<![CDATA[Powered by my own imagination, coded with fun.]]>https://end3r.com/GatsbyJSTue, 11 Feb 2025 16:41:31 GMT<![CDATA[My GitHub Star status was just renewed for the fifth year in a row - it's been quite the journey already, but it's not over yet.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-5th/https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-5th/Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT<p><a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/end3r/">My GitHub Star</a> status was just renewed for the fifth year in a row - it’s been quite the journey already, but it’s not over yet.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-star-2025.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Star renewed for the 5th time"></p> <p>Here are all the announcements:</p> <ul> <li>[2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star/">Becoming a GitHub Star</a></li> <li>[2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed/">GitHub Star status renewed</a></li> <li>[2023] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-again/">My GitHub Star status renewed again</a></li> <li>[2024] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-4th/">My GitHub Star status renewed for the fourth year!</a></li> </ul> <p>The <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star/">very first blog post</a> attempts to list the possible contributions that landed me this achievement, with the leading factor being the wonderful <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> community, since the source code of all the games from all the years all the way back to 2012 are hosted <a href="https://github.com/js13kGames">on GitHub</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/still-worthy.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Still worthy"></p> <p>I really enjoyed my time at <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/stars-github-universe-2024/">GitHub Universe 2024</a> and meeting the other <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/">Stars</a> personally. I’ll continue trying to give back to the community as much as I can, hopefully with some coding and writing around <strong>GitHub Copilot</strong> and <strong>AI</strong> for game development specifically. Wish me luck!</p><![CDATA[On November 26th, after a few long months, we've returned with the W3C Games Community Group meetup and had GameSnacks talking about discovery, distribution, and monetisation.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2024/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2024/Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>On November 26th, after a <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2024/">few long months</a>, we’ve returned with the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games Community Group</a> meetup and had <a href="https://gamesnacks.com/">GameSnacks</a> talking about <strong>discovery</strong>, <strong>distribution</strong>, and <strong>monetisation</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3cgames-nov24-gamesnacks.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG November 2024 - GameSnacks"></p> <p>This was somewhat a follow-up to the discussion we had <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-tpac-2020/">a few years back</a> about <a href="https://github.com/tcmg/open-mini-games">Open Mini Games</a> proposed by <strong>Tom Greenaway</strong>. At the recent meetup we had <strong>Andrew Gildfind</strong> from <strong>Google</strong>, a product manager for <strong>GameSnacks</strong> handling HTML5 ads for games, who was presenting about their platform. <strong>Tom Greenaway</strong>, AI and Games advocate at <strong>Google</strong> (and also W3C Games CG chair) was leading the discussion around the future of discovery, distribution, and monetisation.</p> <p>At the meetup we had folks from the publishers side like <strong>Poki</strong> and <strong>CrazyGames</strong>, but also the game engines side with <strong>Phaser</strong> and <strong>Defold</strong>, and game developers (me representing <a href="https://enclavegames.com/">Enclave Games</a> among others) as well. We all agreed that we should investigate formalizing Open Mini Games Format into an API ⁄ SDK all parties could start using.</p> <blockquote> <p>The Open Mini Games (OMG) format is a proposal to define a set of combined minimum requirements that game developers can implement when developing a game that is playable in a web browser or a client which renders HTML5 content. The aim of the requirements is to provide the information necessary to surface a web game in a standardized manner on discovery platforms such as browsers but also embedded platforms.</p> </blockquote> <p>You can watch the recorded video of the presentation along with captions, transcript, and meeting notes <a href="https://www.w3.org/2024/11/andrewgildfind-gamesnacks.html">here</a>. We’ll most probably start with an MVP ⁄ prototype first, and work from there during our regular W3C Games Community Group meetups.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3cgames-nov24-gamesnacks-challenges.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG November 2024 - GameSnacks challenges"></p> <p>We’ve also discussed internally if we should update the current group’s charter, create a new one, or place the idea in a W3C incubator, with the option of creating a new one with interested parties joining in probably being the best for now. With “W3C Games <strong>Working</strong> Group” we could actually specify the work needed to be done to create a formal standard.</p> <p>We do plan to have another <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/games/">W3C Games CG</a> meetup in January to keep the momentum going and discuss the next steps.</p><![CDATA[The end of October was the second time I went to US to attend GitHub Universe in person after the 2023 edition, and this time was the tenth anniversary of the event itself happening in a new San Francisco venue: Fort Mason.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/stars-github-universe-2024/https://end3r.com/blog/stars-github-universe-2024/Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>The end of October was the second time I went to US to attend <a href="https://githubuniverse.com">GitHub Universe</a> in person after the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-stars-nova-universe-2023/">2023 edition</a>, and this time was the tenth anniversary of the event itself happening in a new San Francisco venue: <strong>Fort Mason</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-01.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 01"></p> <p><a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-stars-nova-universe-2023/">Last year’s edition</a> had <strong>Nova</strong>, a mini-conference dedicated to <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-4th/">GitHub Stars</a>, which was skipped this time, but other than that we had similar schedule: Day 0 (October 27th) with all the Community and Open Source stuff, and then two days of the Universe conference itself (October 28th-29th).</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-03.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 03"></p> <p>My travel from Europe went rather smooth, if you don’t count the usual jetlag. What greeted me when leaving the train station I took from the airport was surreal though: a convoy of a few Waymo’s (self-driving cars), followed by Tesla Cybertruck, and a homeless man yelling something about the end of the world in the background.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-02.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 02"></p> <p>The next day I had the opportunity to drive a <strong>Waymo</strong> as a passenger, which was truly incredible. The self-driving car clearly had to went through multiple iterations, because it was driving carefully, but also quite confident. I can’t wait to see such wonders in more cities around the world!</p> <h2 id="day-zero" style="position:relative;"><a href="#day-zero" aria-label="day zero permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Day Zero</h2> <p>The first, or technically the zero day was held at the InterContinental Hotel in the city centre.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-04.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 04"></p> <p>We had the opportunity to hear the big announcements planned for the next day at Universe from the CEO himself, <strong>Thomas Dohmke</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-05.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 05"></p> <p>It was also a good opportunity to chat in the breakout rooms about all the things related to Open Source with other Stars and GitHub folks.</p> <h2 id="day-one" style="position:relative;"><a href="#day-one" aria-label="day one permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Day One</h2> <p>The first day of the Universe conference started with the keynote full of interesting facts and announcements. Then we had many sessions in various locations as Universe took place in the whole Fort Mason complex, taking over multiple buildings at once.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-06.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 06"></p> <p>There was a huge building entirely dedicated to partners’ booths, which I checked right after the keynote, and attended a couple sessions. Then I went straight to the GitHub Stars Lounge we had for ourselves in the keynote building.</p> <h2 id="the-meetups-coderabbit-and-figma" style="position:relative;"><a href="#the-meetups-coderabbit-and-figma" aria-label="the meetups coderabbit and figma permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>The meetups: CodeRabbit and Figma</h2> <p>Me and a few other Stars decided to visit some meetups happening after the first day of the conference: the first one was organized by the <strong>CodeRabbit</strong> team, and the other by <strong>Figma</strong> folks.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-07.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 07"></p> <p>We got tired pretty fast though and decided to return to our hotel rooms to get some sleep.</p> <h2 id="day-two" style="position:relative;"><a href="#day-two" aria-label="day two permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Day Two</h2> <p>The second day of the conference started with another keynote, although with less <em>big</em> announcements. We did have <a href="https://itch.io/jam/game-off-2024">GitHub Game Off</a> mentioned on the stage and a video with the stories from a couple of Stars as well though.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-08.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 08"></p> <p>I was at the GitHub Stars Lounge most of the second day - I had one hour shift, but spent way more as we had some cool conversations going there throughout the day.</p> <h2 id="the-food" style="position:relative;"><a href="#the-food" aria-label="the food permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>The food</h2> <p>I definitely can’t complain about the food - we did visit one of the best breakfast places in San Francisco, the <strong>Pinecrest Diner</strong>, twice!</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-09.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 09"></p> <p>We also had great ramen in one of the evenings, and visited <strong>Little Delhi</strong> the other night, where more interesting conversations took place.</p> <h2 id="the-summary" style="position:relative;"><a href="#the-summary" aria-label="the summary permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>The summary</h2> <p>The new venue was great, we had beautiful weather, all the people were awesome. I so much enjoyed my time in San Francisco, it brought our group closer together more than a full year of online meetups.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-10.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 10"></p> <p>Spent most of the time with Santosh, but also met Jan, Daniel, and many other awesome Stars. Had really deep conversations as well, I’m definitely gonna remember the Little Delhi discussions with Jan and Jonathan. I had such a great time with Corbin, Emanuele, Gary, Colby, Jess, Rob, Jonah, Simon, Beatriz, Leonardo, and many others I apologize I didn’t mention.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-11.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 11"></p> <p>Howard and Anisha did an awesome job creating this wonderful group of genuine people and keeping it together. The only time I felt such positive vibes was the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2020/09/03/five-years-of-tech-speakers/">Mozilla Tech Speakers</a> program years ago.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-universe-2024-12.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Universe 2024 12"></p> <p>I also had soome time to talk with Lee and play their cool arcade games in person, which always add to the fun people can have at the conference.</p> <p>If there will be an opportunity to attend Universe next year I’ll definitely do everything to be there again!</p><![CDATA[I was asked to judge the entries submitted to the very first Web Game Challenge organized by the DEV team in September, with the results being published at the beginning of October.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/dev-web-game-challenge/https://end3r.com/blog/dev-web-game-challenge/Mon, 14 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>I was asked to judge the entries submitted to the very first <a href="https://dev.to/devteam/introducing-our-first-community-web-game-challenge-1loo">Web Game Challenge</a> organized by the <strong>DEV team</strong> in September, with the <a href="https://dev.to/devteam/congrats-to-the-winners-of-our-first-web-game-challenge-32co">results being published</a> at the beginning of October.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/dev-web-game-challenge.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - DEV Web Game Challenge"></p> <blockquote> <p>We have been organizing challenges (mini-hackathons) on DEV for a few months now, and are planning to announce our first web game challenge. Given your expertise and involvement with both the gaming community <a href="https://dev.to/end3r">and dev.to</a>, we were wondering if you’d be interested in being a guest judge.</p> </blockquote> <p>Who could say “no” to that? The <a href="https://dev.to/challenges/webgame">Web Game Challenge</a> had two “prompts” to chose from: <strong>Build a Web Game</strong> and <strong>One Byte Explainer</strong>. The first revolved around building an actual web game following the <strong>Aliens</strong> theme, while the second asked participants to explain any given concept in 256 characters or less.</p> <p>The Challenge received a lot of submissions - between September 18th and 29th almost 50 games and almost 40 explainers were sent. It was difficult to pick a single winner in both, even with a shortlist of 5-10 entries. Ultimately I went for:</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/alien-waves.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Alien Waves"></p> <ul> <li><strong>Best Web Game</strong>: <a href="https://dev.to/excaliburjs/alien-waves-148m">Alien Waves</a> by <strong>Justin Young</strong></li> <li><strong>Best Explainer</strong>: <a href="https://dev.to/hikolakita/event-listeners-one-byte-explainer-3dgm">Event Listeners</a> by <strong>Hikolakita</strong></li> </ul> <p>You can read my reasoning behind picking those in the <a href="https://dev.to/devteam/congrats-to-the-winners-of-our-first-web-game-challenge-32co">DEV announcement blog post</a> published on October 1st. I also liked two more games that were close to the first spot, <a href="https://dev.to/tommyson/galactic-breach-4381">Galactic Breach</a> for the Twister-like gameplay which was really fun to play and <a href="https://dev.to/j_t/spacetype-continuum-2ip9">SpaceType Continuum</a> for utilizing an engaging typing mechanism.</p> <p>Winners got DEV++ memberships, gifts, and exclusive winner badges, while all the other participants received completion badges. I’m really happy I was involved, and I hope more web game challenges will be organized on the DEV platform in the future!</p><![CDATA[Although I'm quite busy with the js13kGames competition, I did find the time to attend ETHWarsaw conference that happened last week as I missed the first two editions entirely.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/ethwarsaw/https://end3r.com/blog/ethwarsaw/Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>Although I’m quite busy with the <a href="https://js13kgames.com">js13kGames</a> competition, I did find the time to attend <a href="https://ethwarsaw.dev">ETHWarsaw</a> conference that happened last week as I missed the first two editions entirely.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-01.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw banner"></p> <blockquote> <p>ETHWarsaw [III] will bring close to 1000 builders and innovators from the community to discuss growth in the bull market, responsible innovation and challenges we’re about to face. We will look into privacy and security of our data, explore the new scalability challenges beyond L2s and lots more.</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>ETHWarsaw</strong> took place in <a href="https://browarywarszawskie.com.pl/en/">Warsaw Breweries</a>, a relatively new spot in the capital. The conference was happening on September 5th-6th, which is right in the middle of the online <a href="https://js13kgames.com">js13kGames</a> competition, quite close to the submission deadline on September 13th.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-02.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw talk"></p> <p>I did miss the first two editions happening in 2022 and 2023, both because of being too busy with js13kGames. This time though, since I <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/burnout/">shifted focus</a> a bit and <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/op-guild/">joined OP Games to run OP Guild</a>, it made sense to stretch the availability a bit and try to attend after all. Especially that I wanted to talk with the <a href="https://elympics.ai">Elympics</a> folks about the guild anyway.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-03.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw Bitcoin"></p> <p>I was lucky enough to get the ticket as part of the media partnership with <a href="https://gamedevjs.com">Gamedev.js</a>, where quite often various conferences (mostly front-end and JavaScript ones) would be interested to share the info about their events with <a href="https://facebook.com/Gamedevjs">our community on Facebook</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-04.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw chill"></p> <p>The first day of the conference started with the opening and was full of interesting talks (and other types of sessions) in multiple rooms, big and small, throughout the day. I enjoyed the ones I attended, but also spent some time in the quiet room working.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-05.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw Elympics"></p> <p>In the evening I went to the <a href="https://lu.ma/26vm6b20">Elympics on TON. Gaming, Redefined</a> meetup which was part of the <a href="https://ethwarsaw.notion.site/Warsaw-Blockchain-Week-2024-4ec0e65bf067494ebe3e4f6494edee9a">Warsaw Blockchain Week</a> happening between September 4th and 8th. I talked with the <strong>Elympics</strong> folks about multiple things, including <strong>OP Guild</strong> and <strong>js13kGames</strong> - had a great time, it seems we share a similar vision to web gamedev on the blockchain.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/ethwarsaw-06.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - ETHWarsaw Farcaster"></p> <p>The second day was packed with content too. The one session I liked the most was about <a href="https://cfp.ethwarsaw.dev/ethwarsaw-2024/talk/AAZMQM/">Farcaster Frames</a> by <strong>Simone Staffa</strong> aka <a href="https://x.com/limone_eth">limone.eth</a>.</p> <p>Overall I’m really happy I was able to attend - I enjoyed the talks, met a few old friends and folks I haven’t seen a long time, had some cool conversations with random strangers, ate tasty food an worked a bit in the meantime as well. I already know I’ll be aiming to repeat that next year!</p><![CDATA[Learning the truth that the only constant is change is the most annoying thing someone with a solid plan can experience. Bonus points if you're in the autism spectrum and hate any changes to your plan whatsoever.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/burnout/https://end3r.com/blog/burnout/Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>Learning the truth that <strong>the only constant is change</strong> is the most annoying thing someone with a solid plan can experience. Bonus points if you’re in the autism spectrum and hate any changes to your plan whatsoever.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/burnout-shifting-focus-again.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Small plant growing out of big burned down ruins"></p> <p>Remember my <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/shifting-focus/">Shifting focus</a> blog post from 2020? The one published a few months after the Covid hit, with mostly bad news: no more local <a href="https://gamedevjs.pl/">Gamedev.js Meetups in Warsaw</a>, the closing of the <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2020/09/03/five-years-of-tech-speakers/">Mozilla Tech Speakers</a> program along the layoffs of all the dev-facing teams within Mozilla itself, and me pausing traveling and <a href="https://end3r.com/speaking/">speaking</a> activities.</p> <p>There were some good news too: we were awarded that year with the grant from the <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/final-grant-report/">Grant for the Web program</a> run by Coil, so we could play around and experiment with the Web Monetization API - a new way to send micro amounts of money right in the browser between two individuals without any third parties. This sounded like a great opportunity to test within web games and see if it’s a viable option for indie game developers.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/bodyguard-forestcuties.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Body Guard and Forest Cuties"></p> <p>We had fun releasing two of our latest games, <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/body-guard-making-of/">Body Guard</a> and <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/forest-cuties-making-of/">Forest Cuties</a>, in 2021. They both were implementing some specific functions of the Web Monetization API: probabilistic revenue sharing and receipt verifier service respectively. Coil eventually shut down in 2023, but I really enjoyed tinkering with the cutting-edge tech again.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/badlucky-gamedevjs-js13kgames.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Badlucky prize for js13kGames challenge in Gamedev.js Jam"></p> <p>The <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> competition is running since 2012, while the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jam/">Gamedev.js Jam</a> started in 2020. The pandemic forced many companies to invest into online presence like never before, so sponsorships in both competitions soared. Encouraged by the situation, I decided to pursue the dream of having a sustainable business out of running both events each year, and being able to cover expenses of our whole family.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/wp-image/2015/07/whistler-sunset.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Whistler sunset"></p> <p>This, unfortunately, didn’t last long when the global economic crisis hit and those same companies were cutting costs and firing entire departments. I was spending more and more time trying to acquire sponsorships, which at times was very tiring. My main job for multiple weeks straight was sending emails and joining calls to talk about the exact same things, and then after a few months of conversations hearing <em>“well, we actually don’t have budget for that anymore”</em>.</p> <p>Putting more hours into this haven’t given me more financial stability, so I was stressing a lot. I tried to make everything bigger and better to finally reach that goal, but the interest was dropping.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/badlucky.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Badlucky"></p> <p>Not to mention something that deserves it’s own book - the legendary <em>“new js13kGames backend”</em> that I tried to have since 2014, because we were running on a temporary solution, and failed with multiple people for multiple reasons at least 6 or 7 times from scratch up until now. The last two or three attempts broke me, because I was trying hard to be optimistic, but it ended up the same every single time. At some point I knew it will never happen, I got depressed and wanted to shut down everything to never look at it again. I realized I’ve burned out years ago and was physically suffering just by thinking about another edition of the js13kGames competition, but I couldn’t let it go.</p> <p>Fortunately enough, I got help. I’m in a therapy now. I’m working towards a healthier relationship with my job. We’ve diagnosed our daughter with Asperger’s, an autism spectrum, which surprisingly enough my therapy also uncovered in me after being deeply buried under multiple layers of trauma since childhood.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/enclavemonthly-january24.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Enclave Monthly"></p> <p>Feeling I need to sort things out I was wrapping up all unfinished tasks, big and small, patiently completing them or throwing out off the enormous TODO list I had for Enclave Games, which was taking at least a few screens of text. After a few months I got that down to about 20-30 items, and was slowly thinking about my passion again - coding games, since the last opportunity was three years ago, and only because we got that Web Monetization grant.</p> <p>Building hyper casual web games themselves don’t earn you a lot if you don’t invest your time and efforts into licensing them to publishers, so this felt more like for fun than profit, at least in the short term. I didn’t worry much, as I was focusing on clearing the TODO list first…</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/opgames-devspotlight.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Dev Spotlight"></p> <p>…and then conversations with Paul and Chase from OP Games started to revolve around this cool new idea…</p> <p>…of me actually jumping into the Developer Relations role for them, since it looks like I <em>kind of</em> run communities. So I would fit perfectly into leading the newly formed <a href="https://twitter.com/OP_Guild">OP Guild</a>, which would focus on helping indie web game developers dive into web3. Something I actually wanted to do myself since 2020, but was too busy trying to earn enough off of online competitions. Something that resembles the grant from Coil - playing with cool new technology and not needing to worry about paying the bills.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/enclavegames-intofuture.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Into the future with OP Guild"></p> <p>So, that’s exactly what is happening: <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/op-guild/">I’m joining OP Games to lead OP Guild</a>, and I’m gonna have fun building cool demos and releasing small games trying to utilize web3, blockchain, NFTs, AI, and everything else in between I find not-quite-production-ready-but-interesting-enough-to-play-with and enjoy my time doing that. If you think 100% of crypto projects are scams stealing your money (I’m sorry if some did), and will hate me for what I decided to do - I don’t care, just don’t bother me. I want to enjoy game development again, and this is exactly what I plan on doing to achieve that.</p> <p>Don’t worry, the <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> competition and the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jam/">Gamedev.js Jam</a> will still be happening the exact same way they did, it’s just that I won’t be needing to waste my time chasing sponsors anymore. This opportunity couldn’t come in a better time, really. I’m gonna do mine, you do yours, and if you think it’s worth exploring what I’m gonna do with <strong>OP Guild</strong>, then please join me and <a href="mailto:[email protected]">let’s talk</a>!</p><![CDATA[The second W3C Games CG online meetup this year (after January's AI one) happened last week, on Tuesday April 30th - this time we've talked about Web games at GDC.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2024/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2024/Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>The second <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG</a> online meetup this year (after <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jan-2024/">January’s AI one</a>) happened last week, on Tuesday April 30th - this time we’ve talked about <strong>Web games at GDC</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3cgames-apr24-gdc.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG April 2024 - Web games at GDC"></p> <p><strong>Game Developer’s Conference</strong> was held in San Francisco in March, and you could notice bigger-than-usual web presence there. Both <strong>Poki</strong> and <strong>Godot</strong> had their booths, while <strong>CrazyGames</strong> and <strong>Meta</strong> lurked around the halls.</p> <p>The whole session revolved around <strong>GDC</strong> participants sharing their experiences: Erik from <strong>Poki</strong>, Noël from <strong>Meta</strong>, Adam from <strong>Godot</strong> (even though it was 4 AM for him!), Rafael from <strong>CrazyGames</strong>, and Björn from <strong>Defold</strong>, with others asking questions and adding to the discussion as well.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3cgames-apr24-folks.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG April 2024 - happy folks"></p> <p>Overall the sentiment seems to be very positive, and we might expect even more web games next year, since companies like <strong>Discord</strong> and <strong>LinkedIn</strong> are currently investing a lot of their time and resources into web games. I could totally imagine their booths at <strong>GDC</strong> 2025 having some cool browser games for visitors to play while having fruitful conversations at the same time.</p> <p>Check out the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2024/04/gamescg-gdc.html">video and transcript</a> if you’re curious what exactly have we talked about and how folks liked the event!</p><![CDATA[StickerMule, the company from which we're buying all our stickers for more than a decade already decided to print tweets and frame them, so you can hang them on your wall. Weird? Yes. Did I get one? Obviously!]]>https://end3r.com/blog/framed-posts-stickermule/https://end3r.com/blog/framed-posts-stickermule/Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p><strong>StickerMule</strong>, the company from which we’re buying all our <strong>stickers</strong> for more than a decade already decided to print tweets and frame them, so you can hang them on your wall. Weird? Yes. Did I get one? Obviously!</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/framed-posts-01.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Framed Post 01"></p> <p>I have some frames in the office already: it started with the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-4th/">GitHub Star award</a>, and later the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/sentimental-grid/">two sets</a> of <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/grid-studio-frames/">Grid Studio frames</a> arrived, each with their own amount of nostalgia attached.</p> <p>Now the brand new item was added to the collection, the weirdest of them all: <a href="https://www.stickermule.com/products/framed-posts">framed post from StickerMule</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/framed-posts-02.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Framed Post 02"></p> <p>I know my own tweets aren’t very popular, so I decided to go with something that won’t look ridiculously empty, and went for the <a href="https://twitter.com/js13kGames/status/1709996660649042310">js13kGames 2023 winners announcement</a>.</p> <p>The shipping went smooth as usual, and I received my package only a few days after ordering it - was properly secured and everything looked perfectly ok.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/framed-posts-03.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Framed Post 03"></p> <p>The frame itself looks great, the quality superb: sleek black fit the style of the other items well, although if you want to be extra fancy you can go for the ornate gold instead. It can be an original gift for yourself or anyone with the similar sense of humor.</p> <p>It’s so absurd that I love it, and you can get one too - black <a href="https://www.stickermule.com/products/framed-posts">framed posts</a> cost <strong>$39</strong> and the gold ones <strong>$69</strong>.</p><![CDATA[I'm staying in the GitHub Stars program for another year! I wasn't sure this will be extended for the fourth time, since at the very beginning the plan was to have any given Star for a maximum of three years in the program and then automatically turn them into an alumni.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-4th/https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-4th/Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>I’m staying in the <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/end3r/">GitHub Stars program</a> for another year! I wasn’t sure this will be extended for the fourth time, since at the very beginning the plan was to have any given Star for a maximum of three years in the program and then automatically turn them into an alumni.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-star-renewed-4th.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Star status renewed for the fourth year"></p> <p>Fortunately enough this is no longer valid, so I entered my <strong>fourth year as a GitHub Star</strong>, and I’m really happy about it! I’m still the only one in Poland, but hoping this might change in the future.</p> <p>I guess not much has changed in terms of why I was chosen (and renewed) - you can check <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star/">my first blog post from 2021</a> enumerating some potential guesses, since the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed/">next</a> <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-again/">two</a> follow-ups only iterate over it. TL;DR: <a href="https://enclavegames.com/">Enclave Games</a> work, <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> community, and <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/">Gamedev.js</a> activities. So, here’s to another year of Open Source Web Game Development!</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-star.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Star"></p> <p>I’d love to do something around the idea of building web games with the help from <strong>GitHub Copilot</strong> this year, but if you’ve seen my <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/2023-and-plans-for-2024/">Yearly Reports</a> you know very well making plans and finishing projects are two separate things here. Still, you <em>could</em> keep your fingers crossed for this one even for <em>just a little bit</em>.</p><![CDATA[I was invited to join the W3C WebDX Community Group which gathers folks focusing on improving developer experience. Valuable info is collected through surveys - at my very first call I've talked about the Gamedev.js Survey.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/webdx-gamedevjs-survey/https://end3r.com/blog/webdx-gamedevjs-survey/Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>I was invited to join the <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/webdx/">W3C WebDX Community Group</a> which gathers folks focusing on improving web developer experience. Valuable info is collected through surveys - at my very first call I’ve talked about the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey">Gamedev.js Survey</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/webdx-gamedevjs-survey.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Joining W3C WebDX group (with Gamedev.js Survey)"></p> <blockquote> <p>The mission of the <strong>WebDX Community Group</strong> is to facilitate coordinated approaches to improve the overall experience of developing for the Web platform when such coordination provides unique opportunities for these improvements.</p> </blockquote> <p>I was invited by <strong>François Daoust</strong>, with whom I’m co-running the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games</a> group. <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/webdx/">WebDX CG</a> gathers browser vendors and other interested parties, and focuses on researching developer needs, features adoptability, and the overall improvement in developer experience. It can be viewed as a place where some surveys could be coordinated - a community around surveys on web technologies, tracking, discussing questions and results, and helping with outreach.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/webdx-call.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C WebDX call"></p> <p>I’ve talked about running <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey">Gamedev.js Survey</a> since <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2021/">2021</a> and the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/report-on-the-current-state-of-web-game-development-in-2023-is-now-published/">recent 2023 results</a>. Joining <strong>WebDX</strong> means it will be added to a list of curated surveys, like <strong>MDN</strong> ones, <a href="https://survey.devographics.com/">Devographics</a>’ <strong>State of JavaScript ⁄ HTML5 ⁄ CSS</strong>, and many others. It also means I’ll be exchanging knowledge with like minded folks and hopefully getting feedback from more experienced colleagues.</p><![CDATA[Given my experience running Gamedev.js Weekly for more than a decade, I was lucky enough to be offered a task of helping revive the Phaser World newsletter that was inactive for more than two years already.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/phaser-world/https://end3r.com/blog/phaser-world/Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>Given my experience running <a href="https://gamedevjsweekly.com/">Gamedev.js Weekly</a> for more than a decade, I was lucky enough to be offered a task of helping revive the <a href="https://phaser.io/community/newsletter">Phaser World</a> newsletter that was inactive for more than two years already.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/phaser-world.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Phaser World"></p> <p>While <strong>Richard Davey</strong>, the author of <a href="https://phaser.io/">Phaser</a>, was busy securing funding for the framework itself, the <strong>Phaser World newsletter</strong> was paused indefinitely. Now with <a href="https://opencoreventures.com/blog/2023-12-phaser-studio-launched/">$2M funding from Open Core Ventures</a> he finally have means to push everything forward and lead the newly created company, <strong>Phaser Studio</strong>, into the bright future.</p> <p>Last weeks were intense as more folks were <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jobs/senior-webgl-graphics-engineer-at-phaser-studio/">joining the company</a>, and I was already busy with the new issues. Previous one before the break, #160, was emailed in July 2021. The new year started with regular issues being sent to subscribers: <a href="https://madmimi.com/p/672c781">#161</a> was emailed January 5th 2024, with the next three being sent throughout the month every single Friday.</p> <p>Beside the iconic Game of the Week, dedicated banners were replaced with links and descriptions to make creating the content easier and faster, following the style of <a href="https://gamedevjsweekly.com/">Gamedev.js Weekly</a> a bit. This work won’t be needed forever though as ultimately the content creation should be more or less automated at some point in the future.</p> <p>This year is going to be busy for the whole Phaser team, and I’m happy to be part of it. My first game <a href="https://enclavegames.com/tags/phaser/">made with Phaser</a> was <a href="https://enclavegames.com/games/monster-wants-candy/">released in 2014</a>, and I’m proudly using the framework ever since - it’s so cool to be able to give something back, even if it’s <em>just</em> a very limited, part time effort.</p><![CDATA[Two months after our previous W3C Games CG meetup about Godot 4, this time we had Georg Zoeller from Omnitool talking about the use of generative AI to create games during the recent January 16th call.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jan-2024/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jan-2024/Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT<p>Two months after our previous <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG</a> meetup <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2023/">about Godot 4</a>, this time we had <strong>Georg Zoeller</strong> from <a href="https://omnitool.ai/">Omnitool</a> talking about the <strong>use of generative AI to create games</strong> during the recent January 16th call.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-jan24-ai.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG January 2024 - AI in games"></p> <p>Before we began with the main topic though, I presented a quick, few minutes long summary of the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2023/">Gamedev.js Survey 2023</a> results and the published report, which officially <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/report-on-the-current-state-of-web-game-development-in-2023-is-now-published/">came out</a> the next day. I talked about the record-breaking number of submitted surveys, that we introduced the ability to update questions and answers by the community <a href="https://github.com/GamedevJS/Gamedev.js-Survey/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed">on GitHub</a>, then I looked into the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2023/#q13">current tech trends</a>, rise in <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2023/#q19">use of AI</a>, poor <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2023/#q29">monetization</a>, but overall <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/survey/2023/#q32">good happiness</a>.</p> <p>Then we moved to <strong>Georg Zoeller</strong>, who talked about <strong>generative AI in games</strong>. It was a different session than usual, since Georg didn’t have any slides, but his insights and wisdom coming from years of gamedev experience was a pleasure to hear.</p> <p>He had some very interesting thoughts on various aspects - I highly recommend <a href="https://www.w3.org/2024/01/zoeller-ai.html">listening to the recording</a> or reading through its transcript if you’re curious what he said exactly. There’s also an interesting article <a href="https://georg.weblog.lol/2023/12/relax-dont-worry-about-ai-tech-adoption">Relax, don’t worry about AI tech adoption</a> worth reading Georg published last month.</p><![CDATA[If you remember my blog post Nostalgia framed to the last detail from last year, or a particular js13kGames 2022 prize, then you might probably know what to expect from this one: old-school stuff looking great (again).]]>https://end3r.com/blog/sentimental-grid/https://end3r.com/blog/sentimental-grid/Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>If you remember my blog post <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/grid-studio-frames/">Nostalgia framed to the last detail</a> from last year, or a particular <a href="https://2022.js13kgames.com/#gridframe">js13kGames 2022 prize</a>, then you might probably know what to expect from this one: electronic old-school <em>stuff</em> looking great (again).</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/grid2-all.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Grid Studio 2: all"></p> <p>After having a framed <strong>XBox One</strong> controller and a <strong>Game Boy</strong> handheld console <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/grid-studio-frames/">prevously</a>, this time I checked what was new in <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/collections/all">Grid Studio inventory</a> and decided to go with three items: <strong>iPhone 4</strong>, <strong>NES</strong> controller, and <strong>A5X</strong> chip.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/grid2-iphone4.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Grid Studio 2: iPhone 4"></p> <p>The <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/products/framed-iphone-4">iPhone 4</a> was my very first Apple mobile device I bought in 2010 - I was using it for a long time, until I updated to iPhone 7+ in 2016, which I still have.</p> <p>It’s quite an important piece of history for me, so choosing it after noticing the availability was almost instant.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/grid2-nes.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Grid Studio 2: NES"></p> <p>The second frame I went for is <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/products/grid%C2%AE-nes-controller">NES</a> - Nintendo Entertainment System controller. I never owned one, I only vaguely remember visiting some friends to play <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(console)">Pegasus</a>, our cheap copy of the original Famicom console, when I was a few years old.</p> <p>Still, noticing that NES actually debuted only two days before my birthday, I decided that I simply want one.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/grid2-a5x.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Grid Studio 2: A5X"></p> <p>The trird item, the smallest, is Apple’s <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/products/grid%C2%AE-apple-a5x">A5X</a> chip dipped in resin - those were used in the third generation iPads. It was the first iPad I bought in 2012, with the <em>Enclave Games</em> text engraved on the back of it.</p> <p>That iPad served us well… until <a href="https://tatadeveloper.end3r.com/">my daughter</a> drowned it when she had a bath a couple of years ago. It was the last time an electronic device was used in the bath, not to mention I said multiple times before that this is going to happen, and even more “I told you so” afterwards.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/grid2-allagain.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Grid Studio 2: all again"></p> <p>The quality of all the items is great as usual, with attention to a tiny detail. You can see from the start that a lot of effort was put into every single product. <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/">Grid Studio</a> is making beautiful frames that simply looks good.</p> <p>Feel free to <a href="https://gridstudio.cc/collections/all">grab yours</a>, no matter if you’re aiming for Christmas (there’s a discount if you order in the next few days), anniversary, birthday, or without any occasion at all - the products are well worth it anyway!</p><![CDATA[During our November W3C Games CG meetup we had Fabio Alessandrelli talking about web port challenges in Godot 4.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2023/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2023/Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>During our November <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG</a> meetup which happened on Tuesday Nov 28th we had <strong>Fabio Alessandrelli</strong> talking about <strong>web port challenges in Godot 4</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/godot-on-the-web.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG November 2023 - Godot on the Web"></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Godot 4</strong> was <a href="https://godotengine.org/article/godot-4-0-sets-sail/">released</a> earlier this year. It comes with modernization of the engine both in terms of rendering and architecture. Fabio will present challenges that arose for the Web port, how they got solved and future plans for the platform.</p> </blockquote> <p>As you might’ve remembered, we already had a presentation about Godot, which was during our <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jun-2021/">June 2021 meetup</a>. Back then it was about the engine in general, while this time we’ve talked about the version 4 along with their efforts (and struggles) to bring the web export to use. Fabio was leading the session and had help from <strong>Adam Scott</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/godot-threads.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG November 2023 - Godot threads"></p> <p>Although 3.5 is still recomended if you focus on the web, the work to fix version 4 for that is already ongoing - there’s a chance the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jam/2024/">Gamedev.js Jam 2024</a> in April could be a good opportunity to test that already.</p> <p>After the talk (recording should be up soon) we had many questions raised, discussed and answered - some interesting thoughts on SharedArrayBuffer, WebGPU, and WASM were shared. You can check the minutes for the summary of those <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CQtWyYPOjLy7np7SW-exbW20SXv61YaStBBVi042oHc/edit#heading=h.omttbs6ijjvb">here</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/godot-people.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG November 2023 - Godot people"></p> <p>We’re planning our next <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG</a> meetup in the middle of January, with <strong>Web Install API</strong> and <strong>AI in games</strong> as potential topics, but both are yet to be confirmed though. Still, you can join <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/games/">our group</a> already and actively take part in all the discussions!</p><![CDATA[It's my third year as a GitHub Star, but due to Covid this was the very first opportunity to actually go to San Francisco for Nova, the in-person conference exclusively for all the Stars, instead of watching it remotely like in previous years.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/github-stars-nova-universe-2023/https://end3r.com/blog/github-stars-nova-universe-2023/Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>It’s my <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-again/">third year as a GitHub Star</a>, but due to Covid this was the very first opportunity to actually go to San Francisco for <strong>Nova</strong>, the in-person conference exclusively for all the Stars, instead of watching it remotely like in previous years.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-stars.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Stars"></p> <p>The whole week was going to be packed: with <strong>Nova</strong> for <a href="https://stars.github.com/">Stars</a> the first day on Monday November 6th, <strong>Open Source Community Day</strong> with its breakout sessions and discussions on Tuesday, and the two-day <a href="https://githubuniverse.com/">GitHub Universe</a> conference on Wednesday and Thursday.</p> <h2 id="github-nova-2023" style="position:relative;"><a href="#github-nova-2023" aria-label="github nova 2023 permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>GitHub Nova 2023</h2> <p>Monday started at the <strong>GitHub HQ</strong> in downtown <strong>San Francisco</strong> with a breakfast early in the morning, and then was follwed by multiple presentations. As Stars we had insights into the biggest announcements that were planned to be revealed during the Universe conference.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-intro.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: intro"></p> <p><strong>Anisha Pindoria</strong> and <strong>Karan MV</strong> were our hosts, and we had <strong>Thomas Dohmke</strong>, GitHub CEO, give us an opening as to what to expect from the <a href="https://github.blog/2023-11-08-universe-2023-copilot-transforms-github-into-the-ai-powered-developer-platform/">big announcements</a>. <strong>Ryan J Salva</strong> went through GitHub <strong>Copilot</strong> in a two-part session (as there was so much to cover), <strong>Justin Hutchings</strong> talked about GitHub <strong>Security</strong>, <strong>Usha Narayanabhatta</strong> showed us GitHub <strong>Actions</strong> in… action, the team of <strong>Stephanie Lincoln</strong>, <strong>Selene Pastelski</strong>, and <strong>Katherine Oelsner</strong> introduced new features of GitHub <strong>Sponsors</strong> (including <strong>Patreon</strong> integration), and <strong>Ed Summers</strong> with <strong>Jesse Dugas</strong> talked about <strong>Accessibility</strong> at GitHub.</p> <p>During lunch and various breaks I was catching up with <strong>Lee Reilly</strong>, since the last time we’ve seen each other live was five years ago when I visited San Francisco for the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/2018/06/mozillas-all-hands-in-san-francisco-2018/">Mozilla All-Hands 2018</a> gathering. Fun fact is, the year before, I was there for <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/2017/03/gdc-2017-in-san-francisco-trip-report/">GDC 2017</a> with Mozilla as well, and most of the events were happening in Moscone Center which is very close to Yerba Buena For The Arts, GitHub’s venue for 2023.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-badges.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: my badges"></p> <p>At the end of the day the <a href="https://github.blog/2023-11-09-celebrating-the-github-awards-2023-recipients/#github-stars-awards">Stars Awards</a> were announced, with some well-deserved winners:</p> <ul> <li>Star of the Year: <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/kasuken/">Emanuele Bartolesi</a></li> <li>Top Teacher: <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/ba4bes/">Barbara Forbes</a></li> <li>Community Growth: <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/midudev/">Miguel Ángel Durán García</a></li> <li>Open Source Advocacy: <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/ruth-ikegah/">Ruth Ikegah</a></li> </ul> <p>We also received a nice surprise gift at the end of the day: our very own named stars! A second copy, the exact same looking collection, ended up on the floor of the <strong>Walk of Fame</strong> at the GitHub Universe conference.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-delarosa.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Delarosa restaurant"></p> <p>In the evening some of us decided to go for dinner, and we met at the <a href="https://twitter.com/eliostruyf/status/1721731259829760385">Delarosa</a> Italian restaurant which was very close to Yerba Buena - the food was good to a point even Italians in our group were ok with what was served. I went with pizza and was not disappointed.</p> <h2 id="open-source-community-day" style="position:relative;"><a href="#open-source-community-day" aria-label="open source community day permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Open Source Community Day</h2> <p>Second day of the week started at the <strong>GitHub HQ</strong> again, where we had breakfast, but not as early as the day before. Right after that we went for the tours in small groups around the office, through the library, all the way up to the roof.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-secret.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: The Secret Room"></p> <p>The tour included the famous and not so secret - <strong>The Secret Room</strong>. I even <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CzWzcwFPPKM/">recreated</a> the picture of me sitting in the chair there, which <strong>Lee</strong> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BkD5giABehP/">have taken</a> five years earlier.</p> <p>After the tour we all went to Hyatt Regency on 5th for the second part of the day - <strong>Open Source Community Day</strong> breakout sessions. After quick badge pickup and lunch we moved to our dedicated room and spent the evening on discussions.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-breakoutnotes.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: breakout notes"></p> <p>The first one was about three topics: automation, AI, and security. I went for the automation table as this seemed to be the most interesting one for me at the time.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-leadership.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: the leadersip team"></p> <p>The second session included the GitHub <strong>Leadership</strong> team answering questions from the audience, hosted by <strong>Martin Woodward</strong>, VP of DevRel. I had the pleasure of meeting Martin thanks to Lee, who made a quick introducion - I was so happy to be <a href="https://twitter.com/end3r/status/1722024616690868489">recognized</a> for the Open Source efforts through the <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> competition.</p> <p>For the third session I went with maintenance and documentation, with very interesting things discussed. The last session of the day was about <strong>Sponsorships</strong>, which I knew from the same one at Nova the day before, so I could catch up on some emails instead.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-minna.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Minna Gallery"></p> <p>After dropping the bag at the hotel I went straight to the <strong>Maintainer Social</strong> event in the evening happening at the <strong>Minna Gallery</strong>, where we had some drinks. Again, Lee was kind enough to introduce me to more DevRel folks from his team, and it was amazing to hear “oh, you’re the (famous) js13kGames guy” once again with pure curiosity. I’m assuming Lee is running around the whole team and telling them about the competition quite often to see such reactions!</p> <p>Since Minna only had drinks, and some of us Stars were hungry, we decided to grab dinner - we’ve ended up in the Cheesecake Factory. I don’t know why, but I thought they only had cakes - it turns out they do have “normal” food as well, which was very good. I went for the burger and it was an excellent choice.</p> <h2 id="universe-day-1" style="position:relative;"><a href="#universe-day-1" aria-label="universe day 1 permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Universe Day 1</h2> <p>The first day of the <a href="https://githubuniverse.com/">GitHub Universe</a> conference on Wednesday November 8th started with the keynote from Thomas.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-keynote.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: keynote"></p> <p>I knew what to expect from the announcements as we had everything explained at the Nova day on Monday (”<em>NDA, NDA, NDA!</em>” in Anisha’s voice), but when I arrived at the theater the atmosphere was magical. It felt like those announcements from Apple or other big companies everyone is waiting for, where the presenters are making show on the stage. It felt exclusive and amazing.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-harald.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Harald Kirschner"></p> <p>The second session, right after keynote, included <strong>Harald Kirschner</strong> among a few others, who talked about <strong>VS Code</strong>. We knew each other from Mozilla <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2020/09/03/five-years-of-tech-speakers/">Tech Speakers</a> days, so it was nice to catch up and quickly recall the past couple of years.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-mystar.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: my star"></p> <p>I went and took a few pictures next to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Czb3Pv2vM_B/">my very own star</a> on the floor of the Walk of Fame. The second sticker was given to us each at the end of Nova, and I’m already thinking where I’m going to put mine.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-walkoffame.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Walk of Fame"></p> <p>I also collected power and cables for the <a href="https://github.com/badger2040/home/blob/main/README.md">Badger</a> hackable conference badge - I’ve seen those at a handful of events and only on pictures, so it was awesome to have one for myself physically. Some Stars managed to update the background image to reflect their projects, or tune it with some small additions.</p> <p>After listening to more sessions, hanging around and talking with as many folks as possible, the first day of the conference ended - it was time for the <strong>Dark Mode</strong> event. We’ve been invited to MOMA, <strong>San Francisco Museum of Modern Art</strong>, for a party with food and drinks, although it was very loud throughout the whole venue and difficult to talk and hear what others were saying. Still, I managed to stay till the end and had fun doing so.</p> <h2 id="universe-day-2" style="position:relative;"><a href="#universe-day-2" aria-label="universe day 2 permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Universe Day 2</h2> <p>Second day of the <strong>GitHub Universe</strong> conference started with the keynote as well, although it wasn’t packed with so many surprises and announcements as the one the day before. Next were a few interesting sessions, lunch, lots of more or less random discussions, and some time to play the <strong>Ship It!</strong> game.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-shipit1.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Ship It 1"></p> <p>It was created specifically for the GitHub Universe conference, had old-school controls looking like those from arcade machines, and was designed for four players. Your task was to write the code and spawn ingredients, commit that to create items, then push the code and merge when all four players did their part. Learning the controls was quick, and then you could focus on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with a solid team and good coordination.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-shipit2.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Ship It 2"></p> <p>I was ultimately part of all the teams that ended up in top6 of the overall ranking, with one being a literal <a href="https://twitter.com/leereilly/status/1724528304978624794">brute force</a> - we haven’t created, pushed nor merged a single thing, but smashed the code keys to see if it’s possible to beat the high score (as you were getting some points for that as well aside from the main objective). It wasn’t, but ending in the third place by “only” mashing three buttons (instead of, like, ten) like crazy was still pretty impressive.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-shipit3.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Ship It 3"></p> <p>I do hope there will be a Ship It 2 next time as we had a blast! Bringing this to the web in some form, preferably a single player hyper casual game with a leaderboard, would be great as well.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-grove.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: The Grove"></p> <p>We’ve wrapped the last day with a casual, farewell dinner with some Stars again, this time at <a href="https://twitter.com/SantoshYadavDev/status/1722808588257931720">The Grove</a>. Out of curiosity I went for a chicken pie and although it wasn’t a pizza or a burger, it was still tasty.</p> <h2 id="summary" style="position:relative;"><a href="#summary" aria-label="summary permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Summary</h2> <p>I’m so happy I got to visit San Francisco (again) and meet with fellow Stars, whom I knew only from online calls we had. I feel I bonded with the group more over a week of in-person activities than in the past two and a half years online in the program. This clearly shows the pandemic was a bigger issue than I thought, and that we need more physical gatherings like this one. During the Mozilla Tech Speakers years we had multiple meetups around the world, and I miss that dearly.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-leereilly.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Lee Reilly"></p> <p>I’m extremely thankful to <a href="https://github.com/leereilly">Lee Reilly</a> who was a wonderful host the whole time, always having the time to chat. I’d like to thank the Stars team: <a href="https://github.com/anipind">Anisha</a>, <a href="https://github.com/mvkaran">Karan</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ssdgm">Erin</a>, <a href="https://github.com/AndreaGriffiths11">Andrea</a>, <a href="https://github.com/karasowles">Kara</a> - they did an excellent job organizing all our activities perfectly well, with flawless execution. Or, if there were any issues along the way, I haven’t noticed a single thing.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-roof.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: roof"></p> <p>Thank you goes to the Stars as well for being such a lovely group. After only a few days I felt we’re friends who know each other for a long time, and will happily greet each other at random conferences they attend together in the future. <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/ahmadawais/">Ahmad</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/balastrong/">Leonardo</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/crutchcorn/">Corbin</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/denvercoder1/">Jonah</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/estruyf/">Elio</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/huan/">Huan</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/intrigus-lgtm/">Simon</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/jlleitschuh/">Jonathan</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/jtemporal/">Jessica</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/kasuken/">Emanuele</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/m0nica/">Monica</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/santoshyadavdev/">Santosh</a>, <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/wabri/">Gabriele</a>, and many more I forgot because I suck at remembering names.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-santosh.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Santosh"></p> <p>Also Santosh again for being my hotel-buddy (from the same floor), so we had some extra time for chatting on our way back to the hotel a few times.</p> <h2 id="next-steps" style="position:relative;"><a href="#next-steps" aria-label="next steps permalink" class="anchor before"><svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" height="16" version="1.1" viewBox="0 0 16 16" width="16"><path fill-rule="evenodd" d="M4 9h1v1H4c-1.5 0-3-1.69-3-3.5S2.55 3 4 3h4c1.45 0 3 1.69 3 3.5 0 1.41-.91 2.72-2 3.25V8.59c.58-.45 1-1.27 1-2.09C10 5.22 8.98 4 8 4H4c-.98 0-2 1.22-2 2.5S3 9 4 9zm9-3h-1v1h1c1 0 2 1.22 2 2.5S13.98 12 13 12H9c-.98 0-2-1.22-2-2.5 0-.83.42-1.64 1-2.09V6.25c-1.09.53-2 1.84-2 3.25C6 11.31 7.55 13 9 13h4c1.45 0 3-1.69 3-3.5S14.5 6 13 6z"></path></svg></a>Next steps</h2> <p>I know I haven’t been coding much in the recent couple of years as organizing the <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> competition (and <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jam/2023/">Gamedev.js Jam</a>) takes so much time each year, but I want to change that. I’ve coded <em>something</em> (<strong>Hat Tricks</strong> rewrite demo for a <a href="https://itch.io/jam/wam-jam/rate/2116522">game jam</a>) in June, first time since the <a href="https://enclavegames.com/blog/forest-cuties-making-of/">release of Forest Cuties</a> almost two and a half years ago.</p> <p>Also, laugh all you want, but I think I’m finally ready to switch from <strong>Sublime Text</strong> (which was more than enough for my needs) to <strong>VS Code</strong>. Primarily because of what I saw and heard about Copilot. I’d love to make more games, it was my passion. Now it’s time to embrace AI and use it to my advantage instead of ignoring it.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/nova-universe-2023-goldengate.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Nova and Universe 2023: Golden Gate bridge"></p> <p>I’m also thinking of getting back to <a href="https://end3r.com/speaking/">speaking</a>, which kind of died because of the pandemic. I could imagine a talk about building a web game with the help of GitHub Copilot (and Copilot Chat) within VS Code or on GitHub itself instead of jumping between the editor and ChatGPT window to ask questions there. I know it’s not <em>that</em> original though, so I’m not sure yet.</p> <p>Anyway, I’m quite excited for what’s to come in the near future!</p><![CDATA[I was hired to beta-test the Neuroshima Hex game demo for PC that was recently released on Steam. I guess running the NeuroshimaHex.pl fan site for thirteen years might've helped land that gig a bit.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/neuroshima-hex-steam/https://end3r.com/blog/neuroshima-hex-steam/Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>I was hired to beta-test the <strong>Neuroshima Hex</strong> game demo for PC that was recently <a href="https://neuroshimahex.pl/news/demo-i-konkurs-neuroshimy-hex-na-steam/">released on Steam</a>. I guess running the <a href="https://neuroshimahex.pl/">NeuroshimaHex.pl</a> fan site for thirteen years might’ve helped land that gig a bit.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/neuroshimahex-demo-steam.jpg" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Neuroshima Hex on Steam"></p> <p>I was asked to do it by <strong>Cyprian</strong> from <a href="https://www.bakedgames.pl/en/home-eng/">Baked Games</a> - got really happy and decided almost immediately I’m in. The testing period was happening before the <a href="https://medium.com/js13kgames/js13kgames-2023-winners-announced-d4e87593be5d">announcement of the js13kGames 2023 winners</a>, but I was able to find the time to play and give feedback before and right after that.</p> <p>I wasn’t alone as there were folks from <a href="https://neuroshimahex.pl/news/dolacz-do-testow-neuroshimy-hex-na-steam/">our community</a> as well, including one of <a href="https://discord.gg/fH55XyR">our Discord</a> admins. I had to dig up an old laptop and buy new WiFi card to run the game though, since it was built for Windows and I couldn’t use my regular development MacBook.</p> <p>I think the few rounds of testing helped the development team fix a bunch of small issues. The demo, with our feedback implemented, was <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2324150/Neuroshima_Hex/">officially released</a> on the day <strong>Steam Next Fest</strong> launched: Monday, October 9th 2023 - go check it out! We’ve even <a href="https://neuroshimahex.pl/news/demo-i-konkurs-neuroshimy-hex-na-steam/">organized a competition</a> around it, with more prizes than originally planned due to high interest, and a whole lot of valuable feedback from regular players as well.</p><![CDATA[The second W3C Games CG meetup this year (after the first one about Hyperledger's MESIG gaming subgroup) was held online on Tuesday, June 27th 2023 - Björn Ritzl was giving a talk about Defold, and then all participants were discussing the future of the group itself.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jun-2023/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jun-2023/Tue, 04 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>The second <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG</a> meetup this year (after the first one about <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2023/">Hyperledger’s MESIG gaming subgroup</a>) was held online on Tuesday, June 27th 2023 - <a href="https://twitter.com/bjornritzl">Björn Ritzl</a> was giving a talk about <a href="https://defold.com/">Defold</a>, and then all participants were discussing the future of the group itself.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-jun23-defold.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG June 2023 - Defold"></p> <p><strong>Björn</strong> went through the info about the <strong>Defold</strong> game engine itself, that the web export is the most popular one (compared to other platforms), showcased some of the most popular games made with the tool, shared the plans for the future, and much more. Check out the full video on the <a href="https://www.w3.org/2023/07/bjorn-ritzl.html">event page</a>, along with the slides and the transcript.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-jun23-voidscrappers.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG June 2023 - Void Scrappers"></p> <p>During the second part of the meetup we’ve focused on discussing the revamped goals of our group:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Listen to web game developers: Find technical gaps and drive towards specifications.</strong> Continue to invite web game and engine developers to discuss struggles. Feed the problems back to other W3C groups and browsers – or brainstorm technical solutions.</li> <li><strong>Listen to web game publishers: Find monetisation and distribution gaps and drive towards more success.</strong> Continue to invite publishers and developers to discuss struggles in monetisation and distribution. Feed the problems back to other W3C groups and browsers – or brainstorm solutions.</li> <li><strong>Reach out to non-web game people: Evangelise technologies and business opportunities.</strong> Gather information on why they don’t develop or publish for the web. “Not web game developers. I.e. could be web developers who don’t make games or could be game developers who don’t make for the web.” Gather success stories from web game entities and evangelize via videos, blog posts or tweets.</li> </ul> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-jun23-participants.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG June 2023 - participants"></p> <p>We had great feedback from all the participants that joined the call, some solid points that we can try to expand on:</p> <ul> <li>consider creating the SaveGame API (although that’s not directly in the charter of the group) that would unify the approach and help game developers and publishers alike</li> <li>prepare media resources and marketing plan to invite more participation, especially in the communities of the current active participants</li> <li>organize the main page of the W3C Games CG group to show recent activities</li> <li>maybe consider focusing on keeping a check on the pulse and heartbeat of the web game scene instead of trying to <em>only</em> solve browser API problems</li> <li>talk about what new tech is coming, new business and platform opportunities</li> <li>partner with related events</li> </ul> <p>If you have more, please let us know!</p> <p>Ps. Yes, Björn is wearing a <a href="https://js13kgames.com">js13kGames</a> 2019 t-shirt.</p><![CDATA[After half a year of no activity we got back with the W3C Games CG meetup last week on April 18th, this time with Sandy Aggarwal talking about Hyperledger's MESIG gaming subgroup. It was also the very first W3C Games meetup with me as co-chair.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2023/https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2023/Mon, 24 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>After half a year of no activity we got back with the <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/tag/w-3-c-games/">W3C Games CG meetup</a> last week on April 18th, this time with <strong>Sandy Aggarwal</strong> talking about <strong>Hyperledger’s MESIG gaming subgroup</strong>. It was also the very first <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/becoming-w3c-games-chair/">W3C Games meetup with me as co-chair</a>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-apr23.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - W3C Games CG April 2023"></p> <p>Sandy introduced <strong>Media and Entertainment Special Interest Group</strong> and its <a href="https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/MESIG/MESIG+-+Gaming+Subgroup">gaming subgroup</a>, all within the <strong>Hyperledger Foundation</strong>. He talked about their activities, but also the <a href="https://mentorship.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/project/10f6c86f-993c-47f3-967c-a10a0d386a8f">recently announced project</a>: it revolves around designing and developing a mini game to explore <strong>decentralized identity and payments</strong>.</p> <p>Keep in mind Sandy is not looking to force the use of blockchains in this project and the goal is to really understand how we can achieve decentralized forms of identity and payments with and without use of blockchains. The important thing is that even if blockchains are used, it will be only as a shared ledger – strictly no speculation factor will be allowed or promoted (such as NFTs or coins).</p> <p>Also, as it turns out, it doesn’t even have to be a brand new game - an already existing, open sourced game (like <a href="https://github.com/js13kGames">any entry</a> from <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a> or <a href="https://github.blog/2022-05-31-top-games-source-code-from-gamedev-js-jam-2022/">some</a> of the <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/jam/2023/">Gamedev.js Jam</a> ones) would work as well, as the main focus would be on exploring identity and payments. The time frame of the work aims to be between June and November this year.</p> <p>Thanks to <strong>Francois</strong> from W3C the video (and transcript) of the session is <a href="https://www.w3.org/2023/04/sandy-aggarwal.html">available here already</a>. We do plan to have our next sessions recorded as well (compared to the previous years), so even if you couldn’t attend you will still be able to watch it. The discussions after the main presentation won’t be recorded though to make them more casual.</p> <p>The next meetup is going to happen in June, with the original plan of having one meetup every two months. I already have some ideas for the next couple of events, so we should be secured at least till the end of this year.</p> <p>Ps. The <strong>W3C Games Community Group</strong> meetups are not limited to representatives from big companies, quite the contrary - anyone can join, and I’m the prime example of that. All you have to do is <strong>register through the W3C website</strong>, <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/games/">join our group</a>, and you’re in! Please do so, it’s important to have as many voices as possible when it comes to shaping the standards of web game development for millions of users!</p><![CDATA[I'm excited to announce that I was accepted as a co-chair into the W3C Games Community Group, joining Tom Greenaway from Google and Noël Meudec from Meta, with the support of François Daoust from W3C.]]>https://end3r.com/blog/becoming-w3c-games-chair/https://end3r.com/blog/becoming-w3c-games-chair/Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>I’m excited to announce that <strong>I was accepted as a <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/games/participants">co-chair</a></strong> into the <a href="https://www.w3.org/community/games/">W3C Games Community Group</a>, joining <strong>Tom Greenaway</strong> from <strong>Google</strong> and <strong>Noël Meudec</strong> from <strong>Meta</strong>, with the support of <strong>François Daoust</strong> from <strong>W3C</strong>.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/w3c-games-chairs.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - Becoming W3C Games Community Group co-chair"></p> <p>From the email sent by François Daoust to <em>public-games at w3.org</em> mailing list two days ago, right after we had our internal call to confirm the appointment:</p> <blockquote> <p>You may have noticed that the group has been relatively quiet in the past few months as Noël and Tom have been quite busy on other fronts. In order to boost things up, I’m thrilled to report that Andrzej Mazur has agreed to join Noël and Tom as co-chair of the Games Community Group!</p> <p>Most of you should be familiar with Andrzej already. He’s been involved in the Games Community Group for a long long time, actually even before the group got created.</p> </blockquote> <p>I was, indeed, quite active even before we decided to reactivate the group. This started with the second W3C Games workshop in 2019, eight years after the first one that happened during the onGameStart conference in Warsaw (I was there as well). The actual reactivation took place a year later, during the TPAC conference in 2020, and after that our meetups were more or less regular on a once-every-two-months basis:</p> <ul> <li>[Jun 2019] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/2019/07/w3c-games-workshop-trip-report/">W3C Games workshop in Seattle trip report</a></li> <li>[Oct 2020] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-tpac-2020/">TPAC 2020: Web Monetization in HTML5 games</a></li> <li>[Dec 2020] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-dec-2020/">W3C Games CG December 2020: Construct, Web Install, and Chrome Dev Summit</a></li> <li>[Feb 2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-feb-2021/">W3C Games CG February 2021: WeChat, WebView, and BBC</a></li> <li>[Apr 2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-apr-2021/">W3C Games CG April 2021: Unity, and WebCodecs</a></li> <li>[Jun 2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jun-2021/">W3C Games CG June 2021: Godot, Coil, and Pixi</a></li> <li>[Sep 2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-sep-2021/">W3C Games CG September 2021: GDevelop</a></li> <li>[Dec 2021] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-nov-2021/">W3C Games CG December 2021: Roadroller</a></li> <li>[Jan 2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/gaming-web3-monetization/">W3C Games CG January 2022: next generation monetization</a></li> <li>[Feb 2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-feb-2022/">W3C Games CG February 2022: Networking</a></li> <li>[Mar 2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-mar-2022/">W3C Games CG March 2022: Blockchain and NFTs</a></li> <li>[Jul 2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-jul-2022/">W3C Games CG July 2022: Cocos Creator</a></li> <li>[Sep 2022] <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/w3c-games-cg-sep-2022/">W3C Games CG September 2022: Open Web Games Directory</a></li> </ul> <p>I was invited as a co-chair to help make the group more active again, since both Tom and Noël are moving away from web games activities within their companies. Now after half a year break we’re trying to get back to regular meetups, with the upcoming one targeting April.</p> <p>I’m not sure what to expect in the coming months (and maybe even years), but I do hope I’ll make an impact and help web game developers build better creations eventually - wish me luck!</p><![CDATA[I'm happy and proud to say that my GitHub Star status was renewed for the third year, extending my stay in the program for the whole 2023!]]>https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-again/https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed-again/Wed, 08 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT<p>I’m happy and proud to say that <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/end3r/">my GitHub Star</a> status was <strong>renewed</strong> for the third year, extending my stay in the program for the whole 2023!</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-star-renewed-again.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Star status renewed again"></p> <p>I’m humbled and my impostor syndrome is <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star-renewed/">still</a> kicking in, but I guess that’s ok. I don’t need to be a maintainer of a popular Open Source library on GitHub as long as I have strong and vibrant community around me. Yup, that’s mostly <a href="https://js13kgames.com/">js13kGames</a>, but <a href="https://gamedevjs.com/">Gamedev.js</a> is <a href="https://github.blog/2022-05-31-top-games-source-code-from-gamedev-js-jam-2022/">growing steadily</a> recently as well.</p> <blockquote> <p>Recognize and lift up the people who inspire and educate your communities with the GitHub Stars program.</p> </blockquote> <p>If you’re curious what that means exactly, and why I think I got the Star status in the first place, then read my <a href="https://end3r.com/blog/github-star/">Becoming a GitHub Star</a> blog post from 2021 for details.</p> <p><img src="https://end3r.com/blog/media/github-stars-map.png" alt="End3r&#x27;s Corner - GitHub Stars map"></p> <p>There’s almost one hundred folks in the program right now (83 to be precise), and I’m still the <a href="https://stars.github.com/profiles/?country=Poland">only one from Poland</a>, but I do hope more will be accepted and join in the future. Especially since being part of the GitHub Stars program is apparently limited to three years, after which you are automatically moved to alumni.</p> <p>I do hope I’ll use this opportunity throughout the whole 2023 to the benefit of the web gamedev community and myself as well!</p>