Week 841

What’s this? I’m blogging about my work on a weekly basis – a simple way to track and archive whatever it is I spend my time on.

The week started with Being Grunberg, an urban game created by University of Amsterdam students mentored by Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg. I descended into the red light district to play (and win!) the game; while I enjoyed the experience, I also had a bunch of gripes. I’ll write about these elsewhere.

The play session was followed by a presentation of Grunberg’s latest novel, Het bestand, during which the urban game and his brain scan project were also discussed. Both projects are of great interest to me for obvious (hybrid) reasons. I read the novel later in the week, and enjoyed it a lot more than I’d feared I would. In all, I’m excited to record a hybrid writer’s podcast with the man soon.

Last week was also the last week of work on platformer/shooter RIVE before the team at Two Tribes flew to the United States. They’re visiting two conferences, where they’ll show the first public demo with my writing in it. Which is probably why I spent way too much time tweaking a handful of lines. (The main story mechanism, of two characters conversing, hasn’t been implemented yet.)

I then started writing down something of a creative vision for Codeglue’s team shooter Antegods, which I was asked to help out on. There are still many questions to be answered, but we’re slowly getting there.

The last major project I worked on was my app novella Geometry Girl. I sorted out notes and tinkered with the outline, and on Thursday morning visited the Hogeschool Utrecht to discuss the story workshop I’ll be doing there. That afternoon, I worked with Tim Hengeveld on drawings of the main characters that’ll be developed during the workshop.

Finally, in the ‘random’ category, I…

• Worked on my isometric crane game during #hobbydev, my weekly game development hobby night. This time I focussed on generating levels and making it easier to change color schemes; at the end of the session I thought I might as well turn the game into a procedural roguelike starring a crane, because why not?
• Was interviewed on video by ‘geek priest’ Roderick Vonhögen about games and parenting, mostly.
• Saw my eurotrippin’, gamejammin’ Tour Bueno piece published in nrc.next on Friday. It’s also available through Blendle (€).
• Watched a bunch of movies at the theater, as my daughters had their spring holiday and stayed at my mother’s and father’s place. I went to see Foxcatcher, Birdman, Inherent Vice, Jupiter Ascending and Big Hero 6, and rated them all in my Letterboxd diary.
• Celebrated my dad’s 65th birthday. Everybody pitched in to give him a (return) ticket to Thailand, where his brother lives.

Average step count per day: 10.248
Average staircase count per day: 16
Average weight: 89,8 kg