I looooove rust. I hadn’t written rust before this but the level of control it provides at the level of simplicity that it sits at is simply unprecedented. Cargo is immaculate, and the tracebacks it gives me are better than even those of python, which is absolutely bonkers. I will be writing more rust in the future. Rust is good, rust is friend.

NixOS

It is getting more and more appealing to switch to nixOS as the days go by. It makes the hassle of sysadmin so much more streamlined, and especially when I have two systems to manage, I do NOT want to have to manage two different systems with different environments. And I won’t have to ever worry about debugging on a half functional system anymore! Nix just solves everything! The work involved in switching is large though, and I’m not totally convinced that home-manager is a good idea. This is probably because I don’t know how it works, however as far as I can tell, it needs all of its options to be manually programmed into it, which is already iffy, and only gets worse the closer someone is to the bleeding edge. If a program I use has an option that I want to toggle, but it isn’t in home manager, do I need a dotfile again? If so, now the entire benefit of home manager is busted! More research is forthcoming, but I’ll keep y’all updated :3

Pirate TTRPG

I’ve started casually working on a little pirate themed TTRPG with a friend. It’s still in early stages, so I haven’t even made a project for it yet on here, but stay tuned!

Music

I started doing actual music recording in july! You can find some of the little things I’ve put out here, but I’m hoping to do longer and longer releases as I go on. I’ve been playing around with synths, guitar effects, and I even bought myself an actual pedal the other day. Stay tuned here as well, as I have some stuff in the works that I like quite a bit.

Spire

I started a campaign of Spire this month! I’m hoping to use it to get a better grip on the system and take that forward into my other designs, but also to tell a good story. I also just want to take this second to reiterate the sheer importance of safety tools and of good communication at your tables. As I wrote in my treehouse game:

Your priority is to your friendship with these people, not to the text of this document!

Remember that y’all are doing this, as friends, for fun. If your friends are not having fun, you have failed at games. People say you can’t win or lose TTRPGs; I disagree.

You win TTRPGs by successfully scheduling sessions.

You lose TTRPGs by disregarding the enjoyment, safety, and wellbeing of your actual friends in favor of literally anything else.

Climbing

I’m weak! I can barely climb a 5.11c without getting gassed! This must be remedied. I will be hitting the gym much more frequently next month and maybe socialize with people for once.

Art & Literature

Burning Chrome, William Gibson

I read through more of William Gibson’s burning chrome and it was quite good. I might want to expand the website to allow me to share my favorite media with visitors, but for now, I definitely reccommend giving gibson a read if you are a fan of cyberpunk themes (hypercapitalism, baby). One of the stories I read this month had a beautiful ending that really landed quite well. It said a lot about how we as humans perceive ourselves and expect ourselves to operate on a social stage. Beautifully thought provoking stuff!

Mythic Bastionland, Chris McDowall

This is a beautifully crafted, short and to the point, TTRPG system about knights. It has 21 pages of precise rules, including one page on aging that makes the system truly unique as far as I’ve seen, and then proceeds to list a series of knights, seers, and quests for over 200 pages thereafter. Despite being short, this system looks unfathomably robust, and I can’t wait to play it.

Plans

Alright. I didn’t do great on last month’s plans, only getting around to 1 of the 3 goals I set: That openVPN server is mean, and I completely forgot to update the website, past supporting music publishing.

Nonetheless, I’d still like to get around to both of those things (self-hosted OpenVPN setup, and website updates), as well as continuing work on nike’s. I’d also like to do a bit on the treehouse, as that system still needs love, and I can feel it getting close to completion.

Further I might start getting more into electronics repair; I have my LGA1700 test bench and I’ve already ordered a broken motherboard that I hope to try and fix back up.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! I hope to continue doing these, as they serve as great reminders for how I spend my spare time, and what I choose to use it on. The class is definitely eating a lot of the time that I’d be using for stuff like this but I’m still managing to get stuff in. Regardless, I hope you have a great day, and I hope to see you next time. Vaya con queso!

Game Devs Together

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 19:37:19 -0700

TLDR

Hi! I made a webring! An OPEN SOURCE webring! If you’re a gamedev with a personal website, you can join it here!

What is it?

The quick one-liner is that GDT is an open source indie web style webring for game developers who run personal websites.

Like a normal webring it serves to connect indie websites to each other without reliance on a conventional search engines. It focuses its scope in a bit more than many conventional webrings (specifically to just game developers) in order to hopefully provide a more curated experience for the indie web surfer who might be interested in finding more indie games and game developers to follow.

More importantly though, this also allows the community to focus itself and become a lot more useful to its members. Right now, I’ve set up a forum where people can talk, and I’ve intentionally kept it open as a resource for all game developers and aspiring game developers to come in and chat, not just the ones with websites.

Ideally, once GDT grows a bit, I’m hoping to see if the community can tackle a community project or two, taking advantage of the group’s open source nature, but till then I’ll be hanging out.

I’m hoping to go advertise it in a few other indie web forums and areas to hopefully gain some kind of critical mass or initial userbase, but who knows haha.

Melody

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:24:36 -0700

Content

Added Fingerpick-Melody-Demo.ogg

Fixes

Optimized page order in nav menus (but for real this time, trust)

Music

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 13:06:54 -0700

Content

Added Shitty-jazz.ogg

Fixes

Optimized page order in nav menus

Features

Added new music page with full subsection status.
Added a couple new buttons to friendly sites here!

Monthly Update

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 23:56:28 -0700

Content

Added a new Monthly update which should get sequels every month going forward
Added Treehouse TTRPG
Added an old post on star citizen’s survival mechanics (I wrote it a while back, refer to the monthly update for why)

Treehouse

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 18:31:19 -0700

Imagine a modern setting but focused on the PCs in a treehouse where each characters’ troubles, flaws and vices are represented as “classes”.

Current progress

Feature-wise it’s mostly there, with a few additions and tweaks here and there, but content-wise, it’s a barren wasteland, which is somewhat terrifying. I reckon the bread and butter of the game will be each flaw, vice, and trouble’s interaction with the rules, as each will have deep integration with the systems at play and I can’t wait to see how the dynamics play out. Gotta make it exist first though haha.

If you want to read what currently exists, check out the github below, and please don’t hesitate to provide any feedback you might have.

Current Documents

Monthly Update June 2025

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 17:31:29 -0700

Hello! Welcome to my monthly update for June (happy pride :3)! This being the first of its kind, allow me to explain what exactly I plan to do with this series.

See, I’m always working on things. However, these things very rarely see the light of day, complete or otherwise, so to the outside observer, it appears that I am doing nothing, which is a shame! Further, publicly summarizing my activities and setting goals for the next month allows me to hold myself to some sort of standard and thus do more things. Planning and visualizing the future is also really good for me in terms of ADHD, and being accountable to the internet to do so is a great way to make sure it happens.

TLDR: It’s a summary of what I did this month and what I plan to do next month, tied up into a neat retrospective.

So, without further ado, let’s kick it off.

Star citizen survival post

I’m dropping this with a post I’ve had laying around for a bit on survival in star citizen. The reason I didn’t initially release it was that around the time I wrote it the whole blades debacle came up and I just got super depressed about the direction of the project and didn’t want to engage in it as much. These days things have generally improved ever so slightly so I figured what the fuck I might as well just release it. All it was really doing was collecting dust anyway.

Treehouse TTRPG

I spent a lot of June working on “The Treehouse” (learn more here), which is a new TTRPG that I was working on for the “Jam In Silence” Game Jam by possum creek games. I was not able to finish it on time and as such it’s sitting incomplete on my hard drive, but damn is it gonna be good when it’s done! Imagine a modern setting but focused on the PCs in a treehouse where each characters’ troubles, flaws and vices are represented as “classes”. Feature-wise it’s mostly there, with a few additions and tweaks here and there, but content-wise, it’s a barren wasteland, which is somewhat terrifying. Definitely gonna return to this soon though, as I’d love to playtest this one with friends.

Vacation

My first half of june was claimed by a trip to spain, which was a breath of fresh air compared to the ins and outs of life over here. Functional public transport was really nice and the spanish siesta was truly iconic. The sun also goes down around 10 in the afternoon, which does wonders for my sleep schedule, and surprisingly everything is open past 7:15. Wild.

Open source contributions

I also started going down the open source rabbit hole. I did some work on the godot project (nothing major, just regression testing), and generally went out of my way to open tickets, do testing, and work with smarter developers to contribute to any number of random FOSS projects. The highlight reel consists of the embedded game window over wayland in godot, a bug in the xwayland-satellite project, and some work on the niri WM.

Niri

Welp it took me this long to realize that the hyprland maintainer is a bigot. Neat. Time to find a new WM. Enter niri! Niri is awesome! It’s still a bit rough around the edges (It doesn’t support release keybinds yet and scratchpads are sorely missing), however I love it. It took me about a week of literally nothing else, but it’s all set up, and now I can do any single productive thing (please). I’m tracking a lot of issues on its github, and I can’t wait for it to get better.

Nike’s house

It’s still happening! I promise! Treehouse really put a wrench in my progress here, as I wanted to make a TTRPG, and that jam seemed like a great opportunity, however I’ve since sidelined treehouse and I’m back working on nike’s. I’m hoping to get it done by august time, but no promises. There’s a lot more to it than I had hoped but I’ve made some steady progress.

I added an event tracker so the game can keep track of what you’ve said and which paths you’ve gone down, as well as a few api tweaks so that when I sit back down to do more writing I can make more tweaks to the gameplay from within the dialogue. I also cooked on a bit of dialogue and plot structure stuff but I’m not locked into anything specifically so I won’t drop anything specific here in case I happen to change my mind haha.

Disco elysium

In less productive news, I have played disco elysium to completion! My goodness that was good. I will be referencing it on a regular basis going forward. Long live tequila sunset.

In all seriousness it really gave me a deeper appreciation for the writing that goes into games, especially branching ones where people cannot ever be expected to experience every line of dialogue that the designers sweat over. It’s really a beautiful thing to bash your head in weaving a web of narrative that leads to a conclusion that can be experienced from all angles. Some things may be done out of order, others might not be done at all, and as a designer you have to account for all of it and still make sure the story remains coherent. You also have to provide multiple ways of going from point A to point B and make it all flow which is a mind boggling amount of work to do. It’s genuinely awe inspiring. The game is beautiful, and I’d urge you to give it a play (though maybe obtain it though alternative means as the game and related IP has been regrettably stolen from its original creators). Also, ironically, some of the most nuanced political discussion I’ve ever seen online (which isn’t saying a lot) has come from the disco elysium community, which is hilarious to me.

I killed all my social media too. I’ve kept youtube around in a limited capacity (30 minute daily cap, and I’ve limited it to just the subscriptions page), but everything else is dead, discord included. RSS feeds are so goated. Here’s a neat rule you can use to determine if you’re in too deep though: If you’re checking your phone like it’s a skinner box that dispenses dopamine at irregular intervals, it’s time to stop and re-evaluate your relationship with the thing.

It’s horrifying to think that I got in too deep despite knowing and working against a lot of the psychological tricks that social media companies use to cultivate addictive patterns. If I got sucked in that far, what about joe schmoe who just uses instagram or tik tok, or any alternative on a daily basis. How many hours are lost to just watching noise that will be forgotten in a matter of minutes. Staring into the static just to emerge on the other end no better than when you started, just more exhausted. It’s a depressing image.

I don’t want people reading this and thinking I hate all social media. I don’t. I think it has the capacity to do a lot of good. It’s just run by evil people and also mark zuckerberg (who is also evil but definitely not a person), and is handcrafted to turn your time and attention into profit through manufactured addiction.

I personally don’t have the capacity to make sure I’m using everything mindfully so I’ve cut it all off. Youtube is on thin ice, but youtube revanced (which i heavily recommend), an application timer, and the unhook browser plugin have made it manageable. I’d also urge everyone reading to look at your own use and make sure it’s done with your own consent. In other words, would you benefit from this time more if you sat down and watched a video, scrolled a feed, etc…, or rather got up and called a friend, climbed a tree, did some creative work, played some music, or anything else. It’s a really good practice to ask yourself that every time you whip out your phone to scroll and if you can’t then maybe consider deleting some apps.

Anyway I’m not your parent; I’ll get down off this soap box and get back to the meat and potatoes.

Plans

Alright, what are we doing in july?

Well, I’m planning a few updates on the website, as well as some extra content here, as it’s been awhile since I gave fireye.coffee some love. That integrated todo list looks really good, as I keep my todolist on github issues constantly up to date, so I’d love to figure out some sort of backend that translates that into raw HTML, and can natively display it for people here.

Further, I’m of course going to be working more on nike’s house. I should probably stop with the tools work and just get to writing, as I could work on tools forever (I love tool (the band too)). Expect an update on that sometime this month. If you don’t see one, email me yelling about it.

I’m also messing around with self hosting stuff and fucking christ I’ve tried to set up this openvpn server at least 5 times now and it still doesn’t work. It’s a distinct skill issue and even if I do set it up I reckon I’ll be hacked almost immediately due to further skill issues, but we’ll take those battles as they come. I just love the idea of homelabbing so much, so I’ll bang my head on this as much as I need to to get it working.

I also have a summer class starting up soonish so I might be a bit more cooked on time than I have been recently which sucks, but eh que sera sera. I’ll live.

Conclusion

Alright that’s all I got for y’all. This was already a couple days late, so sorry about that. I’ll try to keep these up though as they keep me accountable and help me track my actual goals, and if anyone happens to care then hooray! Regardless, I hope you have a great day, and thanks for reading. vaya con queso!

Star Citizen- On Survival

Mon, 05 May 2025 17:24:31 -0700

I know what you’re probably thinking: Oh great, another star citizen rant! When will this idiot shut up about their silly space game? Well the answer is almost certainly not now!

I saw a neat video the other day, discussing the concept of survival in star citizen, and while I am about as excited as the creator of said video about the prospect of survival in star citizen, I do think a lot of that video got caught up in the excitement of the “what ifs.” It failed to consider any of the factors of actually making a video game that would go into making this eventuality occur, nor did it take any real stance on the design/ implementation of these factors. Instead it settled for a vague starry eyed vision of survival, which while fun to envision, communicates nothing of substance, and is firmly unrealistic.

So here’s my response in an attempt to remedy that. This is not a dig at the creator nor the video; I actually quite enjoyed the thing and it spurred a lot of thought, which i’m very grateful for. The goal of this is rather to maintain a certain amount of suspense of disbelief, but to use it more productively, at least in my perspective. On with it then.

Survival is mandatory

Star citizen is a game that feeds its immersion above all else, likely as a core design intention. I can tell many people in the community dislike this part of the game, as many disliked Arthur’s sluggish movement and lengthy animations in RDR2. In immersive games, this friction is a feature, not a bug. I will concede that there is a “sweet spot” where this friction is substantive enough to fully immerse a player but isn’t too much to cause them to waste vast amounts of time, but that friction can and should exist in games whose goal it is to immerse players, such as in SC.

A core aspect of that kind of immersion is survival. Nobody wants to take time to feed themselves or drink water, but needing to do so creates so much interesting gameplay if used correctly (which I’ll get into later). That’s why I think star citizen is only going to lean more into this survival gameplay; they’ve already implemented the foundation, they just need to play off it. That said there are a few various aspects of survival each with various levels of feasibility:

Aspects of survival

Let’s take a look at what comprises survival, at least in my eyes, and see where it can neatly slot into star citizen.

Food and drink

We already have this! Yay! However, it provides so little depth that my game developer soul weeps when looking at it. Right now, all it does is mandates you grab some food when you leave a station or city and that you need to return to stations and cities regularly enough to restock. All that you’d need to do to make it overwhelmingly better is add edible meat to fauna and add edible flora if you don’t want to deal with the whole “meat needs to be cooked” thing, and allow people to refill water bottles at rivers, or just to directly drink out of rivers.

This is generally not the most complicated thing to add, though I’m not certain how high fidelity these functions need to be to be pushed to live, so I won’t make any strong assumptions regarding the planet tech that governs the utility of the rivers, nor the animal/plant loot systems which could provide that food. From what I can tell from what we’re seeing released at the moment, it looks like the animal loot systems are being used the most, so that would likely be the easiest avenue for this, as depending on their backend it could be as simple as adding a new loot item (which does involve adding assets and modifying fauna models) and toggling on a theoretical boolean “edible” flag. Admittedly it could be a lot more complicated depending on their implementation though so, again, the term “easy” is very easy to fling around when you don’t know the systems.

Regardless, what this addition would provide is an avenue to actually explore and engage with the beautiful planets that CIG have designed, as at the moment, why would you ever land on any non-POI part of a planet? Adding interactable rivers and edible flora/ fauna that feed into the extant survival systems, would draw players running low on hunger/ thirst to the surface, searching for sustenance. Low flying over microtech, looking around for a good river when you’re close to death, then hopping back into a mission as opposed to jumping all the way back to a station would prove much more time friendly, immersive, and enjoyable.

Crafting

We can’t talk about survival without mentioning the elephant in the room: crafting. Pretty much every survival game includes some form of the thing, as the basis of survival is the capacity to take natural resources and use them to create more advanced tools and resources, which then loops ad-nauseum. Star citizen’s current plans for crafting are more industrial and grand scale than many other survival games, but I do think there’s still both demand and capacity for smaller scale crafting, as would feature in an early game survival loop. If we look at how satisfactory navigates the small -> large scale crafting, we see the usage of a crafting bench that allows simple crafting mechanics, which enable further development, then the game directs you to automate this lengthy manual crafting, by pushing you to larger scale crafting.

I think star citizen could definitely benefit from this model of splitting the crafting system by size and scale, the smallest subsection of which could simply be a multitool attachment. That way when your ship has soft death-ed on a planet you have the capacity to gather natural resources and craft them into usable tools, or hacky replacement parts to ideally get your ship to limp back to civilization without having to phone support or off yourself and come back later. Ideally both of these options, (the latter especially), are properly de-incentivised in later, more stable versions of the game, though I don’t think phoning help is ever going to not exist. Like you can cut off in game comms to global chat and any other local systems, but at a base level, you can’t stop people from whipping out their phone and texting a friend or an org to bail them out, as immersion breaking as that might be.

I don’t, however, see the workarounds as a reason to just give up on any of these systems. The natural storytelling that these systems will afford are just too rich to pass up, in my opinion. Having a little multitool crafter, and allowing you to just build your way up to a building, or getting a broken ship back up and running despite nature’s attempts to the contrary are the stuff of stories you tell even after you set the game down. The zero to hero’s with this system in place would also be vastly cooler too lmao.

The loop here is pretty crazy as far as scope goes though. Giving crafting capacity to a multitool is an incredibly tall order though, and integrating all the collectables for this loop in planet gen isn’t gonna be easy. Luckily it looks like they’re already on the FPS scanning feature, which would be really helpful when searching for requisite resources, but overall this is a big endeavor, and I really doubt it’ll be in anytime before 2030 (which is why we suspended some disbelief above). The only reason I bring it up is that CIG seems to already be making a crafting system and thus could build micro-scale crafting into the spec from the beginning, which usually bodes better than tacking things on post-implementation. I do hope they’ve taken survival into account in their plans though.

Hygiene

This one’s a bit wonky as I don’t think a tier 0 implementation of it is a good idea at all. It’s similar to the issue with food right now: if you just add it without full engagement in the mechanic, you get all the downsides, without any of the upsides. No; It needs to enter the game in a fully fleshed out state. I know many people would be critical of hygiene playing any part in SC whatsoever at any point in time though, and I do want to push back on this. Things like having to use the restroom, sleeping, or regularly showering sound tedious and useless, and in a tier 0 implementation, I completely agree. In such a state they’d only really serve the immersion, and provide more friction to gameplay which is something a lot of SC players grumble about quite a bit.

But looking past that, I could see restroom features becoming useful as a part of farming when that’s added, and sleeping/ cleanliness can contribute to a demand for amenities in ships, cities, bases, and stations, requiring your ship or base supports the above or you face penalties for not properly caring for your character. This pushes demand for ships with these functions, such as the intrepid, which is a pretty bad deal at the moment but could become a much better one, allowing players to sustain themselves for much longer stretches of time than other ships of its class. Bases would also need to accommodate these new demands, which creates further demand for resources to construct the proper facilities, which stimulates the economy.

Conclusion

I look forward to seeing how CIG end up implementing these systems, especially with their being referenced in the recent star citizen live, be John Crewe himself. I just hope they’re done sensibly and at the correct time, as CIG is unfortunately not well known for their capacity to release things smoothly.

Thanks for indulging my long overdue Star Citizen rant post. I have a few ideas for future blog posts cooking, and as I have more time this summer I’ll likely be able to get to at least a few, not to mention a project or two (stay tuned Nike’s House fans, I’ll get that full version out sometime this summer even if it kills me!) As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day.

Git Article

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 00:21:45 -0700

Content

Added a new article on git

Features

Added new “guide” blog tag

Add New Projects

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 13:19:32 -0700

Content

Added new projects, as I realized I was falling behind!

FOSS Projects

Games

Nike’s House

Godot Multiplayer

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:29:51 -0700

A multiplayer utility library I’m working on with a friend. Inspired Godot CLI Parser.

Current Documents

Github Repo

Nikes House

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:28:45 -0700

A game inspired by emotional depth between friends. Made for ludum dare 57 within a weekend.

Plans

This game will be expanded in the future with plans for

Further sections of the story that allow for greater expression of the Confidence and Reputation mechanics
Full voice acting (to test out https://github.com/Fireye04/godot_audio_manager)
An SFX Pass
Further quality of life fixes

Credits

Kai Koehler- Programming, Writing, Game Design
MelancholyP- Music
Kiana Koehler- Art
Ben Seckeler- Programming

Play Nike's House Itch.io!

Nike's House by Fireye

Current Documents

Godot CLI Parser

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:28:38 -0700

A simple little tool that parses user args and calls custom commands for godot projects. It uses the default CLI tool for godot and simply allows users to define commands that they want end users to have access to, and the plugin takes care of the CLI parsing. It’s super simple at the moment, but I’m hoping to allow it to support more complex command arguments later on. Right now I just made it to allow myself to have a CLI entrypoint to DGS hosting because I don’t want to boot up a game instance and just to run a server. Was initially created for Godot-multiplayer.

Current Documents

Github Repo

Godot Audio Manager

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:28:22 -0700

UPDATE

These features are now included in GDM upstream! GAM is now deprecated

Godot Audio Manager is a fork of Nathan Hoad’s Godot Dialogue Manager that intends to improve the plugin’s audio pipeline.

I really love Godot dialogue manager, but it fell flat when trying to voice act for individual lines of dialogue despite having a pretty straightforward compiler pipeline for data transfer between dialogue files and the game’s runtime. So I made it myself. Now I can drag an audio file that will be transferred to the dialogue bubble at runtime when the line is triggered. There are a few kinks to work out, and I haven’t been able to locate them all through top-level testing, so I’m looking to integrate VA into My Ludum Dare 57 entry, Nike’s House as a way to take the thing for a trial run.

Current Documents

Github Repo

Art Blog

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 13:42:54 -0700

Content

Added blog post on art & the creative process here!

Fixes

Fixed a broken reference on about.html.

Make Bad Art

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 12:56:49 -0700

“Make bad art! Make bad art, make bad art, make bad art!” This is my artist’s mantra. A motto that drives my creative process. And it kinda sucks! Why the hell would I want to make bad art when I could make good art? And what happens in the unlikely event that one of the three AI webscrapers reading this (that probably ignored my site’s robots.txt) thinks the bad art I made is actually good art? Well let’s kick things off with the beret-wearing elephant in the room:

What is art?

My hot take of the day is that art is, at a base level, human expression. This definition is incredibly broad, and it is so intentionally. I’ve heard numerous arguments on the futility of broad definitions, claiming that they rob the word of any utility. I believe that is a mostly factual assessment, but not a helpful one. I’ll come at this from two perspectives: that of the viewer/ player engaging with the piece, and that of the artist, the creator of the piece.

The viewer

From a viewer’s eyes, art is something that evokes feeling, spurs thought, and/or creates meaning for them. However, individuals are an incredibly diverse bunch, both in life experience and in perspective/ personality. I don’t see a reason why any single piece of human expression could not evoke at least one of the above, if not more. Even if the work was not intentionally created as art, if a viewer engages with it as described above, who are we to reject their experience as “not artistic”? In my eyes, that’s needlessly exclusionary. Art should be for everyone, not just those who do it “right.”

The artist

I think it’s worth starting out with another definition. An artist is, pretty simply, one who makes art. On the surface, this is, as stated earlier, pretty useless with the above definition of art in mind. A person who exppresses themselves in some way? Doesn’t this just make basically everyone an artist?

Yes it does! In my eyes, art is something that is almost inherent to one’s humanity. The uno to their xbox, if you will. I think including everyone who wishes to be an artist in the term does something much more profound than be “specific in definition,” or whatever that means. It grants the everyday person the societal permission to create. To express. I’ve heard any number of bunk perfectionist arguments from everyday people that discount their own abilities and capacities, afraid of judgement. “I’m not an artist, I can’t create cool things” they say, almost circularly preculding themselves from exactly that. That’s a damn shame, as every single person who enjoys art is now missing out on another voice contributing to the shared dialogue that permeates the artistic world. In my eyes, we as artists have a direct responsibility to make art more accessible, not less. More open and accomodating, and less pretentious and gatekeepy. Because every single artist benefits from more ideas, opinions and perspectives. Art is derivative and the more we have to draw from, the better.

The birth of an artist

I also want to address how one becomes an artist. Simply speaking, when they fist start out, artists make bad art. A lot of it. And over time, as they make bad art, they hone their skills, and at some point their bad art becomes good art.

This is also vague as shit, but let’s start by clarifying the idea of what “good” art and “bad” art are. A lot of semantics around good and bad art are generally also meaningless as the “quality” of art is inherently subjective, however, humor me here. When people say “I don’t think this is art,” I think it would be more accurate to state “I think this is bad art.” Anyone can have any opinion they wish on any article of creation, so your subjective nullification of what another person may see as an artistic piece, can go both ways, resulting in a generally worthless argument consisting of “Nuh uh!” and “Yuh huh!” being flung back and forth. Simply allowing it to be classified as art avoids the nullification of others’ experiences while also opening up the possibility of a productive dialogue as to the quality of the piece. Enter bad art. I think we can all agree that bad art exists, all i’m arguing is that we dissolve the frankly useless line between bad art and not art.

This is all to say, I believe anyone expressing themselves and creating art, even (and especially) bad art, is an artist. You are likely an artist if you so wish. Now what to do? Bad art.

Go make bad art

I touched on this earlier, but in the creation of bad art, one is able to learn their craft. The benefit of making bad art over good art is that when making bad art, one is able to shed their expectations and standards for what a complete piece of art “should be,” and is freed up to simply create. Those concerned with good art get tied up in standards and polish (which to be clear do have their own merits!), and aren’t able to create as much as those making bad art. In learning, sheer quantity of repetition and practice on broad strokes will teach one far more than a fixation on perfection or quality. And in the long run, with the sheer amount of learning in mind, the bad art you make down the line will be of higher caliber than the good art you might have set out to make in the beginning! In short, go make shit! It’s better to make a finished bad thing than nothing at all.

This mentality is a much more subjective one than the ideas on art I presented earlier in this piece, in that I think it’s perfecftly fine to disagree herein. I’ve found a lot of benefit in this “make bad art” mentality personally with my ADHD ridden executive functioning issues, but one could have an entirely different experience than mine, which is entirely valid.

Caveats

This mentality is shaped with self driven projects and artworks in mind. If you have a job, or a school assignment, you’ll of course be subject to external expectations and standards, and it’s not necessarily bad to learn polishing skills. I’d just give a friendly reminder to do so mindfully, rather than hyperfixate on perfection over creation.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! I hope this article got you to think about art and the creative process, and hopefully just try to make something! Art makes the world better for everyone.

To get notified about future articles, I recently added a newsletter that you can sign up for here, and you can support my creation of future articles like this one via my kofi here. Have an awesome day.

Add Newsletter

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 17:45:15 -0700

Frontend updates

Added Newsletter page!
- New form allows users to opt in to emails if they’re too uncool to not use RSS
Updated other pages to reference newsletter page

Backend Updates

(for nerds)

Added new backend endpoint!
Added support for fronend newsletter form submissions being ingested into my sql database.
Finally figured out that parameterized queries exist!
- Things should be much more secure

Add Guestbook Domain

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 14:12:49 -0700

Updated guestbook to add support for visitors to add their own domain to the guestbook! Sharing is caring.
Redid some backend stuff to support the above change
Redesgned the guestbook input frontend! It looks much prettier now.
add epic message

Licensing

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Added proper licensing to allow.
- open sourcing of website code.
- CC0 licensing for blog posts and stories.
Updated about section to add new digital neighbor.

Date Refactor

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:39:49 -0700

Restrctured the way fireye.coffee handles publish and update dates
- Allows me to more easily sort by most recently updated as opposed to initial publish date, which gets moot real fast.
Added a new blog post! Check it out here!

Memories of Bloob

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A silly little game made for the 2025 global game jam, done in person! It’s veeeery queer.

Check out the devlog I wrote on its most misunderstood mechanic: the quicktime events. Here!

Documents

Github

Play Memories of Bloob Itch.io!

The Memories of Bloob by Fireye, rebornrival, ThatEmmaR.

Wild West TTRPG

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

After hyperfixating on the wild west as a setting, I wanted to play a ttrpg in it. However, it was incredibly difficult to find a good one at the time so I decided to make my own. It was initally very 5e heavy in terms of influence but I’m pivoting away from that in the most recent revision as you can read about in this devlog.

New documents should appear below soon when I am able to make them, and keep an eye out for the next devlog. Yell at me if it takes too long.

Bloob Devlog

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 15:00:37 -0700

After finishing The Memories of bloob and sending it to friends for playtesting, I got a lot of interesting feedback while watching people play through the thing and talk about it afterwards. One of the most interesting pieces of feedback, however, was the general distaste for the Quicktime feature. Let’s talk about it.

On Quicktime

First off, quicktime is old. Not like old old, just regular old. It has a spot in a lot of antequated games as a lazy attempt to engage players during cutscenes, throwing a fail state on failure, then forcing players to restart the whole scene. On the whole, this use of quicktime is generally awful for player experience, and especially so for acessibility.

To be completely clear, this was not the way quicktime was designed in Bloob. The execution was not perfect, the game being made in under a week and all, however, I still think that many players didn’t look past the veneer of a cheap quicktime event and actually engage with bloob’s core message, which I want to try and remedy.

How did Bloob do it?

First off, Bloob is inherently a narrative game. Not reading dialogue is not a good way to enjoy your time with the piece. Bloob was primarily written as something closer to a short story than a jam game, though it does fall under the latter definition and as such is written off as a piece with throwaway dialogue (as many jam games are) by most players, which is a damn shame.

Bloob’s implementation of quicktime was designed with the idea of “pain in the ass, but still more than doable” as the core design intention. The user is prompted to prepare to spam by the system, then is let loose, and spams buttons for 15 seconds or until they lose. Notably, the term “Suppress the memory!” is displayed right below the bar.

Taking advantage of the gamer brain

For some odd reason, the combination of a shrinking green bar getting replaced with bright red and a timer ticking down makes the gamer brain short circut and just spam the prompted buttons. “Winning is good right? I can’t let the bar reach 0, I’ll lose!”

And knowingly or not, the player has just made a decision. Simply doing nothing, and thus not suppressing the memory is within the option sphere, yet players simply don’t even consider it, which is frankly fascinating! But this whole minigame boils down to a simple success/ fail. Did you suppress the memory or not? This naturally leads into the following question:

Why disguise the decision?

The exact same outcome could’ve been reached with a simple dialogue branch. “Do you want to suppress the memory? Yes | No”. Why disguise it behind a weird antequated minigame?

Bloob tells a story of suppression, escapism and refusal to live life, choosing to live in memories instead. When you’re in that headspace you don’t simply decide to stop, to click that “No”. The player shouldn’t have that luxury either. Offering a Yes/ No decision to the player is, in my eyes, antethetical to the entire premise of the game.

Quicktime instead?

On the other hand, the way that a quicktime event hacks the player’s brain works almost too well. On earlier builds of the game, players would just rush through the game without realizing that you could fail a quicktime event! It wasn’t even an option that occurred to them, which is a beautiful paralell to the game’s themes, however I did want the player to realize that something was wrong, so I added dialogue that better flags the idea of something being off, and tried to be more overt in my communication of these themes. Even so, i’m aware that some players just play through it and assume the discrepancies in dialogue and go “huh that was weird” then go on with their day, and I think I’m ok with that.

Final notes

Thanks for reading! I appreciate your time, reading my ramblings on a little thing I made. Have a great day.

Tavern 2

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 11:26:00 -0700

A couple months worth of work so far, tavern 2 is my first long-term project I’ve attempted in quite some time. It’s a game concept rooted in the idea of a stardew-valley-esque tavern management sim with deep relationship and bartering mechanics. At the moment I’m working on a tech demo before I start going public with development, but I plan to get said demo done before the end of August 2024. (cut to me not updating the website post august and getting bullied by the 2 whole ~~visitors~~ bots that notice). You can check granular progress with the link below that I actually keep up to date.

Update:

I have paused the project while waiting for art. It is feature complete, however still requires art and content. The code is available below.

Current doccuments!

Fireye.Coffee (This website!)

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaining to have an official “what is kai doing now” site for a while, but now it’s finally here! I’ll keep working on it as much as I can to get the overall structure up to snuff then I’ll just update the content.

Updates:

morgan freeman voiceover: They would not, in fact, just update content

Current Doccuments

Github repo

Projects Refactor!

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Refactored the Projects page
- It now makes better use of hugo’s static site generation
- It also makes it easier to update down the line
Streamlined new content process
- Via content archetypes to allow for better md autogeneration via hugo command.
Fixed an incorrect prompt that would only appear in longer changelogs

Added Changelog!

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Added this changelog!
Made a site button in aseprite!
Moved neighboring sites section to About.html
Made some changes in hugo that allow more granular control over where the footer is placed
Fixed a bug regarding the rendering of the kofi link at inappropriate screen sizes

Wild West TTRPG System Devlog 1

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Hi! Welcome to my wild west TTPRG’s first devlog! I figured I’d use this blog as a tool to get me thinking about this project again, and if I can share my thought process and inspire others to be creative and make things as well, that’s an added bonus! Please feel free to use the table of contents above to jump around to stuff that you find interesting, as I’m gonna be yapping quite a bit. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Where did we start?

This wild west TTRPG project extravaganza started back when I was playing 5e very regularly (over four years ago, holy hell i’m old). I’ve since curtailed my use of the 5e system to take up playing more independent work to draw from in terms of system structure and approach to design, however the wild west system’s old doccuments that i’ll be picking up are still very rooted in that old 5e-style. It leaned heavily into that moment to moment combat that D&D is well known for and it dealt in minute stat values and to-hit bonuses to weapons and heavy resource management. In other words, I think my digital game design practices crossed with my overwhelming 5e experience to that point resulted in a rather creative, yet bewildering network of systems and ideas that aren’t well suited to the TTRPG medium, or at least to the experiences I want to create with this system. Let’s take a look at what remnants remain and what I want to do with them.

Old docs

Here are the old doccuments if anyone’s interested in looking them over.

Combat

As much as I love the detail and ideas behind my combat mechanics, they were incredibly overcomplicated, and, in fact, the system as a whole actually looked to de-incentivese combat as a core design decisison, so introdicing interesting complexity would draw players to combat (ooo, interesting system! Let’s do more of that!) rather than than the other way around. That’s a direction I intend to maintain from the original doccuments, so (in retrospect) this complexity was completely unwarranted. My goal is to make combat bad. Bad as in “incredibly costly”, not “unfun”. Something that pushes players to look for a nonviolent solution, but still remains a last ditch option in a dire crisis.

I assume many tilt their heads at this decision. The wild west ficiton, after all, is rife with gunslinging, cannons, gatling guns, and shootouts. The heroes running into the fray, firing pistols left and right, and emerging with a couple bruises, ready to do it all again a few more times before sundown. And no doubt there are systems out there that fulfill this fantasy, however, I want mine to be a slight departure from the “shoot first ask questions later” mentality. Or at least make an effort to push players away from such behavior, which in turn, makes it more impactful and meaningful when it does occur. The goal is a harsher combat ruleset, but also a simpler one, to help the game keep its focus on the roleplay and immersion in the setting.

Roleplay

This was actually the least developed part of my old docs, as I intended to finish the combat before moving on but uhhhh… ADHD. However I still have a few ideas for where I want to take it.

First off, I dislike stats, at least as a tool for longer term campaigns. In terms of shorter ones, Mothership, for instance, uses them to great effect. You can run up a character in a matter of minutes and have a great idea of what that character is generally capable of with a quick glance at a few simple numbers. However, in my many years running long campaigns of D&D, stats become stale with time and lock fundamental experiences and mechanics behind walls of numbers. ASI’s really don’t do much to help the problem as a) min-maxing is essentally the default approach to character creation and b) in my experience, people just take feats instead.

Abstracting the player character’s development over the course of the narrative to a basic +2 wherever the player wishes to put it (You killed 32 goblins without saying a word in character to get to level 4 and you’ve suddenly gained two charisma?) is frankly strange in my opinion. It’s an intuitive enough abstraction, but I’d argue in a longer campaign where your character’s current actions need to make a difference down the line, any number of sessions in the future, I refuse to accept that inherent stats and arbitrary bonuses are the best way to do that.

A quick aside

If I can pull the discussion towards my sweet child, red dead redemption two, i’d like to point out the honor system in that game, as I believe that many game developers, digital or otherwise, can learn a thing or two therein. It’s a simple as hell system: Arthur does good things, he gets good points. Bad things get him bad points, which cancel out the good points. And depending on how many points you have, positive or negative, the story changes. This isn’t a new idea, but the important thing is how deeply it’s connected to every single thing in the game’s world. Most actions that Arthur can take when interacting with the world around him will tie into this system, good or bad. Again, and again, and again. Players can no longer act like complete maiacs and murderhobos with complete impunity because they clicked the “i’m a goodie goodie” button on some dialogue a couple times. Is it perfect? Definitely not, (1 human life equating to approximately 3 “hey there, pardner!“s is comedic at best), but we can almost certainly draw from it here.

Specifially, I’m looking at the idea of individual actions contributing to a larger longer term result. As opposed to abstracting these to numbers and having the player choose how those improvements come about, they’re forced to actually do the things that improve them. You get smarter by studying. Stronger by lifting and hitting things. Better at lock picking by lock picking. And there’s an opportunity cost to doing things (as I know very well with the sheer number of hobbies and interests i’ve decided to engage in). These should all contribute to their own skills, without the need for essential stats, which in turn allows the character to evolve over the course of the campaign directly based on how they’re played. The trick is how to implement this simply and thoughtfully. That’ll have to be the focus of another devlog, because honestly, I haven’t figured it out yet, myself! But I’m very excited to give it a crack.

Classes

I’m toying with the idea of removing classes outright. They’re a simple, helpful abstraction to help the player shape their character, but I’m opposed to the idea of fundimentally separating ideas or skills from others. If D&D’s classes are the windows operating system, its navigation bar, desktop environment, notification manager, etc… set up in one specific way for the user, I intend for this system to be akin to a version of Linux, giving the user a much wider breadth of fundimental choice at the cost of some user friendliness. Breaking apart classes into a more general pool of available skills, potentially with reccomendations to create common character archetypes, but affording the player the choice and flexibility to create a truly dynamic, unique character. Again, more on this to come.

Dice system

Here’s the kicker. I’m still up in the air about what kind of dice system I want to use! Woe is me! The original was d20 based and was calculus hell. That’s something to move away from. But towards what? PbtE is too crude for my purposes (As much as I adore it). Spire’s d10 pooling system is much closer to something that I like for this purpose but it doesn’t feel quite there just yet, at least for this system. (It kicks some major ass in both spire and heart, though.) The next article is likely going to be focused on my decision process here, as a good dice system will make or break this game, and I need to think for a good long while about what direction I should take with it.

Final Notes

And with that, our short time together is up. Assuming anyone is, in fact, reading this. If you are, and you aren’t a webscraper, thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. And with that, I receed back into my world of dice probability calculators and balatro. Have an amazing day, and I’ll see you next time!

Whatever it takes

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The mood at the docks was in the damn garbage. The dreary, rainy ambiance usually never helped the matter, but the Wednesday shipment had been delayed- again- and we were all stuck tryna figure out how to find the scrip to live another day without work. The more industrious among us set out looking for another job, those with a bit of scrip remaining found themselves, willing or not, in the company tavern, and those who remained wandered the streets thinking about death.

Me and my buddy Sven were of the latter group, having made our way to the pier out of sheer habit. Our walk was a silent one, however as we sat at the end of the pier, he broke the silence. “Ya reckon it’s better to make a difference as a devil or be forgotten a saint?” These kinds of questions weren’t incredibly uncommon for the man; his unkempt beard and generally dirty appearance concealed an introspective mind. I looked out over the ocean, thinking. A moment passed, the waves lapping at the poles far below us.

“I’d opt to make a difference, easy. I’d wager everyone round these parts has opted for the latter though." I finally replied. “Living peacefully by the rules, offing themselves like good dogs when the company no longer needs them.” I spat bitterly off the edge, the droplet suspending itself in air before being taken by gravity and pulled down down down into the depths of the ocean, like the many friends, siblings, and parents before it. We gave the thought a moment of silence. Sven’s face held a melancholy smile at the irony of the thought.

“We remember them don’t we?” Asked sven, his eyes on the water.

“Indeed we do, but not because they changed anything ‘round here. I want to be remembered for having done something. Made a difference.” I looked out at the line of docked ships in the cloudy harbor as Sven pondered my comment. In the nearest one, I could make out a person moving about on deck. A pirate. Or at least the conventional image of one, complete with a Tripoint hat, an Eye patch, and a bottle of rum. We made eye contact. The pirate smiled, winked, and disappeared below deck without a further word.

“Doing somethin’ and makin’ a difference demand a heavy price.” Sven replied, jarring me back to the conversation. “Why not just live yer life?”

“There ain’t no devil popping out of the floorboards, but if there were, i’d give it whatever damn thing it asked for. I ain’t going out like the rest of ’em.” I laid back on the hardwood.

“Ah, but you’re still going out, aintcha?” Sven smiled a toothy grin. Lightning struck nearby and for an instant his grinning skull was illuminated through his skin like something right out of a horror story told to children to keep them away from the harbor. “And yet there still be worse things than death”

“Like what?”

“Losin’ yerself”

I laughed. “Then so be it. That would be no great tragedy.” Sven gave me a concerned look, but said nothing. We were silent for a while. A raven flew overhead, heralding the first droplet of rain on my face. I sat up. “Reckon I should hit the sack. With any luck the shipment will be in tomorrow and we can get the scrip for a good meal, for once.”

“One can dream,” Sven said as we moved to shelter. “Hey” he paused. “I got this cousin, see, and he’s wrapped up in some shit. But if you really need the scrip, he said he had a job.”

“A job?”

“Remember that devil in the floorboards?” He pulled out a stark white business card, and held it out to me. The bright rectangle was wedged between Sven’s grubby fingers, set in front of the dark grays, browns and blues of the docks. It felt alien, like something from another world. I felt my hand reach out and take it. He grabbed my hand. “Promise me ye won’t let it change ye.” His dark eyes were locked with mine, an ocean of regret hidden behind them.

“Of course, Sven” I replied, a little frazzled. That was a lot even from him. Sven nodded, let go of my hand, put his hands in his pockets, and turned to leave.

“Wait” I stopped him. “Why not take the job yourself?” I asked, my mind spinning. He looked back at me with a sad smile.

“Call me naive, but I think I wanna be one of them forgotten. Sounds peaceful.”

After Sven left, I wandered restlessly around the docks. Sven always seemed like the calm and quiet type but would he really bend to the company instead of turning and fighting? It was his prerogative, but the mere thought left a sour taste in my mouth. And the card, what was it? It featured simply a name: ‘Lyra Trenton’, and an address: ‘13 Lakeshore Ave. Harborline Trading, OR’. I always thought it was narcissistic to name the docks after the company, but hey, they ran everything here, so why would they not? Nobody, including Sven in his company-loving way, would ever be caught dead actually calling the docks “Harborline Trading, Oregon”, but that was the name all the same.

I didn’t know Sven had a cousin though. The Lyra woman was a mystery; She shared Sven’s last name: Trenton, so perhaps she was related to the cousin somehow? His wife perhaps? But then why was she on the card? The most interesting part of the card, however, was Lakeshore avenue. The mere thought of the place sent a little shiver down my spine. The neighborhood was located in a part of the docks that had been abandoned for a while, being initially built for the company elites to live while onsite. Partway through its creation, the elites had clearly decided that they’d rather not visit directly and just send subordinates, so the half-built buildings remained that way, an image of decrepit opulence at the heart of the docks.

My thoughts turned back to the card and its implications. “Devil in the floorboards” I muttered to myself as I paced. A smile unconsciously spread across my face. That sounded exciting. Suddenly, I bumped someone, stumbling then falling to the ground; The card, where was it?

“Aye matey, ya dropped something” I whipped around. It was the pirate from earlier, offering me the card. His eyes met mine, carrying a jolt of crazed, powerful energy. I grabbed it.

“Thanks” I said, but he was already on his way.

The next morning I found myself standing outside number 13 Lakeshore, the card clutched in my right hand, surveying the building. It appeared to be the most complete of the buildings around, resembling a small manor. A raven was perched at the top. Only the most desperate of people actually came out to Lakeshore; The place was definitely haunted. Many stories were told of workers getting evicted from the barracks, making their way to Lakeshore to find some shelter then being killed or disappearing in some gruesome way or another. I eyed the raven suspiciously. Was I really desperate enough to take this job? My stomach rumbled as if to answer my question. I hadn’t had the scrip for food last night and had to scrounge for snails. Sometimes I would get lucky and find enough of them to cook over a fire to eat a good meal on the days I’ve run out of scrip, but not yesterday. And definitely not this morning. I had to swipe an apple from the general store, but clearly that wasn’t holding me up as much as i’d hoped. I walked up to the house, eying the raven. Desperate as I was, being in the lakeshore district with this raven wasn’t exactly my preferred way to spend the morning.

The manor door creaked open and the raven was forgotten. An old man, leg in cast, on crutches emerged; I’d seen him around a few times sans crutches, his name was Walter. I wondered what circumstances had brought him here.

“Oi, bugger off!” he said in a gravelly tone.

“Is there a Lyra Trenton at this location?” I asked, holding up the card. His eyes narrowed.

“Who’s asking? He asked.

“Vic Henson. My buddy Sven sent me.” He held out his hand; I handed him the card. He looked at it, at me, then back at it. He nodded.

“Alrite, in ye go.”

The inside of the manor was, as expected, barren. The stairs were incomplete, leading up to a second floor that had collapsed likely years earlier, scattering wood everywhere. Walter navigated the wood expertly with his crutches and I followed. “Hey, where are we going? I’m told there was a job?” I asked as we made our way into the bowels of the house.

“You wanted to see the boss” He smiled a checkered smile, a nonzero number of missing teeth causing gaps that stuck out like a sore thumb. “As fer the job, that’s fer her to decide. Fresh meat always goes through her.”

Fresh meat? Sounds like things are about to get interesting, I thought. My stomach grumbled, clearly having taken the turn of phrase literally. I did my best to ignore it.

Walter and I finally made our way into the study. He grabbed a plank on the wall and pulled it. There was an audible POP and a section of the wall detached, hinging out to reveal a well-lit hallway.

“After ye” Said Walter with a little bow. Through the tunnel I was met with a room with a large table flanked by an array of people arguing. Perhaps one of them was Sven’s cousin. It was odd that Sven didn’t even tell me his name, now that I think about it. Opposite me there sat a throne of sorts, in it a woman of dark hair and sharp eyes studying the table intently. I think I could recall seeing her on a wanted poster somewhere in town a couple years back or so, but couldn’t recall what exactly she had done to warrant a poster. Or where the posters had gone since. She was almost certainly not someone to mess with though. She looked up as I entered.

“Walter. Who’s this?” She said, her speech short and staccato.

“Fresh meat” Said Walter with his trademark checkerboard smile, patting me on the shoulder. She turned to study me, her eyes scanning me up and down. With a jerk, she turned to the group at the table.

“Walter’s in charge while I’m gone” She turned to me. “New guy, follow.” She turned and began walking down the hallway to my left, without waiting for a response; She was used to having orders followed. I jerked out of my half frozen state, and moved to follow her. Out of the corner of my eye, in the corner of the room I saw a flash of movement. The pirate from earlier stood there casually, a bottle of rum to his lips, bottom towards the ceiling. He finished his swig, smiled a toothy grin at me, and raised the bottle in cheers. Who the hell is he? And why does he find me so interesting? I felt the urge to go and talk to him, but the woman was getting further and further away by the instant. I made the split second decision to follow her, dashing to the hallway. I looked back one last time at the pirate. He was, once again, taking a swig from his bottle. I entered the tunnel and he was blocked from view. I spotted the woman entering a room a good ways down the hall. I hurried to catch up.

“Make a habit of fashionable tardiness?” She asked as I entered. I could feel the weighted blanket of a statement suffocate the atmosphere.

“No I do not.” I responded as formally as I could manage.

“Good, this job does not smile favorably on those incapable of following orders.” She sat at another large chair, behind a desk. She gestured that I sit as well. I quickly did so.

“First thing’s first. My name is Lyra. Do you have any idea what you’re signing up for?” Her eye contact was direct and firm.

“No.” I said. “My buddy Sven said he had a cousin here that was looking for hands. It’s my understanding this job may be less than savory?”

“He wasn’t wrong. We’re a resistance force against the company. Working for us will get you maimed, exiled, or killed. Likely all three. You will follow orders or die. The pay is meager, and the work is hell on earth. But, there is a chance, however small, to actually change the way things work around the docks. Whatever it takes.”

I smiled. I liked this woman. “Sounds like my kind of job.” She smiled back.

“Splendid. You’re to talk to Walter for your first task, then report to me upon its completion. Any further questions?” She asked.

“Uhm.. I’d like to speak with Sven’s cousin, do you know where he is?” Her smile shifted to a forced one.

“You’re looking at her.”

Oh shit; Memories came rushing back. Back then Sven and I weren’t super close, and mostly kept silent in our labour. On our way into work, he had spotted one of Lyra’s wanted posters, immediately getting angry at the sight of it. He muttered something about betrayal, and clocked in before I had the chance to ask him about it. When I asked him about it, his response was curt.

“Me fukin cousin lied to me and everyone else fer the matter. He’s a freak, the company wants ‘im dead, and good damn riddance if ye ask me.” I hadn’t pushed it.

When the posters came down we all thought Lyra had died, or been captured by the company. The figure in front of me sternly gesturing to the door indicated that this was a gravely incorrect assumption. The puzzle pieces of that memory had solved themselves but as I moved towards the hallway I realized they simply assembled themselves into moderately larger puzzle pieces, creating further questions from the answers that had just been revealed.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Lyra said, jolting me from my thoughts. “Speak one word of our organization to the company and I will personally ensure the last thing we do is end your miserable life in the most painful way feasible”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” I responded quickly.

“Good.” We arrived, the pirate nowhere to be seen. “I’ll see you shortly.” Lyra said, returning to her spot at the table. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Come weth me” Walter said, gesturing to the door. He led me out of the building, my mind abuzz.

“Hey” I said. “What’s Lyra’s story?” I asked, hoping to put some more puzzle pieces together. Walter paused and scratched his head.

“Well, ye get about two typsa folks here. Me-types and Lyra-types. Me persanally, I had nothin’ left ta lose. Wanted ta give what little I had left to tha cause. Lyra was more forced inta it. If tha company wants ye dead, only way ye can escape is lie down and die or ye can fight. She chose tha latter.” We continued our walk in relative silence.

“What is ly–” He cut me off, placing one of his crutches in front of me.

“However much tha company don’t want ye to think it, lyra is a person. A woman. And the best damn revolutionary i’ve set me eyes on. We’re here ta fight tha company. All of it. Not just the li’le bits we don’t like. If yer not on board, then we don’t want ye.” I raised my hands in surrender.

“I’m in, i’m in!” I said. Walter lowered his crutch and sighed.

“If yer curious, ask ‘er about it.” he said. I nodded; I might. After doing whatever Walter had planned for me. I needed to refocus on the task at hand. I cleared my head as we moved into the town proper.

“That house” he finally said, gesturing to the company building where we got paid. The raven was back again, eerily standing on the roof. I didn’t like that raven. “There’s some papers in it. I need ya to break in and get ‘em. Got a company stamp on ‘em. Get in an get out.” I nodded. “I’ll stand watch, if someone’s a comin’ I’ll scream at the top o’ ma lungs.” I nodded, and made my way up to the rooftop of a nearby building, climbing through the building’s second floor window. I found myself in a study. If the papers were anywhere, they were gonna be here. I started rifling through papers and drawers. This was exciting! Finally I threw open a drawer on the desk and was met with the stamped papers I was looking for. I spotted the name “Silas Blackwell” on them.

“Interesting” I said. I moved to grab them, but spotted something deeper in the drawer: A large heaping bag. Papers forgotten, I reached out and grabbed the bag. Scrip, Wages. My blood chilled, my fingers tingled. This was real. I dropped the bag, my hands shaking. I took a few deep breaths. This was more scrip than I’d ever seen in my entire life. Take it! My brain urged. My hand reached for it once again, stopped by the images of starving workers, friends, me among them, in line waiting for our pay. If I took it, would they get their scrip? Their food? Ha! Not a chance. The company was certainly not above collective punishment, especially where profits were concerned. My face steeled and I reached instead for the papers, tucking them under my arm and sliding the drawer shut.

“That much scrip and yer just leaving it to the company?” asked a voice behind me. I spun around. The pirate. “I thought ye had what it takes to make a difference. Clearly I was wrong.” His dark eyes bore down into me.

“The workers need the scrip” I responded.

“Aye, and what do ye suppose happens when workers don’t get the money they’re promised?”

“They starve?”

“And they get angry. Angry at the company. We can use that” That was annoying; He had a point. “Well what’ll it be? Are ye in it to make a difference or whine about what needs ta get done for that ta happen?” he asked as he walked towards the window. My brow furrowed.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked. He only smiled and leaned backwards, tumbling out of the window and out of view. I dashed to the window. Nothing. A simple alleyway. The raven perched on a nearby roof.

“I don’t like you,” I said to it.

“CAW” it replied.

Walter’s scream pierced the relative silence of the afternoon, scaring the raven away; I had to go. I froze. I had the papers. But the money. I needed to make a decision and I had to make it now.

Walter smiled big when he saw the bag. “What’ve we got here?” He asked.

“Wages” I said with a plastered smile that barely covered how sick to my stomach I felt at the moment.

“Lyra’s gonna love this” He said, grabbing his crutches, and starting down the alley. I looked back at the house, raven perched atop. I narrowed my eyes. The damn thing was starting to piss me off.

And it was just in the drawer?” asked Lyra. I nodded. “They’re getting lazy” she muttered. “Well good on you for taking it. The rebellion needs the funds. You and Walter get a cut for the grab. Good job, newbie.”

“What were the papers?” I asked, suddenly remembering their contents.

“Blackwell’s an up and rising executive in the company.” She said. “Be a good idea to get an idea of what he has planned.” She held up the documents I had stolen. ”And it don’t look good.” She turned from the pile of scrip on the table to me. “I’m on patrol tonight. Usually I have Walter with me, but he’s still recovering from the leg injury.” She handed me a gun. “You in?” I took it.

“I am.”

“Good. 10PM sharp, outside headquarters; Don’t be late.”

Having been excused, I went directly to the local tavern and had a good meal for the first time in what felt like months. As I munched happily on my food, hunger sated at last, my mind began to drift as I glanced around the very empty tavern. I had scrip now. A lot of it. All I had really done with my time, as far as I can remember, is try to get more. To afford food. Rent. What now? My thoughts were interrupted by shouting from the back room. The tavernkeeper, a rounded man with a stout demeanor and glasses emerged, followed by a begging woman.

“I’m sorry, It had to be done.” Said the innkeeper.

“Please, please, please I have a family, sir” She responded, falling to her knees, tears rolling down her cheeks. The tavernkeeper’s trademark stern look shifted into one of deep melancholy. He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Look. Jenny. You’re a great worker; always have been. We just don’t have the scrip to keep everyone on anymore after the company raised prices. I’m sorry.” She nodded slowly, removed her apron and walked wordlessly out the exit.

“Sorry ‘bout that” he said to me, his only customer, angrily wiping away a tear of his own. I nodded at him. He was as much a slave to the company as any of us. This was who I was fighting for. Him. Sven. The woman, Jenny. My brow furrowed as I thought of her. Would she find another job? Or would her family starve like so many others had? The scrip left in my pocket after having paid for food suddenly felt very heavy. I felt myself getting up, and running out of the tavern. I spotted the woman walking in a daze of sorts, I moved towards her, stopped in my tracks by the raven. It stood there, its beady eyes looking into mine. I moved to go around it and it moved in front of me.

“Get out of my way, you stupid bird!” I said. I jumped over it. It cawed, taking to the sky pelting me with pecks as I ran to the woman.

“Hey, miss!” I said. She turned her head slowly. And as quickly as the pecking started, it was gone. “Have this” I said, handing her my coin purse. Her mouth dropped open.

“A… Are you sure?” She stuttered as she looked at it.

“Take it.” She did. She gave me a hug. She thanked me profusely, tears falling freely, and she left. I smiled to myself.

“What do ye think yer doin’” Said the all too recognizable voice of the pirate. I turned and where the raven was a moment before he stood.

“Doing a kindness” I said.

“Aye. It be similar to saying ye be making an island by dropping a handful of sand into the ocean.”

“What does that even mean? Heck, why am I even talking to you, you’re clearly not real.” He only smiled.

“Real, not real, what be the difference? As fer what I mean, ye be about to find out” He gestured behind me. I turned, seeing a mass of bystanders, of all walks of life, most who i’ve seen before in passing, looking at me expectantly. But I had nothing left to give. In a collective wail of anguish my personal hell began.

I sat at the harbor, my head in my hands. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The amount of pain and suffering. The begging. The tears. The anger. It had to stop. I had to make it stop. I heard the flapping of wings.

“Don’t worry,” I said to the pirate before he could say anything. “I get it now.” A calloused hand reached down. I took it.

“Whatever it takes?” Asked the pirate, helping me to my feet.

“Whatever it takes.” I said through gritted teeth.

I was early. The raven was there, however. “I think I’ll name you Edgar,” I told it. It nodded, seemingly satisfied with the name.

“Who’re you talking to?” Asked Lyra behind me. I jumped slightly and turned to face her.

“Oh, hey. Just having my daily banter with my raven,” I gestured at the raven.

“What raven?”

“Tha…” Edgar was gone.

“For both our sakes, I’m going to assume that was a joke. Follow.” I did. I guess that confirmed that Edgar wasn’t real. Not that I was very concerned about it. As the pirate had said earlier, the barrier between real and not real didn’t matter, at least when there were bigger problems to be concerned with.

We followed a short route around the Lakeshore area. About a half hour in, we spotted what looked like a fire inside one of the nearby houses. Lyra signaled to move in and check it out. We did so, gradually picking up the sounds of conversation as we moved closer. Observing the scene, we saw a small group of maybe ten people all appearing to be in their late teens, talking around the fire. Lyra made a dismissive gesture, and signaled to leave. I nodded, and began to move out. Edgar fluttered from the black night onto a nearby rafter. My eyes narrowed. He was warning us of something.

“Hey!” A voice rang out. “We got intruders!” A girl in the group was standing, pointing directly at Lyra.

“Shit” lyra cursed under her breath. She stood, her hands in the air. “Sorry I didn’t intend to alarm you, I was just leaving.”

“Leaving?” Asked one of the others, standing up. “Not so fast. Why come here alone, lady? You spying on us?” The others stood as well, a couple of them hefting blunt objects.

“No, not at all. I was simply wandering the area alone and happened to see your camp. My curiosity got the better of me, I apologize” I picked up on her subtle hints: They didn’t know I was there. I was her ace if the situation were to take a turn for the worse. I drew my gun, its cold steel on my skin pulled my focus like a sharp pinch. I held my breath; The moment of silence seemed to stretch on and on, punctuated by my heartbeats.

“Alright lady, walk away. I got my eye on you.” Said the lead one at last. I let out a little sigh of relief.

“Thank you. Apologies for the interruption” Said Lyra, lowering her hands and turning to leave.

“Ey! She looks like that thing on those wanted posters that were up a couple years back!” Exclaimed one of them. “ There’s ten thousand scrip on your head, lady, or whatever you are!” The leader’s eyes lit up. My heart sank; I could tell he wasn’t going to let ten thousand scrip saunter out of his camp if he had anything to say about it. My vision began to blur. What the hell? I felt my heart beating. I tried moving. No effect. Damn it! Why must my body fail me when I need it?! My eyes watered as I tried to escape the chrysalis of my own flesh.

“On second thought, you’re staying right here” The leader said.

“That was two years ago, you won’t get any money today, I assure you.” Lyra said, turning around.

“We’ll take that up with the sheriff” Said the leader, drawing a gun of his own. Out of my peripheral vision, Edgar fluttered down, his form morphing into a figure. The pirate. He placed a hand on my shoulder as Lyra continued to argue.

“It be coming down to ye” Said the pirate, centering himself in my vision. “Ye can do this. Breathe, matey.” His surprisingly calm voice soaked into my brain almost infectiously. I took a deep breath. Then let it out. I could move again. “Good.” He said “NOW GIVE THEM HELL” I leapt out of cover with a scream. The world went black.

I came to, standing, gun in hand, limp bodies strewn about. Blood was everywhere. I had a bullet hole in my right calf and bruises all around my body. I puked. “Well done, me hearty!” I felt the pirate’s hand on my back. “Ye really do have it in ye!” I stood back up, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. I turned to respond.

“M..Monster!” One of them had crawled into a sitting position, leg clearly broken, bleeding from a bullet hole in his abdomen. Tears ran freely down his face. “They’re.. all… dead”

“Looks like we have us a straggler!” Said the pirate, striding over to him. He looked me in the eye. “Whatever it takes.” He said. I knew what he meant. Survivors would rat us out. No stragglers should survive. I walked up to the straggler. He was just a kid. No older than twenty. None of them were. I felt the tug from my stomach again, but forced it down.

“Whatever it takes.” I said, my hands trembling.

The gunshot echoed for a second before the night’s silence set in again. The kid’s body went limp, a bullet hole, my bullet hole straight between his eyes. I saw the life drain from them, hopes, dreams, futures dulled into a dark glaze on a thousand yard stare, before disappearing entirely, then his body fell down down down, crumpling in a motionless pile on the ground. Edgar landed on my shoulder. I took a deep breath and cried.

What happened next was a blur. I dragged Lyra’s unconscious, yet alive, body back to headquarters. Walter saw to our medical attention and to a cleanup team’s dispatch to the area. A couple days passed in a blur. Walter and I were sitting at headquarters.

“Hey why haven’t I seen Lyra’s wanted posters around lately?” The question had been on my mind since the incident, there just hadn’t been any time to ask it.

“Heard she faked ‘er death. That an there was a new sheriff round when them posters stopped going up.” he said. “Probly got dropped in tha bureaucracy with all the death fakin’.” I nodded. The company was notoriously unstable. “By tha way, How’ve ya been holdin’ up?” Walter asked.

“As good as I can , I guess.” I responded. I had been pretty unstable the past few days, but the raven had kept me company. The little guy was starting to grow on me. “I had to do it.” I said finally. “Their futures were already bleak under company rule. If we succeed many more lives will be better off.”

“Aye.” Walter nodded. “We all got’a reckon with what we do ta make a be’er future for e’ryone.”

“Whatever it takes.” I said.

“Whatever it takes.” He nodded.

I saw Sven at the town square a couple days later in line at the job board. We exchanged a few words. He had to quit his job at the harbor, due to them being unable to pay him. I felt a pang of guilt hearing that, yet said nothing. I tried to give him some money but he refused, saying something along the lines of “It’s tha peaceful life for me.” I could tell he knew what I had been up to, and wanted no part in it. He held a melancholy expression as we talked almost telling me that he knew I had broken my promise not to change. Things between us wouldn’t ever be the same and we both knew it.

Despite Sven’s misfortune, my decision to take the money had been a good one, driving many to join the growing rebellion. A few had likely died, but if that was the cost of rebellion, I was more than willing to pay it.

We reached the front of the line. A big official company notice posted on the job board stated that all store prices were to be increased by twenty percent effective as of yesterday. I noted the signature at the bottom of the notice: Silas Blackwell. I grit my teeth. Silas was a pretty major target of ire within the rebellion. Everyone knew him, and everyone hated him. He was largely attributed with the rapidly falling living conditions at the docks as more and more money was squeezed out of the people via increases to living costs and decreases to wages. It seems he had gone ahead with the former that day. We had learned from the papers I stole that he was to come to town soon, and we needed to be ready when he did.

Lyra spread a map across the table, Walter and I keenly watching. “Blackwell will be in town tomorrow. He’ll be staying in the taven. Our intel says in room 5, but be prepared to adapt if that isn’t the case.” She looked at me. I nodded. “We weren’t able to acquire a key, so you’ll have to get one on site. The cellar opens to an alley, enter through there, get the keys, get to his room, and put a bullet in his head. Meet me at the harbor afterwards for debrief. Simple.” She traced the route with a finger on the map.

“Let’s kill this bastard,” I said.

“Whatever it takes” Said Lyra.

“Whatever it takes” Walter and I echoed.

The night of, I snuck into the cellar easily. It was almost second nature. I grabbed a peanut out of a nearby barrel and fed it to Edgar. CAW! He said,

“You’re welcome” I responded. Now to get the key. I heard rustling upstairs. I made my way up, seeing a barhand in the back room going through supplies. Perfect.

I crept behind them and put my gun to their head. “Give me the keys to Blackwell’s room”

“Vic?” asked a shaky voice. Wait… That voice. that beard. It couldn’t be.

“Sven?” I asked, Lowering my weapon and backing up a pace. Sven turned around, hands raised.

“Fancy seein’ ya here” he said, a single tear tracing its way down his face.

“Just give me the keys.”

“Can’t do that.”

“You need scrip? I’ll give you as much as you need. Just give me the keys, dammit.”

“I ain’t taking yer money. I know where it’s been. ‘Sides I’m no murderer. Take what ya want by force or leave”

“Damn it Sven, just give me the goddamn keys. The company isn’t fucking worth dying over.” I raised my weapon once again. To my sheer horror he placed his forhead against the barrel and looked me in the eyes.

“Make yer decision. I don’t want ta live in a world where ma friend is willing to kill me anyway.” I froze. What the fuck do I do. I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder.

“Whatever it takes.” Said the pirate.

“Whatever it takes.” I whispered. I tightened my grip on the trigger.

“Wait” said sven. “Here you go.” He handed me the keys. I lowered my weapon, and took them. He and I and went up the stairs and I put the bloodied keys in the door. It swung open. I moved in. I got tackled by a shadow, scuffling about. It was weak. A well placed knee to the gut sent the shadow coughing about on the ground.

“Kill him, now.” said the pirate.

“No, Give him his last words.” Said Sven. I nodded at sven.

“Any last words, blackwell?” I asked calmly as I pointed my bloody weapon at him and chambered a new round. I frowned. Where had the other one gone?

“Little rebel rat. Your entire organization only exists because we let it. Your little freak of a leader, Lyra Trenton is doing exactly what the company wants like a little dog” He let out a loud maniacal laugh.

“LIAR!” I shouted. There was no fucking way that everything we had worked for was a sham. I couldn’t accept it. Blackwell kept laughing.

“The only reason I’m the target of your little assassination attempt is because the board wants me out. Don’t just take my word for it, The official orders are in my desk.” I pulled the trigger and walked over to the desk as blackwell’s head fell down down down making a soft thunk on the wooden floor, smile frozen on his now empty face.

“Bastard wasn’t lying.” I said, pulling the papers out of the desk. The text went in and out of focus, confirming the horrible, horrible truth. There was no hope. For the rebellion. For the docks. For me. Blackwell’s dead corpse erupted in hideous laughter. The bastard knew he had won. Shut up. Shut up. shut up, shut up, shut up,shut up,shutup,shutup-shutup-shutup-shutup-SHUTUP-SHUTUP-SHUTUP-SHUTUP! I turned my weapon to him and fired the entire contents of my magazine into his corpse, the laughter only increasing in volume with every shot. I fell to my knees hammering punch after punch onto the laughing man, knocking out teeth and blood with each hit. At last he fell silent. I kept punching, as if my arms had minds of their own, hammering blow after blow into his smug, well-groomed face. At last they stopped, and I sat breathing heavily for a moment. I reloaded my weapon.

“What do we do?” I finally asked.

“The only thing we can” Said the captain. “Revenge” I nodded slowly, getting up off the pile of meat and bone i was sitting on. Me, Sven and the pirate made our way back downstairs.

I saw Walter outside and simply handed him the papers. I saw his face drop as he read them. He thanked me and handed them back. He seemed very emotional. Then I & my friends took off across the docks on my way to confront Lyra at the harbor. I heard a loud bang as we moved away.

“Wait fer me!” shouted Walter, as he ran to catch up, crutches abandoned. I smiled and did, then we went on our way.

When our merry band arrived at the harbor, we found Lyra standing at the end of the pier. I walked up to her holding up the papers.

“Explain yourself.” I said, expressionless. Her face went slack as she saw the papers.

“Ah. You were bound to find out eventually” She looked exhausted; she had already accepted her fate, probably for years at this point. I threw the papers in the air. They scattered, fluttering around like butterflies between Sven, Walter, and Edgar, who, bless his heart, was busy snacking on a nearby snail. They didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve this. The rebellion didn’t deserve this. And most importantly the people of the docks didn’t deserve this.

“DAMN IT, WHY” I yelled. Lyra sighed.

“Back when I joined the revolution, the company wanted me dead because of who I was. I made the decision to burn bright. Throw caution to the wind and live life as myself and not the lifeless shell of a man that I was. The company didn’t like that. It was good, for a short time, but such things don’t last. They captured me and offered me an out where I could still live as myself. I took it.”

“Devil in the floorboards” I muttered.

“I tried to keep the rebellion doing positive things, they only sent in orders once every few months. I didn’t want to trick anyone, it was the only way someone like me,” her voice cracked. “Could live.” She finished. Tears traced their way down my face.

My arms moved on their own again and one, two, three bullet holes appeared in Lyra’s midsection. A weak smile flashed on her face.

“Don’t… blame.. You.” She fell back, over the edge of the pier suspended in air before being taken by gravity and pulled down down down into the depths of the ocean.

“What next?” I asked, to nobody in particular, a detached grin on my face. In response, Edgar launched himself into the air flying towards a huge approaching galleon, her sails full of wind, the colors flying high on the main mast, and Lyra at the helm. Edgar morphed into the pirate as he landed on deck. A Boarding plank lowered to the spot Sven and I had sat just a few days prior. I walked confidently up the plank, jumping off it at the apex, falling down down down onto the solid planks of the main deck, my crew of friends following along. And thus, our ship of ghosts sailed away from the docks, fading into the realm of whispers, echoing softly through the simple history of Harborline Trading, Oregon.

My concerns with Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Life is Strange: Double Exposure is the first genuine sequel to 2015’s “Life is Strange”, in that others have been made, but this is the first to feature Max Caufield, the original’s beloved protagonist, once again. This is a bold choice, as max’s story was pretty clearly complete at the end of the first game, yet here she is once again taking up both the mantle of protagonist and, more concerningly, the use of her powers. I’m not overly impressed with how deck nine has handled the life is strange franchise after having taken it from don’t nod, and now we observe their attempt to alter the canon of the first story. While this isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, it does make me concerned for the direction of the game. Let me explain why.

Gameplay

The genius in don’t nod’s original “Life is Strange” was, at a base level, inherent to max’s use of her powers. It was quite frankly genius to take a genre notorious for save scumming and “rewinding” (pun intended) and turn it into a bespoke mechanic. This allowed don’t nod to balance short term consequenses with lasting ones and be more secure in their knowledge that players would be, for the most part, happy with their choices, at least in the short term. This deincentivised the 4th wall breaking save scums and allowed a much deeper, more coherent, immersive story to be told in the fiction, as players would be taken through the game facing the lasting consequenses of potentially bad decisions that they made and stuck to. This is usually not the case for similar games, as players tend to optimize and save scum the fun out of reactive storytelling, instead opting for perfection rather than the mistakes and imperfections that will inevitably make any story better in the long run. The original’s mechanic had, for the most part done away with this, which is what makes it that much better than its bretheren, at least in my opinion.

This is also what I was happy about when I heard about double exposure. I was hopeful that the original mechanic would return, allowing for more of that awesome gameplay. Of course, the first game’s plot does make even this a bad call, but from a gameply perspective, I was hopeful. Then they announced that the had changed the mechanic. This, for obvious reasons, is a bit of a red flag for me. Why bring back the original protagonist for any reason other than to bring back her signature power? Narratively, her using it again doesn’t make sense, which honestly is probably reason enough to keep the character retired, seeing as this is a narrative game, however now it doesn’t make mechanical sense either. The only option left is that they’re looking to make a cash grab off of nostalgia, which is a tragic end for the series. How do they intend to make this mechanical loss up? It’s a big question, but for the sake of the game, I sure hope they have a big answer.

Narrative continuity

The first game very notably ended with the resounding message that the use of max’s powers had dire consequenses, even when used to save those she loves. So why in hell is she doing the same damn thing again? She knows people die for a reason and if she wants them not to, then there’s gonna be hell to pay. I hate how they’ve just repeated a plot point from the first one, as if she’s learned nothing. Why the hell would she ever use that power again? She knows about it now. Regardless of ending, she’s not the type of person to open pandora’s box again, because she knows what that brings. it’s definitely one hell of a hole to write yourself out of, and I hope for the sake of these characters, this story, and this game that i’ve come to love, they write well. I’m not gonna say it’s impossible; I can think of a couple ways that they might start to go about it, but it’s going to be hard. And I really really hope that they have what it takes.

The Allure of Star Citizen: A Buyer's Guide

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Star Citizen is one of the most incredible games to exist both in planned scope and what already exists for people to play. It’s also one of the most broken, infuriating games I’ve ever played. And yet I continue to play it. What even is Star citizen? What pros and cons are there to the game? How does the monetization system work? Why do I play it? And more importantly, should you subject yourself to Star Citizen as well?

What is Star Citizen?

Plainly put, Star Citizen is an open world MMORPG that takes place in space. It features 100 player lobbies (at the time of writing), and has a local gravity system that allows free movement inside moving spaceships, regardless of orientation or location. Star Citizen is also firmly a systematic game, prioritizing the freeform nature of its systems over a more straightforward ideology. This results in a lot of consequential gameplay that emerges from systems interacting with each other rather than pre-defined quests driving gameplay flow. This results in both a replayability factor that sparks joy and a level of flow in the gameplay that can turn a simple hauling mission into a cutthroat, vendetta-driven quest for revenge. This flow extends to other areas in the game, most notably, in loading screens! There aren’t any! Once you load in, it’s a seamless experience, start to end. And once you realize this game has fully scaled walkable/ drivable planets, and space stations scattered everywhere around the system, this lack of loading screens becomes something truly awesome.

Before I can talk about anything else though, let’s get into how the game works.

Gameplay

At a base level, gameplay consists of a few distinct “loops” that allow the player to gain in-game credits that can be spent on ships, which in turn allow the player to access different loops, or improve performance in other loops. For example:

Eddie likes bounty hunting. He has a Mustang Alpha, which is an entry level fighter ship. He plays a bunch of bounty hunting missions until he saves up a lot of credits. Now he can either purchase something like a Cutlass Blue to improve his performance at bounty hunting, or instead buy a Prospector to try his hand at the mining gameplay loop.

There are a plethora of defined gameplay loops. These include the following:

Hauling
Mining
Ship combat
FPS/ Ground combat
Bounty Hunting
Salvage
Medical
Pirating

Regarding the flow I mentioned earlier, the nature of the game’s systems and the way these loops are structured, many loops overlap each other. This is what drives the flow of gameplay. Here’s an example of this in action:

Dana is a hauler. She buys goods in bulk for cheap at one location, loads them onto her ship, and brings them to another location, selling them at a higher price there for a profit. Rex, having a ship with good firepower, decides that he wants dana’s goods without having to pay for them upfront. So, he intercepts her after she buys and shoots her ship down, stealing the goods.

This is the Pirating gameplay loop.

However, by doing this, he has now obtained a crimestat. This puts him up on the bounty hunting database. Emily has been doing bounties and finds Rex’s bounty. She accepts it, hunts him down and collects her reward.

This is the bounty hunting gameplay loop.

Quinn also has a ship with good firepower and is offering their services for a small fee. Dana doesn’t want to lose all her investment again, so she hires Quinn.

This is the ship combat gameplay loop.

This is only really one example of a pretty common systematic emergence in star citizen. It’s truly incredible how well systems are built to link with each other and even themselves.

These loops aren’t your only options, however. Star citizen, being a systematic game, defines systems and allows players to do what they wish with them. This allows you to do stupid things to an amazing degree. Want to sneak onto random peoples’ ships and mess with their shit? Go ahead! Want to see the biggest vehicle you can fit in the trunk of your Drake Corsair? Time to find out! (So far it’s a C8R Pisces). And the best part about this is:

Multiplayer

Guess what? There’s a reason this game is an MMO! And thank the gods it is, because this game is easily 10 times more fun with friends.

All of this stupidity that you get up to solo gets punched up to an 11 when you’re doing it with friends. You wanna put tanks on large ships and play battleship with your friends? Fire in the hole! You want to have a hover quad rally where you see who stays alive the longest? Rev the engines! Heck, let’s drive the hover quads off a moving ship and see if they can survive the fall.

Having backup also enhances loop gameplay, as now you can have someone in a cargo ship move the salvage from your vulture into their ship, allowing longer salvage runs and higher profits. You can haul cargo in groups to deter piracy, as a squad of hauling ships is significantly more intimidating than just one.

Bottom line, If you get into this game make sure you either cyberbully your friends into playing with you, or just straight up join an org. In terms of orgs, there are plenty of options out there (here are the listings) and here’s mine. Whatever you do, play this game with other people!

Ships

There are a lot of ships (you can check out a comprehensive and descriptive list here) But to summarize, ships are the bread and butter of star citizen. As of right now, we don’t have base building yet, so ships are essentially the sole late game toys that you can throw your hard earned in-game currency at. Predominantly, ships are seperated by two main distinctions: Size and Function. Size is primarily a function of number of crew members that the ship can accomodate (A stat that is usually lower than officially stated). Function is usually any specializations that the ship has that makes it better at or allows it to do a certain gameplay loop. More granular listings can be found at the site I provided above. In terms of bigger and more expensive ships, though, you don’t need to get something huge to have a good time. Most of the time, large expensive ships require a crew and are close to inoperable solo. Small ships like the Drake Cutter and the Aegis Avenger Titan are great solo; Ships like the Drake Cutlass and the Misc freelancer are the perfect balance between flyable solo but better with friends; and Huge ships like the RSI Constellation and the Anvil Carrack are borderline unplayable solo. I’d encourage those who are curious to look around at what the game offers because it’s truly beautiful what CIG have been able to make here.

All you really need to know about ships is that they’re the game’s backbone. You can’t do anything in Star citizen without a ship. Wanna mine? Need a ship. Wanna salvage? Need a ship. Wanna haul? Need a ship. You get the idea. To be clear, there are also non-ship related activities, but you’re gonna need a ship to get to them.

Scope

The game’s scope is jaw dropping. As you’ve seen throughout this section, there are so many damn systems and ideas. This game has something for almost everyone. It’s incredible how many different games Star Citizen has managed to combine. That’s why it’s taken 12 years and counting. Most of the time, sky high scope is a developer’s deathwish. In this case, I don’t believe it is, as they have taken the time and raised the money to do high scope correctly. There are, however, a lot more planned features and systems that are a part of this scope that I have left out above, as they don’t actually exist in game yet. And here’s where we get to:

The Drawbacks

You’re probably thinking: “Wow this sounds great! How did I not hear when this was released?” Well, the answer is twofold. First, the game hasn’t actually released yet, and second, it’s been in alpha (not beta) for 12 years now, with really no end in sight. There are a few issues with this being the case, the biggest being:

The bugs

Dear god there are so many bugs. Ask any star citizen player their favorite bug moment and they’ll prattle on for hours. One time a friend dropped me a shotgun on my ship while we were flying and the ship just straight up exploded. The game has semi-regular crashes called 30k’s that just thanos snap the world to smithereens, sending everyone in there back to the main menu, potentially losing them progress and/or money. Ladders are hell, and elevators should be avoided whilst in quantum. These are just a handful of the numerous bugs that exist.

Performance

The game needs a good PC to run. I’ve put together a list with the minimum specs that I’d recommend for running this thing enjoyably at 1080p resolution. I’ve taken some tips from the public facing telemetry site so feel free to check that out as well for more detailed data. At the time of writing, most of these reccomendations are above base spec, aiming for an ideal experience, so if you’re a bit below spec, you should be fine depending how below spec you are and in which areas.

Ryzen 5 5600X/ i5 12600KF
- SC is a very CPU hungry game. If you have a better GPU than CPU, as many gamers do, then you will likely be CPU bottlenecked.
3060 Ti / 6700 XT
- Quick tip: Make sure you’re not CPU bottlenecked before buying a new GPU for this game!
100GB of free SSD space
- This is probably the most essential part of this list; Star citizen will be essentially unplayable on an HDD.
32GB DDR4
- SC will pretty reliably use 20GB, which exceeds the 16GB that many computers have. This sucks, but usually won’t be the end of the world, unless your virtual RAM is using an HDD and not an SSD. This is to say, get the SSD first.

The subpar performance coupled with the fact that the game is only really supported on windows, also makes it harder than usual to get friends into it, which is a damn shame.

The balance issues

The game is also pretty bad off in terms of balancing. Patch to patch, you’ll be going back and forth between dropping 25 mil on an anvil carrack for the memes and barely scrounging up a few hundred k like a poor victorian orphan.

The point

Point being, this game is half broken, and anyone considering getting into it needs to understand this. It’s definitely not broken to the point of being unplayable, but it’s definitely broken. Why isn’t it being fixed? Well that leads us neatly into:

The development strategy

CIG, the developers of star citizen, have put a focus on making the game feature complete before polishing out the non-game-breaking bugs and balance issues. Now this isn’t inherently a “drawback”, per se. Polishing and keeping a game in pristine quality takes a lot of dev power and would make the already sky high scope of the game take far longer to complete than it already will. (Which is long. Very long.) This strategy lends itself very well to fast prototyping and development, which I believe will benefit the game in the long run. Additionally, It’s ideal for private builds of the game that aren’t made for the consumer side. However, star citizen is very much consumer facing, which brings a lot of the more ignorable issues in private development to the surface.

My point isn’t to discount the many bugs and grievances that players have; It’s to contextualize them. There are so many valid reasons why players can and should be unhappy with the game’s current state. I’m among them in many respects, however, I also see the long term vision and I would rather continue as things are and get to see more systems and actual progress being made than have something polished being perpetually worked on at a snail’s pace. Every prospective player should decide if this is a sacrifice they’re willing to make, though. If you’re not happy with this development style then you’re well within your rights to wait until the game is more complete and stable to invest your time and effort into it. I don’t fault that decision; Just know there is a decision to make here.

Devtime

The amount of time taken to develop this game, 12 years as of now, is vast. I personally don’t see a full beta release happening anytime before 2030. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, however, the speed at which development is going and the sheer scope of the project all point to years of devtime remaining, even with this expededited development strategy. There’s another force at work here as well: Squadron 42. Squadron is the singleplayer game designed by CIG alongside Star Citizen. They chose to direct their main focus onto it rather than Star citizen for a few years, slowing down SC development considerably, however, It was recently declared feature complete, and now developers are moving back to Star Citizen, porting over the many finished systems from there into Star Citizen. I’d predict a 2025-2026 release for Squadron, but I still don’t know how much this will speed up development. Regardless, 2024 is looking like a very promising year for the project, and I’m looking forward to seeing what progress is made.

Monetization

The monetization for star citizen is a subject of controversy, for good reason; The game has raised over 600 Million dollars of pure crowdfunding. There are rewards for spending over $25,000 in the game’s “pledge store” on mostly just ships. This is an immense amount of money, and just looking at that as well as the cost of just buying a ship from the pledge store would probably be enough to make most casual gamers weep. However, this is not the full picture. Allow me to explain.

In-game availability

Every ship that can be purchased with real money is currently, or will eventually be, completely available in game for in game currency, no credit card required. The usual timeline is that on release, a ship is exclusive to those who bought it with real money for about one patch cycle, which is usually a handful of months, then is made fully available to all players through a reasonable amount of in game cash. This means that you don’t need to buy anything more than a $45 game package to fully enjoy the game.

The Pledge store.

The pledge store is the digital retailer of star citizen, selling game packages, ships, in game items, and even physical merch for real life money. You can also purchase upgrades between ships and only pay the difference between the two. The main focus though, is ships. A small ship will run you ~60-80 dollars, an medium ship that can be well run solo can head up into the $120-130 range, and bigger ships just scale from there. A sizable multicrew ship can cost you upwards of $300, a huge ship can cost 500 or more, and capital class ships are comfortably over the ghastly $1000 mark.

What the F*@k?!

Is an understandable reaction. “If there is no real barrier to buying ships in game then why buy ships at all? And why are they so incredibly expensive!?” First off, good questions. The first answer to both of these is: to support the game’s development. These are primarily marketed as a way to support and fund the game, as the game is solely crowdfunded via these very sales. Even if you choose not to buy anything, (as I earlier outlined as 100% a possibility), you’re still benefitting from others’ use of the pledge store in their resources redirected towards the game’s development. Next, There are some creature comforts of owning a ship bought with real money, such as keeping it when a server reset comes around (where everything is wiped and everyone starts from scratch), or with certain ships, being able to customize and name them. But, I’ll say it again, you really don’t gotta spend shit! If you think this is garbage, splendid! Buy the game and never look back. If you want a slightly nicer ship, you can throw 20 bucks at the game and be totally happy playing the game from there. If you love the game and really want to support it while gaining a literal armada of ships, then that option is available to you as well.

The key point here is that this is not a vital part of the game, and can be ignored with little to no consequenses.

Who is this for?

Star citizen is a game by game developers for game developers. There also might happen to be other people who enjoy the game, but I am firmly convinced that game developers are the main body of players and fans of this game, especially in its current state. I know for sure that’s why I’m as into it as I am. I know that every second this game spends in development a developer at CIG out there is living their best life and I’m so happy for them. But other than the developers out there who will spend their first play session inspecting the glass materials and making conjecture about refraction equations, who is this game for? And more importantly, should you play it?

Audience

First of all, there isn’t exatly one main target audience, (barring game developers of course); You’ll get a lot of different people with many varied gaming backgrounds playing star citizen. Chill gamers opt for the relaxing gameplay loops such as salvage, mining, and hauling. More “hardcore” gamers will opt for FPS/ ship combat or just straight up piracy. And the options in between can be fun for almost any kind of gamer willing to put up with the downsides I described above. If you’re looking for a multiplayer experience to play with friends, however, I’d definitely encourage you to overlook the downsides more than you already would.

Should I buy it?

Here’s a handy dandy flowchart to help you decide if you should get into it or not.

Do you think there are cool things that you’d like to experience in Star citizen?

No

Don’t buy it.

Yes

Are you willing to live with the downsides?

Yes

Buy it.

No

Do you have friends that you’d like to play it with or are you planning on joining an org and playing with them?

Yes

Consider buying it

No

Wait until it’s in a better state.

Those of you have decided to wait or not buy it, I’m glad I was able to help you make a better informed deicision. Those who have decided to buy it, I have a few tips below on how to get the best out of the onboarding experience.

I decided to get it! What do I do now?

First off, Welcome to the verse! Here’s a quick intro to the game so you can have the best onboarding experience.

Steps

First off you’re either going to head to one of webpages, depending on what ship you want to start with.
1. Anyone who just wants the game go here. I fully reccommend this option over the other one, as you can always upgrade your ship if you wish.
2. If you insist on getting a better ship to boot, go here instead.
It also might be worth snooping around the 2nd link to see if there are any good sales going on. I got my first ship, the drake cutter, during a halloween sale where it sold me the ship & starter package for only $45 and threw in a green paint job as well. Since there have been a few sales, lowering starter packs to $40, so it’s always a good idea to be on the lookout!
Next, You’re going to choose which ship you want to start with.
1. If you went with option 1 in the step above, you’ll be choosing between the RSI Aurora MR and the CO Mustang Alpha. The Aurora is better equipped for general use with 3 SCU of storage, and has a small walkable interior with a bed, (which allows you to bed-log while in space). The Mustang can only really do ship combat and has no interior, bed, or storage. It is, however, significantly better at combat than the aurora is.
2. If you’ve opted for a better ship, the viable starters other than the Aurora and the Mustang would be, in order of ascending price: The Drake Cutter, The Aegis Avenger Titan, and the CO Nomad. If you’re a sucker for alien tech, check out the Syulen as well. I wouldn’t reccommend anything over the nomad unless you really want a solid multicrew vessel. If that is something you want, pick between the drake cutlass and the misc freelancer. I, again, don’t reccommend this, as you can buy ships in game with ingame credits or you can upgrade your starter to another ship later on.
Now it’s gonna ask you to sign in. Press “Enlist Now” to create an account.

Here is where you can put in referral codes as well, so make sure to find one and plug it in. These will give you additional starting credits (both in the alpha and on full release) and if there’s an event on, potentially some other goodies. The most recent couple I can recall are a full set of pretty armor and matching weapons, and a literal CO Hoverquad with a skin & LTI. I’d reccommend asking a friend who already plays (if you have one) for theirs, then looking elsewhere for one. Here’s mine if you feel so inclined: STAR-C6PX-673X. Regardless of whose it is, make sure put one in there!
Pay for the package and download the launcher. If for some reason you can’t find it, the link to download it is here. This will download the launcher and not the actual game, so make sure to allocate that 100GB of SSD space and buckle up.
While it’s downloading, find yourself an org! As per my advice above, here are a couple links!
1. The org Listings
2. My Org and our Discord
Alternatively, feel free to google relevant orgs and skip the listings. I actually found my first org through googling!
If at all possible, once the game is done downloading, get someone in your org to show you around, or find a youtube video to do so. Here’s the one I used but it is a much better experience if you’re doing it with other players so I encourage you to find an org and ask someone there to show you the ropes!

If you can’t find any that suit your interests, please join my org’s discord and ask for a quick intro! We welcome visitors and prospective org members alike, and would be more than happy to give you an intro to the game.

And that’s it for onboarding! There’s a lot more to this game that I plan to go over in future blog posts, however this is all you need to get started learning the ropes. To sign off, I’ll leave a bunch of other resources here at the bottom. Thank you so much for reading; I really appreciate it.

Closing Notes

Here are just a few more things i’m putting here at the end that might be helpful!

Resources

Game wiki: https://starcitizen.tools/
- Very helpful, especially with ship research. This is definitley one of my go to sites, that I wholeheartedly reccommend.
Ship loadout planner: https://www.erkul.games/live/calculator
- If you want to see how you can deck out a ship to maximize DPS or just see what quantum drives are the fastest and where you can get them, this site is a godsend. I have had issues with item locations being outdated, though, so keep that in mind.
Armory loadout planner: https://armory.thespacecoder.space/
- Allows you to look up armor and weapons’ stats and locations
Item Finder: https://finder.cstone.space/
- Need to know where you can get an item or a ship? This here is your place.
Commodity Prices: https://uexcorp.space/
- The most up to date statistics on commodity prices for hauling. Also has a bunch of other cool features.
Trading tools: https://sc-trade.tools/home
- More useful calculators than uexcorp, but not as updated.
More Trading tools: https://gallog.co/
- If the other 2 don’t spark joy, here’s another resource for similar functionality
SC tour guide: https://verseguide.com/
- Helpful tool to familiarize yourself with locations
Fleet builder: https://hangar.link/fleet/canvas
- Allows you to make cool graphics of ships. I love this thing.
Ship stats: https://www.spviewer.eu/
- Similar to erkul, but less for customizing and more for preformance analytics

Don’t concern yourself too much with these to start, but they do get very helpful later in game once you really get into it.

Disclaimers

I am not affiliated whatsoever with CIG or any related group that would lend additional bias to this article. This is an independent assessment of the Star Citizen project from an outsider perspective. Still, I would like to cite aspects of my situation that could contribute to any relevant biases that I may conciously or unconciously hold so that you may read this article with them in mind.

Using my referral code I provided above to purchase the game will grant me (and the referral’s user) certain in-game benefits.
I have also spent some of my own money on star citizen, and have overall positive views about the project’s direction going forward.
While it won’t directly benefit me in terms of money or rewards, I do link to my org and our discord in a couple places as well.

While these involvments help contextualize this article better, I try my utmost to keep my work as unbiased as it can be.

Support me

If you think this post was helpful and you want to support me doing more stuff like this, you can find a link to my ko-fi here. Every donation, regardless of amount, helps my work immensely and will likely go towards buying more coffee, which is essential in the creation of things like this. Thanks so much again for reading, have a great day, and I hope to see you in the verse.

~ Kai

Kai's Awesome Session 0 Checklist!

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Favorite aspect of TTRPGs. What do they like about TTRPGs? What kind of things do they want to happen? Is there any “cool moment” that they really wanna have at some point? Usually you’ll get things like “world building” or “puzzles” or “social subterfuge”, but it really depends on the players. This really helps you set the tone for the campaign and how you plan it.
Campaign specifics. How long do you wanna run this for? (A good rule of thumb is when you estimate the amount of time for players to complete a certain amount of content, multiply it by ~2-4 to get the actual amount). How frequently are you meeting? Will it be the same day/time every week or not? Where are you meeting week to week? Will there be food? Snacks? If so, who brings the food/snacks?
Absences. Establish a quorum with everyone, and decide what they want to do with their characters when absent. (“give control to another player” and “has something else to do canonically” are the 2 most common options) If you don’t meet quorum do you still want to meet anyway and play board games instead? Also I like to implement a 3 strike rule. The way I usually run it is “if you no-show a session without at least 24 hours of advance warning that’s one strike, 3 strikes and you’re out.” This is also established on a case by case basis though so if someone has an emergency, I don’t rule that as a strike. You can be as loose or as rigid with it as you want, but it’s really good to have from the get-go.
Vibes. Ask everyone what kind of campaign they want and have them put percentages on the following scales: silly/ serious and RP/Combat (eg: 30% silly, 70% serious; 90% RP, 10% Combat). If there are any polar disagreements here (including on your part) talk it over. If you’re too split here, and nobody wants to budge, it might just not be a good group. If this the case, it’s good to note this early and potentially stop before you realize nobody is having any fun.
Safety tools. It’s better to have them and not need them than the other way around. The X-Card is a good option.
Lines and veils. Topics that people don’t want to come up at the table. Lines are red flag no-no topics that you should avoid writing into the story at all, and veils are more of a “it’s ok if you fade to black/glaze over it rather than going into detail but be careful”. I like to describe both then leave the table open for suggestions. This isn’t the only framework for this kind of discussion, so encourage your players to talk about sensitive topics in whatever way they feel comfotable with. For example, a player might be alright with going into a certain theme, but only if it’s being handled in a certain way. Also make sure that players know they can direct message you if they’re not comfortable saying in front of everyone else. The most important thing here is that everyone should be having fun, so if one person says something’s off limits, it goes, no questions asked.
Other stuff! Open the floor to any additional notes that players might want to add. Address any of these, and once you do that, you can move on to…
Character creation! I specifically ask players not to bring any character to session 0. Just potential ideas. Give them a brief intro to the world, ask for questions, then let them loose. I’d start with some basic character details (such as race and class), then jump right into backstories, as those influence pretty much everything else. Encourage them to link backstories with each other. I require my players to have at least 3 relevant NPCs that mean something to their character. This grounds them in the world and can serve for some really nice plot hooks later down the line. Here you also want to set the campaign’s starting parameters. Where are they meeting and how did they get there? Once backstories are done, have them finish character sheets. Bada bing Bada boom, session 0 complete.

Hello World!

Sat, 20 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is an initial test of a blog system! I’m writing this in markdown and let’s see if it gets generated well through jekyll! This is the first paragraph.

Here’s the second paragraph, I’ll see if this one makes it into the excerpt. (it did not)

Thanks for reading this I guess!

English Game

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Game I made for english class. I did not need to make this. Why do I do this to myself? At least I have a cool game now though.

Play English Game on Itch.io!

English Game by Fireye

Hunger Games Sim

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

An in-depth simulator for the hunger games using persistent items, random generation of character actions based on obtained items, a proficient statistic system, and a dynamic sponsorship system.

Documents:

Github

MMUN 2

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A Model UN Crisis comittee combined with a TTRPG combined with elements from CIV, all packaged into a discord bot. (I’m mentally unwell)

Doccuments:

Github

Blobs

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I made this in another game jam, on a whim, for the memes. lol.

Download The Adventures of Guy on Itch.io!

The Adventures of Guy by meme8383, Fireye

Split

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My First game using unity. We did this one with a much bigger team and had fun. We weren’t able to build on time but we exported the final product anyway.

Play Split on Itch.io!

Split (Non-GMTK Version) by Fireye, gamemasteru03

Adventures of Guy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This is a little game I made with a couple friends. This was my first game jam and we actually finished on time, which is probably a miracle of some kind. We used UE4. Yes, UE4 the 3d game engine with a 2d module that, to my knowledge, ceased development a while ago. Fun times.

Download The Adventures of Guy on Itch.io!

The Adventures of Guy by meme8383, Fireye

About Fireye.Coffee

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

About

Home Sweet Home

Here's Some Links

If these what you came here for, have a nice day!

Email- kai@fireye.coffee
Codeberg- Fireye
Makertube- fireye.coffee
Youtube- fireye.coffee
Mastodon- fireye
Bluesky- fireye04
Itch.io- fireye
Ko-fi- fireye
Github- Fireye04
My Newsletter!
My Webring!

My slash pages!

Check out this site's slashpages!

The Fireye.coffee neighborhood

Check out this site's Webrings, site neighbors and other assorted neat places on the web!

Or my webring!

About Me!

Let's do some bullet points!

I'm currently employed at the Vera Rubin Observatory
I'm a hobbyist indie game developer (Projects are linked here!)
I'm currently studying Computer Science, Game Design, and Creative Writing
I use They / Them pronouns
I love ~~ranting~~ talking about games
I love speccing and building PCs
LINUX USER (NixOS btw :3)
I've developed a mild stockholm syndrome for GMing TTRPGs
I like to program little things on the side and for work
I love to play the guitar and drums

About Fireye.Coffee

My goal with this site was to make something I could put all of my projects onto, but also be a project itself. If I want to add something to it, I sit down and figure out how it works on a base level and work out how to do it myself. In this way i’ve managed to implement static site generation for a blog, an easter egg or two, and even a custom backend for my guestbook (running on cloudflare workers). The site’s base code was taken from https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com (which is under WTFPL license) and adapted to create something personal. Icons are from iconnoir, available under an MIT license. It’s not much: mostly just plaintext. But it’s responsive, meaning it works on all screen sizes, it has (moderately) fast load times on its backend, and aside from its domain name, it’s completely free.

Site To-Do list!

Automatically assembled from this site's codeberg issues. Check out the list in full detail Here!

it broke :(

Collections!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Collections

This is my own custom slashpage, which is a compliment to /wish, that describes the things that I have collected.

Similar to /uses, but for things, rather than software

TTRPGs

Tales From the Loop
Edge of the Empire
Delta Green Agent’s handbook
Delta Green Handler’s Guide
Delta Green Impossible Landscapes
The Witcher TTRPG
Lancer
Avatar Legends
Triangle Agency
Slugblaster
Mausritter
Index Card RPG
The Wildsea
Thousand Year Old Vampire
Blades in the Dark
Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts
Apocalypse Keys
AGON
Thirsty Sword Lesbians
Desperation
Tacklebox
Monsterhearts 2
Cantrip
Ten Candles
Lichcraft
Heart: the city beneath
Spire: the city must fall
Cyberpunk: RED
Mythic Bastionland
Electric Bastionland
Vampire: The Masquerade
Mothership
Stonetop
Pathfinder
D&D 3.5e, 4e, and 5e (I have too many 5e books)

Board Games

Dune
Arcs

Music

Squier Stratocaster
Ibanez S Series S670QM
Yamaha Nylon String Acoustic
Fender Metal String Acoustic
IBZ10G Guitar Amp
BOSS RC1 Loop Station Pedal
Azur Overdrive Pedal
Yamaha PSR-273 Keyboard
Presonus Audiobox USB 96 Audio Interface
Presonus M7 Microphone
Presonus HD7 Headphones
Presonus Eris E3.5 Speakers
Alesis Turbo Electronic drumkit
Ludwig backbeat 5 piece drum set
Pro-Mark Hickory Forward 5A Drumsticks

Computers

Laptop

Framework 16
AMD Ryzen AI 7 350
Radeon 860M Graphics
16GB DDR5 SODIMM RAM
1TB m.2 2280 PCIe gen 4 SSD

Desktop

Intel 12700K
EVGA 3080 10GB
64GB DDR4
850W PSU
GMMK pro, box jade switches
Gigabyte M32U

Alpha Server

Old laptop
i5-3320M
16GB DDR3
1TB SATA SSD

Test Bench

Celeron G6900
Ryzen 5 2600
16GB DDR4
8GB DDR5
EVGA 750W PSU
600W PSU
Shitty HP monitor

See more Slash Pages

Home Sweet Home

Fireye.Coffee AI slashpage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Ursula K. Le Guin, 1973

Figure it out.

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With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows’ crossing flights, over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green’ Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.

Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?

They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certain assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? They were not naive and happy children – though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however – that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc. – they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains,. washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn’t matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the train station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers’ Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger who desires union with the deep godhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas – at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of sex beyond all belief; and it is not habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? The sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world’s summer; this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really don’t think many of them need to take drooz.

Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men, wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.

He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.

As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses’ necks and soothe them, whispering, ”Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope. . . .” They begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of grass and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.

Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.

In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl.It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits haunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody ever comes, except that sometimes-the child has no understanding of time or interval – sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother’s voice, sometimes speaks. ”I will be good,” it says. ”Please let me out. I will be good!” They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, ”eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.

They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.

This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.

The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.

Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there snivelling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.

Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.

At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

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Fireye.Coffee death slashpage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Death

Last updated: May 15th, 2026

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Heya! This is a sad one but I think it’s worth doing. I could die tomorrow after all! (disclaimer: at the time of writing I am not suicidal, and I would like to continue living for as long as I can)

If you’re reading this and I am dead, hi! Regardless of who you are, thanks for giving enough of a shit about me to read this. I wasn’t the greatest person out there, but know I did my best to not take anything anyone did for me for granted; I appreciate it. All of it. If you feel you owe me anything, all I ask is you go out there and make cool stuff. Be creative. Learn things autotelically, that is to say, learn as an end in itself, rather as a means to achieve something else. Process things however you need to, but know that I lived, and I mean truly lived, learning and making cool stuff; If I know myself, I died learning and making cool stuff too, and all things considered, I think that’s alright by me. I love you, and I hope you find whatever it is that makes your life worth living, as I have. If nothing else, do it for me. Now, onward.

My Stuff

To be distributed between my family and friends

My TTRPGs- These should go to people who will actually run them. I love these things, and I want them to have a good home.
My Website- Keep it up if you wish! If someone wants to take on the mantle of fireye.coffee, I’m more than happy to let them.
My Repos- Anyone willing to maintain anything I’ve made is welcome to it.
My PC- Give this to someone who needs the hardware. Have people propose various projects that they will use the processing power for, and pick the coolest one. Bonus points for promising to open source the result.
My Test Bench & spare hardware- Anyone who wants to tinker is welcome to it.

Funeral Stuff

If I have any money, I want to make it possible for the people I care about to attend, wherever they may be. This includes paying for travel, as well as substituting wages if they’re incapable of missing work. What the funeral ends up being should be decided by ranked competitive calvinball. Figure it out.

Funerals are for the living, not the dead. If doing something for my funeral would help you process things better, do it. Like I mean literally anything. Strap my corpse to some fireworks and go ham if you want, or do donuts in a hearse. The following are merely suggestions for what I would personally enjoy, but I’m not there! If it matters to you what I think, you can use the following, if it doesn’t then please disregard it!

Throw a party. Do nerd shit. Bring the longest, most complicated board game you own and teach it to people. Run the most niche TTRPG you own for a one shot. I’m not saying don’t run D&D, but if you do, know that I will be judging you from beyond the grave. Invite anyone that you feel would make the experience better for you. I don’t care either way, I will, in fact, be dead.

Tell stories of me, or just enjoy the time. Whatever helps you process stuff better is what I want. This includes what happens to my remains- I simply don’t care. Whatever helps you, do that. If you do care about my opinion, I like the idea of being eaten by a tree of some kind; Nature is wonderful, and if you wish to visit me, I like the idea of forcing you to go outside. As a kid, I used to befriend trees and talk to them; It would be poetic to have that continued by those who wish to talk to me.

What I don’t want is some stuffy clergyman yapping about organized religion for 8 hours. That fucking sucks and I don’t want to subject people to that. Graveyards also suck. Don’t spend a shit ton of money on a box or a headstone. I don’t give a shit about being remembered: I’m dead.

Necromancy

You can never be too careful!

- Me

If such technology comes along that clones or otherwise resurrects individuals, digitally or otherwise, and you, for some reason, wish to use it on me, you have my blessing to do so, under certain conditions.

I’m of the unfortunate belief that such theoretical technology would simply copy my “state” over to a new consciousness, rather than persist mine, and as such, this new entity would not be me, but rather a simple imitation. If this occurs, upon my cloning/ resurrection, I would like to hold a funeral for my previous iteration. Though, my newer iteration should hold these same beliefs anyway, and request the same themselves regardless of my wishes here.

More broadly, understand that I do not care whether or not this is done, as that will not be me. If you, as a loved one, feel an iteration of my psyche will help you grieve, or otherwise exist, I encourage you to go ahead. However, for the sake of my new iteration, do not do this if there are any corporate strings attached to such a service, including but not limited to significant modifications to my psyche, any sort of subscription service keeping me alive, ad integration, or otherwise. I would not enjoy existing under these conditions, and it would be pretty miserable for both you and the new iteration of me to go through this.

If my brain itself, not a copy, clone, or duplicate, has somehow been preserved and can be resurrected or kept alive, itself, as a unit, without any such copies, I would very much like to live, digitally, robotically, biologically, or otherwise, regardless of any drawbacks or downsides. I prefer existence to nonexistence.

In theory, you will not know the difference, and I will likely not be able to tell you, though I will assume as such should my original brain not be in the loop. I, the consciousness writing this, will though, and it is a distinction that I care about.

TL;DR: If at all possible, keep my brain authoritative.

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Fireye.coffee feeds

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Feeds

A list of this website’s RSS feeds:

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Fireye.Coffee Glossary!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Glossary

Many people have slight variations in how they choose to use language. This glossary hopes to give you an insight into what words and phrases I use, and give you the definitions that I use for them. Some may just be odd words that I use frequently enough to have a dictionary definition on hand. Others might be more novel. Let’s do this.

ADHD - Why I’m like this. Also see Autism.
Art - The practice of human expression. (yeah, it’s vague. I stand by this. Fight me, I dare you.)
Art (Bad) - Art of shoddy or low quality, as interpreted by the audience. I include the artist as a member, perhaps the only member, of their audience.
Art (Good) - A trap for perfectionists that prevents them from learning and improving their craft. Instead, see Art (Bad).
Autism - Hey! I’ll have you know I have no such diagnosis. Yet. Also see ADHD.
Autotelic- Having a purpose in and not apart from itself. Intrinsic.
Bisexuality- Attraction to two or more Genders. See Gender (human).
Cyberpunk- An artistic genre that forms a dystopian critique of late stage capitalism, frequently through its use of tragic storytelling, Sci-Fi settings, punk themes and aesthetics, and illustrations of social inequity and collapse. This shit fucking rocks.
Gender- A fake, imagined, or artificially constructed category of thing. Eg: “The four Genders of climbing: Boulder, Top Rope, Lead, and Trad”
Gender (human)- A fake, imagined, or artificially constructed category of human. Eg: “The two Genders: Male and Female”
God Bless America- See Stim. Began as a sarcastic political refrain upon hearing news of our continued national spiral into insanity.
God Is Dead- See Stim. Began as a sarcastic refrain upon hearing news of our collective continued spiral into a corporate cyberpunk surveillance hellscape. See Cyberpunk.
Microslop- Purveyors of mass surveillance, war crimes, and the Windows Operating System.
Stim- The repetition of physical movements, sounds, words, moving objects, or other behaviors.

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Fireye.Coffee guestbook

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Guestbook

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BEHOLD! The full guestbook page!

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Fireye.Coffee Hello!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hello!

Hello, I’m Kai! Here is how I prefer to keep in touch and why.

Most of the following only applies for people I actually know. If you don’t know me, you are welcome to send me an email.

Modes of contact

My favorite way to converse is in person. Let’s get coffee sometime if we can!
I enjoy talking in real time. Give me a call if you want to say hi, no heads up necessary, and I’ll do my best to accommodate it, either right then, or at my earliest convenience if I am unavailable at the time of calling.
For maximum availability and minimum response time in both calling and messaging, Signal is the way to go. It bypasses my do-not-disturb on my phone, which is on most of the time, and I keep it running on my computer as well.
I check my email pretty regularly. Please feel free to message.
I like to use RSS to keep up with what my friends are up to, for those who are cool enough to have RSS feeds.
I think traditional mail is quite cool! Please feel free to ask for my address if you wish to send me a letter.
I will use instant messaging for convenience, but prefer the above methods if given the option.
If you need my contact and do not already have it, please send me an email asking for my digits.

Platforms

I prefer to communicate over Signal or Matrix, due to their open source nature, and end to end encryption support. I will also use SMS if necessary, though prefer the former options due to the relative insecurity of SMS and its related protocols.
I frequently showcase what I’m up to on my blog here. I intend to move as much of my online presence to my website as I can.
I use Mastodon and Bluesky, but am looking to do so less.
I do not use Instagram or Discord. I may check them infrequently; Do not rely on this happening for me to get your message.

Etiquette

You are welcome and encouraged to “double text” (send me back-to-back unrelated messages) me as much as you wish. I will answer everything once I get the time to do so.
Tone indicators are welcome, especially if I don’t know you super well.
I do not expect immediate responses to my messages, excluding time sensitive or urgent ones; Respond when convenient.
Don’t worry about read receipts. People are more complicated than a “I saw your message” Boolean. If you’ve read my message and haven’t responded, there are many valid reasons for this, up to and including “I don’t have the energy to communicate right now, but would like to read this anyway.” Again, I don’t care; respond when convenient.
For me specifically, if the read receipt says I have read your message, but I haven’t responded for a while, please feel free to send another message to remind me that this message exists. This likely means that I either told myself that I would respond later and forgot due to the missing “unread” marker, or half-finished my response, and had to stop midway through, resulting in the same final outcome.
When sending me a miscellaneous link, generally make sure the result is viewable in a web browser without an account. This includes links to twitter posts and tiktok videos, among others. I will not be able to view these, and I will not be getting an app, account, or logging in to view the thing. If you wish to share it, instead consider downloading, screenshotting, or otherwise capturing a local copy that can be shared directly.
Avoid sending me LLM/ Generative model output. I do not want to read words nobody has bothered to write. I do not want to look at images nobody has bothered to create. Instead, consider sending me a rambling mess of words, or your shittiest MS Paint/GIMP/Krita drawing.
Do not summarize my messages or ideas with a LLM. I choose my words and communication deliberately for a reason. There is value in reading a message as it was written.
When in doubt, communication is always better than no communication. I would rather hear “I hate your guts and I would rather eat raw chicken than talk to you ever again” than silence.

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Fireye.Coffee Hills!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hills

An altogether un-serious list of hills that I will die on.

We do not tolerate Disco Elysium hate in this household.
Everyone should, at the very least, dual boot linux once.
Life is Strange 2 is a better made game than Life is Strange 1. Don’t @ me.
The terms “AI” and “Hallucination” are at best incorrect & misleading, and at worst, actively malicious & deceptive.

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Fireye.Coffee Ideas!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ideas

Build a custom, open source, game jam platform for the GDT community webring (tracker)
Build a Hurdy Gurdy (https://www.nerdygurdy.nl/)
Build a custom cyberdeck to replace my phone.
Build an open source, multiplayer, community cabin-building game.
Migrate off Gmail.
Make a full music album. (bonus points for full OSS stack)

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Fireye.Coffee Neighborhood

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Neighborhood!

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This page is dedicated to the social part of the indie web! Here you'll find the webrings I'm in, A bunch of this site's neighbors and buttons, and a bunch of other blogs, channels, and media. Enjoy!

Webrings

Game Devs Together

That top widget up there is my webring! It's for game developers and it's open source!

Please feel free to apply and/or say hi!

Digital Neighbors!

A list of cool websites that are friends with this one! (What does that mean? Not sure!)

theblipbloop.github.io

Let me know if you'd like to become digital neighbors! I'd love to expand the network above as much as I can <3

My favorite web pages!

Here are some of my favorite webpages (If you own one of these, Please let me know if you'd like to be digital neightbors or for me to take it off the list)

Buttons!

Here's fireye.coffee's button if you'd like to add it to your site! To do so, copy in the following code.

<a href="https://fireye.coffee" target="_blank">
<img src="https://fireye.coffee/Assets/fireye_coffee_button.gif">
</a>

Links!

Forums!

32 bit cafe - Indie web forum
Melonland Forum - Indie web forum
Reject Convenience Forum - Mindful Tech forum
papercult.club - TTRPG Design forum
That's it for now!

Youtube & video channels

Here are some of my favorite video channels in no particular order!

Fireye.Coffee Newsletter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Newsletter!

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About this site!

Form

What is this?

This is my newsletter! In addition to fully supporting RSS (If anyone is having problems there please open an issue on the codeberg!), I'm now adding a newsletter for those who have no idea what RSS is.

There are a few options for what you want to subscribe to, so I can minimize the amount of unwanted emails I send. Until I end up automating this system at some point, I'm going to send emails whenever something happens. I'm super irregular, but here's each topic and how regularly I've updated each item in the past. I will not send more than 1 email per week, regardless of topic.

Topics

Blog- New blog post is out! | ~1 per month.
Projects- I've posted a new project! | ~1 per 2 months, or perhaps longer
Writing- I wrote a new story! | ~1 per 4 months, or perhaps longer.
Music- I released some new music! | ~1 per 2 months, or perhaps longer.
Website Updates- I added something to the website! | ~2 per month.

Cancelling!

To cancel, simply use the above form with your email, and tick any or all topics that you'd like to recieve. Sending in the form with no topics ticked will automatically remove your email from my database. If this isn't working for whatever reason, please open up an issue on my codeberg or reach out so I can hopefully repair the system and get your email removed.

Fireye.Coffee Now!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now!

Last Updated May 17th, 2026

Working on Disco Tools, my godot plugin for making disco elysium-style games (contributors welcome!)
Maintaining my Game Dev Webring (https://gdt.fireye.coffee/)
Maintaining my homelab

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Fireye.Coffee Slashpages!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Slashes

Here’s a meta-list of all my current slashpages! I can’t confirm that these will remain up to date, but here they are anyway!

If you’re not aware of what slashes are, check out slashpages.net!

About - About me.
AI - Figure it out.
Collections - Things I have collected! Also see /wish.
Death - In case I die.
Glossary - Words and definitions.
Hello - How I prefer to keep in touch and why.
Hills - Insignificant hills I’ll die on.
Ideas - Ideas for things I wanna do!
Languages - Languages I speak.
Neighborhood - Friends of this website!
Now - Stuff I’m up to right now!
Slashes - Also see: Recursion
Style - Style guide I use for this website
Tip - :3
Uses - Things and software I use.
Wish - Stuff I want at some point! Also see /collections.

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Kai's Sick Intranet

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Kai’s Sick Intranet

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Hey! Trying to access the intranet dashboard but got redirected? Make sure your VPN connection is working and try again.

Welcome to the intranet! (Have a look around)

You’re probably here because I sent you this page. Welcome! If you just ended up here, I’m not sure what to tell you other than none of this information will be in any way helpful.

What’s an intranet?

You probably know what the internet is; An intranet is basically just a contained or private internet.

The basic idea here is that there are a bunch of computers out there doing things on “the cloud,” but you don’t own these computers or the data on them. Most of them pretty ruthlessly profiteer off the idea that their services are the only way of doing things, but this is not the case.

I’ve set up this intranet to provide these services for the people that I care about, for free.

Neato, what can it do?

Pretty much anything! Right now, I have

a search engine (like duck duck go or old google),
a git server (like github),
a live multiplayer text editor (like google docs),
a media server (with a bunch of music and TTRPG PDFs on there!),
a hosted youtube downloader (no more going to shady websites!),
file syncing (between devices!),
an automation service (like IFTTT),
an RSS feed agreggator (News and feeds for cool people! We can share sources too!),
and more!

It can also run up pretty much any kind of service as well. Check out this list for inspiration, if you want to request a new service!

Game Servers!

I’m also planning on using it to run dedicated game servers for the community, including games that I, or others have made so that we can playtest them together! Suggestions for specific dedicated game servers are, of course, welcome as well.

Why?

I like computers. I like sysadmin. (I think) And I like people. I want to share this stuff with people! I want to provide a neat little service for the people I care about and hopefully create a little community in the process. I’m pretty bad at socializing and keeping up with people, so I figured I’d try to use what I’m actually good at to maybe lure in a friend or two and stay in touch with the people that I care about.

Can I help?

Technical people, if you want to help maintain the servers, please reach out! I’m comfortable giving a couple people I trust keyed, remote SSH access over the VPN tunnel so they can help me keep everything up to date and healthy.

Everyone else, feel free to get creative and reach out to me with ideas! If you have any media for the media library, or any requests for it, definitely let me know and send them my way, so I can get them hosted!

How do I get access?

Well, given that this is a private intranet (not widely accessible to the open internet), I’ve elected to hide it behind a VPN. This also allows me to run it comfortably off an old laptop, or soon a series of old laptops, in my living room, without worrying about getting hacked. Or at least less so than if I was just exposing ports to the open internet.

VPNs for noobs

VPNs are notorious for being completely misunderstood by the layperson. Basically you can think of a VPN connection as a “tunnel” between two computers. In this context, one will be your computer/ phone, and the other will be my router. The router will only let you connect if you have the proper authorization, as I’ll get into later; Any unauthorized connection is immediately rejected. In simple terms, this is basically the key to my digital house.

Once you’re authorized, you can access any of the hosted services as if they were just websites through your web browser. The landing page can be found here: https://dash.fireye.coffee

Critically, this means that you can’t “just connect” to the intranet, as you will not be authorized.

Authorization

There are two main auth elements I’m using here:

a username/password combination (these can be saved by your VPN client meaning you should only need to enter them the first time)
a CA Certificate, in the form of a .ovpn file (read: A file with a lot of cryptography mumbo jumbo in it)

These should be kept off the internet wherever possible. If you can, I would like to handle these in-person, verbally and via usb drive. If this is not possible, we will need to establish a secure e2ee communication channel so the objects uploaded to the internet are at least encrypted. I recommend Signal, but Matrix, or another (ideally FOSS) e2ee platform is also acceptable.

However it is done, you will need to provide me with a username and password, and I will provide you with your CA Certificate.

I will reiterate: Do not let this information off your computer. Windows users, do not let Microsoft store these in one drive, regardless of how many dark patterns they throw at you.

If the file does get uploaded somewhere by accident, or you think it may have been accidentally, let me know immediately so I may void it and issue you a new one.

Connection

The landing page can be found here once you’re done: https://dash.fireye.coffee

Linux

For linux users, the networkmanager-openvpn package will fully integrate openVPN connections into your networking stack. From there, nm-connection-editor and nm-applet will allow you to register new connections and connect; It’s as easy as clicking “Import Saved VPN Config,” selecting your .ovpn file and typing in your username and password.

Other

Check out the openvpn client for your desired platform (including mobile), and follow the instructions.

Etiquette

Do not let .ovpn files off your local computer, except by physical media (eg: USB drive).
Always let me know if you think you may have leaked your .ovpn file or username/password.
The above rules also apply for any other intranet-related authentication keys or certificates.
Do not pirate content while connected to my VPN.
- Use of cobalt is allowed.
- Prowlarr use is allowed, provided searches are limited to one per ~5 minutes.
- Torrenting is not allowed; please disconnect your VPN connection before running your stream.
Do not DDOS my servers.
Do not DDOS other servers while connected to my VPN.
Do not do illegal things while connected to my VPN.
Do not pen test my servers without permission (It would be sick to do a CTF though holy hell)
Be respectful of others.

I reserve the right to remove anyone from the intranet for any reason. If I’ve invited you in the first place, this means that I trust you. I don’t want to remove people, and I would rather warn someone or assume ignorance than just knee-jerk ban someone.

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Langauages!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Languages

I live in the states, so I speak, read, and write English day-to-day. I used to know Spanish quite fluently, but have grown a little rusty over the years.

I’d love to learn more languages, but lack the time to do so in earnest, at least for now.

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My Wish List

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wish

Last updated: May 20th 2026

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Here’s some stuff I want, in no particular order, if you ever feel inclined to get me something. Check out the motivations for this here!

If you want to know some of the things I already have, check out /collections.

Time

The most valuable gift I can get is your time, whether that’s in the form of spending time together, or something you took the time to create yourself.

More and more I’ll be able to purchase the material objects that I want on my own, so naturally, I’d rather have stuff that has non-quantifiable value. Get creative!

Money, while technically being an analogue for your time, only ends up representing the labor that you spent that time on, which, while I hope wasn’t unpleasant, isn’t ideal in this context! I just want whatever you can do with your free time, if anything.

Bits and bobs

If that’s not feasible for you, (no worries, life is rough), here’s a list of various objects that I want.

Electronics

A RISC-V computer of some kind
A flip phone, ideally a hackable one with available schematics.
A 16GB DDR5 SODIMM. Maybe wait till RAM gets cheaper on this one though T_T
A graphics card for my laptop. This one would be fine; I don’t need a lot extra.
A broken PC motherboard. I like pretending that I can repair these.

Music

An electric Bass (A used one for like $100 would be awesome)
A Hurdy Gurdy (These look quite good, but eventually I want to get a more expensive one too)
Drum Cymbals. I seem to have completely destroyed my crash cymbal and need a replacement; I am also looking to add a ride cymbal.
A stylophpone. These little buggers are so unbelievably cool.

Games

TTRPGs

Note: I intentionally only collect physical copies because I forget PDFs exist.

Oceania 2084 - 1984 the TTRPG. Yes please!
Void 2210 - Radio Show: the game.
DIE RPG - Waiter waiter, more metacommentary please!
Eat the Reich - Historical vampire chaos :3
Dialect - Bring your own langauage.
Last Train to Bremen - What a premise!
His Majesty the Worm - Pedantry as a mechanic? Was this game made for me?
Bladerunner RPG - Cyberpunk
Haunted West - Western
Pirate Borg - I was looking at mork borg, but I’m nothing if not a sucker for pirate stories.

Board Games

Video Games

I’ve recently grown a bit concerned with how much of my games library is fully on steam. It’s basically impossible these days but I’d like to get a non-platform-locked version of anything if I can.

Also, for now, hold off on anything microsoft or xbox related, due to the boycott

Wanderstop
Esoteric Ebb
Kentucky Route Zero
Umurangi Generation
Pathologic
Pathologic 2
Cruelty Squad
Deus Ex
Pentiment
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage
Return of the Obra Dinn
Hollow Knight: Silksong
In Stars and Time
The Last of Us
Split Fiction
Valheim
No man’s sky (I technically don’t own this)

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The Fireye.Coffee style guide!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style

We mostly write on vibes up in here.

I think I’ll continue fleshing out my prose as time goes on, and I hope to use this page to document guidelines that I settle on as I go.

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The Fireye.Coffee tip jar!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tip

Right now, you can give me a tip on ko-fi if you appreciate or find value in any of my work. Any amount helps immensely.

Don’t have money? No worries! Leaving a comment on my guestbook or sending me an email are also great ways to show your appreciation. It’s always nice to hear that someone is benefiting from or enjoying something I’ve done.

Either way, thanks!

In the future, I might try to incorporate a payment API on my site and set up a PO box so that I may minimize my platform dependence.

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The Fireye.Coffee Uses slashpage!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Uses

Game Engine: Godot
IDE: Neovim (Nixvim)
DAW: Ardour
Synthesizer: Cardinal
Video Editor: Kdenlive
2D Art: Krita
3D Art: Blender
SVG Art: Inkscape
Chat: Signal
Todo List: Super productivity
Music Player: Feishin, Jamfish / Jellyfin
Screen recording: OBS Studio
Browser: Zen, Waterfox, Tor
Search Engine: SearXNG, DuckDuckGo
OS: NixOS
WM: Niri
Files: Nautilus, Ranger
Terminal: Foot
Task Manager: btop
Silly tools: hyfetch, pipes-rs, cowsay, sl