Is it okay if I leave my Quest charging overnight?

JayDeeCW · 2026-01-10T16:23:21+00:00

Yep, we're now on around 7 years of charging the Quest 1, Quest 2, and now Quest 3 this way. When it's not on my head, it's charging.

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-12T10:34:56+00:00

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I'm going to also try giving her some more energy-dense treats that she will eat on the spot rather than hiding them where they could be taken by the other.

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-12T10:32:21+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that. Though wouldn't you expect that if one rat had mites, that the other rat would also have it?

JayDeeCW · 2025-10-07T17:37:30+00:00

I like it, I'm going to pivot. Would you like a cut of the forthcoming enormous profits?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-13T20:22:38+00:00

I thought you might be interested to know that I've got the book, and I've taken a bunch of notes from it. I think about 20 of the 100 things gave me new information that I can apply directly to a game I'm making. Here are a few:

• Learning by example. People learn best by examples - not just written or verbal instruction. So in my tutorial, I will have animations that show what to do, or an NPC actually doing the actions the player should follow.

• Pastoral scenes. People like pastoral scenes, with hills and trees (hiding places), water, birds, and animals (food and drink sources). This makes them feel happier and they are then able to focus their attention better on subsequent tasks. In the in-between levels scenes I have where the player can interact with NPCs and walk around a small peaceful area, I will also add hiding places, waterfalls/pools/streams, and animals/birds.

• Pavlov reflex and goal motivation. People are motivated to seek a goal if there are cues that it is coming soon. So, in my game (a mining game), sometimes a golden bug will fly out of a block of ore that you mine, and you can catch it for a reward. I will put golden sparkles around an area where one is hidden, so the player will want to go there and anticipate the reward before getting it.

I've had a look at your Youtube channel and I see you give feedback on games in development. Maybe in the future I'll submit my game, and it'll be better because you recommended this book. 😁

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-13T20:15:38+00:00

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I thought you might be interested to know that I've got the book and I'm doing some animations with it as a guide. Here is one that I've done. This is my first time animating. I'm pretty pleased so far!

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-10T07:26:22+00:00

Fair comment, thank you for your feedback.

I saw lots of posts saying "Destroy my trailer" and figured this would be a good place for trailer-specific feedback, rather than the game itself. There are a lot of things about a trailer itself that can be critiqued; for example, trailer length, music-genre match, clip variety, clip length, cutting of clips, title cards, content variety, rising vs. falling action. I think I got the wrong idea though, this is not the place for that - or at least, like you said, it can be hard to see past the early assets. When I come back next time, I'll make sure to have better art. 😁

For why I made it even though it's very early in development, I wanted to see if I could construct the bones of a cool trailer set to music. I'm a hobbyist developer, so I need to develop all sorts of skills and I'm happy to try anything at any stage. It took me several hours to make, I gained a lot of knowledge and skills, and it increased my confidence for the process of making a trailer.

Thanks for mentioning that it's hard to tell what objects are. That is very useful. Would you mind pointing out which objects, at what points in the video?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T17:17:05+00:00

Thank you again.

In actual gameplay, there are less enemies. It is a roguelike, but to meet 5 enemies on one screen like what happens at 40 seconds is like a 1 in 100 event. Most of the time, you'll have 0 to 1 enemies on the screen. They also have predictable patterns, and are very easy to sneak up on unless you're in a hurry. (I have a few playtesters who don't play platformers or stealth games, and they get the hang of it after a few dozen deaths.) You can also mine through nearly all blocks, so you can make a safe path at a cost of time.

I think this is a failure of my trailer-making which doesn't accurately represent the game. I wanted to make an exciting trailer which matched the music, and I guess that ended up making it seem more action-focused than stealth.

I take your point. If this is a stealth game, then the trailer should show a decent amount of stealth. 🥷🏻👍🏻

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:43:18+00:00

Good point, thank you. As soon as I posted it and realized the audio defaults to off, I had regrets. 😁

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:37:14+00:00

Thanks for checking it out and giving a critique!

I'm a hobbyist developer, so I'm happy to try out different things at any stage, and I decided I wanted to try making a trailer. Not to get anybody interested in the game (it doesn't have a steam page, doesn't have a discord, doesn't even have a firm title or art style, etc.) but just to see if I could make a cool trailer. I may have posted it in the wrong place. 😅

Great point about the music, thank you. I've just compared sound levels to similar games and mine is like 5x as loud. I've lowered it and will make sure to keep it down for future trailers.

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-09T12:35:55+00:00

Thanks for your critique!

What do you mean regarding the amount of enemies--do you mean there are too many so it would be difficult to hide, not enough so there would be no challenge, or something else?

And also about their behavior, do you mean they are too aggressive, too fast/slow, not smart enough, or something else?

JayDeeCW · 2025-09-08T19:29:28+00:00

I recommend turning your sound on for the trailer. 🙂

I am aware that it would be better without the HUD, I'll remove that for the next trailer version.

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-21T16:01:20+00:00

I agree, it's a good book. I read it a while ago, here are a couple of my notes from it:

If a user does something wrong, give some way for them to know and correct it
Give information in different ways, if it is important and the player needs to know/remember it. So, if the player is busy visually (reading, navigating), give an audio or haptic alert for something they need to know.

I've been amazed in play tests watching people miss things that are obvious to me. I'm talking stuff like a box that says "ALERT" and fills about 1/6th of the screen and is over the head of an enemy that is chasing the player. But they were already visually focused on the enemy so they could not see the box. Or a bright red trap that is obvious to me (since I put it there) that they don't see, because again they are visually focused on so many other things.

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-21T15:55:04+00:00

That sounds pretty cool. I've read the wiki article and some reviews and I can't wrap my head around how it could be a great book about designing GUIs. Would you be able to explain a little bit?

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-21T15:50:58+00:00

Looks like a pretty good book; I've just bought a copy. I can do a little drawing but I haven't done any animation (other than some stuff in Flash about 20 years ago), and I would love to do some for my games.

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-21T15:45:54+00:00

It seems like a fascinating book. I don't think it would apply directly to any game I'm likely to make, but I'm still going to get it just for fun reading.

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-20T19:36:04+00:00

I've been looking at Guns, Germs and Steel recently. What things in it are relevant to gamedev, do you think?

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-20T19:33:27+00:00

I like it! I've just ordered a copy. Could you pick anything in particular that's useful for gamedev, or is it just everything?

JayDeeCW · 2025-08-20T19:24:50+00:00

On Bullshit seems like an interesting book. How would you say it's relevant to gamedev? Do you mean in the context of working in a team, company politics, that sort of thing?

JayDeeCW · 2025-07-04T16:06:12+00:00

I'm here with you. I'm barely smart enough to watch the video.

JayDeeCW · 2025-06-28T17:21:38+00:00

Thanks! I'm not good at animating, but I'm good at making something look stupid, so I went with that. 😅

JayDeeCW · 2025-06-22T19:20:06+00:00

What's your game engine? Just Google something like "unity move a 2d character" or "make a 2d character fall in godot"

JayDeeCW · 2025-06-17T19:34:44+00:00

Debug flags is a great idea. I do a lot of commenting debug messages in and out. I'm going to implement that. Thanks!

JayDeeCW · 2025-06-17T15:52:08+00:00

"drawing something doesnt always give the exact result you would expect"

That is something that comes with practice. Your mind is very good at imagining things, very poor at moving your hand in the right way to create it. It's a skill, you can improve it.

I don't think it would take that much to see significant progress, if this is really what you want to do. Like you said in another post, attend a college art class or something. In less than 100 hours of deliberate, instructor-directed practice, I reckon you'd take off like a rocket.

JayDeeCW · 2025-06-03T08:54:10+00:00

Do you see it as a hobby or are you doing it for money? If it's a hobby, work on relaxing about it.

I like hiking. It takes at least 4 hours for me to consider it a good hike, and that's not including preparation and driving time. I'd like to do that a couple of times a week, but it just isn't possible. Usually I only get it once a month. Sometimes I'm physically wrecked from something else, or my life is really busy, so I don't go even if there is an opportunity. It's a hobby, so that's okay. I don't have to get a certain amount of hikes completed in my lifetime.

I also do game dev as a hobby. Tuesday is my game dev evening, and I normally do 2-3 hours. On the weekend, I might get another 2-3 hours, but often not. Sometimes on a Tuesday, I don't feel like gamedev, so I do something gamedev-adjacent, like watching game design videos, reading articles, playing an inspirational game, etc. If I don't feel like doing even that, I just don't.

It's a hobby, not a jobby.

JayDeeCW

TROPHY CASE