the red dove chick

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:42:03 +0200

Food Container WIP

Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:13:49 +0200

Modeling shipping containers for the fantasy wrestling scene.

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 10:26:14 +0200

Sceenshot Saturday Dump of some NWE Rooftop things

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:50:43 +0200

I love this 88x31 format. Found a fun editor for it on 88x31.datakra.sh

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 07:49:43 +0200

The wrestling scenery escalated a bit. Blender keeps crashing my machine.

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 23:58:59 +0200

Rigging the steel chair today. What’s a wrestling environment without a steel chair?

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 09:49:25 +0200

About once or twice a year I do some 3D-stuff. This is some hours spent on a wrestling-ring. This time I learned deforming with Lattice and Curves, solidification and cloth-simulation for the side-covers, among other things.

Bracelet-Game: Random thoughts on levels

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:13:45 +0200

In the last post I was thinking about having distinct levels. That’s doing away with the playful free approach, but I can still keep that with the free mode.

At first there are some letters only to be used
The available charms could spell “POPESTAR” or “RATS”, maybe something else, but for now it’s those two.
When the player builds the word, that’s one star
Symmetry with non-letter charms is the second star
Correct length with symmetry and the word (has to use charms) is the third star
Every star unlocks some more charms for the playground

Or:

The bracelets are for somebody who has “wishes”. This would be like rules, but a bit more hidden.
“My favorite album is Meliora – I really like symmetric things”, and the image of the person shows their favorite colors, like a yellow/black shirt, where using yellow and black will give the player another star.
This is very similar to the first idea I had with this. Maybe it’s the way to go.

Or how about… Bracelet Repair Cafe!

Player sees a bracelet like —$%$%oooMARO-ON-A-CROSSo%oo$%$$—
“My bracelet is ugly! Please fix it!”
The player has to fix the words and make it symmetric again
This is no different than just having levels, but it explains how to get charms and letters, and why you would construct new ones.
It would be like a 24/7 Bracelet Repair Shop, like for bikes.

Could also be 3 at a time. Or the player has to “buy” old weird bracelets and “sell” them after making them into new Ghost-ones. But I don’t really want to make this about money or purchasing/selling. I would never sell or pay a bracelet at a concert. Also the game, if it ever materializes, will be free without ads.

I like those repairing-games. I’m just afraid that bracelets are too low complexity for this kind of game.

What if the player could still get new charms, like exchange charms with letters or reverse.

I really need to get drawing for a bit.

Bracelet-Game notes

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 22:36:08 +0200

The bracelet-game now works as follows:

the player gets just enough charms to construct “RATS”
the requirement is symmetry and min/max-length
after the player finishes, the “finish” button is shown and a success-message is shown
the charms are all returned to the pool
the RATS-bracelet is stored in the archive
the player gets more letters and charms, enough to lay one or two further words

Two things are bothering me in the current version:

the non-letter charms are only decoration/ornament and padding as it is. I thought about having a rule where they have to be laid in a certain way, but it doesn’t feel right somehow.
returning all the existing charms feels weird, I want to construct bracelets and “keep” them. returning the charms is like destroying them again.

I need to find a reason and/or challenge for the player to lay out the charms additionally to the letters in a certain way.

Another version would be to have strict “levels”, like “here are your charms, do anything Ghost-related, and the more charms you use, the more points you’ll get”. This would be easier for extension, too. Having levels, and then a free-mode where you can use all charms you solved so far.

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:55:06 +0200

Would buy!

Braceletter Game Achievement List

Thu, 21 May 2026 21:32:08 +0200

The Prototype should have a number of achievements that can be reached. I’ll go with the albums names, the singles names, and some of the papas names, and some general fitting lore words. Too long words will be shortened with the help of (symbol-charms).

SKELETA
SKELETOUR
IMPERA
PREQUELLE
MELIORA
INFESTISSUMAM
OPUS EPONYMOUS
UMBRA
LACHRYMA
SATANIZED
SATAN
JESUS HE KNOWS ME
MARY ON A (CROSS)
SPILLWAYS
CALL ME LITTLE (SUN)
HUNTERS (MOON)
KISS THE GOGOAT
DANCE MACABRE
SQUARE (HAMMER)
COPIA
PAPA V
PAPA I
PAPA II
PAPA III
PAPA IV
SISTER IMPERATOR
IF YOU HAVE (GHOST)
HE IS
PEACEFIELD

Still unsure if it should be like a word-puzzle, where I give the player exactly the letters for the next one, or keep it free and fun.

Also I thought about letting all the charms “swim” like in a pool, and new ones just get dropped from the top into the pool. I wonder if that’s heavy on the processor. Or if it will be annoying to click because everything is moving. I will try it maybe with some settings so it won’t keep wobbling at all times.

Braceletter Game Loop

Tue, 19 May 2026 20:15:39 +0200

I think I prefer the achievement-based loop more.

Start with a string and some charms/letters
No more notes or “missions”
Bracelets can be made new endlessly. but the charms/pearls etc. are limited
“Valid” Bracelets will have a min/max size, and need a mix of letters and charms. WIPs can also be stored
The first word is obvious: “GHOST”, functioning like a tutorial
I don’t know yet if symmetry should be required; it seems very restrictive. Maybe it needs to be either pattern-y, or symmetric. Either “ABC(GHOST)ABC” or “ABC(GHOST)CBA”. I don’t know yet how to do this in Construct2, worst case with some custom JS.
If there are only letters left and one charm, the player could do Miasma this way: “MIA($)SMA”

Braceletter Game Update

Mon, 18 May 2026 21:15:45 +0200

Construct2 is fun! The no-code-nodes are perfect for prototyping like this.

The game now has levels and 4 rules. One set of charms/letters. Every level can have 3 rules.

What if the player isn’t fulfilling rules, but freely building bracelets, and can get achievements, like “Symmetry!”, or “New Song unlocked!”. The player could unlock more charms with this method. I don’t know yet, but it sounds more playful and interesting, and I could hide a hundred fun trophies and charms to the game.

Long Song-Titles could be shortened by symbols/icons on charms, like “Mary on a (♱)”

Ghost Braceletter

Wed, 06 May 2026 20:18:46 +0200

Started an experiment about adding beads and letters to the bracelet. The game is checking if the placement is symmetrical, which could be one constraint. The word doesn’t have to be a palindrome, so I have one “structure”–string, and one “word”–string. I’m doing this one in Construct2, which I also used to create my wedding game 12 years ago, and it still works perfectly.

The placement on the string is just a cursor counting up the widths as more are added. The reset will restart the current scene. I’m thinking about having multiple rules, not only symmetry, but also color-constrains, size-constrains (can’t be longer than X, has to be X wide, etc.)

Another idea for a rule is to check for loopability, like not symmetry “XXADAXX”, but more for a loopy pattern like “XXADXXAD”, since a bracelet is being looped while worn, it would make more sense to check for that.

Tue, 05 May 2026 14:11:39 +0200

While I strongly prefer grayscale syntax-highlighting for code, I always prefer colorful Icon-Sets for toolbars.

Thinking out loud: Ghost Braceletter Game Idea

Mon, 04 May 2026 22:35:41 +0200

I checked out some of the old Flash-based girlie jewelery-makers for inspiration. Also some commercial ones that build-to-order.

But I’m seeing something more like a puzzle-game in my head. Something more Zach-like with a Balatro twist. A Zach-Lite-Balatro-Ghost-Bracelet-Maker.

The player has to prepare something like 20 bracelets for the Ghost concert. (This is autobiographic, since I make about 40 ones a year ago for the Skeletour in Munich)

The first bracelet is clearly readable as a certain song-title like “MARY ON A CROSS”
The player has additional beads, charms, etc. available.
Clicking a bead will move it onto the string. Clicking a thing on the string will remove all things next to it.
(This could even work as a CLI-game, now that I think about it, or HTML/CSS-based)
The bracelets could have rules like, at least two beads have to lay between words; one bead can be between letters; the bracelet has to have the same number of fillers on each side; not the same color next to each other.
The player starts assembling it… but: One letter is missing. The letter “Y” for example
It gets clear that the Mary-Bracelet can’t be finished. The player has to UNLOCK the “Y” to finalize it.
The player starts the second one, this one is simpler and can be finished, which unlocks some more “tasks” or “words”.
Some can be solved, some can’t, but with time the player unlocks everything, so the collection is complete.

Braceletter

Mon, 04 May 2026 21:19:22 +0200

Braceletter, a bracelet making game! No idea if there is substance to it, but the making bracelets for concerts thing may be a nice little game. The Ghost version would be basically a word guessing game, where the player has to build a bracelet with a “relevant” word from a Ghost-Song, or a Song-Title or name from the Lore. The one in the mock would be “Searchlights” (from the song “Watcher in the Sky”). This could be a small web/flash-based fan-game.

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 14:07:50 +0200

Some progress on People-Please. The prototype is the movie-crowd. They are watching a triple feature. The player can toggle the blame-mode, and then click a person and a rule. Then “commit” the blame and then gets feedback. Currently only using a cellphone during the running move is a “violation”.

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:50:24 +0200

What do Pico-8, Flash, GameMaker and Construct have in common? They all integrate code AND graphics-editing into their feature-suites. I believe they were as successful as they were, to a large part because of that. With other engines and frameworks, you always need to get your media-assets from outside. Having all in one allows you to start quicker and not having to think about where your placeholder graphics will come from.

Flash is still unmatched

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:49:59 +0200

Whenever I need to draw something with mouse or touchpad, I use Flash. Nowadays it’s called “Animate”, but the good old Flash MX still works great, also on a VMWare ARM Windows.

The reason is that it still has the best line smoothing procedure for vector based painting. There is nothing comparable. Most painting apps do have smoothing brushes, but they are usually speed-based (Flash doesn’t care for drawing speed) and/or pixel-based.

This GIF shows the smoothing in steps of 20, 0 to 100. (I usually stick to 40-60)

I’m seriously considering to just do all my game prototyping and experimentation in old Flash. No annoying updates all the time, ActionScript is well documented with lots of learning material, and it’s no problem to run it in modern browsers via Ruffle.rs.

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:18:19 +0200

Prototype WIP for the “People, Please” Idea (QtQuick)

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:03:08 +0200

Here’s the illustration of the idea from the last post. I’ll probably do a quick-ish prototype in Qt if my energy levels allow.

Game Idea: Papers Please X Crowd Control

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 22:45:08 +0200

Random Game Idea on a Saturday Night:

Papers Please x Crowd Control.

You’re a security guard in front of a crowd during an event.

You have a list of rules that the crowd has to stick to.

“No signs”, “no standing up”, “no sitting down”, “no phone usage”, “only one photo per person” and so on.

You have to make sure the rules are followed.

You have to report/fix offenders, but false reports will make some people leave, which is also negative.

Random thoughts on a Scabble-Sweeper Game

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:25:40 +0200

Playing Dragonsweeper is triggering so many thoughts on other possible Minesweeper-Variants. Like Minesweeper+Crossword-Puzzle or Scrabble. Defuse mines by constructing words from the surroundings. But IDK how that could look like. A field in a grid has 8 neighbors. Maybe the “mines” would be visible from the start, and you have to construct words from the adjacent letters to defuse them. Would the letters be hidden or visible?

There might be 4-5 Mines in a 8x8 field and you have a limited amount of letter-tiles. Each mine has HP, each letter has points. Lay the words in a way that the “touching” letters or adjacent words has to fulfill the mine’s points.

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:32:01 +0200

Random Idea/Thought: A Lyrics Website. Not a platform with texts to all songs, one page custom made for one song. The layout and typography supports the songs' topic. Audio optional, it’s more about the styling, animations, storytelling. I’m not sure that I have seen this anywhere yet.