So I have been around quite a few places this month, because of this my progress on Gemstone Keeper has been a bit shakey. Progress pretty much stopped earlier this week because I fell ill on the Sunday evening and I’ve only managed to recover to a working state on Wednesday. There has been one main update if you follow me on Twitter, the new spider boss! Designing this boss allowed me to improve my skeletal code as well as try out a new boss mechanic, slowing the player down with webbing!

So I’ve been to three key places:

Electomagnetic Field 2016

This is a bi-annual festival for all things geeky in the world of technology, software, cyber-security, hacking, mathematics ect. I camped for three nights with running electricity and wi-fi (yes, really) provided by the organizers and there were many workshops, talks and projects dotted around the place. I went back in 2014 after a friend invited me and I loved it so much I’d thought I return. It was a bit further than last year (Guildford instead of Bletchley), but they definitely expanded in size and activities. Everyone was also given a badge that you could connect via wi-fi and run apps, I even wrote my own! Would definitely look forward to it again in 2018:

Berlin

This was a proper vacation for me, and unbeknownst to me until days before I went, I was going to be in Berlin during the same time period as Gamescom was running in Cologne. I did think about visiting Cologne for a day to check out Gamescom but I felt the cost was too much and I wanted to see Berlin. It was also near the end of this trip that I caught a bug so the flight back was painful. Still a very nice trip to have, seeing the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Book Burning Memorial outside Humboldt University, even the Computerspiele Museum, so I did at least one video gaming thing in Germany.

Insomnia58 Games Festival

Yes, the one that starts tomorrow! I’ll be at Insomnia58 and I’ll be bringing Gemstone Keeper to the Indie Zone with me! It’ll be there for all four days, although I might wonder around every now and then to see what the festival has to offer. But if you are visiting the Birmingham NEC from the 26th – 29th, go check out the Indie Zone, there are loads of cool independent games on show there that are worth trying out.