Farbs

Game! Dev!
Late Onset Circus Skills Enthusiast
Manatee Driver
The secret identity of Dean G Follicle

#gamedev

Public Key

npub16ch503snpvlf2yx9vxf676j0fz0j7666spfnd60sjd5m5xd4vtuq6vxfsr

NIP-05 Address

Farbs@mastodon-social.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsdvt68ccfsk054zrzkrya0df8538e0dddgq5eka8cfx6d6rx6k97qpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dscj06mx

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub16ch503snpvlf2yx9vxf676j0fz0j7666spfnd60sjd5m5xd4vtuq6vxfsr

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Last Notes

2026-10-08 04:09:30 UTC

You may not like it, but this is what peak gaming looks like.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/117/403/319/464/273/502/original/1f001cc835c9effc.jpg

2026-10-04 04:08:38 UTC

I'm finally playing Mario Bros Wonder, and, like, I dunno. I appreciate the intentional focus on Weird Mario Things, but I reckon that should probably have been an internal memo rather than a game mechanic.
Constraining weird things to a designated Weird Thing Time doesn't evoke wonder for me, it just makes the rest of the game feel mundane. I want to see weird looming in the distance, scurrying in the shadows, spoken of only in whispers. I don't want a weird things on/off button.

2026-09-08 00:18:30 UTC

I say this with huge respect for the team, acknowledging that they went through hell on The Bureau not only in the years I was there but also (by the sounds of it) the years I wasn't.
Lol.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/117/232/532/843/087/842/original/9d7c27be23621102.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/117/232/532/951/244/303/original/81d65103f33fd00c.png

2026-08-13 12:30:04 UTC

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@nprofile…29up We tried to play F1 in VR the other day and it required us to sign in to four separate "services" (storefronts).
- Epic
- EA
- Oculus
- Steam
Then it didn't work.
Spent an hour on it before giving up.

2026-08-02 23:28:23 UTC

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@nprofile…j05z
Lucy in this guy with diamonds?

2026-07-21 12:42:10 UTC

I couldn't decide whether to call the cubes that make up my level geometry Blocks, Boxes, or Voxels, so to amuse myself I called them Boxels.
Or possibly Bloxels.
I keep forgetting which and now my code is a nightmare.

2026-07-16 12:16:20 UTC

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@nprofile…ld30 @nprofile…em7h Aw poo, looks like it's fixed. But at least now I know that the public record of our legislation includes the following:
"Crimes committed on aircraft to which Fart applies."

2026-07-12 23:32:03 UTC

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@nprofile…j05z aw poo, I didn't know the classism dressed up as intellectual snobbery in early IF extended beyond the Williamses.

2026-07-08 01:06:53 UTC

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@nprofile…v2v2 Honestly I just think we need a new term for whatever some of these social media services turned into.
Algo feeds are a long, long way from subscribing to updates on what your friend ate for lunch.

2026-06-11 11:06:23 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y have you done the thing where your calculate the radius of the earth by lying at the edge of a West facing shore, watching the sun dip below the horizon, the quickly standing up and measuring how long it takes to set again?

2026-06-05 08:48:30 UTC

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@nprofile…hm63 does tic80 have the equivalent of pico8's flip()? I couldn't find it, and these days I use that paradigm a _lot_.

2026-05-15 16:39:40 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y True, and that sucks.

2026-05-15 09:37:56 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y Are there any political ideologies that are pro inflation? It seems like all it does (assuming labour costs keep up) is devalue cash assets, which is another way of saying someone else's debt. And that seems good actually?

2026-05-02 01:39:21 UTC

Shader peeps - is there a reason fwidth is:
abs(dFdx(p)) + abs(dFdy(p))
and not:
sqrt(dFdx(p)*dFdx(p) + dFdy(p)*dFdy(p))
?
I'm using it for SDF sharpening and my calculus skills are not strong, so maybe the former is correct? Or is it just saving a sqrt and two muls for a good enough approximation?
#gamedev
#shaders

2026-02-20 20:12:07 UTC

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@nprofile…t89z very cool!
If the export is for iso games shouldn't the renders also be isometric? I'm sure I'm seeing some perspective there...

2026-02-09 07:11:49 UTC

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@nprofile…hm63 FWIW I'm not sure what my point was. I just think it's neat that people know the names of each other's cats.

2026-02-05 14:02:31 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y
New high score 🎉

2025-12-18 04:13:51 UTC

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@nprofile…f4xf the last time I made one I'm pretty sure it was a handful of detuned saw waves + some biquad filters based on a table I found somewhere. Maybe this one?
https://www.classes.cs.uchicago.edu/archive/1999/spring/CS295/Computing_Resources/Csound/CsManual3.48b1.HTML/Appendices/table3.html
At some point I also chucked it through a "chorus" that was just three delay lines with sine modulation on the delay time all hooked up out of phase with each other.

2025-12-10 12:16:46 UTC

My neck hurts :(
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/695/215/929/272/089/original/5516896b509a6e84.jpg

2025-12-01 11:38:47 UTC

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@nprofile…xlvy My first phone was like that :)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/644/105/638/415/608/original/f3299f370e4cd684.jpg

2025-11-23 23:32:50 UTC

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@nprofile…xlvy Brilliant story! I didn't realise you'd worked on this.
HL2 VR on DK1 is how I learnt that vr nausea can last for many hours, and no you absolutely can't push through it.
Totally worth it though!

2025-11-21 06:05:35 UTC

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@nprofile…xlvy boring answer, but 15+ years ago I went through the pain of learning GNU Image Manipulation Program and it was totally worth it. I'm even using it now for UI layouts via a custom exporter script.
The pain is real though. There are dozens of reasons that you might click on the canvas and not see the pixels change colour, and it takes a long time to learn all of 'em.

2025-11-11 06:33:11 UTC

Somewhere around here is the energy I need to get out of my car, walk into the supermarket, and figure out what I'm cooking for dinner.
Somewhere.
I'm sure I'll find it if I just keep scrolling.

2025-10-14 09:17:30 UTC

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@nprofile…6lf0
Gratz! 🎉
Is there supposed to be a video here?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/371/761/551/528/909/original/7f4fc7a4084111f4.png

2025-10-06 11:35:18 UTC

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@nprofile…d23x
And by default every keypress made a sound.
Also cd and ls should be replaced with "go" and "look"
(Ages ago I did this in windows via batch files and it was awesome)
> look
You are at /
There are no files here.
Exits lead:
- bin
- etc
- usr
- var
> go var
...and so on.

2025-06-11 07:40:08 UTC

I've been noodling with audio tech for Monster Bop, and after a bit of head scratching I realised if I modulated a signal with another one that's at Nyquist frequency it should perfectly flip the original signal's frequencies. Which seemed ridiculous and wrong.
But it worked?
Anyway I'd love to tell you what it sounds like but it's almost entirely beyond the range of my hearing now :)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/663/575/725/106/165/original/6ff121a535fbc15a.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/663/576/714/338/298/original/2b6cfed36e37c0c9.png

2025-06-03 04:46:09 UTC

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@nprofile…d23x Free idea: Visual language connected like Pipe Dream.

2025-05-12 23:18:57 UTC

Arg, I've been looking at this for too long.
Which is better?
#gamedev #games #pixelart
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/497/403/578/607/241/original/7af553a79369eed3.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/497/404/370/264/622/original/db3c624a030c336a.png

2025-04-18 23:00:47 UTC

Shader Programmers:
Are vector ops more efficient than scalar (ie if I add two float4s is that the same cost as adding two floats) or did that stop being a thing 15 years ago?
#gamedev #graphicsprogramming #programming #gpu

2025-03-20 11:22:38 UTC

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@nprofile…k0gr I had to look this up, and it's kinda mind blowing. We somehow screwed up the internet so badly that we need a subscription service to stream data from one of our own internet connected devices to another. What the heck. How did we get _here_?!

2025-03-20 06:03:42 UTC

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@nprofile…t3wn Geez, you're lucky you weren't caught by the TV detector vans!

2025-03-17 23:38:52 UTC

A Random Game Design Question:
Are there many campaign narratives that are about achieving a positive outcome, rather than avoiding or alleviating a negative one? I'm thinking particularly about games where the player acts as a single character.
Sports games tend to do this, but in action RPGs we always seem to be preventing an apocalypse or rescuing a puppy.

2025-01-02 06:11:52 UTC

If you're old enough you might remember when analogue control sticks showed up, and suddenly sports games went from 8 directional control to running around in any direction.
You might also remember losing interest in those games, because (happy to discuss in the replies) analogue control is way less fun.
If you're even older you might recall four directional control sports games, and how they also kinda sucked.
So now I'm wondering - what is the optimal number of movement directions? 7? 5?

2024-12-24 12:20:27 UTC

We turned on the Christmas tree lights, and now Millie can see through time.
#CatsOfMastodon
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/707/754/156/427/995/original/7447b5937d693ea3.jpg

2024-12-24 05:48:43 UTC

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@nprofile…t3wn Something taped to his back, like this photo from earlier in the year?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/706/220/671/355/870/original/720acdc46d6d3589.jpg

2024-12-24 05:30:27 UTC

It's Christmas Eve, we're watching Die Hard, and just after we cue it up Farbs Jr shouts WAIT and sprints out of the room.
Five minutes later he's back in a white singlet.

2024-12-10 06:27:13 UTC

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@nprofile…t3wn There's a guy in my circus skills class who can do handstand push-ups, and they look really cool.
I'd love to be able to walk on my hands, but my very best so far was a 2m disaster wobble & crash, and I'm nowhere near good enough to safely practice anywhere at home.

2024-12-10 05:49:27 UTC

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@nprofile…t3wn Well if I could do push-ups with my feet in the air I'd be proud posting about that too :)

2024-12-10 05:26:18 UTC

New handstand personal best! 25 seconds! Whee!!!

2024-11-16 02:31:32 UTC

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@nprofile…cgs9 Now I wanna know if anyone has simulated the audible effect of an Amiga flashing its power LED (that was inexplicably wired up to the HF audio filter) during a Guru Meditation error.

2024-11-15 04:03:34 UTC

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@nprofile…gqvd welcome to the quiet carriage

2024-08-20 04:02:31 UTC

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@npub1dts…6798 I mean, yeah. Its like they ordered steak tartare well done. It's the only reasonable response.

2024-08-15 03:43:22 UTC

Oh no. It looks like you can manually invite anyone you want to your Steam playtest, and it'll spam them with an email.
I give this three days tops before it becomes a total spamfest and Valve starts kicking people off the service.
The only funny part is that the first perpetrator was Valve themselves.

2024-08-02 02:42:34 UTC

The expression isn't "Make do" or "Make due", it's "Make doo", meaning to produce a single poop.

2024-07-26 05:45:39 UTC

I feel like I'm missing a word here.
With records, you put them over the spindle onto the platter.
CDs and other disc media go into a tray or a slot.
Audio and VCR cassettes however go... where? What's the name for the part of the device you put them into? "The Hole?"

2024-07-03 23:06:26 UTC

Digging through some old files, I just found an ancient alpha build screenshot from Captain Forever. Comparing it to a player's ship from this week, I don't think I ever expected the game to come this far.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/725/054/442/452/588/original/bda2aa79eba69322.png
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/725/055/169/323/864/original/25086227e137d7c7.png

2024-06-20 11:38:38 UTC

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@npub1su4…a0dw Okay what monster did that to an Amiga 500.

2024-06-20 05:42:20 UTC

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@npub1ykd…6j2y We're test driving an i5 this weekend, but I suspect my partner isn't thinking we'll get the N.

2024-06-18 03:51:29 UTC

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@npub1rv4…ft5j I refuse to believe that Foone Turing doesn't regularly use a ball mouse.

2024-06-14 05:41:18 UTC

I just tried to log in to a sound library and discovered:
1) I already had an account
2) Created six years ago
3) And my download history all recordings of people screaming
WTF was I doing six years ago?!

2024-05-25 15:45:50 UTC

Hey so I know it's hard to imagine after the last few cycles, but maybe LLMs and other AI overhype will be peak techbro bullshit and we'll get a break from their arsehattery.

2024-05-01 20:56:58 UTC

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@npub1su4…a0dw I was gonna argue that that's not what Gamification means, but then I realised rebranding unpleasant things in the language of games is always what it meant.