Moving my game project from C to Odin language

Akseli — Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Some months ago, I got really fed up with C.

Like, I don't hate C. Hating programming languages is silly. But it was way too much effort to do simple things like lists/hashmaps and other simple data structures and such.

I decided to try this language called Odin</a>, which is one of these "Better C" languages. And I ended up liking it so much that I moved my game Artificial Rage</a> from C to Odin. Since Odin has support for Raylib too (like everything really), it was very easy to move things around.

Here's how it all went.. Well, what I remember the very least.

Learning Odin</a></h1>
Firstly I want to go through the things I learned while tinkering on Odin with separate project, since I didn't want to just go blindly in and decide I dislike the language.
Luckily, learning Odin was rather easy.
I am no programmer language enthusiast like many others may be, and I will make weird comparison and anecdotes. But this is my blog so deal with it.
I am not going through everything. Just the things that stuck to my mind the best.
Backwards syntax</a></h2>
You see, Odin is like taking C and then.. Writing it backwards. And remove the unnecessary cruft.
For example, in C you type int variableName = 10</code>.
In Odin, you type variableName: int = 10</code> or variableName := 10</code>.
This was probably the most difficult part for me: Remembering that the name comes first then the type (if you dont let it be inferred automatically).
Functions are also called procedures or "procs." This sometimes still throws me off, but it's just semantic, they're essentially the same name, just less math-y name.
I still prefer the C way, but the only reasoning I have for it is that "it's what I learned."
Pointy pointers</a></h3> This one I kinda like. In Odin, pointers are ^pointer</code> instead of *pointer</code>. Then when you want to deference the pointer, its pointer^</code>. In some cases, like with Raylib, you have to feed the memory address with &pointer</code>. To have better understanding, look at the docs, I am bound to have something wrong in this blogpost anyway: https://odin-lang.org/docs/overview/#pointers</a> Lack of header files</a></h2> When it comes to removing unnecessary cruft, one of the biggest things that made me happy was lack of header files. I have ADHD. It's my excuse for having bad memory. When working with C, I often forgot to edit either the header file or the source file and then I was wondering why something fails to compile or otherwise acts weird... Juggling two files for one "programmatic unit" is stupid. I hate it. In Odin it's all in the one file, so I don't forget it. I know this is not a major revelation and people are like "wtf this is basic" but for me it was big deal! Building is not pain</a></h2> In C, building requires either a shell script with some magic notation or CMake or Meson or XMake or Make or Autotools or.. You get the point. There's so many ways to do same thing because the original way is just not fun. I've never enjoyed writing CMake files. I appreciate CMake, but I don't want to write the build systems. I just don't like setting up build systems in general, when I want to hack on a game on my limited time. In Odin? odin build .</code> or odin run .</code>. That's it. It just does the thing. Now if you are like me and love organizing your code into blocks and modules and whatever, you have to do things like odin build ./src -collection:src=src -debug -out:./build/binary</code>. This takes your collection of packages and spits out a debug build of your thing, then you can use LLDB to debug it. Simple little commands you can stick into a build.sh</code> and then just run that. Super simple, works well. It's rather quick to build too! No package management is good, actually</a></h2> Odin doesn't have built-in package manager. It doesn't need one. Packages are folders of files. You can just plop it in your repo, then use some collection commands and It Just Works. However you rarely even need to download third party packages from the internets! Odin has a lot of nice core features for basically everything one needs, and then for more extra things, like Raylib, theres vendored packages</a>. So if you need something from Raylib, you just do import rl "vendor:raylib"</code>. Then you have all the fun Raylib things under rl.</code>. For third party packages you can just use git submodules for example, so the packages are managed that way per project. I honestly love this way of working. Batteries included like with Python, but if you need more stuff, you just take care of it yourself and make sure you only have what you need, instead of 1000 random packages. Moving my game from C to Odin</a></h1> In the end, moving the game project was quite simple. C and Odin are like very long distance relatives. They do similar things, but maybe in different ways. C likes to build things every time ground up, while Odin just provides you the niceties. Swapping syntaxes</a></h2> Surprisingly often, moving the code from C to Odin was just "transpiling" the C syntax to Odin. I mostly had to change the name and type other way around, turn void bla()</code> to bla :: proc()</code> and so on. This was the easy part, though I sometimes forgot I was writing Odin when I was looking at the old C code and had things wrong way around. Cyclic dependencies</a></h2> However, one caveat is that Odin really doesn't like cyclic dependencies. In C you could get away with having two files that import each other. In Odin, if you have src:game</code> package, and src:scene</code> package, only one can rely on the other one. This means that if your src:game</code> needs something from src:scene</code>, then src:scene</code> can't get stuff from src:game</code>. If you are organizing maniac like me, this can be difficult to deal with first. I wanted to create a package for everything in the game, but it turned out that this is not what Odin wants to do. I am sure Odin devs have many opinions on this, but I'm still exploring. Many Odin devs seem to just have one package for their whole project, avoiding the cyclic dependencies completely.. Kinda like you do in C. I think that's also fine approach, as long as you remember having a consistent naming scheme like EnemyEntity</code> and WeaponEntity</code> etc etc. What I did was I turned the packages into more a hierarchial style, so that a child package doesnt rely on it's parent. Odin dependency diagram +-------------->---------+ +-----------+ | Settings | | Game | | Utilities | |----------+ +----|----+ +-----------| | | | --------------->----v----<--------------- | | Scene | | | +----|----+ | | | | | +------------v--------------+ | | | Entities | | +------> <----+ | Player, Weapon, Enemies.. | +---------------------------+ </code></pre> I know it's a bit messy, I tried my best with the diagram. But basically, nothing relies back to it's predecessor. Anything that needs to know about each other (enemy and player for example) is in same package. Game is our main loop, it just runs the show. It will likely be the one that toggles between game state and menu state.</li> Settings is a config loader that just makes sure our things are accessible from anywhere.</li> Utilities are procs that are commonly used, like creating bounding boxes.</li> Scene generates data for all entities, like where they should be placed. It also updates entities when iterating over the scene.</li> Entities have their shared update, where we use tagged unions (more of those later) to update whatever happens Player, players weapons, projectiles, enemies, level walls and objects, pickup items..</li> These items need to know about each other so they're in same blob.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> I am sure this creates a lot of opinions and different takes, someone will tell me this is horrible mess and I likely will agree. But hey, it works. And I am quite happy with it. With the C code, we had this instead: C dependency diagram (mess) +----------------------------------+ +--------------|------------+ | | | | +-------+ | | | | | | | | <--------+------------v----------+------>| | | | Settings | | Game | | Utilities || | | |----------^ +----|----+ ^-----------|| | | +-------+ | | | || | | | |-----|----|--->----v----<--|------------| | | | | | | | Scene | | || | | | | | | ^----^----<-------------->| | | | | | | | | | || | | | | |+---v---v----v-------v------+ || | | | | || Entity | || | | | v----<+> <----+| | | | | Player, Weapon, Enemies.. | | | | | +---------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | | | +------------------------------------------+ | +-------------------------------------------------+ </code></pre> Honestly everything relied on each other. Remove one block, something breaks. In C it was way too easy to have these weird dependencies, and I am glad Odin basically told me to have some discipline and do things properly. Now if I break something, it's way more predictable where the issue occurs and why. In C breaking something in place A would break something in place XYZ. This is not really C's fault, it's fault of my bad planning. But the fact that C doesn't really enforce me to have good planning is why it got that way. Tagged unions my beloved</a></h2> In C, I wanted to use unions because they made sense for my faux-entity-component system. There was a struct</code> that holds EntityType enum</code> and Entity union</code> which holds all the different structs</code> like Player</code>, Enemy</code>, Item</code> etc.. This got bit messy over time and I had to rely a lot on this EntityType enum</code> to make sure I am doing the right thing in right place. I had a lot of the following in C in various entity functions: if (entity->type != EntityType.item) { return; } </code></pre> Sure it works but eventually you forget to make that check and then it bites your ass. In Odin, thanks to tagged unions, I could do following for example: HandlePlayerPickup :: proc(entity: ^Entity) { destroyed := false #partial switch ent in entity.type { case ItemHealth: if (Player.health < PLAYER_MAX_HEALTH) { PlayerSetHealth(ent.healAmount) destroyed = true } case ItemAmmo: destroyed = WeaponAddAmmo(ent.ammoAmount, ent.ammoMorph) case ItemWeapon: pickedUp := WeaponPickup(ent.weaponType) ammoAdded := WeaponAddAmmo(ent.ammoAmount, ent.weaponType) destroyed = pickedUp || ammoAdded case ItemKey: destroyed = true Player.hasTeleportKey = true case: fmt.printfln("Unimplemented: %[0]v", entity.type) } if (destroyed) { entity.transform.isPickup = false entity.active = false Destroy(entity) } } </code></pre> This is such a nice way of handling unions. Every type has it's own proc related to the current action, so just go through a fun and quick switch ladder and do the action if we find that specific entity. We can also have default too, like that case:</code> which prints that the thing is unimplemented. This actually helped me to catch a bug with the item pickup thing very quickly and I loved the experience. Strings actually exist</a></h2> Due to having a HUD and config files, I have to do string handling. In C this is misery. Anyone who has done string handling in C knows this. It's absolutely insane how a language in the year [CURRENTYEAR]</code> has no proper string handling. Anyway, instead of having do stuff like in C: if (strcmp(key, "ceilingtexture") == 0) { scene->ceilingPlaneTexture = LoadTexture(fullTexturePath); free(fullTexturePath); return true; } </code></pre> In Odin I could do just this: switch key { case "ceilingtexture": ceilingPlaneTexture = rl.LoadTexture(texturesPath) return true ... </code></pre> Again our old friend lil switchy there, and its just simple and easy to read. Even opening files is less pain. C: // Parse scene plane textures from level.cfg void Scene_LoadSceneConfig(void) { const char *fileName = "./assets/levels/level1.cfg"; const int bufferSize = Utilities_GetFileCharacterCount(fileName); FILE *filePointer = fopen(fileName, "r"); if (nullptr == filePointer) { printf("Failed to open level config file %s \n", fileName); fclose(filePointer); return; } char buffer[bufferSize]; while (fgets(buffer, bufferSize, filePointer)) { char key[bufferSize]; char value[bufferSize]; Utilities_ParseKeyValuePair(buffer, key, "=", value); if (!Scene_ParseConfig(key, value)) { printf("Failed to parse level.cfg key-value: %s - %s \n", key, value); } else { printf("Parsed level.cfg key-value: %s - %s \n", key, value); } } fclose(filePointer); } </code></pre> Odin: LoadSceneConfig :: proc() { fileName := "./assets/levels/level1.cfg" data, success := os.read_entire_file(fileName) if (!success) { fmt.printfln("Failed to open level config file %[0]v", fileName) return } sceneConfigText := string(data) sceneArr := strings.split_lines(sceneConfigText) for item in sceneArr { keyValuePair := strings.split(item, "=") if (len(keyValuePair) < 2) { continue } if (ParseConfig(keyValuePair[0], keyValuePair[1])) { fmt.printfln("Parsed level.cfg key-value: %[0]v - %[1]v", keyValuePair[0], keyValuePair[1]) } } } </code></pre> It's just much easier to understand the Odin code, and I likely could implement that better still, since it's mostly recreation of the C code. But here you can see well how the two differ. Deferring defers</a></h2> Defer is also a beautiful thing. Like I said, due to my ADHD I have trouble remembering things. So I often malloc</code>, but rarely free</code>. And this makes computers sad. In Odin I can just do following: txt := strings.clone_to_cstring(fmt.aprintf("%[0]v", entity.Player.health)) defer delete(txt) </code></pre> And in the end of the block the delete is called. I don't have to remember to separately add it to end of the block. However I think C23 is going to have a defer too? Some doc I found: https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2589.pdf</a> But yeah, it's really nice! Matrices are stored differently in C and Odin</a></h2> One thing that REALLY stumped me was that matrices are handled differently in Raylib-Odin and Raylib-C: Odin, right handed, stored row major</li> C, right handed, stored column major</li> </ul> This caused some problems with my custom camera code, but when I figured it out it got easier from there. Here's couple tables to help you remember how they differ between C and Odin. Column major</a></h3> Used by Raylib C </th> 0</th> 1</th> 2</th> 3</th></tr></thead> 0</td> m0</td> m4</td> m8</td> m12</td></tr> 1</td> m1</td> m5</td> m9</td> m13</td></tr> 2</td> m2</td> m6</td> m10</td> m14</td></tr> 3</td> m3</td> m7</td> m11</td> m15</td></tr> </tbody></table> Row major</a></h3> Used by Raylib Odin </th> 0</th> 1</th> 2</th> 3</th></tr></thead> 0</td> m0</td> m1</td> m2</td> m3</td></tr> 1</td> m4</td> m5</td> m6</td> m7</td></tr> 2</td> m8</td> m9</td> m10</td> m11</td></tr> 3</td> m12</td> m13</td> m14</td> m15</td></tr> </tbody></table> Conclusions</a></h1> Sadly I don't remember much else. I had a blast with moving the codebase, and when I was visiting Akademy</a>, I did some game programming in a plane while I was super sleep deprived and still managed to get things work. In general, moving from C to Odin was quite a pleasant and rather easy experience. The languages are rather similar but Odin takes the painful bits away, letting you to focus on the problem instead of wondering why something is going weirdly wrong again. What's the most essential part of this movement, and why I did it, was that when I write C, I have to use much more effort to write it. I have to remember so many things, like updating headers and sources, updating CMake files, remembering to free in the end of block instead of deferring, having to create my own systems for everything instead of using common datatypes... There's so much mental overhead in C. Odin takes that mental overhead away mostly and just lets you concentrate on the problem. And it's so much more effortless to write too! I could feel my motivation come back and I am always excited to write more Odin code. With C code, I only enjoy it with very small projects, like couple files.. But with larger projects it gets overwhelming really fast. On top of that, staring at C++ for my dayjob (I know it's different, but syntax is similar), working with C made me feel like I was at work at times. It wasn't different enough, in a way. But now, instead of dreading opening my C game project, I am excited to open my Odin game project! I really recommend giving Odin a try, especially if you're tired with C. It's really fun language that helps you a lot when it comes to writing systems, and thanks to all the vendored packages it's really good for gamedev. Also if you use language servers, make sure to set up and use ols</a>, it's brilliant. Debugging can be done easily with LLDB debug adapters (or from commandline). I hope you got something out of this yet-another-rambly-tired blogpost. If nothing else, moving from C to Odin is something if I can do it, you can do it too! Happy hacking, and thanks for reading! Cosplay images 2024 Akseli — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Some cosplay images from various events. I mostly dress up as my own character, Huntra, who I have to make a game of someday:tm:. If I happen to do more this year I will update the galleries. Photos were taken and edited by my wife Jenny! She is great with camera. <3 The lizard suit (head, feet, hands and tail) were made by Lisan Otuspaja</a> ComicCon 2024</a></h1> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </div> </div> Kummacon 2024</a></h1> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </div> </div> Matsucon 2024</a></h1> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </a> </div> </div> My Akademy 2024 trip Akseli — Sat, 14 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Akademy</a> is this yearly thing where bunch of KDE people go to talk about and work on KDE software. I had never been in one before, but this year I managed to make it there! This year Akademy was held at the city of Würzburg. This was also my first time in Germany, which is the furthest I've ever been from home. I also had my wife Jenny with me, since if I had gone alone I would have gotten lost in some random mountain somewhere, or started a new life at the dark corners of Frankfurt airport, completely confused. Friday, the day of flying (or so I thought)</a></h1> On Friday the 6th, we left from Oulu to Helsinki first. Hop on plane at 14.30 and- Oh, a small delay. Eh, it's fine, we hopped on the plane at 16.00 and-... The flight was canceled. So, we wait til like 19.30 or something to get to Helsinki. But of course, our flight from Helsinki to Germany had already left! No worries though, the next flight to Germany would leave soon. Wait, what do you mean it leaves at 7.00? Aaaaaaaaaahhhhggggggggggg.... Well, we got paid airport hotel room with paid dinner and breakfast. So we slept at Helsinki the first night. We were supposed to be at Würzburg at 23.55 or something, but of course not. Oh well, with some effort I might be able to make to the event, although I would miss the first few talks. I had the most saddest (but still good) slab of lasagne at very sad and empty airport hotel restaurant. Very frustrated by everything. Sure it'll get better, right? Saturday, the day of sleep deprivation</a></h1> This time the airplane actually started to fly, instead of getting canceled for scandalous airplane activities, and we were on route to Frankfurt pretty soon. I spent some time in the airplane just working on my never-ending game project</a>. At Frankfurt, we got our luggage and went to the funny ICE train, which was a bit late. Apparently being late is some German train thing, I don't really understand it, but we have similar thing at Finland so it wasn't that shocking. At the train, we were exhausted with our 4h of sleep due to stress not allowing us to sleep, so we just find some seats and sit down. Five minutes later some chap tells us to go away, so we stay up standing for the next 1h 30min next to the exit doors in some midcabin thing. I wanted to watch some of the Akademy streams at this point, but I was mostly focusing on staying up. Eventually, we finally reach the Burg of Würz. First impressions were that it looks really nice and.. What the hell is that? A.. mountain? Wow, they can be THAT tall??? (Authors note: Finland is very, VERY flat). Also it was hellishly hot. The most I saw was 32 celsius. It was painful, I was sweating all the time and it was not fun. We walk to our hotel room at Mercure hotel, which was really nice by the way. At this time, Akademy was having an incredible luncheon together, so me and Jenny decided to find something to eat. We found this place that was all about avocados, and I had something called powerbowl, which was brilliant. After that, we began to study the incredibly complex thing that is the German bus system and started our trip towards the Akademy venue. Aktually at Akademy</a></h2> Me and my blurry sleep deprived brain walk to the venue and first off I meet familiar people. A lot of familiar people. Many hugs and "Oh you finally made it!"-s were shared. Jenny was with me there as well and it was fun to introduce her to my friends. I honestly don't remember much about the day. It was quite a blur. But it was cool and I talked a lot. I stole a lot of stickers and listened some talks, which I can barely remember... But I do remember which ones: Arjen's talk about Union KDE styling theme thing, that is super cool.</li> Harald talked about of our own new possible shiny OS called KDE OS. Or 🍌 OS. I found this really exciting.</li> A lot of lighting talks, where Nicole's talk about teaching lil kiddos how to install Linux with KDE software on old PC's to bring them back alive. I think this talk was my favorite. It was very wholesome, motivating and I'd like to have similar kind of teaching event at home. No promises, but.. Maybe!</li> </ul> </li> </ul> During this day I also began to give out salmiakki</a> to people, since I had been well prepared. It was kinda fun to see peoples reactions, especially if they had never heard of it before. Then it was back to sleep at the hotel. Sunday, I managed to do things</a></h1> On sunday I was at Akademy pretty much the whole day. Again, I listened bunch of talks, met more people and we had many good chats about LTS distros, KDE PIM, Kwin, Flatpak... And many other things I can't remember. I listened Carl's KDE Apps Initiative talk which was very motivating for me, since I've wanted to make a KDE app for a while. A gaming related lil thing. After the fun group photo and delicious lunch, I chatted more and wandered about the venue. There was a talk about daily driving Plasma Mobile and I found it very cool, and we had a chat about the Plasma Mobile afterwards. Apparently my Fairphone 5 could run PostmarketOS with Plasma Mobile pretty well already, but I am not yet ready to commit to such a change with my mobile device. Last I listened Xaver's talk about what color is in computers. I learned that sRGB is a lie and gasped audibly, then heard a lot of words related to color systems I didn't really always understand.. But I found the talk still quite interesting and informative. The evening was then again a bit of a blur, with sponsors lightning talks and Akademy Awards (congrats to winners btw). Very interesting day, but I've always been bad when it comes to learning from listening. I learn by doing. Of course the day wasn't complete without me going to wait bus with my t-shirt and shorts (since it was hot again), and it started pouring like heck. I was soaked when I got to the bus, then at the last stop I had to walk 1km to the hotel in the rain. Ah well, it was warm so I didn't mind too much. Monday, I skipped the class</a></h1> On monday I was so exhausted by Everything:tm: I decided to just chill with my wife and we went around Würzburg, buying food and chocolate. I spent that day just recharging my social batteries. And I ate some Flammenkuchen, which was delicious! At some point when Jenny is done editing and uploading her video, I will make separate post for it. Then you can see what Würzburg is like, and hear what she did during the trip. Edit: Am lazy but heres the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05qexeiHNeY Tuesday, I flocked together with the birds</a></h1> Like on monday, on tuesday as well Akademy had these events called "BoFs" which is abbreviation of Birds of a Feather. Because "Birds of a Feather Flock Together". I don't know why it's called that, but anyhow, I participated a few of them: New design system bof Very interesting discussions and ideas even I know nothing about design</li> I was mostly hoping to help people there with my programmer side of knowhow, as someone who has touched the Breeze styles codebases</li> </ul> </li> Tiling in kwin bof We mulled over what we could do to make tiling in kwin even better</li> I have this mini task for myself where I try to make tiles split automatically when a window is dragged on top of the other</li> </ul> </li> Fedora KDE bof I was just mostly curious whats up with Fedora KDE at the moment</li> I also wanted to give my praise for Fedora KDE, it's been my daily driver for many months now and it's been really good</li> Couple of my friends use it too due to my recommendation and they're having good time gaming on it! :)</li> </ul> </li> </ul> To wrap up the evening, I had a fancy dinner with my friends. What was quite a culture shock to me was that after 22.00 the streets were practically completely empty. It was eerily quiet. At home we would have had few drunks about making noise, but at Germany there was just.. Silence. Wednesday, to home again</a></h1> Due to having two lizards and them needing a petsitter, and said petsitter not being able to be there the whole week, we left a bit early so we missed the daytrip and the last bof day. Bit early being our flight from Frankfurt was leaving around 7.00. So we woke up at 5.00. And when I wake up I saw a message in my phone saying: "Hi your flight is canceled" Ah. Fun. If all had gone to plan, we would've been at home around 17.00. But instead, we were home at ~2.00. We had to live at Frankfurt airport for ~7 hours, saw a lot of police with weapons (it was really scary to me, I've never seen weaponry like.. that openly), there was some suspicious luggage that got a whole McDonalds covered in "dont go here" tape and more police. Urghgfhklfg. Scary. Eventually we luckily made it to Helsinki and then back to Oulu and I didn't need to type out this blogpost from some corner of the airport. Conclusions</a></h1> Akademy was really fun event. I can hardly describe how fun it was. It's been quite a blur due to traveling issues and thus me being completely stressed and exhausted, but I still had many fun chats with everyone. It was really nice to finally see who the people behind the internet names are and have talks with them, be it just random topics or KDE topics. I met people who I had never met before and shared many chats, laughs and information with them. I learned quite a lot about what's going on in our KDE ecosystem and even outside of it, how we all interact. But I think the biggest thing I learned was that events like Akademy are crucial for the motivation and wellbeing of the KDE community. It helps us stay together, keep our bonds strong, be it KDE folk itself or people working with us, and keep us being awesome at what we do: Making computers do cool things, for free, for productivity and for fun. Sorry about no photos, I have basically nothing: I am very bad at taking photos because I simply don't remember. I love KDE and if you love KDE too, and if it's at all possible, visiting Akademy is well worth it! See you at the next one, and apologies for the all-over-the-place-rambly-travel-post. Hope you find it a good read anyway. Thanks for reading! KIO Thumbnailer Support Akseli — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 The KIO Framework</a> has gained support for de-facto standard, cross-desktop thumbnail generators. This means that we have a support for thumbnails from 3rd party applications! On Linux systems, many applications that produce some kind of output, such as a 3D file or text document, ship a thumbnailer file that tells file managers how to create thumbnails of their files. One specific example I've used here in the images are STL files, for which we don't have our own KDE-specific thumbnailer plugin. These thumbnailer files are currently used by Nautilus and Thunar, so we felt like we were missing out and wanted to join the party! :) Thumbnailer files</a></h1> Thumbnailer files are simple text files that tell the system what program we should run to generate a thumbnail. You can check what thumbnailers you have installed by running ls /usr/share/thumbnailers</code> For example, the STL thumbnailer file looks like this: [Thumbnailer Entry] TryExec=stl-thumb Exec=xvfb-run --auto-servernum -w 0 stl-thumb -f png -s %s %i %o MimeType=model/stl;model/x.stl-ascii;model/x.stl-binary;application/sla; </code></pre> It tells the software running the thumbnailer what commands to use to generate the thumbnail, and what mimetypes it supports. KDE Thumbnailer Plugins</a></h1> On KDE side, we have used plugins for KIO, that reside in the kio-extras</code> repository. They work just fine for our usecase in KDE apps, but nobody should need to write a KIO specific plugin for their application. The changes to KIO</a></h1> You can check the merge request</a> for more in-depth details, but here's a summary of how I made it work side-by-side with our plugin system: We utilize the KIO plugins always first if possible, since we know for sure they work. This is to avoid any possible regressions and oddities, and to keep the change as unintrusive as possible. When we encounter a mimetype that is not supported by our plugins, like STL files, we utilize a thumbnailer file instead. This also means that it's transparent to users. Users do not have to worry which one they have installed. Why make support for thumbnailer files then?</a></h1> As mentioned earlier, no application should need to create a plugin for KIO just to make their thumbnails show up in our applications. Thumbnailer files offer other benefits too, such as easing future transitions, (like from KF6 to KF7); working nicely with sandboxing, and being distributable in Flatpak bundles. I am also working on moving our own plugins into thumbnailers, so we get the benefits from that too. How can I test it out?</a></h1> Currently it's only in the master branch of KIO, so if you really want to try it out, you will have to set up KDE Plasma development environment: https://develop.kde.org/docs/getting-started/building/kdesrc-build-setup/</a> When inside in the development environment, open Dolphin and enable the thumbnailers from preview settings. Any help testing it would be very welcome! :) Let me know of any possible improvements and bugs! Kate and OrgMode Akseli — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 I have a very.. unusual notetaking and task setup with Kate</a>, using Orgmode</a> files. I wanted to showcase it and explain how it works, maybe someone else has similar needs. Here's a small screenshot of my journal notes, I blurred out some things I didn't want to share. Why OrgMode?</a></h1> I actually prefer markdown much more. I enjoy writing markdown files and it just works in most editors. However, there is zero markdown note taking apps on android, that allow me to sync from my nextcloud and have notifications. I write very journal style notes. I have one big journal file (used to be a file per day before), where I write down all the interesting things that happened, plus most importantly, my work tasks. I tried to use calendar with tasks before.. But theres way too much context switching between notetaking apps, calendars, tasks (and on android you have to have two apps for tasks and calendar!!!). I was drowning in various apps and windows, constantly hopping around.. All I wanted to do was write down a task in my journal, then have that task notify me on my phone and on my desktop whenever it was scheduled. So eventually I found an app called Orgzly Revived</a>. It lets me take the outline style notes where everything is a bulletpoint, with tasks and such, timers, repeats.. And it has the dang phone notifications no other note taking app has. So it's perfect. Works awesome for my needs. Only thing is that it requires Orgmode files. Okay, I can do that. I first used Logseq</a> with both markdown and orgmode files, but it's quite slow app, even on my nice PC. And no notifications on mobile of course. I then realised that I am trying to overcomplicate things. I live a lot of my work life in Kate editor, so I decided to start using that. I had to update the Orgmode Kate syntax file a bit to make it work better for me (it's been upstreamed now yay), but other than that it works really nicely. And why not Emacs? I need an editor, not an OS. Well, jokes aside, I am just not really into learning yet another tool for something like note taking. Last time I tried to set up Neovim config that works for me, I just ended up doing everything in Kate.. I wager same would happen with emacs. I am very happy with Kate, that's all. And I contribute to it now and then, so it just makes sense to use it. :) Now I just sync all my note files through my Nextcloud to my phone and my computers. I have couple scripts that make figuring out my agenda and have notifications on my PC as well. My Kate setup</a></h1> My setup took some time to get together and with couple scripts and snippets it works pretty well. First, you need to git clone https://codeberg.org/akselmo/kate-orgmode.git</code> In there I have couple python and shell scripts, and snippets for Kate</li> You need to create a .venv</code> for it with python -m venv .venv</code> and then pip install -r requirements.txt</code></li> Check the Readme file for how to use the snippets</li> </ul> </li> Create session called Notes. In Plasma, you can just search "Notes" in KRunner and open the Notes session, that just opens the files.</li> </ul> </li> Symlink the org mode snippets to ~/.local/share/ktexteditor_snippets/data/</code> and make sure they work in Kate Snippets are incredibly powerful in Kate, i recommend using them for many things!</li> These snippets automate stuff like "worktask" entries.</li> Unfortunately any timestamps need to be modified by hand, i have not yet had time to make an external tool that spawns a calendar view and spits out a timestamp.</li> For example, "worktask" adds a following item.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> * TODO [#ABC] task_name :work: SCHEDULED: <2024-07-07 Sun 21:12> DEADLINE: <2024-07-07 Sun 21:12> :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2024-07-07 Sun 21:12] :product: product :kdebug: [[https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=bugid][bugid]] :merge-request: UPDATE_ME :END: </code></pre> Add an "external tool" entry for the run-orgagenda.sh</code> item in the files. Set the "Output" setting to "Display in a panel"</li> For the scripts, make sure they're reading right folder (where your notes are)</li> Now you can press ctrl+alt+i</code> and type Org Agenda</code> and it shows you a fun lil overview in a panel of all your items in agenda</li> </ul> </li> In your DE's autostart, add the run-orgnotifier.sh</code> script. This will send notification for anything you have set as scheduled or deadline before 30 min, and before/after 5 min of the timestamp.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> That should be it for the setup, the code for these scripts is absolutely horrid but you should check that all filepaths match yours etc. I need to clean up the code when I feel like it but honestly it Just Works:tm: for now.. lol. Journaling?</a></h1> I have one single file that is called Journal-2024</code> and I create new journal every year. In this journal file, I prepend new items on top of the file, like this. * Daily notes 2024-07-07 :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2024-07-07 Sun 21:20] :END: Some notes for this day ** Some specific subnote for this daily note blabla * TODO [#A] do this task ples :personal: SCHEDULED: <2024-07-06 Sat 21:22> DEADLINE: <2024-07-07 Sun 21:23> :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2024-07-05 Fri 21:22] :END: blalbla * DONE [#B] ancient task :work: :PROPERTIES: :CREATED: [2000-01-01 someDayIdk 21:23] :END: its been 24 years #+BEGIN_SRC code ancient code #+END_SRC </code></pre> This means that you can just quickly see all the new items. Also in Kate, there's a handy feature for folding all toplevel nodes when you press ctrl+alt+i</code> so you get just list of all headers. I use it all the time. Folding the nodes only works with the newest ksyntaxhighlighting since i recently updated the orgmode syntax file to support that lol. Anything else</a></h1> Any other items go to their respective note files. For example anything related to programming goes to "Programming notes" file. Then I use tags for those items to categorize them based on language, framework, etc.. Instead of having many small files, I have multiple big files, where I categorize items with tags. I can then easily search for items by typing :tag:</code> in the search field in Kate, and it shows me all items related to that tag. Just, well, remember to tag your items! :D Wrap up</a></h1> To wrap it up, this system has made things much easier to remember for me, and I can handle more complicated tasks like repeating workout tasks with my phone. (I can do it in Kate too but it requires manual number changing). I wouldn't mind changing back to markdown if there was a markdown app for phone that has actual notifications. Sorry this post is a bit all over the place, but there's really not much more interesting things to share about this. It's just couple scripts reminding me or showing all the items in my agenda, and the rest is snippets in Kate and writing orgmode files. And I am quite happy with my system. Maybe it'll help you to get some ideas too! Also please tell me about any markdown note taking apps that have notifications on mobile and desktop, if you know any. You can ping me on fedi, which you can find on my about section. Thanks for reading! Family of free and friendly open source software Akseli — Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Or FOFAFOSS. Rolls right off your tongue. Like in many families, there's always a bit of.. turmoil and drama in FOSS. Something breaks (either on purpose or by accident), people get frustrated.. The usual. It is kind of to be expected when it comes to very social projects, like let's say, Linux desktop environments. People have their own visions and ways to see things. They often clash. That's normal. It's quite human. I do like to think that Linux desktop environments especially are like siblings that have rivalries. But we got to remember that it's not "us vs them" here. We don't have the resources to fight each other. We need to work together even with our incompatible visions sometimes. Otherwise things will keep fracturing and get even worse.. And nobody gains from that. Well, except the proprietary platforms. :P In the end we all want to make good software for everyone to use and enjoy. Let's help each other to do that as well as we can. Nothing wrong with "Oh you made that? Well watch this!" type of friendly rivalry however, it keeps us doing what we do best. :) I just wanted to write this down as somekind of reminder that we got to remember to work together if we want to succeed. Even when frustrated. And no I am not any high and mighty person to really say this, I have had my own share of frustrations and quips. This post serves also as a reminder for myself. So let's try to work together as well as we can. Plasma 6 and me Akseli — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000 I'm bit late to the train of Plasma 6 related posts... But anyway. I will go through some things I did. For me working on Plasma 6 was pretty fun, I learned a lot of new things and fixed bunch of bugs and crashes. The most resourceful ones can find my merge requests, but I am too lazy to link them all. Things I did</a></h2> Most of the things I did were a lot more in the background. I hunted down a lot of bugs and crashes, and tried to fix them myself or helped others fix them, in various projects, such as: Dolphin</li> Plasmashell</li> Kwin</li> KNS</li> And probably a lot of more I have already forgot... :D</li> </ul> But there was A LOT stuff: Around 100 merge requests in total! Pretty much all of them got in, thanks to all the reviews and education other KDE developers provided to me! :) Again, thanks to everyone who has helped me to work on KDE projects! Thanks for your patience with me and all the knowledge you have parted to me. ❤️ I'll keep doing my best helping KDE projects, be it bug hunting or feature creation. I have to say my software testing background has been very useful when it comes down to hunting down bugs, and I've learned a lot of things about Qt, C++ and QML. Still got much more to learn though, but that's what makes me so excited about programming! I think one of the most useful things I've learned is how to use GDB. I can't provide anyone a crash course (at least in this blog post) but it is essential when hunting down weird bugs in plasmashell for example. I love debuggers integrated to editors like using LLDB-DAP in Kate, but sometimes GDB in terminal is all you can use, so it's good idea to learn to use it! One big thing I worked on with others was fractional scaling related stuff: I didn't do any of the Kwin stuff around it, but I hunted down some weird bugs with window decorations having some weird gaps in them when windows are specific size. Hunting down all these bugs and weirdness took long time, and we're still looking into it, since it seems to be different in every system.. Floating point numbers and computers are very weird combo. Another more visible thing I did was unifying separator colors and other items, you can find an issue about it here: Frame and outline color consistency and high-contrast setting changes</a>. I have been bothered by the random differences between some elements, which can be especially noticeable in darker colorschemes, so I finally sat down and combed through related codebases. There's likely more to fix though, but there is now easy way for us to add high-contrast support for outlining elements! It just needs doing, and I haven't had the time.. Yet. :) Things I learned</a></h2> GDB is a life saver</li> Write down notes. All the time. Journaling is a good idea!</li> </ul> </li> Working in open source is a lot about the social aspects! Be nice to people! Duh!</li> But also don't let people walk over you!</li> Listen to others, and don't be afraid to share your opinion.</li> Ask many questions and write down the answers.</li> </ul> </li> Be patient</li> Bug triaging is tough, but very important!</li> Remember to rest (I'm bad at this)</li> </ul> Things I will do in future</a></h2> I will continue hunting down various bugs and crashes and fixing them whenever I spot some, or something is raised to me as "hey this looks like something you could do." I have also started working on couple things related to remote desktop: rdp: Proxy and Gateway settings</a></li> Simple KCM for KRDP</a></li> </ul> Last but not least, I have looked into facelifting our dear Breeze theme, just a lil bit. Nothing drastic, some tell me they don't see any change and some do. But hopefully it would make Breeze look just a lil bit "softer" and "friendlier." :) You can see them here: Slightly rounder elements, slightly lighter outlines</a> All in all I am very happy with my current job working on KDE projects, fixing bugs and creating new cool things. I also kind of enjoy being a jack-of-all-trades (master of none), since I get to do a lot of different kinds of stuff, from something more "background" like KWin and plasmashell to something more visible like Breeze and Dolphin. Maybe eventually I will specialize around something, but for now I am bit all over the place which is fine by me lol. I hope that some of my work has helped you as well. :) I'll keep doing my best and learning more. (And hopefully write more blogposts.. lol.) Thanks for reading! Debug symbols for all! Akseli — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 When running Linux software and encountering a crash, and you make a bug report about it (thank you!), you may be asked for backtraces and debug symbols. And if you're not developer you may wonder what in the heck are those? I wanted to open up this topic a bit, but if you want more technical in-depth look into these things, internet is full of info. :) This is more a guide for any common user who encounters this situation and what they can do to get these mystical backtraces and symbols and magic to the devs. Backtrace</a></h1> When developers ask for a backtrace, they're basically asking "what are the steps that caused this crash to happen?" Debugger software can show this really nicely, line by line. However without correct debug symbols, the backtrace can be meaningless. But first, how do you get a backtrace of something? On systems with systemd installed, you often have a terminal tool called coredumpctl</code>. This tool can list many crashes you have had with software. When you see something say "segmentation fault, core dumped", this is the tool that can show you those core dumps. So, here's a few ways to use it! How to see all my crashes (coredumps)</a></h2> Just type coredumpctl</code> in terminal and a list opens. It shows you a lot of information and last the app name. How to open a specific coredump in a debugger</a></h2> First, check from the plain coredumpctl</code> list the coredump you want to check out. Easiest way to deduce it is to check the date and time. After that, there's something called PID</code> number, for example 12345</code>. You can close the list by pressing q</code> and then type coredumpctl debug 12345</code>. This will often open GDB, where you can type bt</code> for it to start printing the backtrace. You can then copy that backtrace. But there's IMO easier way. Can I just get the backtrace automatically in a file..?</a></h2> If you only want the latest coredump of the app that crashed on you, then print the backtrace in a text file that you can just send to devs, here's a oneliner to run in terminal: coredumpctl debug APP_NAME_HERE -A "-ex bt -ex quit" |& tee backtrace.txt </code></pre> You can also use the PID</code> shown earlier in place of the app name, if you want some specific coredump. The above command will open the coredump in a debugger, then run bt</code> command, then quit, and it will write it all down in a file called backtrace.txt</code> that you can share with developers. As always when using debugging and logging features, check the file for possible personal data! It's very unlikely to have anything personal data, BUT it's still a good practice to check it! Here's a small snippet from a backtrace I have for Kate text editor: #0 __pthread_kill_implementation (threadid=<optimized out>, signo=signo@entry=6, no_tid=no_tid@entry=0) at pthread_kill.c:44 ... #18 0x00007f5653fbcdb9 in parse_file (table=table@entry=0x19d5a60, file=file@entry=0x19c8590, file_name=file_name@entry=0x7f5618001590 "/usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose") at ../src/compose/parser.c:749 #19 0x00007f5653fc5ce0 in xkb_compose_table_new_from_locale (ctx=0x1b0cc80, locale=0x18773d0 "en_IE.UTF-8", flags=<optimized out>) at ../src/compose/table.c:217 #20 0x00007f565138a506 in QtWaylandClient::QWaylandInputContext::ensureInitialized (this=0x36e63c0) at /usr/src/debug/qt6-qtwayland-6.6.0-1.fc39.x86_64/src/client/qwaylandinputcontext.cpp:228 #21 QtWaylandClient::QWaylandInputContext::ensureInitialized (this=0x36e63c0) at /usr/src/debug/qt6-qtwayland-6.6.0-1.fc39.x86_64/src/client/qwaylandinputcontext.cpp:214 #22 QtWaylandClient::QWaylandInputContext::filterEvent (this=0x36e63c0, event=0x7ffd27940c50) at /usr/src/debug/qt6-qtwayland-6.6.0-1.fc39.x86_64/src/client/qwaylandinputcontext.cpp:252 ... </code></pre> The first number is the step where we are. Step #0</code> is where the app crashes. The last step is where the application starts running. Keep in mind though that even the app crashes at #0</code> that may be just the computer handling the crash, instead of the actual culprit. The culprit for the crash can be anywhere in the backtrace. So you have to do some detective work if you want to figure it out. Often crashes happen when some code execution path goes in unexpected route, and the program is not prepared for that. Remember that you will, however, need proper debug symbols for this to be useful! We'll check that out in the next chapter. Debug symbols</a></h1> Debug symbols are something that tells the developer using debugger software, like GDB, what is going on and where. Without debugging symbols the debugger can only show the developer more obfuscated data. I find this easier to show with an example: Without debug symbols, this is what the developer sees when reading the backtrace: 0x00007f7e9e29d4e8 in QCoreApplication::notifyInternal2(QObject*, QEvent*) () from /lib64/libQt5Core.so.5 </code></pre> Or even worse case scenario, where the debugger can't read what's going on but only can see the "mangled" names, it can look like this: _ZN20QEventDispatcherGlib13processEventsE6QFlagsIN10QEventLoop17ProcessEventsFlagEE </code></pre> Now, those are not very helpful. At least the first example tells what file the error is happening in, but it doesn't really tell where. And the second example is just very difficult to understand what's going on. You don't even see what file it is. With correct debug symbols installed however, this is what the developer sees: QCoreApplication::notifyInternal2(QObject*, QEvent*) (receiver=0x7fe88c001620, event=0x7fe888002c20) at kernel/qcoreapplication.cpp:1064 </code></pre> As you can see, it shows the file and line. This is super helpful since developers can just open the file in this location and start mulling it over. No need to guess what line it may have happened, it's right there! So, where to get the debug symbols?</a></h2> Every distro has it's own way, but KDE wiki has an excellent list of most common operating systems and how to get debug symbols for them: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports</a> As always, double check with your distros official documentation how to proceed. But the above link is a good starting point! But basically, your package manager should have them. If not, you will have to build the app yourself with debug symbols enabled, which is definitely not ideal.. If the above list does not have your distro/OS, you may have to ask the maintainers of your distro/OS for help with getting the debug symbols installed. Wait, which ones do I download?!</a></h2> Usually the ones for the app that is crashing. Sometimes you may also need include the libraries the app is using. There is no real direct answer this, but at the very least, get debug symbols for the app. If developers need more, they will ask you to install the other ones too. You can uninstall the debug symbols after you're done, but that's up to you. Thanks for reading!</a></h1> I hope this has been useful! I especially hope the terminal "oneliner" command mentioned above for printing backtraces quickly into a file is useful for you! Happy backtracing! :) And who is going to clean up? Akseli — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 I was listening Late Night Linux podcast episode 264 and they were chatting about AI, as usual. This post was inspired by the discussion, but not really related to it. In podcast it was mentioned that current AI is like T-Ford of our era. I do agree. There are potential good in the tooling, but something else came up in my mind: Guess who is going to end up cleaning up the mess that those "AI T-Fords" go crashing around, destroying lives, causing damage and such? On top of the climate change issues and other fun stuff we're currently suffering from? The clean-up generation</a></h1> First let's make it clear what I mean with this clean-up generation: Anyone who actually cares about their impact on the world Going "convenience and productivity is the king" route every time can be harmful</li> </ul> </li> Anyone who isn't rich (if you got +100k in your savings, I'd say you're rich.) This also includes rich parents and family and whatever</li> </ul> </li> Our children who will have it way worse</li> </ul> All these new inventions that cause distress are often made by rich dads, who take resources from the clean-up generation to create more and more, often useless things. When things go wrong, they tell their children to clean up. It's akin to those dads coming to your house, taking all your Legos and pouring them all over your house, then when they create a new shiny thing, they take those Lego parts home and tell you to clean up the rest. Progression comes with a cost</a></h1> This is the go-to argument: There's no progression without some sort of cost. Well, sure, but why is it always the clean-up generation that pays the cost? You rich dads have way more than enough money to clean things up. But you don't care, since you know you're not alive anymore when the problems really materialize. And I'm tired of cleaning up your shit. But I'm expecting there's tons of clean-ups to be done in future. I hope I do not cause such mess to clean up for my kids, if I decide to have any. Happy 2024. Make sure your cleaning tools are ready. Side tangent</a></h1> No, copy-paste-bot for your code editor is not useful, and if you find it useful, I'm worried about your code quality. I wouldn't trust anyone who copies code directly from internet without second thought, why would I trust a bot that does same, especially since it does not give a thought at all? First week of fulltime KDE Akseli — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Seems getting laid off was pretty good for me after all. Funny how things go sometimes. A company that works on KDE stuff (and other Linuxy things), interviewed me for a fun job: "Wanna help us work on KDE Plasma?" You bet I said YES! So now I work daily 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, to improve KDE Plasma! It's contract work, but I hope people there like me a lot to keep me around. :) At least I am planning to be around for the long haul! Anyway, this was my first week doing this job! Everyone I work with is really nice and most of them I have already met during my contribution adventures. The job itself for now has been about helping finding and fixing bugs in KDE Plasma. I've mostly concentrated on bugs that can appear when moving from 5 to 6, like migrating configs, etc. There's some other stuff I'm doing as well, but they're not that visible to end user, necessarily. Like fixing warnings. I am also focusing on learning the stack and hopefully eventually get to work more on Flatpak related things and Kwin related things, since those interest me. I am also hoping to help with accessibility, like high-contrast color schemes and such. And who knows what else I will work on in future! Also due to my experience in test automation, I have taken on the sidequest to help with that part as well. I have been quite interested how test automation of Linux desktop apps works, and there's quite cool stuff going on there. In my personal KDE plans, I want to add color customization options for separators, since those can be used in high contrast themes. But since it would be any custom color the user wants, well, they can set it to anything. Anyhow, I will first prioritize fixing bugs and learning more. Thank you so much for the company who took me under their wing. And thanks to my colleagues for helping me get into this and teaching me things, even when my questions can be a bit dumb at times.. :'D You know who you are! Expect more posts in future about what I learn during this job! :) Thanks for reading! I got laid off from work... Akseli — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Hello, today I got laid off from my current workplace. I used to be a test automation engineer but I also worked on Windows application with C#. So, I am looking for new programming and development job! I am very interested and passionate about Linux, and I am quite good in test automation. I have been test automating embedded and mobile devices with Python, using custom solutions, Robot Framework and Appium/Selenium. I am also a KDE application and Plasma developer</a> (as you may know, if you're reading this post on KDE Planet). I've mostly contributed to Kate and Breeze. I'm still somewhat new in C++ and Qt, but I don't mind learning more. I also create games as a hobby, currently working on a game made with C and Raylib</a>. Before I've used Unity and C#</a> for games for roughly ten years. All in all, I am quite good allrounder but shine especially when working with Linux, be it programming software or creating test automation systems. I live in Finland and I am fine with full remote work. If you're interested, feel free to mail me at: [email protected] Other thoughts about the thing</a></h1> Kinda rough, you know. To be burnt out, then finally heal and go back to work... Only find out that you are being laid off. I miss my coworkers a lot and it makes me sad. They were great. Now I will have to just.. Let myself go through all my emotions. Try to relax a bit. Basically continue that sickleave I was in.. But anyway. I am not too worried. But I am frustrated and sad. This was my first "change negotiation" ever... And it ended up with me leaving. There was no specific reason, just.. Money. This too shall pass. I'll keep at it. Anyone else in similar situation, you have my sympathies. Thanks for reading. I burned out, again.. And how I let myself heal. Akseli — Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Sorry KDE Planet readers, this is just rambly non-techy post. Burning out is no joke. I have gone through 3 or 4 major burnouts in my life. All of them related to programming, in a way or another. Basically my burnout starts when I can't think anything else except some certain problem. I forget to take care of myself. I have major moodswings. It affects me and the environment around me. But I've always bounced back. Will go through that in a bit. What happened this time?</a></h1> Often my burnout happens due to bad work environment (one of my internships) or since I am a chronical people-pleaser, I try to do something perfectly right for everyone and try to make everyone happy, then I explode. This time, I was doing quite boring, repetitive work over summer. It was interesting at first, creating my own test automation stuff for something. But since everyone was on vacation except me, it was pretty lonely and eventually the work turned into boring mush. Now I don't mind working on test automation, but when it's the only thing I am doing for past 4 years.. Ech. It was like chewing on chewing gum where all the flavor had already went away ages ago. Anyway, I pushed myself too hard so I could get done with the task ASAP. I didn't really take many breaks since there wasn't coworkers telling me to stop, lol. Basically, I got so bored I lost my mind. I wanted to get over it quickly so I can do something else (which was other not-so-interesting work.. :P ) This then caused random mood swings and other fun things. Anyway, my wife finally pushed me to see a doctor about it and I've been on a sick leave for past two weeks. Just getting my head back in shape. I felt first really guilty about going to sick leave, since I did it last year too.. But fuck it. If I need it, I need it. Health comes first. I recognize I am far more "fragile" than most when it comes to mental health: I got a whole list of things behind me, in my past. Of course since I am very stubborn, or like the doctor said nicely, "resilient", I tend to push myself way too hard. Sometimes the pushing is for pleasing others. This time it was just that I wanted to get over with the boring stuff. Healing myself</a></h1> On this sick leave, I've done anything my mind wants to do, instead of planning things beforehand and sticking to some weird plan. I usually try to stick to some weird plan, and then get super upset because I didn't stick to it 100%. This time I told myself that I got no plans. Do what you want. What I ended up doing is playing a whole lot of videogames. Like.. A lot. And honestly that helped. Just forgot the real world around me completely. Instead, I visited space in Starfield and X4 Foundations, cleaned up Night City with a shotgun, strafejumped in Xonotic.. Even set up Morrowind myself with few mods and started a Telvanni mage playthrough. In the midst of that, I every now and then wanted to make some tiny code things. I didn't work on my game unfortunately, but I worked on my KDE Breeze style fork Zephyr</a> and other tiny things. And of course, I played with Tiamat</a> and Nebs</a>, our reptile pets. :) To sum it up:</a></h2> I let my mind wander</li> I let my mind do what it wants</li> I did not plan anything I was going to do</li> I escaped the real world to video games completely for a while</li> </ul> And that all helped me, at least. Perhaps, if you find yourself in similar situation, this blog post can help a little. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Get a sickleave if you need it. Your health is important. Thanks for reading! Zephyr - My Breeze fork Akseli — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 I had the hankering for tinkering the KDE application style. The default style by KDE, Breeze</a>, is pretty nice as is, but there are small things I'd like to modify. There's Klassy</a> which is quite customizable and fun, but I don't really need all of the settings it has. Then there's Kvantum</a> which uses SVG files to create a theme, but they don't follow KDE colorschemes. And I dislike working with SVG files. Both are brilliant for their usecases, but I wanted just Breeze with few changes. Fork time!</a></h1> So, I did what one has to do, forked Breeze and renamed everything Breeze related to Zephyr. I chose Zephyr because it was synonym for Breeze in Thesaurus lol. Also, it makes sure it's last in the list of the application styles, so people don't accidentally confuse it to Breeze. Here's link to the repository: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/Zephyr</a> Installation help is also there, but feel free to make issue and/or merge requests for adding stuff like what packages one has to install for their distro. Unfortunately due to the massive size of the Breeze Gitlab repo, I didn't want to flood Codeberg with the whole history. So, some of the history got lost. I have mentioned it in the readme file though. After renaming all the things, the whole thing built and installed surprisingly easily. I then implemented following: Black outline setting, so the default outline has a black one around it. Why? Idk looks cool. Not really other reason.</li> Yes, it can be disabled.</li> </ul> </li> Traffic color icons in window deco I am allergic to Apple but the traffic light concept just makes sense to me.</li> Also can be enabled or disabled</li> </ul> </li> Customizable style frame and window deco outline colors You can completely change the frame colors.</li> You can also make them invisible! No outlines, no frames! Fun!</li> </ul> </li> Slightly rounder windows and buttons At some point I will make a setting for these too, but now they're applied when the thing is built</li> </ul> </li> Fitting Plasma style if you use the defaults Zephyr offers (mostly black outlines) The plasma theme buttons do not match the application style in roundness, yet.</li> I am lazy and avoid working with SVG files as long as I can</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Why</a></h1> For fun! For learning! And I wanted to make something that is super close to Breeze (hell, it is Breeze, just few mods), but still has it's own charm and how I like seeing my desktop. It also can work as a great test bench for others who want to see if they can modify application style. Just rename anything Zephyr to YourForkNameHere and have fun. But it's probably better to fork the original Breeze project :) Also, when making my own things for Breeze, it's nice to just implement them in something similar but different name so I can test the changes for longer period of time. And if I like the changes I can maybe show them to upstream. In future, I will make it work with Plasma 6 (unless i feel lazy). Probably will have to fork Breeze then again and apply my changes. Hopefully it's not too big of a change. Also, I will be working on the actual Breeze in future too! I hope to implement separator colors for the Plasma colorscheme, so basically you can change the color of all frames and outlines and whatnot. This kinda helped me to figure how that works as well! All in all, good project, I keep tinkering with it and it helps me understand the Breeze styling and Qt in general more. Revontuli and Zephyr</a></h1> My colorscheme Revontuli</a> works really well together with Zephyr. So, feel free to give them a go! Thanks for reading as usual! Video: We visited Stockholm! Akseli — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 My wife</a> made a video of us visiting Stockholm, go check it here! We saw Trash Taste in Stockholm! | Honeymoon vlog</a> </iframe> Trust in software is important for me Akseli — Sun, 09 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Preface: What is trust to me? To make it clear what trust means to me: Can I trust my privacy, no matter how miniscule part of information you want, in your hands? (my PTSD plays heavily in this lol)</li> </ul> </li> Can I trust your software or whatever be around long enough for me? Basically, is it worth my time to learn this?</li> </ul> </li> Can I trust you to listen to me when I have something to say? I don't know many things I could trust in this matter. Moneymen tend to ignore often.</li> </ul> </li> Can I trust you to not lure me in with nice promises and then pull the rug under me? Honestly, this happens way more than I'd like.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Now since that's clear.. Trust musings</a></h1> There has been, once again, turmoil and drama in FOSS spheres. First, Red Hat did a trick</a> with their open source code, so that if anyone who uses their GPL rights to share the Red Hat code, loses their subscription. (Well, that's how I understood it. Please give it a read yourself to make sure.) It's a complicated matter, where complicated opinions bubble on top, at least for me. I do not comment on it since I just do not know enough. I've never used RHEL for anything, anyway. But it has certainly affected the user trust. Now, Fedora got recently a proposal to add opt-out telemetry</a>. Considering Fedora and Red Hat are tied to each other on some level, it again has affected the user trust. Mainly negatively. Gaining trust is hard, losing it is easy. And it does seem this has been quite a blow to Red Hat and Fedora, but maybe it shows positively in other ways. Who knows. I shared my opinions on their forum, but yes, I'm cynical enough to think my voice doesn't really matter. I could've been less "sharp-tongued" about it in those posts, but dude im just so tired. My personal feelings on the matter is that I hope all goes well, but I will try other distro offerings in the meanwhile and see how it goes. I am tired of worrying over such things anyway, so it's easier for me to move. Now, I use Arch. And no, I'm not gonna.. Ok, fine: Btw. Telemetry musings</a></h1> I do have some commentary on telemetry however, and how I feel like it should be implemented. It is fine to disagree with me, for if I disagree the way you implement telemetry, I just do not use the software, unless there is no other alternative nor choice. First off, the telemetry data in that proposal is fine by me. System info, whatever. Steam asks me for system information as well. And I always say "yes, show the world im a linux gamerrr" What the proposal wants to do, is to use the opt-out method of acquiring telemetry. To briefly first mention what this means: Opt-in: Setting is toggled off by default, user has to explicitly say yes.</li> Opt-out: Setting is toggled on by default, user has to explicitly say no.</li> </ul> I understand the rationale behind opt-out: Most people won't enable it, due to people being used to the "just click next next next" pattern that Windows has hoisted on many us. And I think that's a dark pattern, since it's easy to trick user to agree on something they do not want. Remember the malware bundled with installing Windows apps, if you didn't remember to remove the default checkbox. This is essentially that, but for sending your data away. Yes, it's your data, despite it being "meaningless" to you maybe, it is still your data. Utilizing this "dark pattern" feels wrong to me. Maybe it's my morals, or maybe I'm a silly person. I think users should know exactly what they're getting into. So, please, ask for consent. Do not go "You consent to this, right?" and when the user goes "Huh what? Yeayeayea." you have already moved on, decided this. What I want to see is following pattern: Software: "Alright user, we have some data we'd like to collect, here is what data: blableblelba."</li> User: "next next next-"</li> Software: "You must explicitly choose, yes or no? Please read."</li> User: "Oh, data! Hmm, ok, seems good to me!"</li> </ul> Of course, this can annoy the user. They just want to click next next next. But that tiny bit of annoyance is good price to pay instead of possible regret in future. And I think it's a good goal to teach the common users to read the popups again. This causes many issues in the current software world, such as people falling for scams since they do not properly read things, accepting all kinds of bad deals.. "Just click next next next" is an anti-pattern that must be stopped. And FOSS has the chance to help stop that pattern, since I think not many of us are in this for the quick buck, but instead for creating fun, free software for all. Just stop the user and ask the question. Then you never need to ask it again. Of course, alternatively you can do what KDE is doing. They show you a telemetry slider in the welcome app, and you can set it to how much data you want to send. Since they ask me first I always max it out. :) Bottom line in opt-in opt-out</a></h1> This is how I personally have always dealt with opt-in/opt-out checks. No matter what OS I have used, but especially on Windows, you could not trust anything so you had to read and stop. Way before of my Linux days, as well. Opt-in: I read what it does, then opt-in. Thanks for asking nicely, I reward you with my data.</li> Opt-out: Even if I don't mind the data being sent, I feel it's bit rude to assume what I want, thus I opt-out immediately.</li> Exclusively ask me: I stop, I read, and usually opt-in to sending the data.</li> </ul> Again, I've always done this, even before my Linux days. I guess it's because my parents told me to always ask first. :) Thanks for reading this yet-another-ramble from me. I know my writing style is all over the place but I hope it helps understand why these trust matters are important to me. If nothing else, just remember this: Gaining trust is hard, losing trust is super easy. Why I don't like ads Akseli — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 It's common to dislike ads. They're annoying for many. I recommend anyone to use an adblocker</a> whenever they can. Despite ads being annoying, they're also bad for your privacy. Blocking them helps avoiding annoyance and keeping your privacy a bit more in better shape. Addictive and predatory nature of advertisement is harmful. Especially so when it's not a product being advertised, but some dangerous ideological movement. Anyhow, I am not trying to be all "but it's worse for me!" here, but ads really hinder me. Ads are not accessible. By accessibility I do not mean "I can't click/read them." But they give me discomfort, more than many other things. I have very likely some sort of misophonia and misokinesia. Misophonia is basically finding some sounds really frustrating and annoying. Some people have it worse than others. Mine is not that bad, luckily. But some sounds like specific voices do tick me off. But I can live with that. Misokinesia is finding certain movements frustrating and annoying. This is what is my problem here with ads. Ads have a lot of things going on to grab your attention. They're there to get addicted and interested in the Thing they're selling. You know, the usual. For me, the movements are always very frustrating. Slap annoying music and talk over there, and I'm seething like after bad match of Quake. It's not regular "ugh." frustration. It's really passionate frustration. Instead of "ugh" its "urrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh go awayyyyyyy" frustration. Basically I get a sensory overload easily from them, I don't know what to do with that and act all dumb. Sure, for advertisers this may be fine, any publicity is good publicity or whatever. But for me it's bad. So I block them all. Bonus is avoiding all the privacy issues and nasty tracking that comes with them. But there's the accessibility side as well. I never really realised it before but I've been noticing it more and more lately. I've been told how it's funky how angry I get about ads. Like more than a normal person. So I guess that's what I just wanted to put out there. The ads that bounce around and move and make silly sounds and whatever. I am not going to buy your product. I am actively going to avoid it. Ads that are just still images are the best ones. I may even click them if I find them interesting. However due to ads being so prevalent and mostly inaccessible, I just block them all so I don't see these either. Basically, I do not block ads to "deprive" anyone their money. I block them to avoid being legitimately angry all the time. It's also why I'm thankful for being able to disable automatic gif playing etc. in chat applications and such. Those also frustrate me. Why am I talking about this? I dunno, felt like sharing that there's this kind of side to whole adblocking thing too. Like not doing it out of "haha fuk ur money revenue" but legitimately wanting to just avoid being angry. Thanks for reading. I do not expect understanding, but I doubt I'm alone with this. I got married! Akseli — Sun, 25 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 After ten years of dating, me and tecsiederp</a> got finally married. Our wedding ceremony was very nice and reflected us well. No priests or churches, just us and our family and friends. Fun were had, went to sauna, saw cute ducklings, listened to wide variety of music together... And I even danced. I am happy and I hope people who were there had a good time. Thanks for everyone who helped and joined the party. You're awesome. Why I will likely never use AI programming tools Akseli — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 I actually like writing code. That's really it. If I didn't, I still wouldn't use it due to the ethical/copyright issues, but I don't even have to think that far: I just like writing code. Why would I give something I like to a robot? I don't even mind writing boilerplate! I guess I am somekind of monster. But the act of thinking and figuring out a problem, solving it, writing some code, fixing bugs... Especially creating complex systems that interact with each other, with a lot of moving parts! (Hi, gamedev) It's fun to me. So, nah. Keep your "AI" tools. I'm fine like this. If this makes me boring/slow/outdated/uncool, so be it. I'll still be here, writing code. And I do it with a smilSegmentation fault (core dumped) My thoughts on Flatpak (that nobody asked for) Akseli — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Hindsight preface: This was written in very tired state. I have been chatting about this with people who know more than I ever will about Flatpak. Soo I have added few edits here and there. If I seem frustrated, most of my frustration is aimed at the unnecessary shit slinging over packaging formats. We all want the good stuff, why the hell are we fighting?! Might as well, since everyone else is doing this. First off, I am just a dev, and mostly a user, not packager and... I don't really care about the packaging format, as long as it works. Anyhow, these are my current thoughts on them, both positive and negative. I get the thing I want</a></h1> I like Flatpaks when I am using an ancient system like Debian Stable, and still if it has Flatpak support, I can download actually usable versions of many applications. Even nightly versions! This is good. I like this. flatpak run blabla.org.bla.bla.bla.com.eu.biz.exe.yes</a></h1> Flatpaks are clearly made GUI applications in mind, but still, typing that whole prose of commands and having to remember the org.com.package.eu</code> lines hinders terminal UX. Sometimes you just need to run things through terminal to debug things, or maybe you want to make a new shortcut of the app, or whatever. Maybe you want to even make a terminal application into a Flatpak app! Typing that massive command really deters using flatpaks for terminal applications too, because every time you install apps, you have to make an alias or memorize the magic words. Flatpak, when installing an application, should just create that for you. Yes there's third party solutions. But the solution should be first party one. But it is a minor nit in the end and I can live with it.. But I am gonna complain about it from time to time due to my bad memory lol. Flatpaks can take sometimes too much space</a></h1> The more packages you install through Flatpak, the more it "pays off." This makes sense in systems that use mostly or always Flatpaks. But when you mix and match, because, as a user you really don't care, you just want the app to work you may be frustrated to suddenly see your laptop with 256gb SSD losing big portion of it's space to the 5 apps you installed with dependencies, that do not match and can't be reused. If you're starved for space, you may be better off just uninstalling Flatpaks in general and then using native packages, which (hopefully) your distro manages for you so that the dependencies are shared. And no, saying "bro, just buy more space, bro" is not an excuse. Not everyone has that luxury, especially if they live in poorer countries and such. It's time to stop this silly notion of making things bigger because "well we have so much space now." So if you need to ooze everything out of your system space, you may want to avoid Flatpaks if you don't install everything from there. But if you're using a distro that uses Flatpaks for everything, your file usage is going to be very similar like with native packages. Unless every app has different dependencies even if they're based on same framework. There really is no good or bad here. Just different use cases. Edit: I have heard very different opinions on this. My thoughts on this have not changed, but I do believe it works for some but not for all. I think we need more benchmarking and actual evidence to make further claims. So take my point about this with the "source: me and my pals" level. Permission management</a></h1> This is where I tend lose my marbles with Flatpaks. (But it's not really Flatpaks fault) There are times when the app is uploaded to Flathub by some random and they never really checked what permissions the Flatpak actually needs. So the it can be either leaking like a sieve or not working at all. Luckily, I see this less often, but only if the app is sent to Flathub by the people who know what permissions are actually needed. Still, there are times when I have to install Flatseal (Luckily KDE has it's own permission manager now!) and fiddle with some switches until the app does what it was actually designed to do. This is especially noticeable by programming tools like text editors. So I just usually end up giving all the permissions. I just want the app to work. And if even then it doesn't do the thing I need it to do, I just use a native package. Having Android style pop-up asking for permission when the app needs it could be good solution for this.</del> Edit: Apparently this is a thing with portals.</a> That is super neat. I just didn't know, possibly because I'm on KDE Plasma. Plasma can use portals for this too, but KDE priority is now to get Qt6 out and working. On the flipside, when installing random apps, I do feel a bit more safer. But I do not know if it's a placebo, due to the fact that I am reaaally not a security expert. :P Where are my files???</a></h1> Sometimes when installing an application from Flatpak, one expects to get multiple applications. My best example for this is Xonotic: Xonotic comes with the game binaries and dedicated server binaries. I tried to find those with the Flatpak I was using for Xonotic but I could never find them. Backing up configs can be a mystery too. Flatpak could have some integrated configuration manager or something that helps users syncing their configs easily. Edit: Seems to be out of scope, but personally I do believe Flatpak would just benefit from this. Github</a></h1> Why the hell is all Flathub related stuff on Github? Is it to save on hosting costs or something? If so, I hope Flathub can move on it's own system soon. In general I am tired of everything being tied to Github, but that's a separate rant. Learn from Twitter and Reddit: Do not build your thing around just one corporate owned service. It will end up badly. I've seen in the future with my tinfoil hat, and I know. Trust me, bro. To sum it all up..</a></h1> I really don't care about your packaging method. I care that the app works as expected when I launch it. So far native packages have been better in my experience when it comes to this. But I am not a "Flatpak hater!"</a></h2> I do want these to work! Because when it works it's awesome. It makes distributing files much easier. I think sandboxing is a cool feature (if it is not just a placebo, I am no security expert). I can use newest coolest shiny things on distros that get updated once in a decade. I just don't think the current solution is The Solution yet. It needs refinement and the above negative points are the papercuts that put me off of using it. But I root for you, Flatpak. I think you're onto something really good in here. PS. And I am tired also of some people thinking that, like Rust, it's the Holy Solution To Everything Ever. There's no such thing when it comes to computers. I want to be wrong though. PPS. I hope I didn't type too "angry" here. I blame my lacking english skills. And lacking social skills. And just lack of skills in general. Skill issue(s). No dislike towards anyone who works on Flatpak, just absolute pure respect. This stuff must be difficult to work on especially when some part of internet seems to always be screaming when something is done to it. This post was just me whining a bit, here in my tiny corner of the internets. glhf. Updated my blog! Also news of Revontuli colorscheme Akseli — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Note: Old links to my site may not work anymore, due to change in the URL layout!! I tried to make a redirect for them however. Blog update</a></h1> I have finally updated my blog look and feel. In fact, I completely switched my static site generator from Jekyll</a> to Zola</a>! I used Jekyll at first due to it being the one that Github Pages used. It was clunky but once set up it just did the job. But the reason why I changed to Zola was not Jekyll itself, it was the mess of setting up Ruby on my home PC. I tried Ruby Version Manager, using Ruby from DNF packages, changing paths, but there was always some package that kept failing. All I wanted to do is test my site before I push it to server. I couldn't test on my own PC. Yes, I had to test on production! And I didn't want to set a virtual machine or docker or whatever for a dang static site generator. That is just silly! So instead I went with Zola since my friend told me about it. Zola is just a single binary that you run and it does the magic for you, which is all I wanted. Moving from Jekyll to Zola was a bit messy, due to the differences in markdown files, but I could mostly just use Kate</a> powerful search and replace regexp stuff to switch things over. Then I set up myself a theme, but it wasn't completely explained how it works.. Basically I had to have exact matching files from the theme in my own blog source folder, and Zola could then build it. The files had to include {% extends "theme/templates/page.html" %}</code> in them too, otherwise it failed to show the theme. After getting the theme up and running, I just modified it heavily (Source here</a>) with my own colorscheme. Revontuli</a></h1> Speaking of the colorscheme: AksDark has now a proper name! Revontuli! Yes, the colors are the same as before really, but the name is now different. Some colorschemes for apps Kate and Konsole have tiny differences though. These are the ones I'm going to update onwards. Check out it's repository for the applications support: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/Revontuli</a> I didn't want to use "AksDark" as a name anymore, since I have seen people download it and I've gotten few comments telling me they like it too. I wanted something that works for it, and my wife (well, she is gonna be my wife in couple weeks.. :D ) came up with "Revontuli" for the name. Revontuli is a Finnish word that means "northern light." She said it works because it's dark theme but colorful, like northern lights are colorful against a dark sky. The plan is to have collection of matching themes for various applications, be it code editors or other applications. When it comes to code editors, I want the syntax highlighting be exactly the same, and if not exactly, then very closely similar. This helps a lot if one wants to switch editors, but they don't have to relearn the new syntax highlighting. I first used Themer.dev (link has Revontuli applied)</a> to generate themes for applications, but there was a problem: Many of the syntax highlighting definitions do not match each other. I do hope Themer developers and contributors will look into this and unify the colorschemes. However, I do love Themer, so if any devs of Themer are reading this, thank you for the great generator. It helped Revontuli to start as a colorscheme, and I hope eventually people will contribute Revontuli colors for all kinds of apps! :) I will be uploading the Revontuli themes soon:tm: (either today or tomorrow) after this post to KDE store, so you can search from there. In the meanwhile you can get the colorschemes from the repository, where they're always up-to-date. Again, thanks for liking AksDark! I hope Revontuli will serve you well from now on! It works great for me, at least. ;) I kinda want to write more</a></h1> I have bunch of weird blog ideas but I have not written them since they're not that "relevant" to maybe what people want to read here. I am trying to get out of that mindset and start posting more, be it very short posts or long novels. I will try to start tagging my posts too if I do that more often. It's my blog, I'm allowed to write whenever I want and how much I want! Quick bit about blog comments</a></h1> I am currently testing out how the blog comments would work if one would use email instead. Check below for mailing list link and mail link. The mailing list is hosted on https://sr.ht</a>. That's all for this time, thanks for reading! AksDark: My colorscheme for KDE Plasma Akseli — Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Hey all, just a simple blog post this time, I just wanted to showcase the colorscheme I have made for KDE Plasma and various text editors and such. Download</a> I have been working on this colorscheme for many months now, slowly tweaking it and figuring out what are the best colors for me. I think I've finally found what works for me the best. About the name: I am bad at naming things and I just first felt like "Okay only I use this colorscheme so I just name it AksDark lol" and well seems some people like it a lot! Why</a></h1> Okay, yes, it's silly to write about history of why I made a colorscheme besides "it looks cool" but hear me out, there's an actual reason! I have tried a lot of dark colorschemes, but they often share this one thing that does not work for me: Low contrast. My eyes are in weird place where too high contrast hurts, but too low contrast just doesn't help readability at all and I get easily distracted. I think my ADHD adds to it as well! I couldn't for the life of me find a colorscheme that has vibrant colors but also not too dark background. Even Catpuccin</a>, while good looking, has just too much pastel for me, and the purple background just bothers me in general. I would love to rename AksDark to something else and have similar project for it like Catpuccin is! Email me or talk to me on Fediverse if interested :D With pastel colors, the colors arent distinct enough and when I read things, I keep jumping from place to place, since it doesn't "lock" my eyes. I do not know any science behind this. I wanted something very neutral, but vibrant. These sound like they're odds with each other, but I think they can be made work. What</a></h1> AksDark comes with dark-gray background, but all the elements are vibrant and high color. I tried to keep the luminosity of the color values very similar, so in black and white mode one can still look at the text and see what's going on. As you can see the colors are pretty distinct in b/w mode, however it seems link and visited colors could use some tweaking. Of course one has to remember that different monitors can display them differently and so on. The contrast is purposefully high, but not too high. The gray background ensures that eyes do not hurt when looking at the bright text, but it still is bright enough to lock my view and help me concentrate. How</a></h1> I just trial-and-error'd it. I tried even darker background color but that ended up getting my eyes tired. I tried less bright text etc. colors but that just made me distracted easily, avoiding the "eye-lock." What I got now is pretty much perfect for my needs. The most helpful tool with this was definitely Themer.dev</a>! One can easily make their own colorschemes with it. However, the biggest problem with it is that, for example, syntax highlighting will always look different between applications. So it will require a lot of manual tweaking in the end, which is what I spent most of my time doing. Other apps</a></h1> Since I really like this colorscheme, I made a Kate style for it too: Download</a> And Konsole Download</a> There's colors for other apps like VSCode and Jetbrains IDE's in my repository: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/aks_themes</a> However they may not be as up-to-date. Outline plasma theme!</a></h1> Last but not least, if you use the default Breeze window decoration with this colorscheme, this Plasma theme is also default Breeze, but with similar outlines. Having outlines on my Plasma theme helps me a lot (I dont get lost in sea of windows), so maybe someone else will find it useful too: AksDarkPlasma</a> Also remember that you can download all these themes and styles from the "Get more new stuff" menus in KDE Plasma! That's all, I hope you like the colorscheme and find it useful as well, if your eyes and/or brain are just as weird as mine! How I report bugs Akseli — Sun, 16 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 As someone who has been doing test automation for past ~3,5 years (and desperately wanting out towards doing just development), I have done a lot of bug reports. Then I switched to Linux based OS and that amount has doubled. :D I have been asked what are good bug reports. Since I'm both dev and tester, I'd say I have an alright idea of how to do it. So, here's what I've learned about making good bug reports. Find the right place to report</a></h1> Sometimes you may not know where to actually report the bug. Usually, I follow this route: If it happens with specific software, report it to the specific software.</li> If it happens with hardware around multiple software, report it to the hardware driver repo</li> If still in doubt, ask around in Matrix/IRC channels related to the software/hardware.</li> </ol> Someone will know, usually. So just don't be afraid to ask if you really can't figure out where the report should be made. Always follow the template</a></h1> None of the things I say here are good if you do not follow the given bug reporting template. Often, projects have their own bug report template. I can't emphasize this enough: Follow it as closely as you can. Many bug reports are often not very useful because they just ignore the template. The actually good information gets hidden inside something (usually a rant) and as a developer you are often scouring through a lot of bug reports, especially in big projects. There just is not time to read the lengthy rant and decipher what the problem actually is. Give the specifics the template asks, put everything else in "additional information" section in the end of the report. But if there's no template, these are the ones I'd like to see every bug report to have. Summary of the bug</a></h1> What the bug actually is? What happens wrong? What do you think is wrong? Maybe it's a feature? Write a short summary what is going on, but give it more detail than "screen no work." Example: Bug summary: Screen shuts down during gameplay of CoolGame69. I also can hear the GPU fans ramping up rapidly before the freeze. This happens also other CoolGames, that seem to use CoolEngine. </code></pre> Basically, give the situation where the bug happened but in very concise manner. You can write more details in "Additional Information" section. Steps to reproduce the bug</a></h1> To fix a bug, one must be able to reproduce (also known as "repro") the bug. Developer needs to see what is going on, what goes wrong. Then they can debug with tools or the good ol' print("bug here")</code> debugging. So, write down to the bug report what did you do to cause it. You don't have to write down the whole day from when you got up from the bed, but try to aim around ~5 steps before the bug happened. Also, you should write down if you could make the bug happen again. Example: 1. I updated my PC 2. I restarted PC 3. I launched the game 4. When in level SpookyTown, I punch a skeleton 5. The game shuts down the GPU I restarted PC and tried playing again, but it crashed again. But on third time, it did not crash my GPU. </code></pre> This already gives the developer a lot of information. It can be assumed that before the update, punching skeletons in SpookyTown did not shut down the GPU. So the problem is in some update component. However, it does not happen every time, so there's probably some weird timing issue. Or something else.. Creative juices start flowing! Basically, give step-by-step directions how one could make the bug happen on your PC. Also if you can, mention how often the bug happens. System Information</a></h1> This is VERY important, and here's couple commands for Linux systems I can give you to get Good Info. First, try not to use neofetch. It gives info, yes, but it's usually not enough. inxi --full</code> gives you usually everything you need. Remember to check the full log for any personally identifiable info! You can get even more data by appending sudo</code>. So sudo inxi --full</code>. But this may show more personally identifiable info. inxi</code> may not be installed in your system by default, so you may have to do that first. If the problem is about USB device, you can use lsusb -v</code>. But with inxi</code> you can get quite far. The developer/template will ask for specific commands to run if needed. So again, check the template if there's some specific info it asks. Often they have the command to run as well. Example: inxi --full System: Host: fedora Kernel: 6.2.10-200.fc37.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.4 Distro: Fedora release 37 (Thirty Seven) Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING II v: Rev 1.xx serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: 4007 date = 12/08/2020 CPU: Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB Speed (MHz): avg: 2992 min/max: 2200/4208 cores: 1: 4199 2: 2199 3: 2196 4: 3927 5: 4199 6: 2022 7: 4200 8: 2095 9: 2150 10: 2646 11: 3874 12: 2200 Graphics: Device-1: AMD Navi 23 [Radeon RX 6600/6600 XT/6600M] driver: amdgpu v: kernel Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: amdgpu unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,radeon,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu resolution: 1: 1920x1080 2: 1920x1080 API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.7 renderer: AMD Radeon RX 6600 (navi23 LLVM 15.0.7 DRM 3.49 6.2.10-200.fc37.x86_64) Audio: Device-1: AMD Navi 21/23 HDMI/DP Audio driver: snd_hda_intel Device-2: AMD Starship/Matisse HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel Device-3: DSEA A/S EPOS GSA 70 type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid API: ALSA v: k6.2.10-200.fc37.x86_64 status: kernel-api Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.69 status: active Network: Device-1: Intel I211 Gigabit Network driver: igb IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: secret Drives: Local Storage: total: 2.73 TiB used: 1.52 TiB (55.5%) ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Kingston model: SA2000M81000G size: 931.51 GiB ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO 2TB size: 1.82 TiB Partition: ID-1: / size: 929.93 GiB used: 360.1 GiB (38.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 545.6 MiB (56.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 ID-3: /boot/efi size: 598.8 MiB used: 17.4 MiB (2.9%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 ID-4: /home size: 929.93 GiB used: 360.1 GiB (38.7%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 Swap: ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 34.2 MiB (0.4%) dev: /dev/zram0 Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 57.0 C mobo: 42.0 C gpu: amdgpu temp: 58.0 C Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2008 case-1: 849 case-2: 0 case-3: 0 gpu: amdgpu fan: 0 Info: Processes: 466 Uptime: 1h 20m Memory: 15.51 GiB used: 5.33 GiB (34.4%) Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.26 </code></pre> Now the developer can look at the versions of your drivers. There may already be a known issue with the game with specific driver. Basically: Make sure that your system information includes version numbers of everything, and all the pertinent data. Follow the template for the commands and system info needed, if it's given. But always add system information. Additional information</a></h1> If there is any specific information to add, do that in the end of the file. You can for example mention how knowledgeable about the topic you are, if the bug appeared before with different system, anything that may be relevant. Example: I don't think I've had this bug before. The CoolGame69 did update recently though, I can't remember exactly when. My PC has been the same for years. </code></pre> Basically: Any info that could be related but does not fit the other sections. Logs!</a></h1> Often it can also be useful to include logs with the bug, if possible. In this example I've chosen to share amdgpu logs. The templates often also have a log command/file to be attached. If there is none and you want to check if your logfiles have anything useful, use this command: journalctl --since="10 minutes ago" > bug.log</code> You can change the "10 minutes ago" to anything, like "2 hours ago" or similar. Set it to a time before the crash, and scour the bug.log file for anything possibly interesting. If you can't find anything interesting, you can omit the log and ask the developers if there is any log files you should include. Basically: Check the template if logs are needed, and if not, check journalctl</code> or similar command for any possible data related to the bug. And the usual end result</a></h1> Now that you have filled your bug report well enough, following things can happen: Developer asks for more detailed info if they have something in mind.</li> Developer can't reproduce the bug and asks your help to fix it, often by using the git version of the thing the bug relates to.</li> The bug has already been fixed but you have to wait for update.</li> Some bug report systems can have a bug report duplicate checking. In that case, do not create a duplicate, but append to the existing bug with the above info.</li> </ol> Example end for the above issue :) Hey, dev here. CoolGame69 got new particle effect shaders and it kept crashing the GPU drivers because x y z a b c. We've pushed a hotfix to the GPU drivers, so inform your distro about this in their channels. </code></pre> And yes, you likely have to poke someone handling the distro about this, since all distributions handle the updates in different paces and such. Basically look for contact information or a forum to talk about it. I've found mailing lists and emails tend to be effective, but Matrix/IRC channels work as well. A simple template</a></h1> Here's a simple template from the above information: # Bug summary: # Reproduction steps: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Bug appearance rate: Every time/Sometimes/Rarely/More detailed answer... # System info: Gathered with `inxi --full` # Additional information: I've included bug.log as an attachment </code></pre> I hope this will answer some of the questions about reporting bugs. But anyhow, just be very to-the-point and give any info around the bug you can. Follow any templates, append to other reports if it's already reported and be respectful. :) I blocked Hacker News and you can too Akseli — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 No, not april fools. Hacker News is one of those websites where the commenters are often very angry people. Note, I said commenters not lurkers/passive browsers/link clickers. Anyone who uses Hacker News just as a website to find links on, I have no beef with. But most people who comment on it.. I don't want anything to do with them. So I used link referrer to "block" the site: If someone sees a link to my blog on there and clicks it, depending if your browser sends a referral header or not, it gets 403 forbidden warning and stops there. Easy to circumvent of course, but average HN commenter likely doesn't care enough to copy paste links and open sites in privacy mode or w/e. They're too busy making money, being intelligent and having stimulating discussions over the newest fad in tech. How-to</a></h2> Enough dumb ranting, here's how to do it if you run Apache 2. Unfortunately I do not know how to do this with nginx. Open /etc/apache2/apache2.conf</code> </li> Scroll to bottom of the file </li> Add following <if "%{http_referer} =~ /ycombinator.com/"> deny from all </if> </code></pre> </li> Save file </li> Restart apache2: systemctl restart apache2</code> </li> Done! </li> </ol> You can test if the blocking works with curl: curl -e ycombinator.com your_site_url_here</code> You can add other sites as well with same way! However, if you have massive blocklists, there's likely a better way to do this, like using .htaccess</code> file or something like that. Anyhow, hope this helps others, just wanted to share how it's done since I saw people asking about it. Again, it's not foolproof, very easy to circumvent (literally copy-paste the link to another window), but it should at least deter some. Have fun "blocking!" My game was illegally uploaded on Steam Akseli — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Quick post for this time. Seems my game, Penance</a> has been uploaded on Steam by someone who I don't know, completely without my permission. They're selling my free game and of course I'm not gonna get any money from their sales. If you stumble on this game outside of this page: https://akselmo.itch.io/penance</a> then it's not uploaded by me! It's also very likely those illegal copies are also bundled with malware. I have done a DMCA claim for the game already. I'm not going to link the fake link here just in case, but it's easy to find if you're curious. Just know that all my games are on itch.io https://akselmo.itch.io</a> and all the other possible "copies" are fake and not by me. If I make a Steam page for any of my games in future, you will be let know by my Fediverse account and/or this blog. This also serves as a PSA for fellow gamedevs: Check if your game has been uploaded into some places without your permission! Especially on Steam! I didn't expect this to happen since uploading on Steam costs money, but someone uploaded it anyway without any permission. Stay safe out there. FOSS communities: You don't need to yell Akseli — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 This is kind of open letter I suppose. I've seen a lot of similar stuff happen in other projects too, like GNOME. So I wanted to write down what happened to me and my inbox today. It's written in my perspective, but I'm sure many can sympathize. And I sympathize with them. You don't need to yell</a></h1> KDE Plasma 5.27 landed with my outline change that I made for accessibility reasons mostly. You can read more about it in here: https://www.akselmo.dev/2022/10/31/I-made-outlines-for-KDE-Breeze.html</a> They certainly have been dividing opinions. I think that's fine. I do enjoy good critique and discussion: It's how things get better! However, what I don't enjoy is: Getting my blog comments spammed with "Revert the outlines, they're ugly"</li> Asking people to send developers angry messages</li> Acting like an complete ass, then hiding behind the whole "but it was critique!" facade.</li> </ul> "Get thicker skin!" you scream. Believe me, my skin is thick enough. I've seen some shit. But me having a thick skin doesn't mean that you should yell at me for something. It's demotivating. Why would I want to fix something, if I keep getting screamed at? What do you expect? It more likely makes us want to avoid working on something, since it's known that fiddling with it will make people angry. I can understand being angry at faceless corporation that does not listen. KDE is not a faceless corporation. We're a group that does this because we enjoy what we do and want to make cool things usable for everyone. And we listen. Trust me, we're discussing this and gathering feedback on the outline feature. And every other feature as well. All I ask in return is to behave and be patient. The iterations will come, if needed. Changes, fixes, and all the cool stuff. I'm not here to be yelled at. Well written critique is allowed and appreciated, but be respectful: No need to kiss my feet, but no need to scream at me either. Makes it easier for everyone involved. When thinking of future, I am planning to make the separators colorable in color schemes. This means that the outlines and other separators can use that color and user can dictate themselves the color completely. It would also help with separator coloring in Plasma themes, not just Window Decorations. Here's a merge request I'm working on addressing the outline intensity: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze/-/merge_requests/292</a> However for now, I don't have time to work on KDE stuff. I'm working on my game, I'm joining a gamejam this weekend, I'm busy with life and work.</del> But if you take anything out of this post: My blog is not an issue tracker for KDE. LOL. Use https://bugs.kde.org/</a> instead. We can do better than this. We must do better than this. PS. If you want to modify the color of the outline, you can set the titlebar color to something different, and the outline color will follow it. PPS. I may remove the comments from my blog at some point and ask people use the public mailbox linked below instead. Maybe. Idk. My podcast tastes Akseli — Sat, 14 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 I just wanted to write this down since I've been talking a bit about podcasts on fediverse. I listen a lot of podcasts when gaming, it's kind of a way how I relax. Nothing like good multiplayer FPS where I can turn off my brains, then I can listen podcasts on the side. :) List of podcasts I listen</a></h1> Here's some of the podcasts I recommend trying! I'm too lazy to link them but they're one search away. I've also found these all from https://podcastindex.org/</a>. 2.5 Admins</a></h2> I don't really understand anything they talk about most of the time since it's very sysadmin stuff, but I still find it entertaining and listen every episode. Maybe sometimes I learn something. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs</a></h2> This is a weird podcast. It's couple guys that can't stay on topic. I kinda like it. I don't listen every episode, especially if they start to ramble on about sports, but there are good bits about it. C++ Club</a></h2> Very no-nonsense podcast about developments in C++ world. I kinda like the format and listen it whenever there's an episode, just to learn more about the language I often use with my FOSS contributions and so on. Coding Blocks</a></h2> General programming podcast, very educational. They mostly talk about webdev from what I've gathered, so even if it doesn't touch my area of interest, it's still entertaining. Contributor</a></h2> Interviews with various open-source projects. I like this one a lot, since it's more about developers being enthusiastic about their projects than some guy who likes their own voice a lot. CoRecursive: Coding Stories</a></h2> This is one of the best programming podcasts I know. A lot of interesting stories around programming and computing world. Often feels like I'm in an interesting history class. (Yes, that's a good thing!) CppCast</a></h2> Apparently they started to make new episodes again by other hosts? Anyhow I listen this from time to time, there are a lot of things to learn from this podcast. FLOSS Weekly</a></h2> Interviews of people contributing and maintaining FLOSS projects. Also sometimes just discussions about some things that may affect FLOSS. I try to listen every episode but sometimes something just doesn't interest me, and that's fine. Fragmented: The Software Podcast</a></h2> This is more about Android/iOS development. I don't do any of that (yet, maybe in future), but I still find things to learn from this podcast. Koodia pinnan alla</a></h2> Finnish programming podcast that concentrates more on the backend programming that users do not necessarily see. Late Night Linux, Linux After Dark, Linux Downtime</a></h2> I like all of these. Covering some Linux news with lots of banter and humor. There's also more indepth discussions (sometimes heated ones) about Linux and FOSS related things. I listen every episode and enjoy them a lot. Linux Lads</a></h2> Also entertaining Linux podcast, similar vein to Late Night Linux. Bunch of lads talking about FOSS. Programming Throwdown</a></h2> More programming interviews. I don't listen all of them, just the ones that I'm interested in. Can be educational. Reality 2.0</a></h2> General technology podcast. Seems to be around how technology affects us and it's very FOSS-sided, which I appreciate. However they called Mastodon a "protocol" which is WROOONG. :P Talk Python To Me</a></h2> Python is not my favorite language but I do like listening this one, since I use a lot of Python at work. It's more than just Python which is also nice. The Changelog</a></h2> A fine podcast, been around a long time. A bit too techbro-ish maybe for my tastes, but aside that there are things to learn. Two's Complement</a></h2> Very VERY educational podcast. That being said I don't always understand what is being talked about, lol. Lots of compilers and testing. List of podcasts I used to listen but stopped</a></h1> I also wanted to mention couple podcasts I wish I could still listen to but.. Well, you'll see. Basically they do not align with my views anymore. They're free to do whatever they want, obviously. I'm not here to tell them stop. But here's why I stopped listening. Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts</a></h2> I used to listen a lot of these. One of the first Linux related podcasts I listened was by them. Now there's much cryptocoin scams</a>, I don't know what I can trust in the podcasts anymore. Also, the episodes are full of annoying sound effects. Special mention for Coder Radio: I liked it at one point but when I realised it's all about being a "troll" to get a "reaction" or something, I kind of lost all my trust towards it. Then of course on top of that we have the obsession over cryptocoin scams. Destination Linux</a></h2> I liked them at first but.. I had an issue in their Matrix channel and I don't feel like listening it anymore: I shared a link to an itch.io game bundle but it was deemed "too political." I left the Matrix channel quickly after that. Petty drama I guess, but I just don't feel it anymore. Any suggestions?</a></h1> Feel free to comment and suggest me any podcasts and Youtube/Peertube channels with good programming and Linux related content! :) I'm always interested for more. Also mentioning my own podcast: AksDev Cast</a></h3> I run a atleast-once-a-month where I talk about things that I find interesting: Linux, FOSS, games, gamedev... A lot of ranting too about the bullshit I see around. I also update my community on things I am making or made, be it games or other things. Basically if you want to listen an angry Finnish guy rant with a shitty microphone.. Well, I don't understand what kind of masochist you are but that's my podcast lol. It comes out as a stream at first, then uploaded to the podcast RSS feed. Check it out here if you're interested: https://cast.akselmo.dev/</a> Pointless tribalism in FOSS Akseli — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Rant incoming. This isn't written that well but idgaf. I just need to get this out of my system. I really enjoy chatting in FOSS communities. KDE, Linux in general, other desktop environments, so on and so forth. What I don't like is that we have these very silly "feuds" over some things. Like we're some weird tribes, fighting over who has the nicest looking flag. It doesn't serve any purpose but putting others down.</li> It drives away users, new and old, and potential contributors.</li> It makes people afraid to report bugs or ask questions.</li> </ul> It's entirely pointless. I'm not talking about critique. Assholes of the world love to pretend their behavior is "critique" but rest of us know that's not how it works. If it uses inflammatory language and insults, it's not critique. I for sure ignore any complaints about my games and projects that start with telling me off, either directly or indirectly. I do not care at that point. Seethe. Sure this is more an internet/human problem in general, but there's nothing to gain from this, especially in FOSS world. We're a small community, trying to survive against big money corporations. FOSS projects don't suddenly get more money if people go "X is better and Y users are dumby smelly." There just is no reason to be an ass about any of this. Why jeopardise all these years of survival for some shit-talk? The usual one is the GNOME vs KDE "debate", that is so pointless I don't even understand why it exists. The answer to these "debates" is simple: Try all desktop environments that interest you. Stick with the one that you like best. No need to bring flamewars into this. Completely pointless. It wastes everyone's time. Desktop environments all have their strengths and weaknesses. It's entirely subjective. Yes, there are cases where you have to measure security and other such things: You don't have to put down the others if they don't fit your usecase. It's like fighting over a fucking desktop wallpaper. When it comes to the Flatpak vs Snap vs Appimages, I have the same answer: Use what works for you. Avoid those that do not work for you. Critique well and respectfully. I personally don't see any of the three to be something I prefer. I like my distro provide the packages for me. But I do not bring people down because they choose to use one of those packaging methods. That would be asinine. All these fights help burn bridges between projects and worsens the ecosystem for the whole community. Leave the useless fights to proprietary world. We have learned from that world that you have to "fight" to have your cake and eat it too. Luckily in FOSS world, we don't need that. We can all have our cakes, share recipes, improve them, make entirely our own... And eat them as well. But I don't like a thing :(</a></h1> Give good critique about why you don't like it. My rule of thumb is: Compliment the things you like first Optional but seeing someone go "I use X because I really like it, I just wish Y would.." is super motivating! Like hell yeah let's make things better for you if we can.</li> </ul> </li> Be respectful!</li> Avoid inflammatory language or snarky embellishments: They just slow down the process</li> Consider: Maybe the thing is just not made for you? Maybe there's better alternative for your usecase?</li> </ul> If the maintainer(s) of the project do not see your critique an issue, you can always: Fork</li> Improve, either alone or in a team that shares your view</li> Offer to contribute your changes to upstream</li> </ol> Repeat and improve together. Proprietary world doesn't have that strength. And for those who are going to say "I can't code, improve or w/e" then I'm sorry but the nature of computers is that you either need programming knowhow or you need to know people who can do things for you. Ask around. Talk to people. Communicate. Without being an ass about it! We're all in this together. We should damn well act like it. How to use Matrix Akseli — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000 As I've gotten more into FOSS, I've noticed a lot of FOSS projects, like KDE, use Matrix</a> protocol. A protocol that lets you use any client you wish to chat with each other. Basically, it's IRC but with more features. And I'm into that! So I decided to move my Aks_Dev community</a> from Discord to Matrix. Just to support the project in general but also I do not want my community to be tied to one client. In fact I've been using Matrix-Discord bridge</a> for a while, but it is not the optimal way to chat, IMO. Some things just drop out, like replies from Discord side. It works but.. It would be better if everyone was just on the Matrix side. On top of the bridge being Very Good but Not Optimal, Discord being proprietary platform can easily follow the path of Twitter. Who knows when Discord decides to add cryptocurrencies</a> or other meaningless crap? Who knows where your data is going to? And if you want to use different client, Discord just can easily ban you because it's their walled garden and you're the prisoner of convenience. Ahem.. Enough of ranting, here's how you get most of Da Matrix, in my holy opinion: Create account to one of the instances</a></h1> Try to avoid Matrix.org if you can. Meanwhile it is the biggest instance, that is also its downside. If Matrix.org runs out of money to host the server, then it's bye-bye for all the accounts using it. I think one good alternative to Matrix.org is Mozilla's instance: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix</a> Edit: I have learned that Mozilla's instance is hosted by the Element Matrix Services, so it's not as decentralized as I hoped. If that doesn't matter to you, you can just use it, but if it does, read on. If you are savvy enough, just self-host your own instance. But if you know how to do that, you probably are not reading this post anyhow. You can also get your own instance through these hosting services: https://matrix.org/hosting/</a> Make sure the instance you join is not ACL-banned (Access Control List) by Matrix.org. This will make it harder for you to federate with other servers. Here is also one list I found from searching: https://joinmatrix.org/servers/</a> Pick one with rules and privacy policy, then make sure you read the rules well. Check that there is nothing weird about the instance. Edit: The host of the joinmatrix.org contacted me and told me to create a report for them if the list has a weird instance. But I don't want to think too much of this! Then, go for either Matrix.org or Mozilla's instance. Use Element to set up things</a></h1> Meanwhile Element</a> is not my daily-drive client, I always create the new account using it and set it up wit it. It is made by people who also work with Matrix protocol, so it usually has all the features needed to get you going. So, use Element to create your account and set it up. I think of Element as the "control panel" of my account, and not the actual chat client I use. Pick your client</a></h1> This is not necessary if you like Element and it has all you need! But I've noticed many new Matrix users have problems using Element since it has a lot of going on! So many buttons and widgets. So many things cluttering around. And no custom emoji support (as of writing this)! This is why I recommend getting another client. My favorite newcomer-friendly client is definitely Cinny</a>! It has custom emoji support, it has less noisy interface, it works with E2EE and basically, it works well as a basic chat client. There is also desktop version of Cinny, but it's a bit hidden for some reason: https://github.com/cinnyapp/cinny-desktop/releases/</a> You can find more clients from here if you're curious: Official client list</a> However, what I would do is the following: Element as control panel and back-up client. Cinny as the main client I use daily, either on desktop or web-browser. E2EE verification stuff</a></h1> E2EE = end-to-end encryption This is where the UX is not very good yet... Basically, when logging in to Cinny, you'll see a popup that says something about "verify your client/account." This means that the encryption key, that is used to encrypt your conversations, will be shared between these clients. So when you verify a device, the client with the key will send it to the other client. In this case it would be from Element to Cinny. The usual verification dance is following: You have set up your account in Element, but want to now try a new client.</li> You open the new client in another window, for example Cinny, and log in. Keep Element open!</li> Cinny or Element warns you that your account is unverified, since there is a new client connected to it.</li> You click the shiny Verify button in either client (I usually always start the verification process from Element)</li> You accept the verification process in the other client.</li> You have to check if some emoji's match and say Yes in both clients.</li> This dance now should be done.</li> </ol> I think there are better ways to do this, like QR codes or something, but it's clearly still in WIP to see what kind of verification method will be the one that'll stick. If you do not use chats with E2EE enabled, the verification process is not necessary. But I do it anyhow because the popups are annoying, lol. My community does not use encrypted chats, because bots do not work with those. Android client</a></h1> I don't know anything about iOS, but on Android, Fluffychat</a> is what I use. Works well for my usage. Android version of Element is also fine, but it doesn't have custom emoji support. See the client list linked above for more. And yes, you'll have to do the verification dance here as well. Again I recommend starting it from Element on desktop. Voice and Video</a></h1> These are still WIP. I think only Element and Nheko</a> clients have voice chat working, and I'm not sure if anything else but Element has video chat working. For these, you're probably best served with Discord. If you want FOSS voice-chatting, check out Mumble</a>. It's the old reliable and I've used it for years. For video chats, I do not know at all what would work. Leave comment if you do, though! Quick Summary for the TLDR peeps</a></h1> Use Element to create an account to Matrix.org or Mozilla's instance.</li> Set up your account inside Element.</li> Download Cinny for your desktop and/or use it from your browser.</li> Use Cinny as your chat client, Element as your "control panel" client.</li> Get some mobile client if you wish.</li> Set up E2EE by verifying the other clients from Element.</li> </ol> What about XMPP and IRC? Why Matrix?</a></h1> I actually love both XMPP and IRC. I've used both and they still are very reliable ways to chat. However, most folk I chat with seem to use Matrix, and if you run your own homeserver like I do, you can easily bridge to both XMPP and IRC if needed. That's why I've chosen to stick with Matrix in this case. Personally I don't really care about the protocol, I just want something that is not proprietary and the communities I am in use. Matrix seems to bridge with anything so for me it made most sense. The best thing we can do, however, is not to fight over protocols but make these open protocols easily to talk to each other, so we can choose anything we wish. To have any chance against proprietary stuff, we must not fight among ourselves, but work together. We are all in this together, after all! +++ Aaaand that's all. I hope this "guide" helped a bit. Matrix is still very young and figuring things out. It's complicated and I believe they're adding features a bit too fast, so things are not always very fleshed out. But for basic text chatting it works fine for me, and is not proprietary. So if you want a community to join in with your Matrix account, hop on to Aks_Dev chat! Aks_Dev Matrix Community</a> You can ask me questions about Matrix in there or just comment to this post. :) How to rotate an actor with Raylib without math knowledge Akseli — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Rotate what now? Aks, what are you talking about? I wanted to write down how I made the enemy characters in Artificial Rage</a> rotate towards the player, since I couldn't find a simple answer. Most things I found was math. Now math is fun and good, but when you're tired and want to get one thing just to work at 4 am, it's not gonna help you. Especially since I've never learned linear algebra at any school I've went to (or I just likely don't remember), and double especially since all the math lingo is in English and I have no idea what any of it means!!! Getting Gooder at math is on my eternal to-do list, but anyhow, for those like me who just need to get something done, here's how I did it. First off, I just wanted the character to rotate around it's Y-axis: If you would stick a.. well stick in a grape and twirl the stick in your fingers, that's the Y-axis of the grape. This means the following snippet does not take account the other axises. But I'm sure it could be used for it. Code dump incoming: // C99 code void Actor_RotateTowards(Actor_Data* actor, Vector3 targetPosition) { // Rotates the actor around Y axis Vector3 diff = Vector3Subtract(actor->position, targetPosition); float y_angle = -(atan2(diff.z, diff.x) + PI / 2.0); Vector3 newRotation = (Vector3) { 0, y_angle, 0 }; // Use quaternion slerping for smoother rotation, so the actor always follows the shortest path Quaternion start = QuaternionFromEuler(actor->rotation.z, actor->rotation.y, actor->rotation.x); Quaternion end = QuaternionFromEuler(newRotation.z, newRotation.y, newRotation.x); Quaternion slerp = QuaternionSlerp(start, end, actor->rotationSpeed * GetFrameTime()); actor->model.transform = QuaternionToMatrix(slerp); actor->rotation = newRotation; } </code></pre> I'll quickly walk you through the code: First you need the position of the target, so the actor knows where to rotate towards.</li> Get the difference between actors position and targets position</li> Measure the counterclockwise angle for the X- and Z-axis of the difference of the actor and target position</a>, then rub some PI on it. Divide this with two because my friend CapitalEx</a> said so. Something about radians/euler angles. Math. Comment if you can explain this like you would for a 5 year old. hlep</li> Your new rotation is now ready, just use the y_angle you got for the, well, Y-axis.</li> Uhhhhh quaternions. Create Quaternion for start position that is the current rotation of the actor, end position that is the target rotation so the thing you just got. We use quaternions so the computer uses shortest rotation path possible.</li> Slerrrrrrrp</a> the rotation from start to end with your wanted speed. Don't forget to apply frame deltatime or the higher the fps, the faster the spins.</li> Give the new cool slerped quaternion you just got as a matrix to the model's transform. Don't forget to update the rotation to the new one.</li> Done! Nice.</li> </ol> I wish I understood this better. I've tried to learn quaternions with this fun website: https://eater.net/quaternions</a>. It works for a while, but then I forget it. Anyhow, that's the gist of it. Now the 3d models rotate around their Y-axis towards anything you would ever want. Nice! Feel free to explain math in the comments to me. Again, math words in English are difficult for me, but if explained simple enough I think I would understand it. Also if you have videos you can recommend me about the topic, do share! That's all for this time, thanks for reading! I made outlines for KDE Breeze window decoration Akseli — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Window outlines! Yet another KDE contribution by yours truly! This was fun. Not easy at all, but fun. I'm pretty happy how they turned out. Breeze Dark </a> Breeze Light </a> I hope Nate you don't mind me taking the screenshots from your blog post</a>, I'm just.. Lazy. I have no excuse. Lol. For those who just want to see how it's made, here's link to the merge request: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze/-/merge_requests/241</a> Also I am probably gonna make couple LOTR references due to talking about binding and light and dark and I'm sorry about that beforehand. But why make them?</a></h2> I have big problem making distinctions between windows if they have dark theme and on top of each other. Window shadows are often dark as well, so the windows just kind of blend into each other and the shadows do not help much. Disable shadows altogether and you got windows that just disappear into each other. This can even happen with light themes, sometimes the shadows just are not enough. They also look a bit better with the outlines, in my opinion. They give some kind of "constraint" for the window and they ease my weird brain. To sum up, it just makes the windows feel like they're their own entities which calms my brain, they look nice and they stop windows from blending into each other. Where are they drawn?</a></h2> First I had to figure out where the hecc I draw these outlines? Well, I wanted to make them their own thing, separated completely from other elements. But this would've meant I would need to actually make more in-depth modifications to KDecoration (I think?) and make the outlines their own draw calls and whatnot. So instead, I made them play nice with shadows. Basically, the outlines are just part of the shadow drawcall. But what happens if shadows are disabled? Something cheeky happens! I actually draw the shadows with 0% alpha channel! CompositeShadowParams params = lookupShadowParams(m_internalSettings->shadowSize()); if (params.isNone()) { // If shadows are disabled, set shadow opacity to 0. // This allows the outline effect to show up without the shadow effect. params = CompositeShadowParams(QPoint(0, 4), ShadowParams(QPoint(0, 0), 16, 0), ShadowParams(QPoint(0, -2), 8, 0)); } </code></pre> So the shadows are always there, they're just invisible. But the outlines will show up. Hold on, you could've just skipped drawing shadows entirely! Yes, but actually no. Before shadows are even drawn, they make some very very useful calculations for me. And on top of that, remember that outlines are part of the shadow drawcall. Outlines are just one more colored part of the shadow, basically. No shadows, no outlines. In darkness together, I've bound them. Bordering madness</a></h2> I get it all look nice and fancy with borders, they look all nice and rounded on bottom border... And then I disable borders. And everything looks off. The bottom border disappears completely and leaves a sharp window edge. The outline then rounds behind the window. It looks bad!!! </a> So, if borders are disabled, we do a magic trick and draw the outline path on our own. // Draw window outline const qreal outlineWidth = 1.001; const qreal penOffset = outlineWidth / 2; // Titlebar already has an outline, so move the top of the outline on the same level to avoid 2px width on top outline. QRectF outlineRect = innerRect + QMarginsF(penOffset, -penOffset, penOffset, penOffset); qreal cornerSize = m_scaledCornerRadius * 2; QRectF cornerRect(outlineRect.x(), outlineRect.y(), cornerSize, cornerSize); QPainterPath outlinePath; outlinePath.arcMoveTo(cornerRect, 180); outlinePath.arcTo(cornerRect, 180, -90); cornerRect.moveTopRight(outlineRect.topRight()); outlinePath.arcTo(cornerRect, 90, -90); // Check if border size is "no borders" if (borderSize(true) == 0) { outlinePath.lineTo(outlineRect.bottomRight()); outlinePath.lineTo(outlineRect.bottomLeft()); } else { cornerRect.moveBottomRight(outlineRect.bottomRight()); outlinePath.arcTo(cornerRect, 0, -90); cornerRect.moveBottomLeft(outlineRect.bottomLeft()); outlinePath.arcTo(cornerRect, 270, -90); } outlinePath.closeSubpath(); </code></pre> This part was actually fixed by Noah Davis: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze/-/merge_requests/241#note_541478</a> So, uh, I'm not 100% sure what's going on here but it seems that: Draw a rectangle with top left and top right with an arc, since they're always rounded</li> Check if we have border on or off</li> Draw bottom corners with an arc if borders are on, or draw sharp lines if they're off</li> </ul> I think I got it right..? But I can say, my solution was more messy and I'm glad it's not there. It involved basically blending two rectangles together. This is much better! Outline colors!</a></h2> The biggest puzzle of this was actually how to get the color for the outlines. We could have just gone with basic black and white coloring here, but it would be too much contrast in some situations and look jarring to some. So I started with a simple idea: Take the background color of the window, then light or dim it based on its lightness value (HSL). If lightness is equal or over 50%, then dim the color. Otherwise lighten it. At first I used HSV, which caused a bit weird situations. In HSL, lightness is basically how much the color is lightened or darkened, but in HSV, the value dictates how the color acts under light. For this situation HSL was better since we're not playing with lighting values, but just want to know if the color is "dark" or "light" to our eyes. Anyhow, here's some copy-pasta from the source files: auto s = settings(); auto c = client().toStrongRef(); auto outlineColor = c->color(c->isActive() ? ColorGroup::Active : ColorGroup::Inactive, ColorRole::TitleBar); // Bind lightness between 0.1 and 1.0 so it can never be completely black. // Outlines only have transparency if alpha channel is supported outlineColor.setHslF(outlineColor.hslHueF(), outlineColor.hslSaturationF(), qBound(0.1, outlineColor.lightnessF(), 1.0), s->isAlphaChannelSupported() ? 0.9 : 1.0); </code></pre> Hold on, you said background color of the window, but you're using titlebar color? When using the background color ColorRole::Frame</code> the problem is that when having colored titlebar, the outline color feels very out of place. It just doesn't look good. But using ColorRole::TitleBar</code> we get a fun colored outline effect when having a separately colored titlebar! </a> Also there's the whole qBound(0.1, outlineColor.lightnessF(), 1.0)</code> thing. Like the comment says, if the lightness value is black or very dark, the outline will also be black or very dark. Binding the lightness avoids situations where the outline blends into the dark background color. And of course, finally we check if transparency is enabled and set it accordingly to avoid awkward situations. But colors are tricky. Some like this solution, some don't. I am probably going to make a drop-down setting where people can select does the outline use background or titlebar color, or are they just off. Continuous Iteration</a></h2> My part was done and the outlines got merged! It was long long long ride and I learned a lot. But I'm super happy I managed to do this part, now it just needs to be iterated on so we can get something that looks The Best. Nate Graham already made the colors pop a bit more by fixing the lighten/darken values: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/breeze/-/merge_requests/263</a> Also there was initially a feature that if the window color was super light, we just didn't show outlines at all due to the outlines being so dim it created a weird blur effect as the outlines were gray, the shadow black and the window white. But with this tweak that doesn't need to be done anymore. There's still probably work to be done on this, but the biggest hurdle seems to be over! Knocks on wood As I said, I may make the settings section for this, but we'll see. I need a short break from KDE contributions, I got my own projects to work on too lol. There's also been talk that we could use the separator (the |</code> thing that separates buttons in menus etc etc) color as the outline color, and make that separator color modifiable. I think that would make A Lot Of Sense... But I would still keep the outline color as the titlebar color if the titlebar is colored. :) Thanks!</a></h2> Thanks for reading this ramble. I really enjoyed making this contribution and once again I learned A LOT. Open source contributions are great way to learn new stuff and I'm happy I get to make stuff like this for KDE. Also I've learned I kinda enjoy writing C++! And thanks for all the comments and feedback and code reviews and everything anyone did to help me get this outline thing through. Based on the feedback I've read on Da Internets, this is something many people didn't realise they needed! I made my own PineTime watchface Akseli — Sun, 04 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 I have really enjoyed using my PineTime as a watch, so I really wanted to make my own watchface. I based it around the colors of my KDE Plasma theme</a>. Here's what it looks like: </a> Link to Codeberg repository</a> And next I'm gonna ramble how I did it, what I learned etc. I wanted to share this due to being asked how it was like. Preface</a></h1> PineTime uses something called InfiniTime</a> as it's OS. By default it has four different watchfaces: analog, digital, PineTimeStyle and terminal. It also has plenty of different kind of applications like heartbeat sensor, music controls etc. If you want to learn more about it, I posted about it in here: Thoughts on my PineTime</a> So what I exactly did here was creating my own watchface. InfiniSim</a></h1> InfiniSim</a> is a great InfiniTime simulator that lets me modify the InfiniTime software quite fast, without having me to upload the software every time to my watch. I basically opened the InfiniSim project in my CLion and then instead of building just the simulator, it also built the InfiniTime source as well. I could pretty easily modify the sourcecode of InfiniTime and just run the simulator with one click. I think this tool is pretty much essential if you want to modify InfiniTime. It makes things so much easier. Adding fonts</a></h1> First things first: I wanted a new font. I've recently fallen in love with the IBM Plex Font</a> and I wanted my watch look good with it. Luckily, adding fonts wasn't too bad of an ordeal, but it did require some ThinkingTM. At first I had to add the new fonts to a fonts.json</a> file. What was scary at first was that I would need to find the position of the glyphs in hex form... However, luckily, the Jetbrains fonts used by default had the exact same glyph positions so I could just use their hex values for the range</code>. After declaring the fonts in the JSON file, I went to the CMakeLists.txt</a> file and declared all the new fonts in there. And last, I added the fonts to the lv_conf.h</a> file. Now I could use my own fonts across the project. Watchface modification</a></h1> For the watchface, I took the terminal watchface and began to modify the file. I quickly learned how to move things around, the source code was really easy to read. Link to the terminal watchface source code</a> However what I didn't like, was the amount of repetition in the original code. I decided to make my own functions for setting up the labels how I wanted them. I do not know if there was an actual reason for the repetition, like does adding custom functions to the file add more memory usage? Anyhow, whatever the case may be, I wanted to test my skillz and make my own functions for it. So instead of copy pasting functions, I just did the following: //In the initializer const int step_x = 40; const int step_y = 100; stepValue = lv_label_create(lv_scr_act(), nullptr); SetupLabel(stepValue, step_x, step_y, &plex_mono_20); stepIcon = lv_label_create(lv_scr_act(), nullptr); SetupIcon(stepIcon, step_x - 27, step_y, 0xffbf40, Symbols::shoe); ... void WatchFaceAksdark::SetupLabel(lv_obj_t* label, int x_ofs, int y_ofs, _lv_font_struct* font) { lv_label_set_recolor(label, true); lv_obj_align(label, lv_scr_act(), LV_ALIGN_IN_LEFT_MID, x_ofs, y_ofs); lv_obj_set_style_local_text_font(label, LV_LABEL_PART_MAIN, LV_STATE_DEFAULT, font); } void WatchFaceAksdark::SetupIcon(lv_obj_t* label, int x_ofs, int y_ofs, uint32_t hexColor, const char* icon) { lv_obj_align(label, nullptr, LV_ALIGN_IN_LEFT_MID, x_ofs, y_ofs); lv_obj_set_style_local_text_color(label, LV_LABEL_PART_MAIN, LV_STATE_DEFAULT, lv_color_hex(hexColor)); lv_label_set_text_static(label, icon); } </code></pre> For some labels I wanted an icon next to them (the example above has the show icon next to amount of footsteps). This let me move the labels and icons around pretty nicely, without having to modify too many commands. I then also added my own watchface, WatchFaceAksdark</code> to same place as the other watchfaces were. I would've also kept all the four watchfaces and added mine as the fifth, but I would've had to modify the watchface settings screen so that it's scrollable. Too lazy so I just replaced the terminal watchface with mine. For the battery icon, I took the implementation from the PineTimeStyle watchface and just added the label next to it, showing the battery value in percentages. After everything was declared, I began to modify the Refresh()</code> method and some places had old texts, like bluetooth was in text instead of icons, I removed them and changed my icon implementations in place. Honestly, there's not that much to write about. After getting the build environment set up and fonts added, it was quite simple. My plan wasn't to make a watchface from scratch anyhow, just to modify an existing one and this seemed to work nicely. Building it for my device</a></h2> Now building for the InfiniSim is a click of a button, but building a zip file that can be sent to the Pinetime itself.. That was a bit of a headscratcher. The official documentation</a> says: If you just want to build the project and run it on the Pinetime, using pinetime-app is recommended. </blockquote> This was not enough for Gadgetbridge</a> to update my device. Or maybe it was, and I did something wrong. Anyhow, I found a different command that is used to build the dfu</code> files, so here's the shell script I used to build it as a zip file. Gadgetbridge can then use this to update the device. #!/usr/bin/env bash cmake -DARM_NONE_EABI_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=./nrf52/gcc-arm/ -DNRF5_SDK_PATH=./nrf52/sdk/ -DBUILD_DFU=1 ../ make -j pinetime-mcuboot-app </code></pre> The -DBUILD_DFU=1</code> was the key flag here, then I had to build it as pinetime-mcuboot-app</code>. This zips the file for you and then you can just put it in your phone and use Gadgetbridge to upload it. What I learned</a></h2> I learned that making stuff for embedded devices is fun! I just scratched the surface but honestly I feel like making software for embedded devices would be my kind of thing, and would love to have a job making something for embedded devices. pls hire me i learn fast The libraries used in InfiniTime, like lvgl</a> is really simple to understand and use. I kinda feel like making my own applet for InfiniTime next, just need to come up with something fun. Maybe a tiny game, although I have Arduboy waiting for that as well.. If you have Pinetime, I recommend trying to modify a watchface, like changing colors or something. It's a cool device and because it's open source, being able to modify it for your liking is great. I also added a true pink color</a> to the device because my fiancee wanted it so much. :) So yeah, go forth and tinker! Uploaded my themes to KDE Store Akseli — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Hey, just a quick post, I uploaded some themes I've made for Aurorae and Plasma to KDE store. They're simple themes that follow your colorscheme but are made for dark color schemes. The accent themes follow your accent color for the outlines. The reason I made these themes is that I need a strong outline around my windows and other elements: Otherwise all the windows I have just "blend" together no matter how strong shadow I have enabled. Aurorae Themes: Without accent color</a></li> With accent color</a></li> </ul> Plasma Themes: Without accent color</a></li> With accent color</a></li> </ul> Here's screenshots of them in use: Without accent outlines: </a> With accent outlines: </a> And finally, link to the repository: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/aks_themes</a> I hope you like them! I added some localization settings to KDE Akseli — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 This was my biggest contribution so far! And it was a bit more involved than I expected, so I wanted to write down what I learned. Here's a screenshot: I added the settings there that are in the red box. I also added the Paper size</code> setting earlier in another contribution, but it was pretty simple. This was not, since Qt did not have builtin functions for these three settings: LC_ADDRESS</code>, LC_NAME</code> and LC_TELEPHONE</code>. I assume it's because only glibc</code> has these settings. Before I go any further, you can look at the commit in here: Add LC_ADDRESS, LC_IDENTIFICATION, LC_NAME and LC_TELEPHONE to region settings</a> The settings part themselves</a></h1> Most of the settings was actually easy to implement, since I could follow the old parts of the code and just reimplement them separately for the LC_ADDRESS</code> and friends. What gave me most trouble though, were the examples. My post will be mostly about them. Figuring out how to parse stuff</a></h1> To get a nice example to see what the locale you're setting looks like, we have to pull the format string from the locale object/file. For example, Finnish postal_fmt</code> string is %f%N%d%N%b%N%a%N%s %h%t%e%t%r%N%z %T%N%c%N</code>. Yeah, fun. This website was REALLY helpful during making this: https://lh.2xlibre.net/locale/fi_FI/</a> Archive it, cherish it. I was going to make my own silly regexp parser thing, but luckily KDE has something called KMacroExpander::expandMacros</code>, that takes a hashmap and the format string. I gave the job to that method and it returned a nice parsed string. However... How to get the correct locale? Now THIS, THIS was pain. nl_langinfo or nl_langinfo_l</a></h1> I just wanted to tell the C function that hey, I got this locale, how to get it's format string? After hours of searching, nl_langinfo_l</code> seemed the obvious choice. Except that you need to give it locale_t</code> struct and I still don't know what could give me that struct. There was only ways to make new locales with newlocale</code> and meanwhile it could duplicate existing locales, it also required locale_t</code>. I tried to make my own locale_t</code> at first since I couldn't find any getlocale_t</code> functions. It was messy and it didn't work, so I just groaned and tried to just use nl_langinfo</code>. What this does is that it gets the information of the locale that is currently active. Close, but not quite. Due to being unable to get locale_t</code> anywhere, I decided to do something a bit dirty. I set the locale that the example is for with setlocale</code>. So when the example is being built, the locale is active, and thus nl_langinfo</code> can get it's data, without me having to create a new locale_t</code> by hand. It is not ideal solution. I got asked about it many times. But when I asked how to get locale_t</code>, it was just nowhere to be found. Nobody knew, and I don't blame them. I quickly learned this locale stuff is pretty much dark wizardry that only few understand. At least the examples were finally working and I didn't see any weird side-effects. If you, my dear reader, know how to get locale_t</code> from QLocale</code>, do share and I'll do this the proper way. What if the locales are not generated</a></h1> I was told quickly that this will not work, if there's no locales generated and all the locale files are still in the /usr/share/i18n/locales/</code>. So you gotta parse those files. Have fun! Well, I did actually. It sounded more difficult than it was, but with simple regex I could get the right value: The locale files in the folder were pretty well formatted, so it was quite easy to regex through it. I had to just look for the name of the format, for example postal_fmt</code>, then whitespace, then match and capture the value. Of course, I didn't loop through all files, but only the file that matches the locale name. So for fi_FI</code> locale we only look for the fi_FI</code> file. Getting language code from the locale</a></h1> After the examples were done, we wanted to localize the examples to the native language of the locale the example is shown for. So Finnish address example actually is in Finnish, and not in English. This felt a bit silly and I feel like there should've been better way to do this. I could not figure out how to get the locale language shortcode from the locale name. So the en</code> part of en_US</code>. I couldn't find anything that does this in Qt libraries, there were methods that return the full name of the language but not the first part. Regex to rescue again, just a simple regex, right? Wrong: ([a-z]*)($|[\-]).*</code>. This regex first looks for and captures as many lowercase letters there are, then ends the capture when either meeting end of string or \</code> or -</code>. I am not sure why I added the \</code> there but I do remember the locale.bcp47Name()</code> returning locales with \</code> too. Or I was just sleep deprived. Anyhow,do share if you have an idea for simpler solution, be it simpler regex or "you should've just used this one hidden function." Some things I learned</a></h1> Here's few things I learned thanks to the reviewers: Examples should be easy to understand: Instead of having name example like Jane Belle Doe</code> you should have Firstname Middlename Lastname</code>, at least in this context. This helps the user recognize the name order between locales, since in some locales lastname may be first etc. </li> Using i18nc</code>: This will give the translators context besides just the string to translate for. Example: i18nc("This is a contextual translation", "Hello")</code> </li> const</code> is a friend in C++ (and I assume in C as well). If you have a variable that is initialized once but never modified after, just add const</code> in front of it. This tells the compiler that "hey this variable won't change" and also keeps it from accidentally changing. (Usually.) </li> Instead of returning empty QString ""</code>, just return {}</code>. Avoids accidental non-empty strings, since the object is empty. Probably other reasons too. </li> Use QLatin1String</code> when comparing strings, it's usually safer so that the decoding/encoding won't mess things up. </li> </ul> Feel free to tell me if you know better why some things are like this. Most of these are based on my own experiences. Conclusion</a></h1> So yeah, it was way more involved than I expected. I was honestly expecting Qt having some premade classes and methods for the locale trio, but nope. So I had to get my hands dirty and do it myself. I may sound grumpy in text but I legit enjoyed it even it was quite challenging for my tiny brain. I've never really worked with C++ before due to people scaring me that it's a scary spooky hellish language. Well, it certainly is a bit scary language. But I managed to make something nice with it. Also there was no need for me to be scared of the review process. It was actually super educational and I learned a lot from it. I am thankful for all the people who helped me work on this!! All in all, I'm proud of myself. I'm proud that I managed to contribute something small like this. And I am super excited to find more things to contribute to. Just no locales anymore. Please. Simple Arduino Temperature meter Akseli — Sat, 13 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 I decided it was time to dust off my Arduino starter kit I got like.. over 5 years ago? I had also bought a tiny AM2301</a> temperature and humidity meter, so why not combine that and the LCD display that came with the starter kit. No idea if it's the same I linked but it has same part number.. Idk. Could be cheap clone. Anyway I'm happy I did try this! The project was super simple, I was basically following the directions here</a> to make the LCD display work. Here's an image of it in action: I pretty much followed it to the T. Only problem was that I had my breadboard "glued wrong-way-around" on the tiny thing that holds both the arduino and the breadboard, so I had to put the negative wire to the rail that's marked positive on the breadboard. Not that it's an issue at all, but that's why it's "wrong" in the image. I got the thing working, but I had some wires wrong as well, so the display tried to draw characters all wrong ways. What was kind of cool was when removing the green wires while the display was on, it would get corrupted and show all kinds of characters. Kinda got a kick out of that. After I got the LCD monitor to work, I just hooked the wires of the sensor to 5V and GND, and the yellow wire to Arduino's digital pin, in my case pin 7. Then I could use the arduino to read it, following these directions: Electropeak.com tutorial</a> After I got the serial port to read the values, I could just feed them to the LCD screen. You can find the code for this project here: https://codeberg.org/akselmo/ArduinoTempMeter</a> I'm still astonished how super simple this was. I felt like I was cheating somehow: Surely this must be more complicated than this! But nope, Arduino is super simple thanks to people making a lot of good tutorials and libraries. I'm glad I gave it a try and I think I will try to extend this by getting a Wifi module, which then would yell to my Raspberry Pi which would host the values in our local network. Sure, I could just use Raspberry Pi to do all of that, but I kinda wanna do it the "hard way" to learn how to interface between Arduino and RPi. Just may take another 5 years.. Lol. I was also thinking of getting a proper PCB and soldering the thing so I could have this in smaller form factor, but also I think I shouldn't waste Arduino Uno just for this small project. Maybe there is some smaller Arduino I could sacrifice for dead simple project like this. Wonder what else I could make.. Maybe a Discord bot that tells arduino to spin a motor or something? Anyhow, this was just a small post of me being happy about something tiny I made. Gotta celebrate those small successes as well! :) Testing GoatCounter Akseli — Tue, 09 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Just a super short post this time! I'm testing this analytics tool called GoatCounter</a>. I just added it to this site and if you don't want to be tracked, you can use Ublock Origin to block it, or just disable Javascript. My blog should work fine without Javascript anyway, only disables analytics and comments. Why u add analytics ree???++</a></h1> Idk man I just wanted to see if anyone reads this stuff lol. So mostly curiosity. It looks like this: </a> To my next adventures! PS. I was cosplaying this weekend and I'll make a post about it at some point when I feel like it. Server migration, from Digital Ocean to Hetzner Akseli — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Well that took a while. After 6 hours I am finally done with this. It was hell but I feel accomplished. However I'm still tying up lose ends. Why?</a></h1> I wanted to move my stuff from Digital Ocean to Hetzner for few reasons: Digital Ocean is american owned company, Hetzner is german</li> They have datacenters in Finland, where I live, thus I have lower ping</li> They are cheaper and have better specs for the prices (as of writing this)</li> </ul> I just feel safer when my data recides in same country I live in. Also supporting European companies just feels nice. That and the cheaper price of course. Gitea and my blog</a></h1> This was the least painful thing to move. First I moved my blog. It was pretty easy, just install apache2 and copy the files to /var/www/</code> and set up the config. However I could not get Gitea dump</code> command to work to make a proper backup. So I gave up. Since I already had the most repos on my PC, I just copied the bare repos from gitea's folders to my PC, reinstalled Gitea completely and just.. Pushed the repos back there. Didn't take too long. Matrix</a></h1> This was also a hassle but.. Eh? I don't really even remember what I did. I just basically reinstalled the whole thing like I mentioned in my older post: [Matrix stuff]({% post_url 2022-04-01-Playing-with-Matrix-Conduit-and-Synapse %}) But instead of creating all the files from scratch, I copied the homeserver.db over with scp from the other server. I was dumb at first and tried to copy the file to my own PC then back to the new server but that would've taken ages. Use scp</code> for between server transfers. It's great. Or rsync</code>. Nextcloud</a></h1> Argh. This took some time. Again, installed it as usual. Tried to follow this here forum post</a>. It mostly worked, but I had copied my data to wrong place and I had to move it. Then I had to run nextcloud.occ maintenance:repair</code> so that everything clicked in the right places. So when using commands from internet like that, double check them. DNS</a></h1> Luckily I didn't have that much problems with DNS. Hetzner has a cool automatic way to get all the DNS stuff, except for my e-mail settings. That I just copy-pasted all the rest. It just takes time for nameservers to switch around so I had to set both Nextcloud DNS and Hetzner DNS to point in same things. Why did it take so long?</a></h1> It took so long because everything is scattered in million places, there's barely any information for your specific problems, etc. I had to basically take all information on the internet and slap them together in a giant mess, then parse that mess for all the relevant stuff. I don't want to ever migrate my stuff ever again. If I have to change cloud providers, I'll just download all my shit to my PC and reinstall everything, then reupload back. Urgh. Now excuse me while I reinstall Jekyll and all the fun stuff for this blog to the server so I can upload this post. What worries me about AI tooling Akseli — Sun, 17 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 I was listening Linux Downtime episode 51</a> and meanwhile it was nice to hear that Copilot has been helpful for open source developers.. It still worries me. First off I still don't like they're selling the tool. A proprietary tool. Like I guess I'm glad my awful code could benefit some system that helps to solve problems. But also I am not glad that some big billion software house took it and sold it. It's unethical to me, but corporations have never cared about ethics. So I am yelling at a wall basically. Anyhow, that's not my main worry.</a></h3> The actual worry is that suddenly everything has their own AI assisted service and that you're soon to be expected to use them to live "normally." We already live in this subscription bs, now slap AI on top of it as another layer. Now the current subscription bs is not necesary for you to live, but AI can be something that is soon to be expected for everyone to have to help them, and anyone who doesn't use it is considered slow. Because in the end it's a productivity helper. And that of course kicks out anyone who is too poor to have one or just simply doesn't want an AI assisted tooling. This will keep happening if the AI stuff is kept proprietary. It may be the next "internet" style of thing, it may not. But if we want to make AI tooling etc. more widespread, we really need to have somekind of open standards for them and all AI tooling should be open and free. I am actually not against proprietary software in the first place, or even proprietary systems. But tools are different to me, since they're tools. Anyone should be able to build their own tools for free. It gives everyone a chance to start. Another thing is that if all AI tooling is kept closed, who knows what they're doing behind the scenes. Github Copilot, for example, could be very easily gathering more stuff to it's training database from places it has no legal access, like Gitlab repositories. Now imagine tens of these AI tools, competing against each other... I just don't think it's gonna be sustainable, and I am quite sure the code quality will suffer from it. I'll keep avoiding AI tooling for now</a></h3> But yeah, as always, corporations don't care about ethics of things. And that's why I don't want to use Copilot. Besides I feel like my learning capabilities would suffer a lot when I can just press tab key and have magically everything appear on my screen. Learning is one of the main reasons why I like programming, I don't want to take that away from myself. Honestly the only way I am going to trust any kind of AI tooling is that I can peer behind the scenes, even if I don't understand anything what's going on. And why I don't trust it? Well, would you trust a random person walking by you suddenly telling you how to write a program? They may be correct, but would you trust them? But that could be because I'm Finnish. :P I was told I don't care Akseli — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Today in Gaming On Linux discord group I was told that "I don't care about my playerbase" by one person and I got so frustrated I decided to write a blogpost about this. That's fucking insulting and just false. Note: The mods of the discord group apologized to me and have said this was the persons last warning. The group itself is nice and helpful. Anyway, here's the whole story: We were discussing the Unity+MalwareAdCompanyWhichNameIDontRemember merger. Paraphrasing, I said something along the lines of I find it funny that many gamers don't really care about the game engine unless it tells you straight up what the engine is. </blockquote> I may have used "fuck" there somewhere for emphasis. I've been told that I sound often "angry" through text. English is not my native language so I don't know how to write proper prose that keeps everyone happy. Now in the return I got a huge wall of text, that basically boiled down to "You insult gamers, you don't care about gamers. You don't care about your userbase." </blockquote> Let's go through this BS one by one. I don't think any gamer should care about the game engine</a></h1> My "I find it funny" was mostly aimed at people who go "unity bad peepeepoopoo" and then play Unity games without knowing they're Unity games, since the game doesn't tell them. When it comes to the context of the discussion we were having, I thought it was obvious. This could be my bad and I admit it: I am bad with these sort of things. Heck I went therapy because of it. I'm still learning. Anyhow. Gamers should NOT NEED TO care what engine is being used. Engine is just a tool. Does anyone care how their chair or table was made? I doubt many do, and those who do are chair and table connosseurs, and we have those people in gaming world too. If you do care about the engine, more power to you! You can make educated choices and that's fantastic. But the majority should not need to care. And many don't. They double click the icon on their desktop and play. That is totally fine. But it's funny when someone cares, says engine x poopoo and is hypocritical about it. I care about my userbase. A lot.</a></h1> Telling me that I don't care about my users and putting words in my mouth definitely made me angery enough to write this blogpost. I have been making games around.. 10 years soon? Holy shit. During these times, I've published around 5 titles on Itch.io and all of them have gotten feedback. I love receiving feedback and I've listened, trying to make my newer title always better than the old one. Then on the whim I made Penance. It has over 14k downloads. It got rough feedback at first. I improved the game, I even made my own maps for it. The download count around that time just exploded. I did this because I fucking care. I spent many nights sleep-deprived thinking how to make the game better. Eventually shit got so tough I had to tell myself "Okay, one last update, and no more for this project." I was asked to make speedrun pages for Penance: I did. I now moderate it and just couple days ago I got plenty of new runs. I love seeing my games being speedran. I've tried my best to keep my fanbase happy and people chat in my Discord group a lot nowadays, mostly about programming and that makes me super happy. I try to keep that place clean because I care about the quality there. Now I know I am a no-name gamedev, but I DO A LOT of stuff to keep my lovely community happy. New gamedevs sometimes join and ask me questions and I do my best to help them. I care about every single one of you in my Discord/Matrix community. Thank you for staying with me on this ride. But you do it all for money!!!!111one</a></h3> HA! I've spent around like 700€ for assets, engine stuff, etc etc. Guess how much I've made in all of these 10 years? 250€. So I'm like... 450€ loss. Lol. But I don't care about money. I care about making fun games. Anyhow, that is because my games are pay-what-you-want titles. People are allowed to put 0€ if they wish. Sometimes someone likes the game enough to pay for it and for that I am very grateful. Why pay-what-you-want? Because I care enough that everyone who wants gets to play my games. And now I am making completely open source, moddable retro-FPS. Why? Because I care enough that someone might find it easy way to get into gamedev and find it fun to tinker with. I love entertaining people, gamedev is for me the easiest way to do so. To end this incoherent ramble: Don't ever fucking tell me I don't care. Anyhow, if someone doesn't like my stuff, that's fine. The shittalk is not. If you shittalk me, you're never going to be my customer. I will refuse to sell to you. We gamedevs have put up with toxic bullshit long enough. Insult my games and whatever, but never tell me I don't care. Cheers and sorry for this blogpost. I hope I don't have to write any more posts like this. Easy way to open Discord through Firefox without address bar! Akseli — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Since the Electron wrapper of Discord is so bad and outdated</a>, especially on Linux, here's a way to start Discord through Linux in a "single page app" way. I got the help for it from here</a> but I wanted to write this down in step-by-step way. (Honestly mostly for myself so I dont have to find it again lol) 1. Create Discord profile</a></h2> Open about:profiles</code> in Firefox, and create a new profile called Discord. Set the default profile as the one you're currently using, it should say "This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted" on top of it. 2. Set up the profile to hide address bar</a></h2> Open the new profile through terminal with firefox --no-remote -P "Discord" </code></pre> And check you're using the correct profile by opening about:support</code> and checking the Profile Directory. Then you can click the "Open Directory" button. In that folder, create new folder called chrome</code> and in that folder, create file userChrome.css</code>. Paste the following in the file, this will hide the address bar: TabsToolbar { visibility: collapse; } :root:not([customizing]) #navigator-toolbox:not(:hover):not(:focus-within) { max-height: 1px; min-height: calc(0px); overflow: hidden; } #navigator-toolbox::after { display: none !important; } #main-window[sizemode="maximized"] #content-deck { padding-top: 8px; } </code></pre> Save the file and go back to Firefox. In Firefox, open about:config</code> and set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets</code> to true</code>. It should save automatically. You can now close Firefox. 3. Create a shortcut</a></h2> Go to ~/.local/share/applications</code> and create a new discordfirefox.desktop</code> file. Open that file and paste the following: [Desktop Entry] Comment[en_GB]=Opens Discord in Firefox Comment=Opens Discord in Firefox Exec=firefox --no-remote -P "Discord" https://discord.com/channels/@me\n GenericName[en_GB]=Opens Discord in Firefox GenericName=Opens Discord in Firefox MimeType= Name[en_GB]=Discord (Firefox) Name=Discord (Firefox) Path= StartupNotify=true Terminal=false TerminalOptions= Type=Application X-DBUS-ServiceName= X-DBUS-StartupType= X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false X-KDE-Username= </code></pre> You may want to add icon to it, but you should be able to do that by right clicking the desktop file and going properties. You can also type Icon=icon/path/here.svg</code> to the desktop file. Done</a></h2> That should be it! Now you should have a Discord faux-single-page-app. A good idea is to also install Ublock Origin to the same profile, so you can also block any ads if you are shared links. If you move your mouse on top of the window, the address bar should pop up so you can use it like normal Firefox instance if needed. I deleted Windows! And switched to Fedora Akseli — Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Last sunday I finally decided it's time to leave Windows properly behind. I had Windows installed on my PC just in case I want to dualboot back to it. But almost year has been gone by since I switched to Kubuntu and.. Nope. I didn't boot Windows single time during this ~11 months. Also I switched to Fedora because things went wrong with partition resizing... Partition games</a></h2> First I just wanted to delete Windows from my disks and then resize partitions to take up its space. I had done this before so I knew to take backups of things, and went for it. Boot up from live USB, start KDE Partition Manager, delete old stuff and start resizing... First it took an hour to resize my NVME drive from 700gb to ~1tb. What the fuck, but okay. Then it was time for resizing my SSD from 1.2tb to ~2tb. It started, did something and.. KDE Partition Manager stopped responding. It crashed and burned. I knew it was in unsaveable situation, even the NVME drive partition had crapped itself. Lucky for me for those backups. EXCEPT I LOST MY MORROWIND SAVES AND I AM STILL SAD ABOUT IT! I decided it's time to try something new, so I tipped my head towards Fedora, since I had heard many good things about it. Sorry not sorry about the pun. Installing Fedora</a></h2> Here's where things get a bit funny. When installing Fedora, the installation was pretty straightforward, except I got very confused by the disk selection part. At first, I chose both of my disks when installing. I thought it would just format both as EXT4, automount my SSD, that kind of thing... Well I had no idea Fedora uses BTRFS and it went like "oh two drives? Raid 0 (or 1?) time!" When booting up my PC first time after installation, I was confused how I had 3tb of space. It quickly dawned on me that Fedora had combined both of my drives into one. But I wanted to separate the drives: I wanted to install my games on the SSD, and keep everything else on the NVME. Que me searching internet how to separate the two drives with the BTRFS commands. Luckily I hadn't installed much on the PC yet because I did one command too many or something, since next boot I just got "EMERGENCY MODE!" Fuck. Installing Fedora properly this time</a></h2> I gave up trying to recover that the situation, cleaned both drives with live image and reinstalled Fedora again, but this time I made damn sure that I chose ONLY the NVME drive to install on. Otherwise the installation was smooth sailing as last time. Success. Then I formated the SSD drive as EXT4, mounted it and did the usual fstab</code> magic. And finally I could install games on my SSD only on Steam, just like the gods intended. Then I just set up my system from all the backups I have etc etc. The usual guff. Using Fedora for almost a week</a></h2> I've loved using it so far! DNF is superior package manager, there's updates really often, my games have slightly better time running (especially on Wayland but more of that later).. Many nice things. My biggest source of happiness has been how easy it is to build packages from scratch with Fedora, especially KDE related stuff. Most things are already in repos, I can just install all dependencies and start building things, poking around, testing and having fun. Otherwise since it's KDE, I have pretty much same workflow I had on Kubuntu and there's not that much of difference. To sum up, major positive differences: No snaps! :) I don't need to fiddle with uninstalling those anymore</li> DNF is very good for installing packages and managing them. It also has very nice search function.</li> Frequent updates for new stuff! Haven't had stability issues yet.</li> </ul> And since Wayland is the default, I finally got to try it.. However.. Wayland is not for me just yet</a></h2> Wayland is great. It's very fast, it's smooth on my two monitors, it is just dang nice to use. Note, I have AMD GPU: RX 480. But it has still some hiccups, especially with KDE, so I couldn't just yet stay with it. There's tiny bugs like application menu highlight getting stuck on some app, Yakuake had difficult time running, tooltips can jump up anywhere, system tray popups can pop up in middle of screen... Also games can still lose mouse focus and suddenly I'm clicking on other screen. Same happens in X11, but I have a script that forces my mouse to stay on the first monitor. I haven't found Wayland variation of it, so if you know any, do send a comment! They're really tiny issues. But they annoy me. And I don't like it.. :'( So I went back to X11 for now. After tasting Wayland, I can feel the sluggishness of X11 a bit now. But Wayland is still bit too early for my usecases. But when it works, it's fricking beautiful and I wish all the best for developers working on it. You're making something amazing there, please keep it up! Sum up</a></h2> I am having fun using Fedora and I don't have to worry about Canonical's shenaningans anymore. Building software is REALLY easy on Fedora and I get cool new stuff/upgrades faster. Stability hasn't been an issue at all. I just wish the installation was a bit more clear, especially when it comes to installing on many drives. The installer should ask user if they want to combine the drives or install OS on first and have rest as data drives. But yeah, no more Windows. End of an era. WinXP will always have soft spot in my heart (and Win7 too honestly), but Microsoft is pushing way too much privacy invading ads and other crap that I don't want to be part of that anymore. Oh yeah, I had to do way less to set up my rig for gaming on Fedora. It just worked without additional installs! Thanks for reading! Fixing DNS issues in Kubuntu 22.04 Akseli — Sun, 01 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 DNS. It's always the effing DNS. I had Kubuntu 21.10 installed with snaps disabled. Decided to run an update to Kubuntu 22.04. I'm on "normal" track, so this is for non-LTS version. The update went fine but DNS refused to work after reboot. After scouring through Stack Overflow I found my answer to fix it. First edit sudoedit /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/head</code> with following: # Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8) # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN # 127.0.0.53 is the systemd-resolved stub resolver. # run "systemd-resolve --status" to see details about the actual nameservers. nameserver 8.8.4.4 #could probably be 1.1.1.1 if you prefer </code></pre> Then edit sudoedit /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/base</code> with: nameserver 8.8.8.8 </code></pre> Then just restart your machine and there you go. Also if sudoedit</code> doesn't work for you, just use sudo nano</code> or whatever works for you. I get why people get frustrated with Systemd at times... Anyway just wanted to share if someone else has the same problem. (I was) Scared of programming Akseli — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 I have always dabbled with programming languages, even as a kid. But I never made anything with them until I was in my 20s. Most extensive things I did before my 20s was simple modifications to some files or dumb tiny javascript files. The thing is, people always told me programming is very difficult (which is true!) and I am the kind of person that always downplays their abilites. So I wanted to make programs and games, but I never wanted to do the actual programming because how people treated it. I always looked for non-programming game engines and such. Programming was scary! I was scared of breaking my PC, or just general failure. The latter is of course a personal problem, but I wish people had told me that it's not as scary as I thought. Failure is big part of programming, that's how most of us learn. Well, eventually I had to overcome my fears: Our class at college had nobody who could do programming, so I decided it's time to try at least.. And I got hooked. I eventually realised it's not that scary and that my mind can wrap around these mystical words I am typing to make things happen. C# was my entry to programming, it was the language that got me hooked. Python also made me happy. However, there's something I was always still afraid to try: C and C++. I was told to not use C unless I "know what I'm doing." It's valid advice, but also it was more of this "ooo scary spooky language" thing that made me just ignore it and keep working with higher level languages. I wish that instead I would've been told "It's old and weird, but it can be very very useful language to know and work with." And nowadays, especially with libraries like Raylib, it's pretty simple to get going and start making a game. Difficult for sure. But never scary. Making my Raylib FPS in pure C has been one of the most fun programming projects I've had in years! Same thing happened with C++. People told me it's an awful language to work with, I should never bother with it, yadda yadda. Again, difficult language for sure! Challenging even. But not scary. I finally decided to work making my ESO Addon Manager in C++ and Qt. Sure it's complicated but also there is a challenge, a puzzle, that my mind really enjoys! What I am trying to point here is that.. Stop scaring people away from trying! You're free to have opinions, even scathing ones, of languages. I know I have those about Javascript. But your dislike may be someones like, which they never get to realise because you scared them away. Let people try. Let people fail! I found out about my likes way later because I was spooked away. I would've never learned how much I actually enjoy writing C if I just hadn't taken the plunge. I went in with complete "oh god is this going to suck" and I am glad to say, it hasn't sucked at all. The challenges both C and C++ have given me are great. I learned that I enjoy lower level programming, despite it's weird own world where the computer doesn't help you out of sticky situations! (Like memory handling) I am no more scared! I am excited! I just wish I had realised this when I was 15. And that's why I'm ranting about this. Okay, well maybe assembly still scares me a bit. But maybe one day I'll tackle that too! :D PS. this is a bit incoherent ramble probably because it's late and I just wanted to get this out of my system lol Playing with Matrix: Conduit and Synapse Akseli — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 I've been playing around with Matrix homeservers. I like the idea of running my own federated server to join random channels in. Here's the two I've played around with so far and what I've thought about them. My plan is also to create proper Space for my Aks_Dev channels and bridge them to my Discord "server." Conduit 0.2 and 0.3</a></h2> Note: I was testing the Conduit 0.2, 0.3 and Next versions. These are very much still in their early phase of development. Conduit.rs</a> is a very simple, easy to set up Matrix homeserver. It's made in Rust if you're into that sort of thing, but that's not why I was using it. Conduit promises very simple way to get a server up and running, which is why I wanted to try it. It also apparently takes very little space and resources, so it was perfect for a small 5€/month Digitalocean "droplet" I am running. Setting up was a breeze. The manual they have in their Gitlab</a> was really good and to the point. I was up and running within an hour or so. At first, it was promising. I joined servers just fine.. Until I tried to join bigger channels with thousands of people. That's where Conduit slowed down a lot, at least for me and my tiny cheap server. Maybe something beefier would've been fine. I also used the default SQLite database with it, so that also slows it down. I prefer to roll with defaults when it comes to this stuff since I am very new to self-hosting things. I had some weird problems where my account got stuck in somekind of limbo. I don't really remember it, but what I do remember is that the developer of Conduit helped me a lot in their Matrix channel. They even made a custom patch for me to get the situation fixed. That convinced me to keep trying. After all, my mishaps probably helped debug something so I hope it was some use! :D After the problems were solved, it was pretty much smooth sailing from there. Bigger channels still took some time to join, smaller channels joined pretty much instantly. But why switch to Synapse then? Well, I was missing couple of features I find personally important: Spaces</a></h3> Spaces are very important thing to me since I wanted to set up my own Discord space. Conduit, at the time of writing, supports spaces only partially: You can join spaces but you can't explore them. This makes it harder for me to set up the space I wanted since I would have to use another account to do that etc. etc. On top of that, joining a new space with many channels to explore for was also difficult. Again I had to use two accounts. Notifications</a></h3> Edit: I will leave the old part below, but here is the clarified reason by Timo why the notifications aren't working: Link to Mastodon Toot</a> Timo: One clarification: Notifications don't work on Conduit v0.3.0 because we are sending nulls in the wrong places and the push gateway drops the messages. This is fixed on the 'next' branch and will make it into the v0.4.0 release soon hopefully. The /notifcations endpoint (used for optaining notification history) is not necessary for push notifications on any client I know. </blockquote> (Old post below) This is a bit funky, since Conduit does support notifications, but it doesn't have the /notifications endpoint that most clients lean on for all the notifs. Thus, some clients work with notifs and some don't. Let's just say my fiancee wasn't terribly happy when I kept missing her messages! :'D Unfamiliar with codebase</a></h3> I don't know anything about Rust. I can't help debug it. Sure this is not a big problem and it could maybe be a good way to learn but I wanted something simpler at first. Programming network/server stuff is something I'm not very familiar with. I am sure in future Conduit will support the features I need and I will very likely go back! Synapse</a></h2> Synapse is kind of the opposite. Very complicated to set up, takes more resources... But it supports all the features I want and need. There's a lot of documentation and lots of it gives mixed signals. My first time setup went all kinds of bonkers, nothing worked so I just wiped the following off my server: Nginx, Apache2, Synapse... Purged and cleaned all kinds of wonky old configs I had laying about and then tried again. Here's what I needed to do to get it to work. Installation</a></h3> First off, the documentations give you all kinds of packages to install. I don't know which is the correct one for real, but this one worked for me: sudo apt install matrix-synapse-py3 </code></pre> Note the -py3 in the end. That was important bit and mentioned in the official documentation: Link</a> Other guides, like the one offered by Digitalocean, didn't have that and caused me tear hair out of my head, and I don't have much of that left. But there was one guide that helped me to continue: HowToForge</a> I pretty much followed it, except I didn't change the HTTP and HTTPS listener ports at all. I did add the registration_shared_secret</code> however, and I had already set letsencrypt on this server since it was running a website before. The guide asks you to add a configuration, but I didn't use that one. I used the one in official documentation, except I added the bits for my own website. Here's the config I used: server { listen 80; server_name matrix.akselmo.dev; return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri; } server { listen 443 ssl http2; listen [::]:443 ssl http2; # For the federation port listen 8448 ssl http2 default_server; listen [::]:8448 ssl http2 default_server; server_name matrix.akselmo.dev; ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/matrix.akselmo.dev/fullchain.pem; ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/matrix.akselmo.dev/privkey.pem; # If you don't wanna serve a site, comment this out root /var/www/html; location ~ ^(/_matrix|/_synapse/client) { # note: do not add a path (even a single /) after the port in `proxy_pass`, # otherwise nginx will canonicalise the URI and cause signature verification # errors. proxy_pass http://localhost:8008; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; proxy_set_header Host $host; # Nginx by default only allows file uploads up to 1M in size # Increase client_max_body_size to match max_upload_size defined in homeserver.yaml client_max_body_size 50M; } } </code></pre> And now both my website and the Synapse server started running! Again, I didn't set up myself Postgresql, even I probably should have! I may do that later at some point. Luckily when it came to the configs, I didn't really have to mess around with it. Experience</a></h3> Again, the server is a bit slow when joining big channels, but once joined it works pretty fast. I believe this is issue with using SQLite, just like with Conduit. All features that matrix.org homeserver has work for me too, so spaces and notifications etc. etc. I am happy with this server and it fits in the 2gb of RAM my server has. I will update this post if I see any big issues with resources. Conclusion</a></h2> I do really like Conduit. It was so, very painless to setup and the people working on it were super helpful and nice! But for now, the lacking features made me try Synapse, and I will stay in Synapse until Conduit is ready. Early adopting just is not for me, I suppose.. :) Synapse should have very simple and to the point installation guide for someone like me, who just wants to run a server for one or two accounts. But now that I got it working, I'll be using it. I am not an expert!</a></h2> If there are some big oversights you see in this post, do share! I want to know more about this stuff. I am not a pro at all when it comes to server side software. I also wanted to share my experience as someone who doesn't know what they're really doing! :D Maybe it'll be useful to someone. Thanks for reading! Why I find Linux gaming important? Akseli — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 People who read this mess of a blog may have noticed that I am very Linux-y. This wasn't actually always the case. I used to be very comfort oriented. Didn't mean that I didn't like to tinker with things, but more like when I got home I just wanted to play games and that's it. Click and play. I tried Linux desktop back then and I enjoyed using it but what held me back was gaming. I needed my games, especially as a youngster who just wanted to play cool_new_thing with friends. Sure there were ways to get games to work, like PlayOnLinux, but it was too much for me. Nowadays though, my thoughts have shifted. I rather tinker with my device a little to play some game, just so I can avoid Microsoft or other BigCorp. Maybe my rebellious phase is kicking in way later, I don't know. I never had that as a teen lol. But I think Linux gaming is way more than that, and here's few points why I find Linux gaming very important for the future of games. Competition in PC platform space</a></h2> Big part of computer world, as evident by the massive Steam user count, is gaming. I am young, but not too young to remember DOS era. Even back then, games were a thing. And those games were great, by the way. The unfortunate thing in PC platform is that there's not much competition. There's two big names, Mac and Windows. And if you play games, it's almost always Windows. Now that Linux gaming is rising, we can FINALLY start thinking about alternatives. We can finally tell MS that hey, maybe we don't like all this telemetry you're doing. I just want to play games, I don't want my PC to spend it's resources doing whatever your telemetry stuff is doing. I want all that perf for my games. And that's what Linux distros let me do. Now hopefully, Linux desktop as a gaming platform keeps rising. Even more hopefully PC manufacturers will give option to install some distro instead of Windows when you buy a PC, when they realise that gamersTM really are into it out of sudden. That's the dream anyway. I know reality is harsh, but maybe Steam Deck will help people learn that there's more to computers than Windows. And maybe in return MS steps up and makes better Windows. I'm not switching anytime soon, hopefully never, but I hope this will make the platform better for my friends who use it. Games taught me a lot</a></h2> Games have taught me a lot about computers, programming and of course English language. Even some social stuff! How does this tie into Linux desktop? The barrier of entry to computers nowadays is hardware + OS, especially if you want to game. Shaving that extra 100€ (Windows price) from the computer sale will help many who are getting their new PC, especially younger people. What I'm trying to say that when the OS is free, the barrier of entry lowers down, and this helps younger people to learn more since they can spend that extra 100€ for a game or two. In general it lowers the barrier of entry, not just gaming but everyone everywhere. The only main problem I see with this is that the main Linux distros need to keep up their newbie friendliness and make it better and easier for new users whenever they can. Windows Live Gold can happen again any time</a></h2> Remember that thing? Remember Games for Windows Live? Remember when MS wanted people to pay some dumb subscription to play PC games online like you have to do on XBox? Nothing is stopping MS from doing that again. There may be huge backlash, but it doesn't stop them. If more people switch to Linux for gaming, especially IF that happens, it sends a clear signal to MS. Having a whole gaming system in hands of one corporation is bad. Linux can wake up older PC's for gaming</a></h2> Win10 was pretty rough on my +5 year old PC I gave for my sister for gaming. It was super slow and clunky as heck, considering it has still old HDD, instead of SSD. Had I installed some Linux distro for it, I think she would have better time using that PC. If I did that again now I would slap Ubuntu on it with Minecraft pre-installed. This also lowers e-waste when people don't have to buy he newest thing just to run the OS. TPM 2.0 anyone?? :P More users for Linux userspace</a></h2> The more the merrier, I think. Every user is a possible contributor. Heck, without Linux gaming being a thing, I wouldn't have changed my OS, I would never report some of the bugs I've seen, I would never contribute to the OS in a way or another... I am even thinking of making my next game Linux first title. (Well I've basically decided it already, since I develop it on Linux..) Had Linux gaming not been a thing like it is now, I would've just continued making games on Windows and never contributed those bug reports or stuff like ESO Linux Addon Manager</a>. I am not trying to say that "you should be glad i switched!!11" Just think the people we can get around here to contribute to the software we use daily. And some of them like to play games on their free time. Everyone deserves privacy</a></h2> Linux and FOSS in general are very privacy-first oriented software. On other hand, proprietary OS like Mac and Windows are not (despite what they want you to think). Everyone deserves to have privacy if they want it, even the kids who just wanna dab on noobs in Fortnite. Privacy is a human right, after all. But wait, what about proprietary gaming????</a></h1> Someone asked me once why do you give proprietary games a free pass? Why should they be allowed in our free software? I believe strongly that basic software and needs in computer world, like using internet, office software, chatting, learning and studying etc. etc. should be free for everyone. Both free as in freedom and beer. Everyone should have an access to same tools to build their careers, talk to their relatives and friends and so on. But games are art and unfortunately, for now, art is a luxury. Luxury is something that we don't need to live. I would love to see every software ever made open source of course, but it will take time to reach that goal. We have to start from somewhere, and I believe getting the basic necessities in order at first is a huge step alone. We need to concentrate on that at first. Of course this doesn't mean to stop making FOSS games, I am making my own as well. FOSS engines and games deserve all the love and care they get. Please keep making them. But my priorities are: necessities first, then we can focus on luxuries. Hopefully one day we can share luxuries around without worry. That's why I give proprietary games a free pass: It's not my priority to get games FOSS. It's all the basic stuff first. I want Linux gaming to succeed, what do?</a></h1> Buy games from developers who make Linux games!</li> Donate to FOSS game engines like Godot!</li> Also USE FOSS game engines! Tell people about them.</li> Switch to Linux in your older laptop for example, try it out. Play some games with it</li> Support open platforms like Steam Deck or other Linux based gaming platforms.</li> Ask developers for Linux support. Yes I know this may go to deaf ears, but asking is free. Indie devs are more lenient in this, usually!</li> </ul> </li> Try open source games and software even on Windows!</li> If you feel like you're ready to switch, give dual booting a try! I have a guide for Kubuntu here: Setting up Kubuntu for gaming</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> Thanks for reading! I've wanted to make this post for a long while but didn't have the energy until now. My Devterm experience Akseli — Sun, 16 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 So I got a Devterm... Back in June I ordered a Devterm</a>. It finally arrived this month. I enthusiastically retrieved the package and started assembling. The assembly part was pretty easy, since there's really no tools needed except for couple very tiny screws. Luckily I have an iFixit kit for that kind of stuff. If there was a screwdriver in the box, I entirely missed it. During the first boot, I received... Nothing! The screen was blank. I searched the forums for information about it and someone mentioned maybe the backlight doesn't work. Well I was bummed so I checked if it was just backlight or something else. I placed a flashlight on top of the screen and sure enough, there was text, it was the backlight that was broken. I was torn. I had waited this 300€ device for 6 months. I disassembled the device and noticed on closer inspection that yep, the screen backlight ribbon cable was torn a lil bit, so that one of the two connections was broken. I was just as torn as that ribbon cable at that point. I tend to get really excited about stuff like this, so it was a really big let down. Naturally I asked for a refund.. I don't like doing that, at all. I feel so guilty when asking for refund, but did it anyway. My money situation has been bit weak lately and getting even partial refund would help me a ton. Luckily the ClockworkPi folks were understanding and gave me part of my money back. I was going to wait for better days and if they have replacement screens on sale, I could get one by then. But maybe I could fix it myself?</a></h2> I have NEVER fixed anything like this myself. Never, ever. I got a soldering iron as a chrimbus present like couple years ago and I have only used it once, to de-solder a part from friends old Amiga, but that's it. Anyway, since I was like "well, if I fuck it up, at least it's already broken" I disassembled the whole screen. I noticed the ribbon cable backlight connectors and tested them out with multimeter, and sure enough, only the negative side of the circuit was broken. I checked the Devterm forums and found someone with similar issue, and they had fixed it like this: Link</a> So I salvaged a wire from some super old ATI Radeon fan (Yes, ATI) and soldered it to the ribbon cable connector, then jammed it near the third LED from top. And quite magically, it began to work. (There was a bit more than that in this troubleshooting process, such as using multimeter to test the wire etc etc but that's the gist of it really.) I then used electric tape to keep the other end of the wire near the LED, since it is soooooooo tiny that I couldnt figure out how to solder it there. It's not optimal solution, I know, but it works.. For now. Until that tape gives in I guess lol. I then carefully began to assemble the screen back and had to cut some of the screen case parts so I can slide the wire underneath. And then.. I cut my thumb to the damn screen metal part. Ow. I've been told electronics require blood sacrifices sometimes. After all of that, I assembled the whole thing and voila, we have light. </a> I just wish I could have soldered the wire properly like in the image in that forum link, but I have no tools/skills for that. I assumed I have no skills with fixing electronics in the first place.. But I am glad I was wrong. I'm super proud of this fix, even it was very tiny one. I am kind of glad that the screen arrived broken, I learned a lot from this and it was somewhat fun even, despite slicing my thumb. I probably will buy a replacement screen in future however, just so I can have it working 100% sure and properly. But this will work for now as I play around with this thing. The moral of this story: Always give something a try! You never know, you'll probably surprise yourself. Thoughts on my PineTime Akseli — Sat, 18 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 So I got myself a PineTime</a> watch about 8 days ago, and so far I've enjoyed using it! It's a rather simple smartwatch, but that's why I like it. No complicate BS, just the basic stuff and that's it. And it was only ~30€! (Plus 10€ shipping :P ) Initial setup</a></h1> The device arrived in around 10 days from ordering it, which is relatively quick considering the world situation + chrimbus time. </a> I appreciate how little stuff there was. Just the bare necessities, no unnecessary flair. I however would appreciate a bit more illustrated manual perhaps, showing where to find things. Personally I had no problem with following the guide, but someone else might. The manual basically said "go there, download this app or some alternative, connect your device to the watch, install updates." I was fine with that, but someone else might be a bit confused. Even a number ordered list would do some good. I luckily didn't have to install any firmware updates, since it was already up-to-date, in version 1.0.0. I however had to update the InfiniTime "OS" that runs the show. The size of the watch is pretty much what I expected. It's a watch, not a bulky rock like modern smartwatches are. </a> I booted up the watch and installed Gadgetbridge</a> on my Android phone. At first, I was trying to connect the watch through Gadgetbridge, but unfortunately that didn't work just like that. What you need to do, is to first use the Bluetooth settings in your phone to pair the device, then separately pair the device from Gadgetbridge. I did this, but first time it didn't work.. Gadgetbridge got stuck loading something. But rebooting both the watch and my phone, and then trying to connect again through Gadgetbridge, it worked. It was a bit more of a hassle than I expected, but honestly I could see same thing happen with any modern smartwatch. After that I updated the device. It was pretty simple, I had to just download the newest InfiniTime</a> release on my phone (the dfu</code> one), then open the zip with Gadgetbridge and it did the rest, very painlessly. Daily drive</a></h1> I've been daily driving the watch since it arrived and I've been really happy with it! It shows me the notifications whenever I get them, I can control music from it (yes, even spotify!), it counts my steps, and best of all, it shows time. </a> I think it also looks very stylish. There's three different watch faces, two that are the default digital watch, one analogue watch face, and the one in the picture which is called PineTimeStyle. I like it the most since you can change the color of it as well. The tiny circle on the bottom right shows my steps goal, and other statuses are showin with nice tiny icons. I could set the watch to turn the screen on when I raise my wrist, but sometimes it doesn't realise I'm doing so, I have to flick my wrist a bit and then the display turns on. I raise my hands slowly, I am lazy. The notifications pop up and make the watch vibrate a bit whenever one arrives, so it's easy to check them quickly. The vibration is not too aggressive either in my opinion, so it doesn't bother me if I choose to ignore the watch. There's also a lot of tiny apps in the watch, like the music changing mode. But there is also couple games, like pong and 2048 (which I find quite addictive lol), heart rate meter, BPM meter that makes the watch vibrate along the set BPM, then bunch of different timers and stopwatches. What I would love to see is a month view. Just showing me the current month and it's days. Maybe eventually show the events too, but that's quite complicated thing to make on small device like this so I'm not surprised it's not there yet. About the heart rate meter, please don't rely it. Currently it's more a curiosity and it's not very accurate at all. It just gives you the sense of your heartrate but nothing anyone should rely on. The battery ran out after 7-8 days of daily driving the watch, which I think is pretty good, considering most smartwatches last only day or two. I only really used the notifications feature, as it's cold in here and I rather use my bluetooth headphones to change the music. I did play some 2048 with it though and it worked really well. And speaking of cold, the battery time might be affected a little bit because of the below zero temperature. I assume that in summer it'll work longer. There's also no tracking bullshit that Google/Samsung etc watches have. I don't need those features, I just wanted a watch that shows me notifications, and it does that pretty much perfectly. The notifications are lacking umlauts like Ä or Ö, so messages in Finnish look like they're typed in drunk. There's also no emoji support, which is both good and bad. :P Bluetooth has only cut out for me once, but I feel like it was my phone acting out instead of the watch. Would I recommend one?</a></h1> If you just want to quickly check on notifications on your watch and maybe play a bit of pong every now and then, and quickly change skip music tracks on your watch, it's perfect! If you're also somewhat privacy conscious like me, the no-tracking is nice (although I have my phone as a tracking device already so.. Eh). On top of that, since everything is open source, from Firmware to OS, you can modify it if you have the skills. I tried to modify the watch a bit, but I had trouble already setting up my developer environment for the watch.. Btw big props for the devs of this watch and InfiniTime. You have added a lot of content in such a small package and it's impressive! For anyone who wants somekind of healthy fit super duper chad watch, PineTime's not gonna work. For that, you need somekind of sporty watch, just remember those arent open source and when they break, they break and create e-waste. And of course they report your every hand movement to Big Tech lol. I feel like this is more a nerd watch, than sportyboi watch. And it's been excellent for me. And it's only 30€, so for such a low price it's been pretty great quality! In summary: It does it's job, doesn't lie about it's capabilities and that's all I wanted. Maybe one day I will try to delve deeper in this InfiniTime OS running on it, and maybe change fonts or something. My character and Matrix server Akseli — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Just a quick post, I wanted to share two things. Commissioned art</a></h1> First, I got this really nice commission of my character Huntra wearing Linux shirt. I really like Xenia</a> so I wanted to see my character in something similar. </a> Thank you for making this for me Saikkunen</a>! Go commission them!!! :D Matrix channel</a></h1> I started running a Matrix channel for anyone who may read this blog or follow me on Twitter/Mastodon and is interested in techy FOSS-y things and my games! It's bridged to my Aks_Dev discord! You're welcome to join, just behave! Aks_Dev -matrix channel</a> Yes it was called Cool Tech Nerds at some point but instead running two separate Matrix channels I just wanted to run one. Kubuntu multimonitor woes and fixes Akseli — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I have had some problems with Kubuntu working well with multimonitor setup. I use X11 so the reason is most likely there, not just Kubuntu's fault. When booting up my PC and ending up in SDDM, I see the login screen in both screens. Bit weird, but fine. I can live with that. However after logging in, my first screen would always reset to 60hz and my second would be 144hz. Saving my first monitor to 144hz and restarting the PC would reset that. I feel like the problem is that the SDDM doesn't remember my settings or something, but I managed to fix it so I don't have to think about it anymore and here's how. First, the fix</a></h2> First, set your monitor settings correct with the Kubuntu display settings. Then open terminal and do the following command xrandr' </code></pre> You should be getting something like this: Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3840 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384 DisplayPort-0 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 521mm x 293mm 1920x1080 60.00 + 143.85* 119.98 99.93 50.00 59.94 1680x1050 59.95 1280x1024 75.02 60.02 1440x900 59.89 1280x960 60.00 1280x800 60.00 1152x864 75.00 1280x720 60.00 50.00 59.94 1440x576 50.00 1024x768 75.03 70.07 60.00 1440x480 60.00 59.94 800x600 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25 720x576 50.00 720x480 60.00 59.94 640x480 75.00 72.81 66.67 60.00 59.94 720x400 70.08 DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-A-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) HDMI-A-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) DVI-D-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 298mm 1920x1080 60.00 + 144.00* 119.98 99.93 59.94 1680x1050 60.00 1280x1024 119.96 75.02 60.02 1440x900 119.85 1280x800 60.00 1152x864 75.00 1280x720 60.00 1024x768 119.99 75.03 60.00 832x624 74.55 800x600 119.97 75.00 60.32 640x480 75.00 60.00 59.94 720x400 70.08 </code></pre> Copy this part somewhere, you will base your settings to this text. The start behind the hz rating is what you're using at the moment. It will list all the resolutions and hz available to all ports you have connected. Notice that even if your monitor may be marked 144hz, it can be a bit different. Like for me it is 143.85 for my other monitor. Open Xsetup file for editing sudo nvim /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup </code></pre> (Use your editor of choice :P ) In there, add the following to end of the file xrandr --output FirstMonitor --mode resolution --post 0x0 --rate hz --primary xrandr --output SecondMonitor --mode resolution --rate hz </code></pre> So for me, that is xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1920x1080 --pos 0x0 --rate 144 --primary xrandr --output DisplayPort-0 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 143.85 </code></pre> Save the file, then move on to next file: sudo nvim /etc/sddm.conf </code></pre> In there, add following under the [XDisplay]</code>, and if it doesn't exist, you can just add it there. [XDisplay] DisplayCommand=/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup </code></pre> This will make the SDDM load the script you just edited. It may already be there, so you don't necessarily have to add anything. Reboot and see if it helps. Second, the groaning</a></h2> I totally agree I shouldn't have to do anything like this to set up my multimonitor setup. Computer should automatically do this when I save my settings in the GUI. I think this may just be a bug somewhere, because it did work before I updated to Kubuntu 21.10, and I have reported it as well as I could. Anyways, part of Linux is doing tinkering like this. I don't mind it, but I am slightly groaning that I had to do this manually. And please, report all the bugs you find. That's the best way we can get these issues solved, since in the end it's a community run system. I firmly believe that what I get in free software, I pay in having to fill in bug reports. And I am totally fine with that, personally. +++ PS. I'm writing this on my birthday! Woop! Who is Linux for? Akseli — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 A bit of boring rambling. Something I've been thinking about. Not really answering the question directly. I am talking about desktop Linux and not just the server side. Just remember, these are my opinions and nothing factual. I hate that I have to repeat this but hey this is internet, people like to get mad about anything in here. Also no, I am not the type who goes around "you must use linuxxxxxx!!!" because I know it's not for everyone. This post should make it pretty clear, but wanted to mention it separately. Freedom and relief</a></h2> For me, the switch from Windows to Kubuntu has been one of the best things I've done when it comes to the computer life. And honestly, most of my life is computer life. I think about tech all the time, I play games a lot and so on. I am, in other words, a nerd. I remember when that word was used as an insult all the time, probably still is somewhere but not here really. It still has a light negative connotation, as in, "eww a nerd" but nowadays I am just proud if someone calls me that lol. But yeah, I've been "eww nerd"-ed at many times when I was younger. Kids are evil. :P I mention this because this is probably what my take is basically: Linux is for us nerds and geeks (still don't kow what the difference between these words really is, but hey). It's for us, who love learning, who love technology. For us who love the freedom to switch around things, in both software and hardware. Freedom is one of those things that I've always believed it comes with a cost. In Linux world, it comes often with the cost of "agh, this isnt working after all!" which is mostly because the device vendor doesnt support Linux or something else. But what do I mean with relief part?</a></h2> Well, first of all, I am free to update my system when I damn well please. Windows updates were horrific for my anxiety. Yes, I got anxiety over Windows updates. I am a bit dumb like that. Whenever Windows updated, I was always scared that I wouldn't get to play games today, or work on something. Now if that were to happen in Linux, I have freedom to fix the issue myself. Instead of being anxious that the update breaks something, my mind goes like this: "if it breaks, I can look for help and fix it together with people on the internet and figure it out, instead of waiting for some vendor who doesn't really give a shit if I don't have enough money to fix it. Reminds me, how many times you have searched help for Windows problems, and there's always some tosser saying "just run sfc scannow lmaoo bro" and it doesn't do jack shit. Second relief is privacy and trust oriented. Microsoft, Google and the like deserve zero trust. None of it. They're mindless corporations and they can collect all the info they want because they have money. Linux side, I am pretty sure the distro maintainers only care about fixing bugs and not what kind of stuff I searched today to sell me ads. I mean, it could happen that they track that. But I trust them not to. And that is a big relief for me. In short: Freedom to repair, which gives me relief. Programming is easier</a></h2> Programming stuff, especially C, is soooooo much easier to set up and just do things. With Windows you have to install bunch of stuff, then manually set things in your environment variables, all that jazz. In Linux, you very likely have compiler already installed in your distro, so you can just start writing code and tinkering with it. On top of that, most webdev stuff is very easy to install from package managers because the servers use same stuff. Very easy to code, run and test. Gamedev side though, at least when it comes to Unity, it can be a bit more rough since you don't have Visual Studio. However, Visual Studio Code works well on Linux and can be used as an IDE. I've even read people setting up Neovim for Unity programming. But yes, it takes a bit more effort on that front. Godot runs fine out of the box though! But commandline spooky</a></h2> First of all, if you're a programmer who is afraid of commandline, I.. I don't know what to say. But anyway. Alrrright, let's get this talked over here in the same post, even it's barely on-topic. It's something I always bump into. You don't need to use terminal all the time, but using it can add a lot of value to your Linux experience. It is way, WAY easier to help each other when it comes to commandline, since it's pretty much the "only shared standard between distributions." What this means, is that for most common commands, I can help you with Fedora, even I use Kubuntu, which are different distributions. Lets say, you want to look at your filesystem in command line, something simple. The same ls</code> command works in all common Linux distribution. Now lets say, you would like to do the same in GUI. Well, what filemanager do you use? Oh, that's way different than mine, I don't know how to use that.... Commandline, and terminal, unifies Linux distributions in a level the GUI just can't, since everyone is free to change the GUI to anything they prefer (or none at all!). And this is why I want people to use more Linux commandline. It helps us to help you! also makes you look like youre a cool hacker in normies eyes lmao</del> Remember that Linux will require learning</a></h2> You have used Windows for most of your life, then suddenly switch to Linux. Of course you're confused, you want to do same stuff like on Windows but.. It's different! Of course it is different. Linux is not Windows. You wouldn't expect Mac to work same as Windows, would you? It will require learning some new ways to do same things, but luckily those are often simpler. Like installing apps on Linux is literally sudo apt install appname</code> in the terminal. No need to click through billion pages and install some adware accidentally or some shit like that. Thankfully due to the versatility of Linux distros, you can often set them up very similar to Windows. I personally don't see the appeal, but hey it's there. Remember also, the platform is mostly community supported</a></h2> The Linux desktop side is mostly supported by various communities. By supporting I mean both helping with issues and bugs, but also developing them and fixing them. There is no giant corporation that pays 23890472903748907829734789€ to fix some bugs (that don't even solve the issue that you were having in the first place...) No giant corps also to fuck up your system and then ask money to fix it. You just gotta search the thing that is broken, and ask the people who work on it or use it. Usually the answer is there. If there is no answer and the project is dead, which unfortunately can happen, you will probably have to change the thing to other one, or fix it on your own. You didn't answer the question, who is it for?</a></h2> Linux is for the privacy conscious who just want to avoid most telemetry and other crap. </li> Linux can be for those who like to play games, thanks to Valve for Proton and Wine. I love games and I can play almost all I like just fine! Native Linux builds run even better than on Windows! </li> Linux is for those who just use internet every now and then. A grandma who uses internet just every now and then to pay bills might be just fine with old PC running Linux. </li> Linux is for those who want to use old hardware to avoid generating more e-waste. </li> Linux is for programmers, who want to do more programming and less setting up your programming environment. I've been way more productive on Linux on this front. </li> Linux is for anyone who loves customizing. Because oh boy, you will have time of your life to make your PC look kewl. I know I did! :D </li> Linux is for those who don't have the money or just don't want to buy expensive Windows license. You're valid and are allowed to use computers as well. </li> Linux is for us nerds/geeks, tinkerers and hobbyists. For us, who are not afraid to learn new things. For us who like helping each other to learn and make computer world a bit better place. </li> For us, who feel very strongly about computer things and hate how it's more a corporate minefield nowadays. </li> </ul> In short, if you are interested in learning new things and playing around with new ways of doing stuff, I welcome you warmly! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments :D "But I don't want to learn anything, I just want to play games!!" Then use Windows. It runs out of the box for that. You gatekeeping elitist buttface!!!!!!</a></h2> Maybe a little, I admit. I'm sorry if I seem that way. I am just tired of people trying Linux, expecting it to be "Windows but good" but then it turns to be something different and they go on rants how Linux is bad and blabla. It may be bad for your usecase, but it doesn't mean the OS is bad as a whole. Just know to temper your expectations and expect to learn a new thing instead of using all your Leet Windows Skillz, and you will be fine. Some of those skills translate over, but most things, you may have to relearn. And that's what I am trying to emphasize heavily in this post: You must be willing to learn new things to enjoy this. I know I am enjoying using Linux way more than Windows. I am learning more of it's use every day and there is nocorporation to stop me from learning because "you are not allowed to modify that, here is an update that breaks everything btw." And despite me being all "nerds club" here, I do hope that we get more common users in the Linux ecosystem. They can help us to fix archaic things and make things more streamlined. It is valuable information. But learning must be your "drive", I think. If you just want to do your work as always, you're probably better off with what you are already using. +++ Also there is nothing wrong with using Windows or Mac, to be honest. They both have their uses, their places. I have to mention this because someone might otherwise get upset that I am dissing their system or whatever. USE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. Setting up Kubuntu for gaming Akseli — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I have Kubuntu non-LTS version myself, so I wanted to write down how I set up Kubuntu for basic gaming. Hopefully it'll help someone. Setting up Linux can be tricky, but it's well worth it. Note: I use AMD GPU so I don't have proper guide for Nvidia users when it comes to drivers. Anyway, first, ask yourself: Is Linux for me?</a></h2> You may want to check my other post [Who is Linux for]({% post_url 2021-11-20-Who-is-Linux-for %}), but the text below is pretty much the same in short, and more gaming related. I'll say it straight: In my opinion, if you're not willing to learn new things, or experiment with technology, Linux is probably not for you, especially gaming wise. It is still a bit more hurdle than playing games on Windows. Some games will not work: They may run, but they either have anticheat or some other third party thing (like launcher) that doesn't work properly. Steam Proton and Lutris make this MUCH easier than it was before, but it's still community supported platform. Most people do things like software (like Lutris) on Linux on their free time, for free. If you're also afraid of terminal, or simply refuse to learn using it, Linux may not be for you. It's a very good tool to set up, install and launch things, due to it being distro-agnostic. What this means is that I can give you advice for Kubuntu, but same terminal commands will very likely work for you in Linux Mint or Ubuntu. That is why you see command lines everywhere! It's easier to tell someone "run this command" than "Open your UI, go there, then there.. Oh wait, you use completely different looking UI than I do." There are differences between distros when it comes to commands too, however they're usually related to package managers (things that install software for you). Linux is perfect platform for nerds and geeks who just think computers are cool and like learning new things every day. It's perfect for those who want to get into computer stuff more as well. In other hand, Windows also has it's own tinkering you need to do sometimes, especially for older games: Changing INI files, changing registry keys with regedit, that kind of thing. Linux gaming, for now, sometimes has a bit more of it, especially when it comes to some older titles that have super weird dependencies on older DLL's or stuff like that. With more modern titles however, if there's no anticheat involved, Steam Proton and Wine have ran the games really well for me. And of course, if the developers are cool enough, there's also Linux native builds, like for Splitgate, that run better than on Windows. One more thing: If you have never installed Windows yourself, this guide may be too technical for you. I suggest starting from the basics before attempting to dig into the Linux world. Linux installation is super simple and easy process (IMO easier than Windows) but for someone who has never installed any OS on any system, it may be bit more difficult. Why Kubuntu?</a></h2> I've used Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Xubuntu... And now Kubuntu. And I've found that Kubuntu is the easiest to setup for gaming. Linux Mint is also a brilliant distro, but Kubuntu has KDE Plasma and other KDE tools, which are awesome and modern. Then theres huge community support of Ubuntu behind it all, which makes troubleshooting a lot easier. I will probably distro-hop in future, but I gotta say, Kubuntu has made me really happy with it's huge amount of customization and stability. For newcomers to Linux, it feels a bit like Windows by default, which makes things easier. I do recommend to explore what works for your workflow and go with that, eventually. The Guide</a></h2> Before you install anything, I want you to run Kubuntu</a> in either Virtual Machine or through the Live USB. Yes, you can run Kubuntu (and many other Linux distros) from USB without installing anything. For gaming, I recommend going with the Non-LTS version. This means that the software and kernel is a bit more up-to-date than with LTS version, which means that you get the newer GPU driver stuff and other software faster. In this guide, I assume you use the non-LTS version. That's what I use as well. Get that Kubuntu ISO flashed on your USB stick, reboot and boot into Kubuntu. (Internet is full of tutorials for that.) I want you to first test if everything works on that Live-USB mode. Any weird glitches with video? Any other issues? Write them down and look for results, help and tutorials to fix them, since those issues may continue after installing. Installation</a></h2> So, you checked everything and you are pretty sure everything seems good. Alright, awesome! I recommend installing it alongside Windows, in case you regret everything you have ever done</del> installing The Penguin on your PC. However, if at all possible, you could install Linux on another HDD/SSD entirely: This way, Windows updates will less likely break the dual-boot capability. But this usually means that when dual booting, instead of getting a simple UI to select which system to boot to, you have to select the right boot-drive from BIOS instead. When the installation is done, let Kubuntu update everything. Just let it update in peace. Nvidia GPU users</a></h2> Alright, this is where I am gonna fall flat on my face with this guide: I don't have Nvidia, so I don't know how to help with the Nvidia drivers. I've only heard that people should use the proprietary Nvidia drivers. The best way to get Nvidia drivers on your device is to search for your distro's wiki/forums for how people have instaled it. I was told the way of Nvidia driver installation has changed many times, so there's lots of outdated information out there. AMD GPU users</a></h2> Congrats, since AMD drivers are open source, they're already in the kernel! This means that you don't have to download separate drivers for it. There is proprietary AMD GPU drivers as well, but I've heard many times they're not as good as the open source ones. I assume they're more for server stuff anyway. Mesa drivers</a></h2> Mesa is the thing that helps your GPU do OpenGL stuff. You want that to be fairly fresh. Luckily with Non-LTS version of Kubuntu, it's pretty new already, so if your games run out of the box, then you don't have to worry about it. If something breaks however, there are two PPA's you can use to get more up-to-date or stable drivers: Oibaf PPA</a> Updates fast, follows the Git updates.</li> </ul> </li> Kisak PPA</a> More stable, slower than Oibaf, can be a bit slower than non-LTS Kubuntu as well.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> Look into these more yourself, ask around questions, sometimes you don't need to update Mesa drivers at all anyway. Vulkan drivers</a></h2> Vulkan is pretty essential since it is used to translate DirectX stuff to Vulkan, which makes the DirectX games run on Linux. For Vulkan, following command should be enough: sudo apt install libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-tools </code></pre> This will install Vulkan library, drivers for Mesa (Nvidia has it's own afaik) and Vulkan tools. After installation, you can try it out and see if it works by opening terminal and typing vkcube</code>. If you get a spinning cube inside a window, congrats, Vulkan is working for you! This is all I had to do to get Vulkan working on my AMD setup. If you have issues, ask around. Steam</a></h2> For steam, I recommed installing it through the "tried and true" .deb file. Flatpacks are cool, but they can sometimes have permission issues when they trie to "talk" to other files in the system. Snaps have same thing. I am not expert on these things, but with .deb it will very likely work. At least for me it did. :) To get steam, just open terminal and type sudo apt update sudo apt install steam </code></pre> It's that simple! After logging into Steam, do the following: Open Steam settings</li> Select Steam Play</li> Check "Enable Steam Play for supported titles"</li> Also check "Enable Steam Play for all other titles"</li> Keep "Run other titles with:" as "Proton Experimental"</li> </ol> I'll also guide how to get Proton-GE installed, which is community supported version of Proton. This means it gets updated more frequently, and sometimes has better support for some games. Proton Experimental is pretty solid, but sometimes you need to switch the version of Proton the game uses. To do that, do the following: Right click the game in the Steam game library list</li> Select "Properties..."</li> Select "Compatibility"</li> Check "Force the use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool"</li> From the list, select other Proton version.</li> Try playing around with different versions to see if it helps.</li> </ol> To save some time, check out ProtonDB</a> where you can search for a specific game, and see how others have gotten the game running (if they have). It's an excellent site you should keep an eye on! Lutris</a></h2> Lutris is a community powered tool that can help running and installing games from GOG.com etc. Since it's community powered, it may be outdated when it comes to some games installation scripts. However, it works as a great launcher for non-Steam titles, since you can use Wine-GE (same as Proton-GE but without the Steam parts) with it! To install lutris, do the following commands in terminal sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lutris-team/lutris sudo apt update sudo apt install lutris </code></pre> First command adds the Lutris repository to your system, second updates all the sources, and third installs Lutris. Inside Lutris you can log in to GOG.com, install Origin, search for games to install etc. etc. There's so much stuff in Lutris I am not going to cover all of it in this guide. Proton-GE and Wine-GE</a></h2> Proton and Wine GE versions (GE = GloriousEggroll) are definitely something you want to use, especially with newer titles or more obscure ones. They're versions of Proton and Wine that are updated more frequently by the community, to keep games working. For example I had problem with EVE Online launcher not working, Proton-GE got update to it within hours from the trouble first appearing. :D Many people in ProtonDB use Proton-GE, so having same version than others there will help a lot! For keeping Proton and Wine GE up to date, check out ProtonUp-Qt</a> It's the easiest, simplest way to update newer GE versions. Disable compositing when gaming</a></h2> Compositor is the thing that makes your desktop look snazzy with all the transparency stuff, shadows etc. When gaming, you want to disable that. It eats some of your perf, and sometimes it can be quite noticeable. For me some games get +20 fps boost from disabling compositing, which is pretty wild. The default hotkey to disable compositing is Alt+Shift+F12</code> You can also set, at least on Kubuntu, the window automatically disable compositing. Press ALT+F3 when having some window open you want to disable compositing for</li> Go to "More Actions" -> "Configure Special Window/Application settings" (it doesn't really matter which, I usually select application)</li> Click "Add Property"</li> Search for "Block Compositing"</li> Set it to "Force" and "Yes"</li> Click "Apply" and "OK"</li> </ol> Now whenever this window/app is open, it will tell compositor to shutdown. Enjoy your FPS boost! :D Optional enhancements</a></h2> I will update this list whenever I find out something! DXVK</a></h3> DXVK is a tool that translates DirectX 11 stuff to Vulkan, so your Linux PC can run it. Usually Proton does this part for you, but if you need to run stuff without Proton, you may want to install it yourself. It is pretty simple to install, you should follow the Readme on it's github site: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk</a> You can omit the export WINEPREFIX</code> part completely to make it install itself to your default Wine prefix, which is usually ~/.wine</code>. However I had to install it to ~/.wine64</code> as well. Remove Snap</a></h3> Alright, without getting into the whole "snaps vs flatpacks" debacle, I am just gonna say that for me, Snaps added additional boot time. Also things may change for snap in future, so I dont know how future proof this part is. First, remove everything you have installed with snap. List all packages: snap list </code></pre> Remove the packages with sudo snap remove --purge package_name_here </code></pre> Delete snap cache sudo rm -rf /var/cache/snapd/ </code></pre> Delete snapd sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd </code></pre> Clear snap folder from your home rm -rf ~/snap </code></pre> Now this is pretty important part, and keeps snap being reinstalled to your system: sudo apt-mark hold snapd </code></pre> Now you should be snap free and your boot time should not be as slow! Maybe. For me it helped though! +++ NOTE: If you break your system, you're on your own. I am not responsible for your systems health. I hope this guide helped to figure out what you may have to do to get the optimal gaming setup on your Linux system! Also if I forgot something or you have ideas, enhancements, guides of your own, feel free to drop a comment! I am tired of social media Akseli — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Yeah, not uncommon these days. I am so tired of using Twitter and being flooded with random, uninteresting crap. The algorithm still does it's thing even when you have "latest tweets" enabled. On top of that, the muted words thing works like ass. It sometimes filters out words, sometimes doesn't. And the ads don't seem to respect those filters, of course. So I gave up with Twitter. I still have mine up, but I'm on Mastodon</a> now and I use it as my main thing. There are actually interesting topics discussed there and no algos telling me to buy newest spyware software or w/e. Mastodon just doesn't try to keep you constantly "enganged" (addicted) on their platform. It doesn't try to keep you "doomscrolling" so you see more ads. It doesn't have ads. It just is a place where people can toot their thoughts, announce things, that's about it. And I'm super happy with that. And I can also use it from my terminal!!! It's kinda fun to just type toot post</code> in my terminal and share my brainfarts. I tried some Twitter related terminal apps but none of them really worked. I also use Moa Bridge</a> so I can just send my toots/tweets in both platforms with specific hashtag. I just use #xp as my hashtag for that. Another place I've stopped using as much is Youtube. Youtube used to be a video site with some comments and such. Now it's more a social media place, also trying to get you addicted to their content to watch more ads and make more bank. I stopped using Youtube from browser, but instead use Freetube</a>. No ads, no BS, just list of videos and it plays them through Invidious instances so there's (probably) not any tracking either. Also it has sponsor skip integrated to it, which is nice. On mobile I use NewPipe</a> which is basically the same, but on mobile. On IM side, I've started using Matrix.org</a> with my fiancee. It has end-to-end encryption, which helps with my trust issues, but I'm more into the freedom of choosing your client. I can use Matrix from my Weechat</a> that has my IRC channels too, or I can use nheko</a> which is more feature rich. On my phone I use Fluffychat</a>. I have also added many Discord-Matrix</a> bridges to my servers, so I can see what my Discord friends are doing even in Matrix. That however doesn't support E2E-encryption. Is this all a big hassle to set up? Not really, in my opinion at least, but it may require some tinkering. But it gives me freedom of choice and I value that more than just simply starting something. Besides, I like tinkering! Anyways, these alternatives let me choose when I want to use these services, instead of the services telling me "HEY LOOK NEW NOTIFICATION PLEASE CLICK ME NOW AND WATCH FEW ADS AT THE SAME TIME GOD PLEASE." Sure, you could go "just ignore it" and I did, but there's still the tracking issues n all that shit. And ignoring the problem doesn't solve the problem, just moves it to later date. I am more comfortable these open source solutions and that I can choose things. In short I'll be taking (hopefully indefinite) break from Twitter, but will crosspost important game/other announcements there. I don't like it anymore. Too noisy. See you in Mastodon! ps. My open source FPS</a> project has been really fun to do and it's going forward slowly but surely. My secret game project also is on route, but I let artists finish their work before I really sit down and work on it. But it's all there and will happen, some day. :) Some cosplay photos Akseli — Sun, 05 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Disclaimer: I may be cringe but I am free So I have this lizard partial suit I ordered from here: https://www.lisanotuspaja.com/en/</a> And I love wearing it! I just rarely have time/energy lol. The character is my own OC Huntra! Anyways, here's some photos we took today for Tracoff event. </a> "Where am I?" </a> "Might as well chill here." </a> "Peekaboo!" </a> </a> ,,/ </a> </a> </a> Thank you https://twitter.com/tecsiederp/</a> for taking and editing the photos! Image: Quake Logo ANSII Akseli — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Quake Logo ANSII </a> Played around with REXPaint</a>. It works fine under Wine. Felt like making Quake logo because of Quakecon and Quake being 25 years old! Quake Champions on Linux Akseli — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I just wanted to write down what I had to do to make Quake Champions more playable on my Kubuntu setup. It had lots of stuttering problems for me, so here's what I did to fix it. Move the game to SSD</a></h3> I had QC on my NVME/M.2 drive at first, but I searched the interwebs a bit and found that if NVME drives heat up too much, the games may start stuttering. Considering my NVME drive is right near my GPU, it probably heats a lot during gaming, so I moved the game to my SSD, which is better cooled. Disable Nvidia low latency whatever thing</a></h3> In QC settings, there's somekind of Nvidia low latency "Reflex" settings. Just disable it. It didn't add any boost to my game, just made it have lots of micro stuttering. Use Proton-GE</a></h3> I still had some issues with stuttering, especially when things were loading in. It seems that default Steam Proton doesn't load assets asynchronously and causes the main thread to halt. This is really bad when you're trying to frag someone, and someone on other side of the map jumps, letting out a new sound your game hasn't loaded yet... And the game halts. To fix this, I downloaded Proton-6.15-GE-2</a> and installed it, following the installation directions</a>, then enabled it for the Quake Champions. Then, the actual fix: You have to add following line to the game launch options: DXVK_ASYNC=1 gamemoderun %command% </code></pre> Thanks d3rh4ns and Ph42oN</a>! This will make sure the assets are loaded asynchronously and not halting the thread whenever new things are loaded in. That should be it, for me the game now works pretty much like it did on Windows: Mostly smooth but some hitches here and there, but those are because of the game engine isn't really the best, I guess. Hope this helps someone who has same issue! Restrict mouse to first screen on Linux Akseli — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 If there is alternative, better ways, do tell! Edit: I figured out that this problem may arise mostly when alt+tabbing out of the game. Sometimes, the alt key gets "stuck" and you have to either press it again, or alt+tab to the game again. I managed to fix this issue by changing the alt+tab hotkey to meta+tab! Games usually ignore the meta key completely. I had some problems with mouse cursor escaping fast paced games such as Quake Champions and Splitgate when playing them and doing flick shots, so I searched for some solutions. I am using Kubuntu so it has KWin window manager. I could really not find much except a script someone used for their drawing tablet and to restrict the input in that. That script works well for gaming as well, so I decided to save it as a gist: Github Gist: Restrict mouse to screen</a> NOTE: I didn't make this script or modify it in any way! If there are any improvements that could be done to it, feel free to comment on the Gist! It doesn't affect your mouse any other ways than keeping it inside the coordinates what you give to it. How to:</a></h2> First, just download the script and put it in some folder. Then, download xdotool, the script needs that to work: sudo apt install xdotool </code></pre> Inside the folder the script is, run this inside terminal: bash ./restrictmouse.sh 1 1 1919 1079 </code></pre> This restricts the mouse inside your first 1080p monitor: First from left to right. Also, it's a good idea to set the coordinates 1 pixel less (or more if on the left side) so your mouse wont even accidentally go to other screens. It's good idea to run the script from terminal so it's easier to close as well. You can close it from task manager (subprocess of bash) or htop if you run it without terminal, of course. Optional: I also made a desktop file for it and added it to my KDE app launcher, so I can just click it and it'll run the script inside a terminal to restrict the mouse. This way I don't forget using it easier. My dumb opinion</a></h2> This is just unnecessary opinions about this, but I wish I wouldn't have to do this. Unfortunately some games have trouble on Linux keeping the mouse inside the game, especially if it's fast paced enough that you move the mouse faster than the game can "keep" it inside the window. It's a really weird.. Bug? Feature? Anyways, hope this helps you. Sennheiser GSP 670 wireless on Linux (Ubuntu based) Akseli — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Update! This patch has been added to the kernel, so if you have kernel 5.14.15-200 you should be good to go! It seems to also work on 5.13.0-28 on Kubuntu! Here's link to the patch https://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2021-October/191190.html</a> However, you may need to still set up the Pulseaudio profile, so check that out if it's not working for you even on the right kernel. I got myself a new wireless headset and while it works fine on Windows, it had some problems running on my Kubuntu: It would only work over a wire. However, you can get it to work with a Kernel module fix. I got help for this in this nice Github thread: https://github.com/szszoke/sennheiser-gsp670-pulseaudio-profile/issues/13</a> Many thanks to this blog post: https://includeguitar.home.blog/2019/06/18/boss-katana-linux-%e2%9d%a4%ef%b8%8f/</a>! Most of the steps are same and I will be shamelessly copy pasting some of the commands, but I want to show the steps specific for this headset. Again, huge thanks to everyone involved in that Github issue thread!!! All the thanks go to them! Also these steps are typed for Kubuntu in mind, so they should work on any Ubuntu based distro. Before you start</a></h2> Before you begin, just few things you should keep in mind: First, modifying kernel, if it goes badly, can make things unusable and your computer may not even boot up. Be careful around these parts. This is necessary scary part to point out.</li> Second, when your kernel gets updates, you have to do these steps all over again, unless someone pushes the fix up to the kernel developers. When that happens, this fix is not necessary.</li> Last but not least: Take backups!</li> </ul> Download kernel and install dependencies</a></h2> First, unplug your headset dongle and headset itself, just make sure its not connected to the PC. Then install build dependencies in your terminal: sudo apt install build-essential -y sudo apt build-dep linux -y </code></pre> Then make a directory where to download the kernel: mkdir ~/gspquirk cd ~/gspquirk apt source linux </code></pre> I named mine with "gspquirk" because that's what we're going to be doing: Add a "quirk" for the GSP headset. If you can't download the kernel sources or install dependencies because of E: You must put some 'source' URIs in your sources.list</code>, do the following: Go to terminal and type sudo software-properties-* </code></pre> This should open your software property window. In there, enable "Source code" box and close. Modifying the quirks-table.h</a></h2> Navigate to the kernel source folder you downloaded and get your configuration and Module.symvers from your current kernel fith following commands. cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/.config . -v cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/Module.symvers . -v </code></pre> Update the Makefile</code> according to your current kernel: Check your uname -r</code> output. For me it is 5.11.0-25-generic</code> Open the Makefile</code> and make sure the following parts match, on top of the makefile: VERSION = 5 PATCHLEVEL = 11 SUBLEVEL = 22 EXTRAVERSION = -25-generic </code></pre> For me, the extra version part was missing, so I added it there myself. Save your changes and run this command inside the same folder: make modules_prepare </code></pre> Add pulseaudio profile settings</a></h2> Find out your headset id values by running lsusb </code></pre> For me, since my headset is on newer firmware, it is: Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1395:0300 Sennheiser Communications EPOS GSA 70</code>. It could also be different, and the ID part could also be 1395:0089</code> if you're on older firmware. Write that ID number down somewhere. Next, you want to make a new rules file for your headset, on your current machine, not the linux kernel you downloaded! Check the rules folder if you already have pulseaudio-sennheiser-gsp670.rules</code> file: ls /etc/udev/rules.d/</code>. If not, make a file called 91-pulseaudio-sennheiser-gsp670.rules</code> (this is what it's for me, the 91 could also be 90 or some other number) in there and add following text inside it: # GSA-70 dongle with updated firmware ATTRS{idVendor}=="1395", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0300", ENV{PULSE_PROFILE_SET}="usb-gaming-headset.conf" # GSA-70 dongle with older firmware ATTRS{idVendor}=="1395", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0089", ENV{PULSE_PROFILE_SET}="usb-gaming-headset.conf" # GSP-670 headset ATTRS{idVendor}=="1395", ATTRS{idProduct}=="008a", ENV{PULSE_PROFILE_SET}="usb-gaming-headset.conf" </code></pre> Also if you already have the file inside it, make sure your rules file looks similar. Notice the IDs? One of them is the same you found with lsusb</code> Save and then restart pulseaudio: pulseaudio -k pulseaudio -D </code></pre> Now you should have a new rule for your headset that you can assign inside pulseaudio settings. We'll get back to that later. Adding the quirk</a></h2> Back inside the linux source folder you downloaded, open following file: sound/usb/quirks-table.h</code> Inside the file, find the last quirk. They usually have comments on them, for me the last one was { /* * Pioneer DJ DJM-450 * PCM is 8 channels out @ 48 fixed (endpoint 0x01) * and 8 channels in @ 48 fixed (endpoint 0x82). */ (snip) }, </code></pre> As you can see, they always end with a comma. Add the following quirk behind the last quirk. Notice that if you have older headset firmware, you have to change the 0x0300</code> next to USB_DEVICE(0x1395, ID_HERE)</code> to 0x0089</code> or whatever lsusb</code> shows to you! { /* * Sennheiser GSP670: Load interfaces in a different order */ USB_DEVICE(0x1395, 0x0300), .driver_info = (unsigned long) &(const struct snd_usb_audio_quirk) { .ifnum = QUIRK_ANY_INTERFACE, .type = QUIRK_COMPOSITE, .data = &(const struct snd_usb_audio_quirk[]) { // Communication { .ifnum = 3, .type = QUIRK_AUDIO_STANDARD_INTERFACE }, // Recording { .ifnum = 4, .type = QUIRK_AUDIO_STANDARD_INTERFACE }, // Main { .ifnum = 1, .type = QUIRK_AUDIO_STANDARD_INTERFACE }, { .ifnum = -1 } } } }, </code></pre> (Thanks bundabrg</a>!) Also make sure the quirk is above these lines! #undef USB_DEVICE_VENDOR_SPEC #undef USB_AUDIO_DEVICE </code></pre> And, make sure that you didn't accidentally add the quirk inside another quirk. Then, save the file, and it's time to build! Build the USB audio module: make M=sound/usb </code></pre> Install the module</a></h2> First, back up your old module: sudo cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko.old -v </code></pre> Then make sure you have ALL USB AUDIO DEVICES UNPLUGGED, so you can remove the module that is in use: sudo rmmod snd-usb-audio </code></pre> Overwrite the current module with the one you just made sudo cp ./sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound/usb/snd-usb-audio.ko -v </code></pre> Refresh the modules: sudo depmod -a </code></pre> And then, load the module! sudo modprobe snd-usb-audio </code></pre> You can now plug in all your headsets and sound devices. Have fingers crossed that they work. If not, remember the backup you made? You'll have to unload the modules, rename the backup as the current file, then refresh and load the modules again. Make sure you use correct audio rule</a></h2> Open audio/pulseaudio settings and find where you can configure the rules. You may have to search for this one, since I only know how to do it for Kubuntu: On Kubuntu, in Audio settings there is a Configure button. Click that and you should see "EPOS GSA 70" Under that, there is dropdown selection for "Profile" From there, select Chat Output + Game Output + Chat Input</code> Test the headset from the dropdown that is below, and you can test your mic in any app that supports it really. That should be it</a></h2> For me, these steps worked and made my headset work. It's a lot of stuff to do just to get a headset to work, but I hope in future these are already applied to kernel so we don't have to dabble with these kind of settings again. :) If your headset doesnt work after these steps, try rebooting your PC once so kernel will load everything proper. And again, remember the backup you made, so you can load the old usb sound module in case the new one didn't work. Image: Lizard Vector Akseli — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Lizard Vector </a> </a> Made this lil wallpaper thing by tracing over the wireframe of a 3D model my friend Rotlich</a> made for me! Loputon has been canceled Akseli — Sun, 01 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Bit of sad news: I had to cancel my ARPG project "Loputon." Loputon was going to be retro aesthetic 3D first person dungeon crawling game, with 6 player races, random generated dungeons, leveling and inventory system. But, in the end, I realised.. It's just too much for me alone. So I am sorry for those who waited for the project. But I felt like I was doing the project a disservice, if I was going to "force it through." I wouldn't have enjoyed making the game, thus the game wouldn't have turned out good. I had been working on this project for 2-4 years. Yeah. I want to make games/things I love to make.</a></h3> The codebase was a mess. The whole game project was actually called "2d_Adventure." It was supposed to be simple, top-down RPG. That then morphed into first person dungeon crawler with grid based movement, with 2D sprites as enemies. That, then again, turned into actual 3D RPG, something like Morrowind. Which I then was going to turn into simple 3D first person dungeon crawling, but without the grid movement and 3D enemies. I actually got to the last part. But I was so exhausted of the whole thing. I didn't want to look at the project, but was constantly telling myself that if I force it through, it will be worth it. Nah. I don't want to force myself doing things that I really don't have to. Nobody is paying me to work on Loputon and expecting results. My fans (still weirds me out I have fans lol) would understand, and they did. I was afraid I would get shitted on by multiple people for cancelling this project. But people were very supportive and acknowledged that sometimes, you just gotta let go. "Kill your darlings" as they say. If I had forced myself through, it would just have sucked. Bugs everywhere, codebase that was awful to maintain and add new features to, A LOT of graphical work (which I don't have money for!!), only one launch and if you fuck it up, that's pretty much that... I cant' make this alone, I need a team. And when I got that team, I will be making the spiritual successor to Morrowind I've always dreamt of. It just may take some years. However, it was not an useless project: I learned a lot of new things! Itemization, inventory management, saving/loading... And learning more about my own limits, which has been the most important thing I've learned in gamedev so far. To sum it all up: The project drained me dry, thinking about it made me dislike the thought of working on it, I wasn't interested in gamedev in general at all... It just felt all kinds of wrong and on top of it, I can't just make some games alone, and that's alright. I will move back to making smaller games and more fun projects. Look out for Artificial Rage</a>, my open source FPS. There is also other ideas brewing, as always... And I think people might like my next one. ;) This is labour of love, after all. Not labour of force. Not for me, anyway. Thank you for understanding. <3 Back to Linux! Akseli — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I wanted to give another Linux distro a try, so I installed Kubuntu instead. And I'm glad I did! I feel like Kubuntu</a> suits my needs way better than Linux Mint: I wanted a simple, light desktop with customization but it stays out of my way when gaming. And that's what KDE is doing. As much as I like XFCE, it's just.. Old. And not much of cool stuff is being made for it anymore. KDE is also easier to customize and let's you do way more things than XFCE, in my opinion. I'm probably wrong but hey. When it comes to gaming, I found a way to update my Mesa drivers</a>, so they my PC runs games better now than on Linux Mint. On top of that, I realised one big problem why my Linux Mint was having problem with games: It didn't disable composition when playing. Composition is what gives eyecandy to your desktop: animations, transperancy, all that. It also seems to eat your perf when playing games, I suspect it's because it keeps updating your desktop in middle of game's draw calls, so it gets wonky. Disabling it helps immensely when playing. I suspect Windows does something like this automatically. Linux would also do it automatically, but KDE has trouble detecting fullscreen apps when they're ran through Proton, so I have to set every game disable it manually. I hope there will be a fix soon, however thanks to KWin (i assume?) letting me add window behaviors, I can disable composition to every game I want that way. It's amazing to play all the games I used to play with Windows, but on top of that, having an OS which is just plain fun to use and tinker with is big plus. It feels "free" and less "corporate" than Windows, and I love it. And of course, programming is way much easier on Linux, since I can just install all the dependencies easy and quick through the terminal. Will definitely try gamedeving this weekend if I got time and right mindset lol, maybe even with Unity. PS. As you may have noticed, I've added tiny banners to my sidebar! Check the links! There's stuff to be found. New theme! Akseli — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Hi! I made a new theme (or layout) for the blog! I used Minima as the base, then just edited the default layout and css files. Seems to work fine! If you spot any problems with it, feel free to comment about it. Here's the commit and merge if you want to see what I changed: Clicky!</a> Bitksel blog archived Akseli — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Hi, just a quick update! I imported some of my favorite posts from my old Wordpress blog Bitksel</a>, since I wanted to archive them here. The images wont show up correctly, however you can highlight the image link and open it in new tab to see it. Wordpress doesn't like directly linking some of the images it seems. I will also keep up the Bitksel blog on Wordpress as long as possible, so you can read the originals from there. But just in case Wordpress decides to remove it all, at least the texts are safe here. Cheers! Hope you enjoy my old posts. I recommend the "Ah, Morrowind" -post, it was written with love. I gave Linux gaming a go Akseli — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I upgraded my PC with Ryzen 5 3600, which also meant I needed a new motherboard. I bought myself a small update package with CPU, RAM and the mobo, plus an M.2 drive. So far I've been enjoying my beefier PC! My old CPU was i7-4770k, which is an excellent CPU that still holds up, but I felt like it was time to upgrade anyway. My GPU has stayed the same, RX 480 8Gb. I then decided to try Linux Mint as my main OS for few days since I had to reinstall everything anyway. I really enjoyed the freedom of tinkering it gives to the user and I spent couple days just making the OS look more "mine." Then, I began trying games out. I had some problems with games installing through Lutris since my other drive was in NTFS and not ext4 filesystem, so if I had realised that, I could have saved some time and frustration and spent time actually playing games. (Lutris warned me but I wasn't sure it would affect me. Now I know better. :P ) Anyway, after playing few matches of Quake Champions, I was surprised how well it ran on my Linux desktop. I also tried Mordhau and ESO, which all ran well and good! Except for one thing: The performance was comparable to my old i7-4770k, maybe slightly worse. There were some hitches with FPS, especially with frametimes (time it takes from frame 1 to go to frame 2). My FPS could be over 100 but it wouldn't mean anything if the frametimes made the game feel bit stuttery and laggy. Proton is excellent though, and I believe it will just get even better over time. For some games I just had to press play on Steam and it worked staright away! It was really nice to see majority of my games being playable despite the performance issues. But here's the another thing: The tinkering required to get some games to work the way I want them to. Now I love tinkering with things, but this issue was a bit more mental health oriented. I got exhausted quick. I do tinkering with devices and testing them, breaking them and all that at work. So setting games up and running on Linux reminded me of work and I wasn't really relaxing while playing the games: Instead, I was worrying how I could get it run better etc etc. My brains just couldn't rest at all. Even when playing I just couldn't stop focusing on fixing and improving things. I had to call it quits and move back to Windows. Also, the performance difference between QC on Windows and on Linux through Proton is not that big: Similar FPS but Windows doesn't have frametime hitching nearly as much. It felt like I didn't get the performance boost I expected on Linux from these new components, but on Windows I clearly notice it. If I had even beefier PC, I feel like I could make Linux gaming work for me. But to make it work for me, I'll have to work a lot.. And I'd just rather go rocketjumping instead of tinkering for hours to get better frametimes. Outside gaming, I enjoyed using Linux Mint a lot. Everything was snappy and quick, it was very easy to install stuff with apt commands.. And the customization! If Windows had the same level customization available as Linux does, I would be one happy guy. I love Linux, but I won't be switching yet! Linux gaming has taken serious steps forward thanks to Proton and Lutris, and if you're not a FPS snob like me, you can have excellent time with it. Especially if you only play just a few games. But for me, it wasn't enough. Not yet. Anyways thanks for reading my slightly sleep-deprived post. Feel free to comment your experiences about Linux! Raylib 3D level collision Akseli — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I just wanted to quickly recap how I got collisions working in Raylib with firstperson camera and the level itself. It took me some time to realise how to get it work but with the help of Raylib</a> discord, I managed to do it! Just a note: Since this collision method uses bounding boxes, this will only work if your level consists of multiple meshes: Every mesh should ideally be one building block. For example, if you want to make a tunnel, you should make it from four meshes, instead of one with a hole inside it. First I made a level generator that makes a level out of series of cubes. Sure, it's not the most performance efficient since it draws textures even when player can't see them, but it'll do for now. The level building blocks, models, are inside an array of structs that contain block model and position. You can then draw them easily to their correct positions. To get collisions work with these blocks, you'll have to create a function that takes players position and size to account, then compares it to each walls bounding box, which is created from position and size. Here's the function I use: bool CheckLevelCollision(Vector3 entityPos, Vector3 entitySize) { LevelData* levelData = GetLevelData(); BoundingBox entityBox = (BoundingBox){(Vector3){ entityPos.x - entitySize.x/2, entityPos.y - entitySize.y/2, entityPos.z - entitySize.z/2 }, (Vector3){ entityPos.x + entitySize.x/2, entityPos.y + entitySize.y/2, entityPos.z + entitySize.z/2 }}; for (int i=0; i < levelBlockAmount; i++) { Vector3 wallPos = levelData[i].levelBlockPosition; Vector3 wallSize = {1.0f,1.0f,1.0f}; BoundingBox levelBox = (BoundingBox){(Vector3){ wallPos.x - wallSize.x/2, wallPos.y - wallSize.y/2, wallPos.z - wallSize.z/2 }, (Vector3){ wallPos.x + wallSize.x/2, wallPos.y + wallSize.y/2, wallPos.z + wallSize.z/2 }}; DrawBoundingBox(levelBox,GREEN); if (CheckCollisionBoxes(entityBox,levelBox)) { return true; } } return false; } </code></pre> It's probably not the most efficient, but it works! I basically followed the example here: https://www.raylib.com/examples/web/models/loader.html?name=models_box_collisions</a> About raycasts</a></h2> When comparing mesh and raycast, make sure you use proper Transform matrix! This was something I struggled for long time, but luckily I got Raylib discord to help me. Here's how I got my player weapon raycasting collide with the level: float TestLevelHit(Ray rayCast) { float distance = INFINITY; LevelData* levelData = GetLevelData(); //Make sure the level size is all the cubes for (int i=0; i < GetLevelBlockAmount(); i++) { Vector3 pos = levelData[i].levelBlockPosition; RayHitInfo hitLevel = GetCollisionRayMesh(rayCast,levelData[i].levelBlockModel.meshes[0],MatrixTranslate(pos.x,pos.y,pos.z)); if (hitLevel.hit) { if (hitLevel.distance < distance) { distance = hitLevel.distance; id = levelData[i].modelId; } } } return distance; } </code></pre> You can find the full code of my Raylib FPS here: https://github.com/Akselmo/Artificial-Rage</a> I hope these code snippets will be useful to someone who is battling with same problems! How and why I got into gamedev Akseli — Sun, 30 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 I’ve tried many, many creative outlets and other hobbies. I’ve tried writing, drawing, painting, playing guitar, playing piano and some more. I’ve tried many hobbies among gaming, such as football (not handegg) and airsoft (which I actually really liked). But every time, I’ve quit those things. I’ve maybe tried to pick them up later, but end up quitting. I just never got that something out of them. So I only had gaming as my hobby. Before I explain how I got into actual gamedev, I’ve actually been making “games” for long time. In fact, I made my first “game” when I was around 5-6 years old. This “game” didn’t include programming or anything like that. And no, it wasn’t a board-game nor a card-game, although I made couple of those too. It was, what I like to call, a PowerPoint-game. A what?! Yeah, hear me out. Let’s go back to sometime during 1999-2002, I was about 6 – 11 years old. We used to visit my grandparents often, since they had a PC with internet access: 56kbps modem that let out the screech of the damned when it connected. We didn’t have a PC during that time. Our parents used it to pay bills, and my grandparents got the PC for work e-mail. And I got to use it too, mostly for DOS games, such as Mad Dog 2, NASCAR, Tomb Raider, Descent, Jazz Jackrabbit… Can’t forget the Windows classics either, like Chip’s Challenge, Rodent’s Revenge and SkiFree. Many goodies. Most of them were shareware though, but I had so much fun playing them. But I always found the MS Office software interesting too, possibly because the words “document” (“Asiakirja” in Finnish, translates directly to “case-book” or something like that) etc. sounded cool to me. So I made often all kinds of stupid documents and PowerPoint -presentations, Excel sheets, even MS Access things. I figured out eventually that in PowerPoint you could assign certain elements do certain things. You could insert buttons that change slides or even animate images. You can see where this is going. My first “game” was basically a PowerPoint presentation, where the player could move an image of a car around by pressing buttons that were arranged as direction keys. I thought it was super cool and enjoyed playing with it a lot. Sometimes even more than playing games. But I didn’t really realise what I was doing, I only realised this many years after that hey, I actually did some sort of game. “But that’s not a game!” Yeah, I agree with you, that’s why I quoted it. But it was close to one. It was interactive thing, where you could move an object by pressing direction buttons. I just want to mention that I also made my first webpage during that age. I had a crappy old Win 95 PC that took literally 10 minutes to boot up. I installed some free games on it from random discs we got with computer magazines, but I spent a lot of time just making things with MS Frontpage. This is the only thing I’ve saved from that time. I had it on some old floppy disk and saved those files on my external hard drive, where they are to this day. Anyway, of course none of those forms work. But, the “Tyhjennys” (clear) button does! And the “Aloita etsintä” (search) button tries to search something. I also had a more elaborate site, that had sidebar where user could login and such, and it had multiple pages. Most of them were nonsense about things I liked. Wish I still had that site, I remember talking about it at school and my classmates mostly laughed at me. I don’t think my parents really understood what was so cool about just a page full of text and forms either, heh. Anyway, I found this kind of thing super fun. Especially the PowerPoint “games.” Now let’s go to around year 2005 – 2007. I make my first Morrowind mod during those times, that was a mod for a gaming forum I used to frequent on. I asked the people there what kind of characters they have and recreated them all around a campsite, and gave them their own dialogue. Seeing characters talk in Finnish in Morrowind was kinda funny. I loved making that mod, too bad I don’t have it anymore.. I also made somekind of house mod later, adding a new house for my character. 2008, I made my first game. I used an engine called FPSCreator, that let anyone make first-person shooter games very easily. My first game was called “Ammu tai Kuole” (Shoot or Die), where you spawn in a room full of guns, then go through a door to an open field and you have to keep killing respawning enemies as long as you can. You can’t go back into the room where you spawned in. By the way, if you run this game on modern computer, it runs so fast you die in seconds. The FPS is directly tied to game speed. It's great, rofl. The game was based on some inside joke my friend told me, I can’t really remember that well, but I thought the game was hilarious. Especially the menu graphics made in 5 min with Paint. It wasn’t a super seriously done game, even back then. I knew it was shite. But I was still kinda happy that I had made a game.. So I tried to make a more serious one, about you waking up in a laboratory full of zombies, and you had just a pistol. It was pretty much inspired by Half-Life. You had to crawl in ventilation ducts and hallways, shoot things etc. But I never got it fully done, I think I just made the first level. But I remember it really well, and it was the thing that sparked my interest into game development. I also made a text-adventure with C++, which was just basically bunch of if-statements and choices that end in a way or another. It wasn’t very long, but it was fun to do. When it comes to webpages, I played around with JavaScript and made those dumb “What’s your name? Oh your name is X, your name is stupid.” things and clocks. It was entertaining at least. Another thing I did was those dumbass VBS scripts that would never go away and put them on our school computers, because I was such a h4x0r. Anyway, fast forward to 2013. I got into an art-school that had also gamedev stuff. But no programming. So I had to learn that myself. Anyway, during that time, I made my first Unity-games and other prototype/demo things. This was when I actually got really into gamedev, and it became my thing. I finally had a thing. Not drawing, writing, music.. It was gamedev. It’s basically all of those, plus programming. I always enjoyed making things difficult to myself, I guess. Luckily I have Tecsie to help me with the artsy side, and friends to help me with other sides, so I can concentrate mostly on programming. That’s how I got into gamedev. So, how do I like it so far?</a></h2> It’s fucking awesome. Seriously. The excitement of making a thing moveable. Then adding physics to it. Then making a world for it. Then adding other moving things to that world. Then making the things interact with each other. It’s like making whole worlds. But it’s really, REALLY difficult! I’m not a pro at this by all means. I’m very amateurish still, even after +5 years of gamedev. It’s a constant learning process, and most of the things you have to learn yourself. The games I’ve made so far are quite bad when compared to others, but I am still proud of every single one of them I’ve done. And as long as they make someone, even one person smile, I’m happy. Sounds very cliche, but that’s how I honestly feel about it. For example, Penance</a> has been hugely popular (compared to my other titles). And I've been told that it's great. People want more of it, which I just can't even begin to understand, because I know what kind of buggy mess it actually is. I was told someone wanted to know how I come up with concept for a game. It all just simply pops up in my head, when I’m trying to sleep or concentrate on something else. “Oh, this idea sounds fun.” I think, then start writing things down (and lose my sleep). What is the core of the game, what makes it fun, what does it need and so on. At that point, the concept possibly dies because “I don’t have skills/resources for it” or “It doesn’t sound that good after all.” But sometimes, the concept lives on forward and it joins my neverending list of game ideas, that I hopefully tackle on someday. Currently I'm working on an RPG called Loputon with Unity and unnamed Scifi FPS made with C using Raylib</a>. In conclusion, gamedev is my thing. I love it and I hope to make games till the end. If you haven’t felt at home with drawing, writing, video making or other creative outlets, give gamedev a try! +++ Note: This post was originally for Tecsiederp's (my fiancees) blog</a>, however I wanted to preserve it here as well. It was originally written in 2018-10-13, and I have removed outdated information. Quick CMake setup for VSCode Akseli — Sat, 29 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 When setting up my ScifiFPS</a> C/Raylib</a> project, I was having lots of problems with Makefiles. Apparently this is not uncommon, however I'm pretty new in C and makefiles in the first place, and setting it all up with VSCode was also a bit of a hassle. I however managed to get my CMake files work nicely with VSCode. Keep in mind this has only been tested on Windows, because as much as I'd love to run Linux as my daily driver, I haven't had the chance to do the switch yet. Also this was made for Raylib project, so you probaby will have to modify your build command etc. to suit your needs. If you just want to get VSCode to build your project using CMake Tools when you press F5, skip to section 4! Here's how I got VSCode build my Raylib C project with CMake on Windows:</a></h4> First, download CMake Tools -extension</a> for your VSCode. You'll also have to install CMake</a> </li> In the root of your C project folder, add CMakeLists.txt</code> and copy the following to the file cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.0) project(scififps C) set(CMAKE_C_STANDARD 99) add_subdirectory(src) add_executable(${PROJECT_NAME} ${SOURCE_CODE}) #Currently compiles only for Windows. IF (WIN32) #ADD YOUR WINDOWS COMPILE COMMAND HERE #I used following for Raylib. target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/lib/libraylib.a opengl32 gdi32 winmm) ELSE() #Here goes other platforms. You can make your own for Linux and such. ENDIF() target_compile_definitions(${PROJECT_NAME} PUBLIC ASSETS_PATH="${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/assets/") </code></pre> And yes, I know I could have built the libraylib.a straight from source, but I didn't want to build libraylib.a every time I build the game. </li> Put this in your src</code> directory inside CMakeLists.txt</code> file file (GLOB_RECURSE SOURCE_CODE *.h *.c) set (SOURCE_CODE "${SOURCE_CODE}" PARENT_SCOPE) </code></pre> This will fetch all the *.h and *.c files and link them to source code, so you don't have to type them all. Thanks to GoldenThumbs</a> for showing me this! </li> To get VSCode build your project when you press F5, add the following to your project root inside .vscode</code> folder. launch.json</code> { "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "name": "Run target", "type": "cppdbg", "request": "launch", "preLaunchTask": "build", "program": "${command:cmake.launchTargetPath}", "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/build" } ] } </code></pre> tasks.json</code> { "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "build", "type": "shell", "command": "{cmake.debugTarget}", "options": { "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}/build" }, "group": { "kind": "build", "isDefault": true } }, ] } </code></pre> Now every time you press F5, VScode uses the Cmake extension to build and debug your project. </li> </ol> That should be it!</a></h3> Again, remember that the first CMakeLists.txt</code> file I mentioned, the one that goes to the root of your project, you may have to tailor for your own needs. The one I copied there works for me when I build Raylib projects. Also, I'm new in all of things related to C! If you have better ideas how to make CMake files, don't hesitate to contact me on my twitter</a> or if you spot me in Discord. I'd like to know and learn. However I hope this is useful someone! Happy coding, and happy less-make-file..ing. That sounded better in my head.. Welcome to my dev blog! Akseli — Sat, 29 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Man this took long time to set up. I first tried to get Jekyll set up on my own server, but I couldn't get it to work. I also tried Hugo and all kinds of other website platforms. Setting up servers really ain't for me, but oh well. Anyway, hi! I wanted to make a place where I can share my programming and gamedev related stuff. While writing this, I'm working on an RPG with Unity, and a small FPS with C using Raylib library. Hopefully you will find this blog entertaining and maybe even useful. Now I'm gonna go play something, I spent way too long setting things up. Meanwhile you're here, check out my itch.io</a>! Cheers! PS. Don't change your github page theme through github itself. It just breaks the site. Bitksel - I joined One Hour Game Jam Akseli — Sat, 16 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 This is how it went, or at least how I remember it. It was so hectic this may be out of order but anyway! One Hour Game Jam</a> is a gamejam where everyone has to make a game, you guessed it, in one hour. The theme for the jam I joined was "Your favorite game but as simple as possible." So naturally, I recreated Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind in simplest way I could think, meanwhile trying to make it in an hour. IT WAS STRESSFUL! Super stressful, but so so rewarding when you got something made. I had never done this kind of gamejam before, so I had no idea how stressful would it get. I managed to calm myself down by just thinking that it's just for good fun, so no need to stress about it. Then I got to work. First, I used Unity speedtree to make some trees. Just quickly whipped up something and moved on. Two kinds of trees were made, dead and normal trees. Dead trees were just normal trees without leaves. I then proceeded to make a terrain. I didn't try to make it look like Morrowind world map since I didn't have time to think such things, just wanted to make something that vaguely looked like Vvardenfell. Few hills here and there, and tall mountain in middle of it. For terrain I needed some textures. Instead of using default textures, I opened Pyxel and whipped up few lowres (32x32) textures. Grass, swamp, lava, stone and ash. Then I applied those to the terrain, and proceeded to paint the terrain with trees. After the terrain was done I added the default Unity FPS character to the scene. I got myself some sound effects for walking on grass, edited them in audacity and replaced the default sound effects. Under terrain I just added a plane with water material that came with Unity default assets. Didn't think much on that. I had to raise my terrain however and make it a bit different, since I wanted a tiny river go through the terrain. Since it's Morrowind, it needed tall mushrooms because those are a staple for Morrowind. I made them from Unity's own 3D objects, just a cylinder with a flat sphere on top of it. I covered some areas with those mushrooms, but learned I couldn't use the terrain editor's tree tool for that for some reason. 40 minutes was suddenly gone. I had 20 minutes left. I proceeded to look for a background music, because that's important for atmosphere, which was my main thing in this game: Make it feel at least a little bit like Morrowind. This took me ten minutes or so. Finding a good background music, which also has proper license was difficult. But I got lucky and found something from Free Music Archive</a>, thanks to their good search function. 10 minutes left. I quickly added a cube to the player object, then made it a rectangle, then gave it a shiny metallic material. Then I animated it to swing around a bit, and attached a script that would play that animation whenever player clicked mouse button. Time for testing! When I moved around and swung my sword, it would fly off a bit, because of coordinates ruining my animation. Just removed those coordinates and tried again. Now the sword worked. I was around 4 minutes overtime when everything was done. I thought that this is as good as it gets and built the project and put it on my itch.io. https://akselmo.itch.io/the-simple-books-simplewinds</a> Give it a try! My feelings after the whole thing</a></h2> It was super stressful for me, but it also helped me to think _less. _I had to come up with something, anything and not think about the small things at all. This kind of workflow gave me lots of freedom to do anything and it was really refreshing! After I got it uploaded on itch.io and the site, I was relieved and happy. I made a game in an hour. Sure I used a lot of Unity's features, but whatever, I'm pleased with myself. If I ever join this next time, I know how it'll be like and how to work with things. I may even try to make something that requires more coding. All these games are streamed by the 1HGJ people, so it was nice to see my game being played. The guy streaming mentioned that I should've added acrobatics stat and jumping around would've make my character acrobatics skill higher. Great idea, but even if I had thought of that, I wouldn't have had the time to make it. Cutting corners was essential. All in all, refreshing and pleasant experience. I recommend it to anyone who is into gamedev! It's weekly thing, every saturday and only one hour of your life, so why not? :D Bitksel - Space Craze: ASTROX Akseli — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 More space games! This time I'm writing about a very simple yet addicting spaceship game called ASTROX: Hostile Space Excavation. I really enjoyed this game and it's getting a sequel soon! ASTROX is a space simulation game where you can mine, haul, do missions and of course shoot pirates. You start the game in a dinky little ship out in the butt of space, and the only way now is up. You must gather resources to buy better ships, upgrade them and make a name for yourself. It is rather simple on paper, but that is what makes the game so addictive. If you have ever played EVE Online, this game is a bit like EVE-lite. First when you launch the game, you are allowed to modify the rules for your universe. Every play session can be as different or similar as you want and I love it when games let you tweak settings extensively. Everything from starting spaceship to universe size and pirate aggression can be tweaked. After setting up your universe settings and choosing your characters face (there's just a few premade face images), it's time to play. [gallery ids="399,404,398" type="rectangular"] There's no real story or anything, but you're being told that you're a prisoner that is working for some entity to gain freedom. However I like to think that I have a different story every time, from bounty hunter to miner and so on. It's sandbox game, so do whatever you wish! The UI is really simple and has the basic functions stated very clearly. Most of the time you are controlling your ship with autopilot, but you can use WASD to move your ship aswell, even though it feels a bit too sensitive. You can also fly from first person view, however it can get disorienting. Unfortunately in first person view you don't see your cockpit or anything like that, which is something I require from all the space sims I like to play. Usually at beginning, it's good idea just to mine away. Dock to a station, buy a better cargohold, then fill it with ore and sell it all. Repeat this until you have money for a better ship, because the scout ship you get at the beginning is not very good for really anything. Mining is simple activity, you just target an asteroid, activate your mining lasers and.. Wait. You can also purchase mining drones and better mining lasers to accelerate the process. [gallery ids="401,402,403" type="rectangular"] In stations, you can sell and buy things at the market, refine or sell your ore, buy ships, accept missions, modify your ship and you know, the basic station stuff. The UI is very simplistic and clear, so it's not hard to navigate around the menus. One thing to remember is to every so often level up your characters skills in the universities found around stations. The skills can cost a lot of money, but upgrading them will be worthwhile. I recommend getting reduce fuel usage -skills at first, since otherwise you can get a nice fast ship, but run out of fuel quickly. [caption id="attachment_400" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] You can see your characters skills and achievements in the character menu[/caption] Which brings us to the spaceship mechanics. Your ship has hull health, shield health, power and fuel. Shield protects your hull, if your hull explodes you are dead, power is used for modules and fuel is used by engines. If you run out of fuel, your engines will use power instead. In my older saves (which I lost because my computer went potato) I had a ship that ran really quick out of fuel, but could keep power at max for long time even when firing your weapons and using power as your fuel. So yes, you can do bit of trickery with different ship outfits and modifications. It's as fun as it sounds! Also some ships turn faster than others and your ships modules can affect that. [gallery ids="409,405,406" type="rectangular"] Then there's combat. The ship aims for you, all you have to do is to activate your weapons, select your enemy and get close enough. Monitor your power though, it can run out quickly, depending on your modules. There's three kinds of weapons: laser, projectile and missiles. Laser don't need ammo, but they can eat a lot of power. Projectile weapons eat barely any power, but they use ammo. And missiles are, well, missiles. Bigger ships can also use drones to fight other ships. Most fights are easy (depending on your settings of course), however if you stray into some corner of space that is full of pirates, you may get annihilated in seconds. I love that. It adds so much danger and excitement to the game. Be careful where you jump. [caption id="attachment_407" align="alignnone" width="1920"] System map[/caption] [caption id="attachment_408" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Universe map, every universe is a bit different, depending on your settings[/caption] System and universe maps are opened by just zooming out. System map is really just real time view of everything in the system, the game just slaps icons on ships and other things to make them more clearer from far away. If you zoom even further out, you get the universe map. I kinda like this kind of map system, because it shows you all you need and very quickly too, just one scroll away. I would like it to be a bit more "flashier" though, maybe have different background when you have zoomed out, like something more computer-y. All in all, everything seems pretty self explanatory, right? The game isn't difficult to learn at all, but it has it's own quirks and knickknacks you will learn during play. It's not a big game, nor best simulation ever with the most realistic physics, but it doesn't try to be that either. It just simulates the life of spaceship captain and it does it well. Sure the graphics look like from 2005, but to me that's part of the charm. The sound effects and music remind me of late 90's and early 2000's space games, and it has it's own great atmosphere. I'm sure this game would also work well on older PC's too. What really blows my mind is that all of this has been greated by just one dude, Jace Masula</a>. And now he is creating a sequel for this game. I can't wait to get to try it, since there's been so many improvements. In his Youtube channel, you can find devlogs about the newest game. Hats off to you Jace, hope to create something as cool as you have someday! ASTROX does exactly what it says on the tin, and I enjoy it a lot. It's a very relaxing space game and I like to play it when I don't feel like playing EVE. ;) I recommend this game for anyone who likes EVE and/or just wants a simple spaceship game. You can get it from Steam</a> for only 10€ and I think the pricing is spot on. Thanks for reading and fly safely! Or dangerously, if that's what you prefer.. ;) Bitksel - Space Craze: X3: Terran Conflict/Albion Prelude Akseli — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Sorry for the month of silence, I didn't have much time/energy to write anything here. But now, I wanna tell you guys about a space sim that I really like! I'm playing the Albion Prelude expansion in these screenshots, but TC and AP are really similar to each other. AP just has some quality of life fixes and a huge war going on in a few systems. X3: Terran Conflict is a very popular space sim in space sim communities. The game basically throws you into a huge universe in a dinky lil ship and then tells you to do whatever you want. This can be overwhelming at the beginning, but when you start realising how things work and what there is to do, it gets fun! [caption id="attachment_385" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Me and my Nova[/caption] There's multiple ways to start the game: different kind of scenarios or custom game. Scenarios have stories tied to them and you get different amounts of money and ships to start the game with. I prefer custom game myself, since it detaches you from the story and let's you do whatever you wish. It's more a playground for modders, but I found it enjoyable. [caption id="attachment_386" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] I haven't even discovered all the systems yet.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_392" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] You travel between systems via these stargates. If your ship has a jump module, you can use that too.[/caption] The player can choose to do whatever they wish in this huge X3 universe. There's the good old trading, piratism, combat missions, delivery missions and so on. Unfortunately there's no simple bounty hunting system, but instead you have to buy a "police license" for certain race and then you're paid for every pirate killed in those systems. If you get rich enough, you can even build your own space stations and start selling your own products. You can even manufacture or buy lots of ships and assign them all to follow you, creating your own personal army. One of my favorite things to do was capturing pirate transports: Shoot the transport ship enough and sometimes the NPC jumps out the ship, leaving it to you. Then you can leave your own ship, capture the NPC ship and make it follow you, or fly it. I usually sell these ships, making nice profit, since transport ships aren't cheap. Another good way to make profit is the stock exchange: Buy company stocks for cheap, wait, sell them for high. Good, quick money, but some say it's a bit game breaking. Spaceships! There's lots of them, I mean a lot. Every race has their own ships (there's about 8 races total), and there's multiple ship classes, from tiny civilian ships to huge titan class ships. I won't even list of them here, there's just.. So many. I'm flying a Fighter class ship Nova in my screenshots. Do note that the cockpits are not in the game by default! The cockpits are modded in, I'm using PSCO1 CockpitMod v1.33</a> and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to play this game, since it makes X3 so much more immersive. Traveling with ships in this game can be pretty slow, since there's no warp feature, but there's a SETA-button, that accelerates the game time. When you press it, the game fast forwards, so traveling becomes a bit more quicker. Just beware with autopilot while using SETA, sometimes the computer doesn't know what to do and crashes you into things, because the game is going too fast. [caption id="attachment_387" align="alignnone" width="1920"] A war is going on in this system, and I don't want to get caught in the middle of it.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_388" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] You can eject from your ship and repair it after a fight. No need to pay expensive repairing fees, just DIY![/caption] The dogfighting in this game is really fun. Some ships are more nimbler than others, some can house more powerful guns and every ship can be tuned and upgraded the way you want it to be. My Nova is upgraded to the max and has lots of blasters, so it drains energy quickly when firing, but it does lots of damage. I also have bunch of missiles ready for bigger targets. [gallery ids="391,390,389" type="slideshow"] In X3, you can add tiny camera-windows that show your target. I really like these, since they help you to determine from further away if you hit your target or not. And of course, you can see the explosions better! The game sounds good, but you can hear it's.. Oldness. The music is a bit weird too at times, but some songs have been really memorable. I tend to usually just play something from my own playlists however. Last but not least, the game is really gorgeous. Even for an old game, the textures and graphics are really good. The cockpit mod I mentioned earlier adds more immersion to the game. I wish I had more screenshots, but I keep forgetting pressing the screenshot key.. :D [caption id="attachment_393" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Menacing.[/caption] X3: Terran War Pack can be bought from GOG</a> (and it's on -80% sale at the time of writing!!), it comes with both Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude. You can buy the same pack on Steam</a>, or just get them separately. For new players, play with Terran Conflict at first, learn how to fly and all that, and then if you crave for big wars, go for Albion Prelude. There's lots of things to do, use your imagination! PS. The "Space Craze" thing in the title is probably gonna be series of sci-fi games I'm gonna write about. Dunno what's next, but there's quite a few on my list. Bitksel - STRAFE, run 'n gun gore galore Akseli — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Happy new year 2018 folks! I decided the first blog post for this year would be about STRAFE, which is an old-school styled FPS. Fast, fun and gorey, just how I like my FPS games. First of all, STRAFE had a bit rough start. People were critiquing it for it's bugginess, map design and especially for it's randomization. It says 90's on the tin, however the procedural generation stuff kind of implies about 2010's, making it a bit of mixed bag. This is an opinion some people still hold, however after the Millenium Edition update, things have smoothed out. And that's the version of the game I got. Let's go with the positives first: STRAFE really nails the fast paced run 'n gun stuff I love. I'm a fan of games like Serious Sam, Painkiller, Quake, Tribes, Unreal.. So on and so forth. So the gameplay and style of STRAFE scratches my ye olde FPS itch. Visually STRAFE looks really fun and old-school. However there's a bit too much "boxes" going on. Older games still tried to give as much shape as possible to their visual style, even though boxes were the basic shape. For example, look at the slideshow below and pause to the image that has the weapon selection. See those things guns are in? They could be a bit more round (With this, I mean slanted edges, not actual smooth roundness) and the textures could be bit more blurry (This is due to me always having texture filtering on in games when I was younger). Add more slanted edges to things, not everything has to be a box. BUT, this is just my opinion and it's probably stupid anyway. [gallery ids="346,347,349" type="slideshow"] At the beginning of the game, you choose between three weapons: Shotgun, Machinegun and Railgun. They all function differently (obviously) and I'm sure everyone can find a fitting weapon for their playstyle. I'm more the in-your-face kind of type, so I mostly pick shotgun. It's just so damn satisfying to use, but so are all guns. One interesting thing about guns is that the main gun doesn't have ammo pool, but has clips instead. So if you have 6 ammo left and reload, you will lose all those 6 ammo. Reload wisely! There are bunch of different kind of enemies in the game, with distinct looks and behaviours. There's goblin looking enemies that try to melee you, yellow hazmatsuit enemies that throw grenades at you, blue suited enemies that fire guns at you and so on. The first three levels have very similar enemies, however starting from level 4 the game adds more enemies to the mix, like big rock dudes and weird blood-ants. There's also different variations of the enemies, however the silhouette is always the same, which is important. You always recognize the enemys behaviour, but they take/give different amounts of damage. [caption id="attachment_351" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] I actually have yet to finish the 4th map, I always die on this one.[/caption] The maps are always randomised, but not completely: The maps are made out of modules that are big enough to be recognized as different parts of the map, so if you learn the module, you can use that knowledge in future even the whole map would be a bit different... If that makes sense. These modules are designed well and there's secrets to be found, so they're not boring and give you quite fun firefights. To advance through maps, you have to find keycards a la Doom and Quake. They're found around the map, usually being held by some random dead body. I've also stumbled upon an eye-reader, that requires you to find a random head around the map and carry it in your hands to the eye-reader. It gives a little twist to the constant keycard hunting. The movement in the game is really fast and there's no sprint key. You are always sprinting. If that's not enough, STRAFE has strafejumping and it's something I really like in FPS games. If you master strafejumping, you can jump around the maps really fast and finish them really quick. [gallery ids="353,352,354" type="slideshow"] Since the game is partially a roguelike, you can find weapons, scrap-to-useful-stuff-machines, gun upgraders and actual stores while playing. There are many different kind of weapons in the game, such as plasma guns, assault rifles, shotguns, railguns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers.. There's a lot and I doubt I have yet found all of them. Scrap-thingies convert scrap you collect from enemies to useful stuff, such as shield or ammo. Gun upgraders add a random boost to your gun, like more damage or different kind of alt-fire mechanism. I think they can stack too, so you can make your main weapon very versatile. The shops you can find sell you items you can buy with credits. You can find credits around the map or convert scrap to credits at the shop. The items can be very useful, so I always try to save up scrap to buy myself some nice item. [gallery ids="358,357,356,355" type="slideshow"] So yes, there's lots of things that aren't in older FPS games. Is it bad thing? Not in my opinion, but I understand why someone would feel that way, especially when expecting STRAFE is a 90's shooter. But it's not just a shooter, it's shooter and roguelike mix. Some like those, some don't, I personally like roguelikes to a degree. And here's some negativity because I'm annoying like that: Even though I enjoy the randomized maps, they make me wish for a bit more. I wish there would be a separate mode with maps that are always the same. Maybe somekind of seed system, where people can type a seed and always get similar map. When the maps are different every time, it takes longer time to learn the quirks of the game. That's not negative in itself, but as this game is marketed towards the old-school crowd, it stands out. Next, I really like the random guns you can find around the map. Sometimes more than the default gun you get. But.. When you pick up a random gun, for example a disc-launcher, it's fun for those 10 shots only. Most of the random guns have barely any ammo, so the fun ends very quickly. If I could get ammo for those guns too, it would make the game more fun in my opinion. I want to collect a huge arsenal of guns and use them in different situations. Right now what happens is that when you use up all the ammo in the gun, it turns into a melee weapon and gets destroyed in the process.. So you have to collect it again. It's just a shame, really. I'd wager the game would be much more fun if you could keep the random guns and collect ammo for them. [caption id="attachment_359" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Disc-launcher that is out of ammo turns into a melee weapon that breaks on contact.[/caption] However, despite all these faults of randomization and roguelike-ish aspects, STRAFE is great fun and I like it a lot! It's probably not the 90's game everyone expected it to be, but it tried and became it's own thing. I still recommend it to anyone who likes fast-paced shooters, just don't go in expecting new Quake. You can get STRAFE from Steam.</a> Also their website is lovely</a>. Edit: Clarified and cleaned a bit the part where I talk about old-school graphics. My English skills have failed me, sorry about that. Bitksel - Pillars of Eternity stole my heart Akseli — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 I finally finished Pillars of Eternity</a> and it's White March expansions, and yes, it got it's deserved place on my "favorite games" list! It's very hard for me to even start to explain how much I like it, but I'll try. I also keep this a bit shorter than the Tyranny overview: There's so much things in this game it's hard for me to talk about everything without writing this for next 10 hours.. It's 5 am while I'm writing this and I really got to sleep.</del> The game starts with making a character, obviously. Character creation is really nice and simple: You give your character name, race, subrace, class, statpoints, culture and background and appearance. [caption id="attachment_314" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Character Creation[/caption] When that's done, it's time to start the game with the first "cutscene." Pillars of Eternity has beautiful narrative "cutscenes" whenever a new chapter begins. They're voice acted and have beautiful imagery in them and they're a nod towards older CRPG's that handled cutscenes like this. I really like them and they build athmosphere really well. They're not really cutscenes, but I don't know what else to call them. [caption id="attachment_315" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] "Cutscene"[/caption] At first, your character starts in campsite. You have been traveling with a caravan towards greener pastures, thinking of settling down to nearby town, or just wandering the new lands. However, things never go as well as you'd hope: You have an illness that needs curing. You got this illness during the travels. Luckily, the area has a remedy and you go looking for it. When you come back to the camp.. Well, let's say that events start to transpire, and rapidly. This starting area hooked me to the game really quick and before you knew, you were deep in all kinds of stuff and you have to figure out what's going on. But in short, the game is heavily about souls and reading them, and you learn you're something they call "Watcher." There are also gods and other weird things. It's all really interesting and the writing is excellent in my opinion. Obsidian truly knows how to write, but I doubt anyone would say otherwise! [caption id="attachment_318" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] My elven wizard: Dahl. He is the character I used my first playthrough.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_319" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Enjoy my shiny armor![/caption] I'm gonna talk about the combat first. Like in Tyranny, I'm not big on combat in Pillars either. It can be really tactical and challenging, if you so wish, but I played on easiest difficulty. I just wanted to explore the story and the world. However, the combat is fun and it's fun to watch your dudes whoop ass. There are lots and lots of skills, spells and whatnot to fight with and against. You can do really cool tactical stuff, if you know how. But unlike Tyranny, Pillars doesn't have any combo skill stuff. When playing the game through with my mage character, I loved whacking people in the head with my grimoire, which is my characters spellbook. [caption id="attachment_317" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Combat can get quite chaotic. Luckily you can pause and slow down the game![/caption] Next, the dialogue system. It's really simple, you press links to talk back to people and so on. Sometimes it's voiced, sometimes it's not. There's lots of reading and dialogue, which I personally really liked. This can be off putting to some, since the writing can be a bit "dry." I loved how you could talk enemies out of fighting you, or just taunt them, or change the outcome of something big with a silver tongue. Your dialogue choices do matter and it's good to raise those skills that help you with dialogue, so you get most of it if you enjoy playing someone who can talk their way out of anything. Attributes like strength help with dialogue too: You can flex your muscles to someone and intimidate them to let you go and so on. It's a big part of the game and the devs made it really fun! [caption id="attachment_316" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Dialogue system[/caption] During your travels, you get followers you can talk with. They can give you quests if they like you enough. You can also travel completely alone if you so choose and the game even has achievements for that. I do recommend getting all the followers though. They all have their own stories and things and they're all really interesting and fun. I was never annoyed nor bored by any of them, and they were all memorable to me. They react to your actions and comment on them every so often. My favorite follower was Eder. He constantly tried to pet random animals, then complained that they bit him. His backstory was somewhat sad, which made helping him feel even better. I also really liked Aloth, who is a bit more complicated character and he gets more and more interesting the more you travel with him. Also minor spoiler: You get a stronghold in this game, so you can place your characters there. You have to build your stronghold by repairing things and hiring people to guard it and it plays a key part at one point of the game. [caption id="attachment_320" align="aligncenter" width="714"] The gang[/caption] I have to mention the "Choose your own adventure" style action scenes. [caption id="attachment_321" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Careful...[/caption] I loved these! They fit the nature of the game perfectly and were beautifully illustrated! The outcomes of these things were affected by your characters (and your followers) skills and attributes and so on. Even spells. They were actually one of my favorite part of the game. But the best part of the game, for me, is the exploration! [gallery ids="322,325,323,324,326" type="slideshow"] Pillars of Eternity is a damn beautiful game. The graphics are stunning and the enviroments are always beautiful, no matter if you're walking in sewers or the nearby forest. There's so much things to see and do in the world, and many kind of secrets and treasures to find! It's hard for me to even begin to explain how much pleasure just walking around and looking at the environment gave me. On top of that, amazing soundtrack that builds athmosphere and the really good writing which adds to everything you do in the game. I read everything in this game, except for some books. But next playthrough I'm going to read even all the books and delve deeper into the lore. I explored the game 100%. Did most sidequests, if not everything. Even the bounty quests. And that makes me a bit sad: I wish I could forgot it all just to experience it all over again. The ending of the game was really pleasing too, and according to the developers, you can use your Pillars 1 character in the Pillars 2 that is coming early next year! (Hopefully.) I can't say I rushed the game. I took my time with it and it took me ~50h to complete the game. I paid ~50€ total, basegame + expansions later and I have zero regrets. Well worth the money, especially since the game has replayability. Pillars of Eternity got on my "favorite RPG's of all time" list. It's a short list, but every game that is in there deserve it. In fact, I would say Pillars is my second favorite RPG ever, behind Morrowind. Yes, I found it that good. So, I would recommend this game to any RPG/Exploration fan, even if you haven't played CRPG's before! In fact, Pillars was the game that got me into CRPG's: Now I'm playing stuff like Divinity Original Sin 2, Icewind Dale etc. You can get the Pillars of Eternity Definitive edition from Steam </a> and GOG</a>. Definitive edition comes with basegame and the White March expansion, that added a beautiful snowy places to the game and a new story. What are you waiting for, the world of Eora isn't going to explore itself! Now excuse me, I got to sleep.. And start my second playthrough tomorrow. PS. I'm sorry about the lack of screenshots, I like to spam my game overviews with screenshots but... Since my game is from GOG, it doesn't have the screenshot key like Steam has, so I kept forgetting to take screenshots. Hopefully you still can see the beauty and intrigue of this game, and of course, Google offers more screenshots. :D Bitksel - Game Project Summary: Crypt of Darne Akseli — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 I wanted to write this quick summary of how my Crypt of Darne</a> game project went, now that I've collected data long enough. Without further ado, let's begin! </a> You enter the Crypt of Darne and you're looking for a specific gem. Will you survive?" Crypt of Darne is a free roguelike-ish dungeon delving game, where you make a character out of few race-class combinations and explore a crypt, trying to find a specific gem. You'll know it when you see it, but it is hidden deeply in the crypt. Good luck! Crypt of Darne was supposed to become a proper roguelike, however I remembered to keep the scope small and decided to just make a simple dungeon crawler style game. It has roguelike-ish elements, such as permadeath. The game is completely controlled with keyboard, but you can see the name of any tile with hovering your mouse over it. I created the game for Games Made Quick 2017 gamejam, however I continued working on it even after the jam. It took me two months total to make it to version 1.0.0. The good stuff</a></h3> Man, I learned A LOT! I learned how to work with Python and LibtcodPy, how to publish a game on itch.io, how to do pixel art, how ASCII tilesets work... So many things that.. I kind of forgot some of it. Sorry, it's been so long since I worked on it last time. I have to give an honorary mention to the tutorial I used to make this game: Roguebasin Roguelike Tutorial</a>. Making the game definitely helped me grow as gamedev! Sometimes I was having so much fun making the game I barely wanted to stop. Hours flew by as I typed out more and more code, drew tiles or just dabbled on the game's backstory. There's not many interesting things behind the scenes I could really share. It's very What You See Is What You Get -style game. The best part however was that someone donated me 3€ for this game!! And my friend also gave me 1€! Sure it's not much, barely anything, but this game was the first game that has gotten me anykind of revenue. I will always cherish it because of that and it helped me to figure out that maybe making games truly is my thing! Over the course of three months, the game gained 981 views total and 93 downloads total. I got most views through Reddit, where I shared a link to my game on a finnish subreddit. So, marketing is important and social media is truly the best way to do it. I expect the game to still get a few odd views here and there and maybe an occasional download, however I don't expect it to explode in popularity. I also want to mention that I had much fun writing a backstory and a book about the playable races. I wrote them "in character" as in I was writing them as someone from the same world where the game is located in. You get these pdf's when you download the game. And the bad stuff</a></h3> So, what was bad then? Sometimes I ended up with a bug or slump I couldn't really get over until after a break for few days. It was super frustrating and gave me headaches. I was also trying to add too many things in the game at first and was stumped by my own lack of skills. Python is simple enough but LibtcodPy isn't very easy, atleast not for me, so having to work with that definitely took some time for me. Drawing also isn't my strongest suit, so I had to fight with my programmer-art few times to get anything look right. I learned, but it was also really frustrating at times. Balancing the game, so that no character would be too overpowered, was also quite difficult, but it also was very rewarding when I got it all right. Lots of spreadsheets and math! Summary</a></h3> All in all, I'd say this project was very good learning experience to me and I mostly enjoyed making it. I'm glad I did it all and I hope that atleast one person liked it. :) As long as there's one person that likes my game, I'm happy and I feel like I've made a contribution to society, as clichey as that sounds. Feel free to give me any kinds of comments on the game, the good or bad (please be gentle), on either here or on itch.io. Also if you have some questions about working on the game, ask ahead and I'll try to answer as best as I can! Bitksel - INFRA: Urban exploration the game Akseli — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Yesterday I finished INFRA</a>, a game about urban exploration. I'll start this bluntly: INFRA got on my "favorite games of all time" -list. It's just that good. Here are my thoughts about it and I'm sorry that they're spread a bit everywhere. I'm influenced by whisky as I'm writing this, lol. _ _In INFRA, you play as a guy called Mark, who is some sort of building inspector at Stalhburg City. You know, inspecting the state of buildings, infrastructure, all that. Sounds rather.. Boring, right? Wrong! The game starts from Mark's workplace, where you are in a meeting. Your workmates talk about some stuff, and you get an assignment to inspect a dam. At this point, you get some time to freeroam around your workplace, looking for things and so on. It's a good place to get the feeling for the game and learn the controls. Eventually you arrive at the dam and you get some further directions. Then, it's up to you to find your way to the objective. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20160516235945_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20160516235945_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Near the dam. The game is really beautiful. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> _I have to apologize for the quality of my screenshots. I was so immersed in the game I forgot to take them in the most interesting sections. Some of the screenshots are from the [Loiste Interactive press kit](http://press.loisteinteractive.com/sheet.php?p=INFRA)._ The game is completely non-violent and based purely on exploration. This means that your only items you have with you are camera and a flashlight. You use your camera to take pictures of things that are wrong, like broken stairways, walls, collapsed bridges, etc. Unfortunately for you, both your flashlight and camera drain batteries like a drunk Finn drinks beer, so you have to constantly keep looking for beer- eh, I mean, batteries. Mark even comments on that at some point. You also find some temporary items to carry to get through places like keys for doors, etc. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20160516234613_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20160516234613_1.jpg) </td> </tr> BEER. You'll be seeing it a lot. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Speaking of beer, it's everywhere in this game. And I'm not even surprised, the game is made by Finnish people. Many places have saunas and other things related to Finnish culture. Even the environments are very Finnish looking. However, the game doesn't seem to be placed in Finland, but I'm not really sure about that. It really does make me feel right at home and everything, to me, makes sense. I wonder how someone who isn't Finnish perceives this games look and environment. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929225458_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929225458_1.jpg) </td> </tr> It's a Finnish game alright. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The story of the game evolves when you play, but you have to keep a keen eye on things: You may miss key things regarding the story if you don't explore every nook and cranny. Most of the most important story elements are placed on your path so it's hard to miss them, but if you want to know more, you'll have to dig deeper. I don't want to spoil the story at all, other than there's a lot of corruption going on and lot's of mystery around it. I love this kind of storytelling, you have to put the pieces together yourself. Also, the NPC's don't tell you the story, it's the environment that talks to you. Notes, voice recordings, journals.. Even graffitis on walls. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/infra_c6_m5_stormdrain0009-d77a93.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/infra_c6_m5_stormdrain0009-d77a93.png) </td> </tr> You'll have to climb up there. See what I mean by hazardous? </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Now, about the gameplay. Like I earlier mentioned, it's completely non-violent game. There aren't enemies to chase you. But, there is one enemy: The hazardous environment. Lots of collapsed things, floors breaking, tight spaces, high falls, mushrooms (yep), explosions, things running over you.. In short, many hazards. Thus the game isn't really a horror game, but the enviroments can be terrifying. I love the fact that I can take my time and explore the place without being chased by some mutation. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929190535_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929190535_1.jpg) </td> </tr> What on earth..? </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> While you're sliding down sewer pipes or riding a raft in an underground cavern, you'll have to take photos. It's actually important and affects the end of the game, or at least that's how it felt like to me. There are few different endings. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170928193925_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170928193925_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Outside.. For now. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The environments change a lot during the gameplay. At first you may be outside, then you end up in a water treatment plant. From there, you end up a cave, that leads to a metro station that leads to a bunker and.. Suddenly you're in suburban neighborhood inside a garage next to a biker bar. Even if the environment changes around a lot, it never feels unnatural. The flow between the levels is absolutely amazing and believable. Everything feels just.. Right. You may ask first "Oh how did I get in here" but then you get that "Oh.. It makes sense why I'm here." Between exploring, there's also a lot of puzzles. These puzzles can be very simple or very difficult, which depends on which kind of environment you're exploring. For example, some simple puzzles are "how to get on the other side of this pool of electrified water with couple boxes" and the more advanced are "how to fix a water treatment plant." None of these puzzles are explained straight (except at few points where an NPC helps you over radio/phone), you first have to find the puzzle, then work on it. However, none of the puzzles were overly hard, some just needed more trial and error: Hard enough to piss you off just right amount, that you keep trying. If I can get through these puzzles, you can too. If you get truly stuck, the Steam community forums for this game have been really helpful. Even the developers give hints for people on those forums. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/coldwater.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/coldwater.png) </td> </tr> There's a lot of valve's to open/close and steam to avoid. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The atmosphere in these environments is very immersive. You can almost smell the stuffy smell of the underground tunnels, feel the dangers of an unused industrial complex with a lot of rusted machinery, feel the wind breezing through broken windows.. It's hard to explain, it's something you just have to experience. The soundscape of this game is amazing as well, the ambient noises just enhance everything you see and add to the immersion. The music is really well done too, even you don't hear it much, mostly just at the beginning of a level. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/16293917044028473974_screenshots_2013-04-12_00001.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/16293917044028473974_screenshots_2013-04-12_00001.png) </td> </tr> Stunning. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/infra_c3_m3_tunnel30006.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/infra_c3_m3_tunnel30006.png) </td> </tr> For the dungeon dwellers, there's a lot of this. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Someone may wonder if this game is just a simple "walking simulator." I'd say hell no. The puzzles, the environments and all that are engaging and interactive, so you're not just walking through everything. Think about Mirror's Edge, but instead of Faith you have 40 year old slightly alcoholic Mark with snarky attitude. Oh and you get to ride things too, and even pilot a tiny boat! [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929211356_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/20170929211356_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Too bad I don't have my fishing gear with me. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Now why am I thinking it's one of the best games I've ever played? It surprised me in every way! I was expecting some simple exploration game with urban exploration theme. But no, the game was actual urban exploration experience! I was so immersed in the game, I played it in multiple 3-4h sessions, finishing it completely in around 20 hours. I just couldn't stop! On top of the exploration, the mystery story begged me to solve it. I love mysteries and secrets in video games and INFRA delivered. Last but not least, the easter eggs. None of the environments were boring, because if there was some place that looked a bit boring but you went further, you could find some funny easter egg. Some of them were very Finnish culture related though, so if you're not Finnish you may miss out on some. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170606154951_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170606154951_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Easter eggs <3 </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> But the main thing what makes me like this game so much is that **you can truly feel the love and passion the developers have for this game. **I appreciate that so much and it's something crucial some games miss these days. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170604200642_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/251110_screenshots_20170604200642_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Good ol' BSOD- Er, I mean, TOWEL error. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> If I have to mention some negative things, it's that the game crashed sometimes during loading screens and the NPC animations are a bit.. Stiff. There aren't many NPC's around in the game however so it makes sense they didn't really concentrate on them. This game is only 22€. Full price. On sale even less. However, it's worthy of every damn cent I paid for it, and even after 20h I still was left for an incentive to replay the whole game: Hunt achievements, solve the mystery completely and see the other endings. So if you have any interested in urban exploration and dislike horror, this game is made for you. Get it. You won't regret it. I applaud you Loiste Interactive. I hope to make something as good as you have done, and can't wait to see what's next. Bitksel - Tyranny, the game of choices and consequences Akseli — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Yesterday, after 13 hours of play, I finished Tyranny. I bought the game only couple a days ago and I just couldn't stop playing it, so I finished it rather quickly. Here's some of my thoughts about it. Tyranny is remarkably similar to Pillars of Eternity, since they use the same engine. The only big change is the story and setting itself, so they aren't tied to each other. I absolutely loved Pillars of Eternity, so I will be doing some comparing between the two. I will write a post about Pillars when I have finished the White March expansions. In Tyranny, you start your game creating your character. The character creation is pretty basic, there's no other playable races than human and you can only choose your past and weapons, then skill points and all that good stuff. After that, though, you will get into "conquest" mode. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/223ca-20170918202447_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/223ca-20170918202447_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Conquest </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> In conquest-mode you will be making decisions that shape the world. Your decisions in this game **will matter**, and it shows! From what I gathered when playing, there's no really right or wrong, there's just choices and consequences. But the consequences can hinder your gameplay, or make it easier. After you've done conquesting, you see a tiny cutscene, well, more like a slideshow with narration, but the artstyle and writing is really worth your attention! You will then play in a tiny tutorial area, that is also part of the story... And things begin to unravel. </a> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/45078-20170918201844_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/45078-20170918201844_1.jpg) </td> </tr> My character Tobias </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Quickly about the combat: I'm not much into the combat in these type of games. I'm the kind of wuss that plays on story mode, because I'm more interested in the story than the intricacies of the combat. Yes, me, who loves the crap out of FPS games, don't really care for combat in this sort of games. I always feel like I'm way too stupid to get it, so I just put the game on easy and watch the carnage. It's just my way to play these type of games. Anyway, the combat is fun. It's very similar to Pillars: It's realtime combat but you can pause it any time, you can have multiple weapons and switch between them during battle and you have tons of skills to choose from. There's also spellmaking sort of thing, where you can make spells for your characters, but I didn't really dabble with that so I can't talk much about it. The one thing that stood to me the most was the combo-skills between your character and their companions. If you made friends (or made your companion fear you), you would gain these combo-skills. They made the gameplay much easier and much more fun. It added a bit more flow to the combat and gave more weight for the choices: "Do I wanna piss this guy off, just so I can keep him helping me in the combat, even I hate this opinions on things?" The combat also feels nice, even to a wuss like me who plays on easy: The sound effects add nice impact to it and it's visually nice looking. One thing that annoyed me though was the characters constantly, I mean **constantly **complaining when their weapons didn't do damage for reason to another. My favorite was when one of the characters said: "This weapon is like nipples on a man: Useless!" [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e4eba-20170918211625_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e4eba-20170918211625_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Combo skill in action </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> I don't want to spoil much, but I have to explain the story a little. There are two armies, Disfavored and Charlet Chorus working under a big dude Overlord. Of course those two armies are having their own lil' fights and you have to be the middleman, listening their whining. I felt like I was babysitting two idiots who are leading big packs of idiots. It was great, since it really gave you either reason to really hate the two or like one of them. Ultimately you have to choose between the two and shit hits the fan: boom, civil war between the two armies. At this point the story starts and you'll be running around the area called as The Tiers doing oddjobs here and there. There's lots of things to do, lots to see. On my first playthrough I missed a lot of stuff, so I'll be definitely replaying this game at some point. One nice thing about the story is that there is a possibility to betray either one or both of the two armies and give a big middle finger to everything. I will definitely try that on my next playthrough. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/13015-20170918204010_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/13015-20170918204010_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Tiny portion of the map of The Tiers, with not much areas unlocked yet </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> During the story, you learn that you can control these weird towers called Spires. The story is heavily around them, so I don't want to say much. In Pillars you had the stronghold of Caed Nua, the Spires are basically your stronghold in Tyranny, except you can have many of them. In Spires you can hire people and get them to do your bidding. To get a spire, you have to do some puzzles and maybe some dungeon delving. That was honestly one of my favorite parts of the game, but unfortunately there wasn't much of it. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/7aa3e-20170918202017_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/7aa3e-20170918202017_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Top of a Spire </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e58a6-20170918201913_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e58a6-20170918201913_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Spire management </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/5cd94-20170918202156_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/5cd94-20170918202156_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Finding our way to unlock a Spire </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The enviroments are really nice looking. I spent some time just looking at the tiny details in walls and floors, looking at the pretty lights and so on. I have no idea how they're done, I assume there's been a lot of 3D modeling and then rendering them to images. The most realtime 3D things you see on your screen are any characters that are moving. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bbfb3-20170918202258_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/bbfb3-20170918202258_1.jpg) </td> </tr> One of my favorite places was the Burning Library, just because how it looked </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Then there are the characters. Most characters I liked, some I didn't really get to know that well due to my decisions. I did manage to get most of them to like me and there was one character that I didn't even meet, hinted by the ending of the game. Talking with characters is just like in Pillars: You got text, then links for dialogue and tooltips that tell you details. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/0fa6b-20170918202038_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/0fa6b-20170918202038_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Having a chat </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> I have to say one of my favorite characters was Tunon the Adjucator. He seems to be some sort of force of justice and when you're in his court, it truly feels like you're being judged by him. It felt refreshing, in most modern games you get away with lots of things but in Tyranny... Tunon is watching. Always. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/507c1-20170918204111_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/507c1-20170918204111_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Tunon's Court, and Tunon overlooking at us </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Besides of normal conversation stuff, there's also a thing called missives. It's basically a mailbox and you get mail from some characters while your story goes on. You can reply to these missives in different ways and they either provide you more backstory or give you good advice. Or bad, if you make someone unhappy with your sloppy response. It works like the conversation system, except there's more text. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/b6fc6-20170918202004_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/b6fc6-20170918202004_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Missives </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> One thing I hope to see in Pillars 2 is the reputation system Tyranny has. You have all the factions, characters, things, etc. in one big reputation list, and you can check how anyone or anything feels like about you. On top of that, reputation can give you skills and passives, so basically making some dude very angry can give you powers against his faction. It's really cool system and I liked it a lot. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e2fab-20170918201900_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/e2fab-20170918201900_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Reputation </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> So in conclusion, I liked the game and it's features. It was really fun to play, I enjoyed the story and the visuals, but I had constantly this nagging feeling of something missing: There wasn't really sense of exploration in the game. Instead, you're being railroaded by everything and even if you don't want to be anyone's lapdog, you kinda have to to progress in the story. It was a bit more.. Linear, than Pillars. That can be a good thing or bad thing, depending of the player. For me, it kind of diminished the sense of wonder and wanderlust. In Pillars, I was constantly exploring, reading everything, just absorbing the world and the information. In Tyranny I found myself sometimes just quickly reading the dialogue without any second thought and sometimes even pushing myself forward, instead of naturally going with the "flow." I can't really explain it any better than that. It simply felt like something was lacking. Maybe it was because I wasn't that interested in the world of Tyranny compared to Pillars of Eternity, or maybe the game didn't really give me a chance to get interested. You are pretty much dropped into the world and you have to spend some time researching things yourself. Otherwise you will be very lost in the lore of Tyranny. The ending was a bit underwhelming too. It just.. ended. Very unexpectedly. I was waiting for more than 13 hours of gameplay. Maybe I just rushed things, I'm not sure. I still enjoyed the ending, even it was very cliffhanger-y. Since the game has New Game+, I will definitely try Tyranny again someday and see what other kind of choices I can make, and what the outcomes are. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes RPG's, especially if you enjoyed Pillars of Eternity. Just don't expect similar world or story. Tyranny is very, very different, and that's a good thing. Bitksel - Story about why “keeping the scope small” is important Akseli — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 This is another post from my old devlog I'm transfering here. I really liked this post so I thought I'll keep it. This happened before I started to make that roguelike, but I feel like I should talk about this, I think it’s important for the newcomers in gamedev. This is gonna be an incoherent rambling, but I hope my point comes across. Dunno about others, but I’m sure many gamedevs have so many ideas they don’t know where to start. I had this panic before the Games Made Quick gamejam started, I wanted a solid project to work on, something I could possibly finish before the gamejam ends. (Even in the gamejam rules it’s said that “even returning an empty unity project counts” so I was basically panicking for nothing.) I have had this idea of making my own RPG for long time, called Enegrond. It would be a hybrid of Morrowind and some other RPG’s, and it would look like an old PS1 game with blocky graphics and all the polygon jitter and clunky animations. Partially because it looks cool, partially because my artistic side is crap so if I tried something photorealistic I would cry. Well, I thought I would continue this project in this gamejam, but I wanted to make something concrete, something that could possibly be ready before the gamejam is over. Then I found this roguelike tutorial I talked in my earlier post, however it didn’t really seem like what I have had in mind for this RPG. Then I thought, hey, what about Gamemaker, I have Gamemaker Pro license thanks to Humble Bundle so I went and looked around how it would work for an RPG and found some nice asset that lets me easily start making RPG’s. I weighed all my options and.. Panic. What to do?! Where to start!? So many options, so little time! I wanted to make something cool in such a little time, I first tried my Unity project again and realised that hell, it’s gonna take me years to make it complete. So I scratched it. Back to the roguelike idea, something I possibly could get done rather quick, but not really what I had in mind, so I scratched that too. Before that though, I spent a lot of time figuring things out for the roguelike in case I was gonna make it, wasting precious time. Then to the Gamemaker RPG idea.. I was thinking it’s plausible, so I went heck yea, bought the 18€ asset (oops) and started making things happen.. Until I realised that this is also gonna take for many months to make correctly. I was kind of sad that I had bought something I won’t use immediatly and just gave up momentarily. My head was literally hurting from all the thinking, pondering, wondering, whatever. I almost cried because I had wasted what little money and still didn’t know what to do, and had another panic, repeating the process of bouncing all three different engines/ideas again, and one more time! It was now late into the night, I felt like completely giving up anything gamedev related, I was little ball of angriness because I was angry at myself for not making any solution. Then I remembered the magic words. “Keep the scope small.” ** ** These words are often repeated to the newcomers in gamedev stuff. We all have such grand ideas for games, so many amazing worlds, so, oh so many amazing gameplay figured out in our heads.. But we often lack the skill to do these, especially alone, and if not skill then we lack time. We newcomers easily forget this, since we’re so lost in our own worlds. I took deep breath and figured a new area on the RPG world Enegrond I had been thinking about. “Why not make a roguelike about a dangerous dungeon in this world? Let’s make it into a small-ish dungeon delve, with fun things, extra races, anything that we can fit into our small timeframe…” This realisation made me smile again. I started to read the roguelike tutorials religiously, creating a list of things I could add to it after I’m done, but keeping it realistic and keeping the scope small. Now I’ve been working on it the last few days and I’ve loved (almost) every second of it. Even I thought I wasted money on that asset I bought, I’ve been thinking of making my next game with Gamemaker and using that asset with it. I’ll start doing that after I’m done with the roguelike. So the point of this story is: **Avoid headache and keep the scope small. **You don’t have to make the best game ever as your first game, or even as the tenth game. Make many tiny games, learn more every time, until you’re absolutely sure you’re ready to make your “magnum opus”, your biggest and best game ever. And never be afraid to ask for help! Bitksel - The 'I don't feel like playing' problem Akseli — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Sometimes when I read internet forums like Reddit to rot my brain, I stumble upon on threads where people are asking stuff like: "I haven't felt like playing anything for ages, what to do?" or "I have hundreds of games but no desire to play." I've never really felt this way since I always find something to play, but I have few tips for people who wish to "get back to gaming" again. Hopefully these are helpful. 1. Nostalgia trip</a></h3> One that always has worked for me whenever I'm in gaming slump is that I pick up some game that I absolutely loved as a kid, or just have fond memories about. Games such as Morrowind, Oblivion, Halo, old NES games, Wipeout games on PS1, Harry Potter games.. Too many to list for me. Everyone has their bunch of nostalgic favorites, or if you're completely new to gaming, try the first game you liked. Seeing how technology has moved forward in the gaming front always makes me very inspired. I always want to find out more and more differences between old and new. Finding secrets that you have never seen from your favorite childhood game is also very possible and it may give you that spark to keep wanting to find more. I always start to wonder how many secrets the newer games have. The point however, is to remind yourself why you liked gaming in the first place. Try finding that thing you like from your huge list of games. It'll be a proper research, but you most likely will end up having fun. </a></h3> 2. Slow down, take your time (details)</a></h3> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/251110_screenshots_20160517031546_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/251110_screenshots_20160517031546_1.jpg) </td> </tr> It's the little things. Game: INFRA </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> People are busy these days and tend to rush even during their free time. Having huge backlog of games may pressure you to play games faster just to get to the next one. Games aren't intended (usually) to be played that way. Look at the details. Look at the textures and models the devs made you, hear the sound effects and take them in, experiment with the gameplay and learn its little tricks. Too many people just run past a big portion of the game, then wondering why it didn't feel any fun: You didn't give it enough attention to become fun. "But I don't have time for it!" you may say. The games aren't going anywhere, play them when you do have time and feel like it. Don't force it. Bonus: Hunt for bugs and glitches! Those can be really fun, for example Skate 3 has a lot of funny glitches, as demonstrated by a youtuber Helixsnake</a> </a></h3> 3. Don't collect, just play</a></h3> So you have a huge intimidating backlog, but there's that new game coming out you reaaaally want. So you gotta buy it right? Nope! Well, you can, but there's a risk it becomes another game in your backlog. You may be addicted to buying games, instead of playing them. Collecting things is fun and it's what us humans do, but what fun is to collect things if you can't enjoy them? Stop buying new games until you have completed at least 5 of the latest games you have bought. And if you find out you truly don't enjoy the game, go to the next one, but you have to actually complete 5 games. Soon you realize you have spent a lot of time on these games, your backlog is shorter and the game you really wanted could possibly be on sale! Be patient with buying things. You don't need to jump the bandwagon while others do, unless it's some multiplayer game everyone and their grandmother is buying and you really wanna join in. Remember though, gaming is hobby, so never force yourself. Also shout out to /r/patientgamers</a>. </a></h3> 4. Learn about how games are made</a></h3> This is something that has helped me a lot. The moment I got into gamedev, I began to "see behind" the games. I see how some things are made, I can theorize how some parts of the game have been coded, I can troubleshoot games easier when I have a hunch what's going wrong. Obviously this is something not everyone isn't interested in, or they don't want to be a gamedev. But there are a lot of Youtube videos of how games work, here's one of my favorites about Pokemon games: "An Exclusive Look At Pokémon’s Early Design Documents"</a> Check it out, you may find it intriguing. And be warned, some gamedevs have said that knowing how games are made have taken out of the immersion, but for me that has never been an issue. It has only added to the experience. </a></h3> 5. Get out of your gaming comfort zone</a></h3> So you have your favorite genres like FPS or RPG's or platformers, and you tend to play only those kind of games. You see a game that looks interesting but then learn it's not a genre you like, and don't even give it a try. I used to do that, especially with JRPG's. I have never liked Final Fantasy series, but lately I got to try Tales of Zestiria, which isn't a traditional JRPG but it's close enough. I have really enjoyed it, despite the anime-ish look. I've gotten more into anime and manga in general, thanks to my fiancee. It was so refreshing to get out of my circle of games. It's very possible that you won't like most of the games in the genre, but when there's that one you do like, you will be very happy you gave it a shot! So explore a bit! Go on a gaming adventure! </a></h3> 6. Take a break.</a></h3> It works, honestly. When you're on break, you may find yourself thinking about games more and more often and feel the urge to play everything. And boom, you're back in gaming. There's also a slight possibility that you find a new hobby and stop gaming completely, however I've never seen anyone who has played video games completely quit. You may feel like that you have wasted money on all this stuff if you stop now, but it's never really wasted. The games aren't going anywhere, unless they're on Steam and Steam explodes or something. They will be there, awaiting for your return. Like I've said earlier, don't force yourself to do anything. I've done that, I still keep doing that and it takes all the fun out of things. Human mind is a weird thing and sometimes taking a breather can help, not just in gaming world but in everything. The length of the break is completely on you. For me personally, when I take a break from gaming, after day or two I get the "itch" to play something. That's all I got. If you have your own protips, feel free to share em. I hope these help! Bitksel - Ah, Morrowind Akseli — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 I've been playing lots of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind</a> lately. It's an older role-playing game for PC and classic Xbox, but I play it on PC. I got it back in 2005, but I still play it from, time to time. It's my favorite game of all time. I remember the day I bought this game like it happened yesterday. I was on a class trip back in elementary school. It was true hell and I hated almost every single moment of it. But during the trip back home, we stopped by in some city for two hours. After having a hamburger at the local Hesburger I went to look through stores etc. I thought I wasn't gonna buy anything but then I spotted the cheap games section at some store.. And there it was, Morrowind, just for 5€. I looked at the back of the case and there were a few intriguing screenshots and praises how it's one of the best first person RPGs and whatnot. The key words were "first person" because I love FPS games. This may sound a bit weird, but back then I had to ask a permission from my parents to buy games. I have no idea what it was about, I just remember them not really wanting games on the family PC, because they "slow down the computer." I'm sure some of you have had something similar. Well, I called my mom and asked "Can I buy this game it's only 5€????" and luckily she let me buy it. Back home I then unpacked my bags and went to install Morrowind right away. Aand.. I had no idea what I was doing! My English skills weren't so good back in the day, I had no idea what people were saying to me, I had no idea what skills did what and so on. I learned lots of things by simple trial and error. "Oh, I can't pick that up without everyone hating me. Oh, that button fires spells," etc. Slowly but surely I grasped the main gameplay aspects of the game: How to fight, rest, gain levels, talk (even I didn't understand almost anything) and how to use spells. There was a second problem however: I was too scared to play. I was 12 at the time, so traveling from Seyda Neen to Balmora while a swarm of cliffracers chase you was quite scary. The worst was when I got lost in a tomb full of skeletons and heard them rattle while they were chasing me, eventually meeting my demise because of the Morrowind's infamous combat system. [![](http://i.imgur.com/rA832.gif)](http://i.imgur.com/rA832.gif) </td> </tr> Welcome to (modded) Morrowind. No idea who made the gif. Original video [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4rXsrZRchQ) </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> And thirdly: Our computer was really, really slow. I can't remember anything else than it had only 256 Mb RAM. It played some games like a champ, I played Counter-Strike: Source a lot with it, but Morrowind had very long loading times, so me rapidly dying + reloading the game for long times wasn't very fun. I then borrowed the game to my friend. He was much better in English than me and he never was scared of any enemies in games, for some reason. He loved the game and I loved to watch him play. His family had a way better PC so it ran Morrowind really well, loading times were really quick and so on. I was his friend for long time, I visited him often and had a sleepover there for quite a many times. Almost every time we played Morrowind. He played the game, did quests, translated me some of the text if I didn't understand and I gave suggestions for things to do. Those were some golden times in my life, I miss all of that a lot. So hey dude, if you are reading this, contact me and come visit, let's play some Morrowind together! I also found a forum about TES games and luckily for me it was in Finnish. I still remember my first post there: "What is the plot of Morrowind?" I got quite hilarious replies, such as "you got to kil dagot ur (sic.) and build a pillow fortress." Anyway, the folk there explained things for me and after some time I was the one helping others. I also spent a lot of time there talking about other things than games, made some good friends who unfortunately later disappeared from my life for some reason.. Or it was vice versa, I can't remember. Morrowind Construction Set was my first game modding experience, that ignited the spark of gamedev in me. I made a campfire in Morrowind, surrounded by the characters of people from the TES:Finland forum. They sent me screenshots of their characters and their outfits, and I made some custom dialogue for them. It was a fun experience, so I made myself a house mod, too. Unfortunately I lost all those mods ages ago.. Later on I got my own computer and played Oblivion on it. I also installed Morrowind and I've been playing it ever since, every year, almost every month. I always go back to Vvardenfell, to relive old memories and find new ones. And next, about the game! About Morrowind</a></h3> The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is roleplaying game about you, a prisoner who has been released for some mysterious reason, arriving in the tiny coast town of Seyda Neen in Vvardenfell, an island in the Morrowind province. You are given some papers you must deliver to Caius Cosades in Balmora, but you can toss those papers in the nearest lake and do whatever you wish. Don't do that though if you want to finish the main quest! Please note that the screenshots I've taken are from modded version of Morrowind, the original game looks more, well, older. In the beginning of Morrowind, you get to choose from 10 races: [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/dllhost_2017-01-08_00-01-08.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/dllhost_2017-01-08_00-01-08.png) </td> </tr> Races of Morrowind. [Source](http://imgur.com/REK7WN5) </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Imperial, Nord, Redguard, Breton, Altmer (High Elf), Dunmer (Dark Elf), Bosmer (Wood Elf), Khajiit, Argonian and Orc. Imperials, Nords, Redguards and Bretons are the basic human races. Altmer, Dunmer and Bosmer, as you may have guessed already, are the elven races. Khajiit and Argonian are the so called beast races, and Orcs are.. Well, Orcs. Every race has their own racial bonuses and skills, for example Argonians have a skill for breathing underwater and Dunmers resist fire spells. If you're interested, more reading here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Races</a> By the way, if you ever do any reading about lore or other TES games, use UESP, it's the most reliable Wiki for Elder Scrolls games, and it has been around for quite a long time and is still active. After choosing your race, you choose a class or make your own. There are quite a many skills in the game, so I'm not gonna list them all here. To put it simply, almost anything you can do in the game, has a skill. Skills improve by training with other NPC's, or simply doing what the skill implies. For example, to get marksman skill higher, you just have to use bow/darts/throwing stars actively. Now, meet Hun-Tra, a character I have remade for at least thousand times during all these years I've played Morrowind! </a> </a> I've been adventuring as him for many hours now and he is becoming quite formidable adventurer! I am planning to get all his skills to 100, eventually. Now, let's talk about the combat: It can suck, and many people who have been interested in Morrowind have dropped it because of the combat. By default, Morrowind combat is all about the dice rolls and comparing skill levels etc. in the background, even if you see your sword, spell or arrow hit the enemy on the screen. This can be really frustrating. Thankfully, modders are here to rescue us. I wish they didn't have to, but I'm not complaining either way. I have a mod that makes the combat more about actually hitting the enemy and then rolling dices, so it feels much more better. I will list all mods I use later. On later levels though, combat gets really easy, even in vanilla (non-modded) version. One hit kills left and right. Considering the main quest, it kinda makes sense, but I'm not gonna spoil anything. The combat is either done in first person or in third person, however Morrowind in third person is barely playable. Spells in the game work like normal combat, but you can do either ranged spells like fireballs or touch spells like paralyzing touch. There's also self healing spells etc. One of the coolest spells in Morrowind is levitation. Yes, you can fly! There's also Mark and Recall spells, that let you set a place to teleport to. Mark marks the teleport spot, Recall brings you there. Those are really useful when you have lots of loot and just want to quickly get home. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b20-52-36-595.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b20-52-36-595.png) </td> </tr> Have you seen any mudcrabs lately? Filthy creatures! </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b20-53-44-235.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b20-53-44-235.png) </td> </tr> They really don't like me, but I don't like bandits either. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> The world of Morrowind, Vvardenfell, is full of things to explore. I've spent so many hours playing this game and there are still new things to be found. I find the size of the map and the fact that everything is hand crafted really impressive. There's no procedural generation in the game at all. There's also Solstheim and Mournhold. Solstheim comes with the Bloodmoon expansion and Mournhold comes with the Tribunal expansion. [![](http://www.uesp.net/w/images/b/bb/MW-Map-Vvardenfell.jpg)](http://www.uesp.net/w/images/b/bb/MW-Map-Vvardenfell.jpg) </td> </tr> The base game map that comes with the game case. [Source](http://www.uesp.net/wiki/File:MW-Map-Vvardenfell.jpg) </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Solstheim is a smaller island near Vvardenfell, full of Nords, werewolves and snow. Fun fact: You can swim from Vvardenfell to Solstheim if you're brave enough. [![](https://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/bloodmoon_map_lg.jpg)](https://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/bloodmoon_map_lg.jpg) </td> </tr> Solstheim, Bloodmoon expansion. [Source](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/solstheim-map-official) </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Mournhold is the capital city of Morrowind, where you meet Almalexia, one of the gods of the Tribunal. This map doesn't show the complex sewer network under Mournhold, which is quite large aswell. [![](https://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/maptribhuge.jpg)](https://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-gallery-display/gallery_files/maptribhuge.jpg) </td> </tr> Mournhold city, Tribunal expansion. [Source](https://www.imperial-library.info/content/maps-morrowind) </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> So yes, there are lots of things to explore, many things to find and many quests to do! Morrowind has many creatures, but most of them are not the usual fantasy creatures you see in other games. For example, I've never seen anything like netches, guars or silt striders outside of TES games. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-00-47-930.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-00-47-930.png) </td> </tr> Betty Netch, calm creatures unless you attack them. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-08-07-057.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-08-07-057.png) </td> </tr> A peaceful Guar, many of them attack on sight but this guy didn't care. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-09-43-857.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-09-43-857.png) </td> </tr> This guy was less peaceful however. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-09-10-254.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-09-10-254.png) </td> </tr> AAAHH WHAT IS THAT?! </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> You can travel by foot, boat or silt strider. Foot and boat are self explanatory, but silt striders are another oddity of Morrowind. They're huge insects that can carry loads of cargo and people in Morrowind use them to travel around. Unfortunately in the game you can't see them walking around, but there are mods that change that. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-16-50-254.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-16-50-254.png) </td> </tr> Silt Strider, the Taxi service of Morrowind. Bull Netch floating in the background. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-28-05-374.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-28-05-374.png) </td> </tr> Coasts of Vvardenfell can be really beautiful and athmospheric. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Even buildings in Morrowind can get really weird. There are huge mushrooms pretty much everywhere, and people in Morrowind use them as buildings. There are also mushroom buildings around castles. Almost every city has an unique look to them, but depending who owns the city, the buildings change too. Usually imperials have very basic brick houses and castles and dunmers have their weird mushroom towers or bug shell houses. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-59-16-816.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-59-16-816.png) </td> </tr> Tel Vos, a castle with a twist. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-16-44-179.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-16-44-179.png) </td> </tr> Balmora </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-26-23-184.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-26-23-184.png) </td> </tr> Ald'Ruhn and Ghostfence in the background </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-43-47-426.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-43-47-426.png) </td> </tr> City of Vivec. And yes, that's a moon. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Leveling up in Morrowind works by resting in a bed, so you need to rest in the game. As players resting places go, they can rent a room in a tavern and sleep there, sleep outside the city on ground, kill a resident of a house and live there (grim, I know!) or if they complete a questline for one of the great houses, they get their own manor! [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b22-01-47-880.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b22-01-47-880.png) </td> </tr> A tavern in Pelagiad </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Morrowind also has lots of books to read. You can read them all in the game and my goal for long time has been to collect every book in the game and place them somewhere and then read them all. You can even read magical scrolls, if you can decipher them that is. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-19-32-094.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-19-32-094.png) </td> </tr> Can you read it? </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Speaking of reading, most of the Morrowind dialogue is text. NPC's grunt and talk if you bump into them, but if you want to ask them questions, you have to read a lot. There's no voice acting for the dialogue. You press the blue links to jump around topics. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-18-49-309.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-18-49-309.png) </td> </tr> Morrowind Dialogue system. Don't mind the "...Commands" option, that's a mod just for commands like "Follow me" etc. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Morrowind tracks quests in your personal journal, which you can open by pressing J. Your character automatically writes there if there's something to write about, and you can find all the quests you have active there. I kinda miss this kind of system in modern games, before arrows pointing you in the right direction. In Morrowind, you have to read what the people say. To find some place, they usually tell you "go north until you see X and then go east" and so on. I think it's a really cool way to do quests. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-25-09-302.png?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/morrowind2b2017-01-072b21-25-09-302.png) </td> </tr> Player journal. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> I would like also to share a short story I shared on my TES Discord server, which describes well how athmospheric and immersive Morrowind can get: "Okay that was cool: I found a cave with a boat that had a corpse on it, like it was a Nord burial site. I then noticed something glimmering above my head and levitated there. There was a daedric battlehammer and a daedric helm. Well I was overencumbered so I couldnt move after picking those up, but I had a recall and mark spell. Since I had already marked my home I could teleport there, so I spent over two days of ingame time trying to recall myself home, because my mysticism skill is very low so the chance for recalling was only like 18% per try, and it always ate lots of magicka. I just imagine my character eating and sleeping for six hours, then trying to recall, then be weary again and having to rest another six hours. And who said greedy can't survive?" Here's a list of a few mods I recommend. Some of them can be found here: http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:Morrowind</a> and others can be found here: http://mw.modhistory.com/home</a> But as always, first try the game without mods! Morrowind Code Patch </li> MGEXE (Adds widescreen support and MWSE, which is needed for some mods) </li> Script Improvements </li> 4GB Patch </li> Morrowind Patch 1.6.6 </li> Texture Fix </li> Texture Fix Blood Moon </li> Poorly Placed Object Fix </li> Mesh Fix </li> Telvanni Exterior UV Fix </li> Improved Imperial fort UV </li> Correct Meshes </li> Correct UV Rocks </li> Correct UV Trees </li> Correct UV Mudcrabs </li> Better Bodies </li> Better Heads for Better Bodies </li> Hold It - Replacer </li> Graphic Herbalism </li> The regulars - Sitting NPC's </li> Better Beasts </li> LGNPC_Merged_Lt (Adds more background stories to characters, very optional but fun mod) </li> Apoapse's Attack (Makes Morrowind combat much more modern, essential if the vanilla combat makes you angry) </li> </ul> I may edit this list later if I forgot something I think that's the basics covered. I could go on and on about the game, covering every simple minimal aspect of it, or babble about TES lore, so it's hard to stop typing this. I love this game to bits, it's the game I always install first on any computer I get. I think I will keep playing it forever. If you want to buy Morrowind, I recommend getting the GOG version</a>, since it's DRM free and comes with all the official addons and expansions. It works the best with most mods, better than the Steam version in some cases since Steam overlay can bug out with MGEXE. You can disable the Steam overlay of course, but just sayin'. Thank you for reading! I hope it was fun to read this or atleast it was fun to oogle at the pictures! :) I think I'll go back to play Morrowind now.. Bitksel - Bricks with speakers + logos Akseli — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 During christmas holidays I visited my parents and took some photos of the old Nokia phones I used to have. Thankfully my parents had kept them safe, I'm sure some of them would still work if recharged, but I'm not sure if the batteries are good anymore so I didn't take that risk. I will type anything I remember about them on this post, but I won't go into technical details since you can find those elsewhere. </a></h3> Nokia 2010</a></h3> </a></a> I actually never used this phone, just played around with it. It was a "toy phone" for me when I was very young, which explains me trying to pimp it out with a sharpie. I'm kinda bummed I did that, but well, kids. I wanted to cover it here since it still used those huge sim cards, as you can see in the back of the phone. The battery is really big too, and even without the battery the phone is really heavy. It really is a brick. </a></h3> Nokia 2110</a></h3> </a></a> I'm not exactly sure if I ever used this either, but I remember either my mom or my dad using it. It's a really cool looking phone, also a huge brick, but smaller than the 2010. I think it still would work if I were to recharge it. </a></h3> Nokia 3110</a></h3> </a></a> Now this phone I did use. It was my first phone ever, I was about 6 years old when I got it as you can see from the racing cover on the front and Ferrari sticker on the battery. I think it's my uncles old phone, and when he got a new one I got this one. First it was just a "toy phone" without a SIM card, but I didn't really play with it. I remember always whining about "I want a working phone" and "I want an e-mail address" and my parents just replied "What would you use those for?" They were right, really. 6 year old in those days didn't really need a phone. But eventually I started elementary school and moved outside alone, going to my friends place etc. I think it was halfway through the first grade my parents decided to get a SIM card for this phone. I was usually bullied at school, but the day I brought this phone to school I was the "cool kid" for the day. "Oh wooow you have a phone?! Does it have any games?!" they asked. During that time 3210 was a new thing and phones started to have games, so naturally they asked if this brick had too. Unfortunately, it didn't. Me bringing this phone to school kinda started some kind of mobile phone craze in our class: Fast forward few weeks and everyone had a phone, and people had games on them, such as Snake-game. </a></h3> Nokia 3210</a></h3> </a></a> Obviously, I didn't want to fall behind others, so I pestered my parents for a new phone and I got myself 3210. 3310 had just appeared on the markets so this one was cheaper, so I got it. It was the first phone with games I ever used. I also bought logos to this phone: Logos are images that replace your operator name in the lock screen of your phone. It was basically the phones wallpaper. I will cover some of them later in this post. </a></h3> Nokia 3310</a></h3> </a></a> Nokia 3310 is usually the phone people refer as the most durable phone ever, jokingly or otherwise. To be honest, it really IS very durable phone. I took great care while using my phones, so I never had cracked screens or anything like that. My classmates though... I remember one of them talking how he threw the phone at wall when he got really angry at his parents and of course instantly regretted it. Luckily, the phone still worked just fine. So it definitely could take a beating. This phone also had two more games instead of Snake. Some kind of puzzle game and a space shooter sidescroller game. I remember spending lots of time playing those games, they were actually really fun. </a></h3> Nokia 3510i</a></h3> [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Nokia3510i.jpg)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Nokia3510i.jpg) </td> </tr> Photo from [Wikipedia](https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_3510i#/media/File:Nokia3510i.jpg), I unfortunately don't have this phone anymore </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> I used 3310 for a long time. It was a great phone. But then, color screens for phones became a thing and games for phones got more complex, so of course I wanted a new one! I remember saving money for this for months. I helped my grandparents do yardwork in order to get some cash, and eventually I had the money to get 3510i. I also got this "gaming case" for it: https://www.esato.com/gfx/phones/nokia3510i.jpg</a> It was cool back then, but nowadays it just looks silly. I really liked this phone though, probably one of the better ones I ever used. The buttons started shortly to lose the number markings though, since they were made of rubber. I bought some weird games on it that were advertised in back of magazines back then. I got some game that they advertised as "The Sims for your phone!" (I had gotten the first Sims game recently and I loved it so I wanted to play it on the go too.) Well, it was some really ridiculous game where you only move a woman in a night club and tried to hit on men or something. I never understood how you were supposed to play it. It was far from Sims though and I was very disappointed for spending 5€ for that game. Lesson learned though: Those advertisements were shady as hell, and the final product was never what you expected it to be. </a></h3> Nokia 7210</a></h3> </a></a> The reason why I wanted this phone was simple: It just looked cool to me. I liked my 3510i, but I wanted something a bit smaller and my 3510i had had some problems working, for example it cut in middle of calls sometimes. Luckily my uncle was getting a new phone, so I got his old 7210 I had drooled after for some time. I don't remember much about this phone, except that it was very light and small. It had no crazy features or anything, pretty much the same as 3510i. It had colored screen too. </a></h3> Nokia 3220</a></h3> </a></a> Phone technology moved forward rapidly. After color screens, Nokia decided it was time for adding cameras on phones. And of course I wanted to stay on track with technology, and Nokia marketing this phone towards younger people, especially teens and pre-teens worked on me. The phone got the nickname "Teiniledit" as in "Teenage-LED's" since it had flashing LED's on the sides. I think I got this phone back in 2004. I began to save money again and eventually got it. I was so excited to use photos as my phone wallpaper: I could finally have an image of GTA Vice City or Battlefield 1942 as a wallpaper. It was super cool to me, I could customize the phone the way I wanted. I also remember printing many photos to put inside the back case, so it would be truly be my nerdy phone and look like me. I used this phone for a very long time. I even bought some games for it, like solitaire and some weird Splinter Cell game that had only four levels, but that game was actually alright for a phone game in those days. I also used the camera a lot, taking stupid photos of friends bouncing on trampoline or something like that. </a></h3> Nokia 6630</a></h3> </a></a> The last Nokia phone I used. I was in junior high-school, 8th grade in Finnish school system, so it was 2008. This was usually called "one of the first smart phones" back then. My 3220 was working fine, albeit it looked rather worn off since the rubbers covering LED's had broken. My uncle again got a new phone and offered me his old one, in this case he offered me 6630. I never say no to a new phone, so of course I accepted the offer. Shortly I learned this phone could play music so I finally could replace my shoddy MP3 player. It had a SD card support so I could fit more music in it than in a cheap MP3 player. It also had a good camera for it's time and, best of all... It could run DOOM. Hell yeah, I loved it! Back then I was playing a lot of Counter-Strike 1.6, so I downloaded a Counter-Strike mod for DOOM so I could play fake-CS 1.6 on my phone. It was silly, but oh man, so cool. 6630 supported also custom themes, so I got a Windows 98 theme for it. I guess I have always been a bit of a oldschool-PC lover, heh. I used this phone for few years. When I graduated from jr. high and went to business college to study IT, my classmate told me about ZTE Blade. After that, I never went back to Nokia, but any phone that had Anrdoid running on it. And thus ends my journey with Nokia phones. If Nokia would ever make a comeback and make Android phones, I would get one in a heartbeat. </a></h3> So, what are logos?</a></h3> In case you don't know, logos are small images you could use as your phones "wallpaper." Normally, your old Nokia phone would have your operator name on your main screen, but when you bought a logo, it would replace this operator name with an image. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/b8929-logot.png)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/b8929-logot.png) </td> </tr> Finnish logos, image from here: [http://logot.mbnet.fi/](http://logot.mbnet.fi/) They reek of early 2000's, ugh. </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> It was really cool at first and everyone liked to order them for their phones. However, the logo sellers were really shady in some cases. If you ordered a logo, you would consent into some weird 30€ per month bill. They usually called it as some stupid "gold club" or whatever. They did talk about it, but it was in veeeeery tiny print in bottom of the page, so nobody ever saw it. Same happened also with ordering ringtones and games on your phone. After my parents getting a random 30€ bill because of this shady bullshit, we never bought any logo's or anything off these advertisements. Eventually, camera phones killed them completely. Good riddance, I say. I do miss logos themselves though, they're kinda cool and some of them were really creative, considering the tiny amount of room you had for making them. They're basically pixel art. Unfortunately these logo sellers gave them a bad image. Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this short look into old Nokia phones. If you're curious, right now I have a LG Nexus 5 as my phone. I like it and I'm not in any hurry to replace it. Phone technology isn't as exciting to me anymore, since everything has really been done (for now). Back then, phones getting colored screens and cameras were new, cool features. Nowadays they're expected and people would be weirded out if some phone didn't have a camera. And no, I'm not complaining. It's just fascinating how times change. Bitksel - Santa Claus in Trouble Akseli — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 I am actually one of those weirdos who love christmas. I don't like how busy people are or any of that, but I like the wait and excitement that I still get, even it's not as prevalent as it was when I was younger. I also love christmas food and I get this very comfy feeling for some reason around christmas. No idea why, but it makes me happy, even if it's just a holiday to for companies to exploit blatant consumerism. ;) Since christmas is within a week, I decided to reinstall one of my favorite christmas holiday games: Santa Claus in Trouble. This game has always put me in proper christmas mood and it's something I first played long time ago when I was a kid. There used to be this Finnish computer magazine called Kompuutteri-lehti. It always came with some demo cd's called Kompuutteri-discs with it, and one of them had Santa Claus in Trouble. I should try to find all those discs and write something about them.. Anyway, back then I thought it would be a fun christmas game to play, especially after the disc mentioned it was completely 100% free and not just a demo. The game was made by CDV Software Entertainment and Joymania Development in 2002, and I think I got the disc around the same year. CDV was a publisher with lots of games under their belt, so this game was a free christmas gift to their fans. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/71d4f-20161217142007_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/71d4f-20161217142007_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Main menu </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Santa Claus in Trouble is obviously full of christmas. Even the installer has very cheery christmas music. As far as I know, the story is just "Help Santa collect all the missing presents!" which is fine by me, I didn't expect anything more in-depth than that anyway. The game is actually a pretty solid platformer, where you jump around rooftops (or whatever they are) and collect presents, dodge trolls and try not to fall in the darkness that looms under the rooftops. Santa is quite nimble too as he can double jump. You use arrow keys to move and turn Santa around and jump with spacebar. Alternatively you can use a joystick or mouse+keyboard, but that didn't work for me because I have dual monitors and the mouse always escaped the game screen, since it isn't locked to the game. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/895cb-20161217142026_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/895cb-20161217142026_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Hunting those presents </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> On modern systems you have to set Windows XP compatibility mode for the game, otherwise it doesn't work at all: The physics calculations will crap themselves and Santa animations spazz out. The game just gets really weird. But compatibility mode solved all the problems. As far as I know, there's ten levels of content, but I have actually never made that far. When I played this while back, I always either got tired of the game in the middle of it, or never reached the end. My little brother had beaten this game many times though, he used to play nothing else than this during December which was quite amusing. He obviously was way better than me in these type of games anyway. </a> One of my favorite memories about this game happened back in December 2007 or 2008. My friend, let's call him Bob for now, visited me and I showed him this game. I thought the game was genuinely good, but he thought it was just silly. I don't blame him, the game looks a bit silly. Still he wanted to install the game to himself and try it out, so I visited his place and we installed it. Next day I get a phone call from Bob, but on the phone it wasn't him, it was one of his other friends. "Hey I saw that Santa game on Bob's PC, I really wanna try it, it looks amazing. Can I get the disc too? I would love to play it and I mean right now!" he said very excitedly. I chuckled a little, I didn't expect anything like that. It was already rather late, cold and dark because Finnish winter, but I still agreed to deliver the disc. Bob, his friend and I lived like 500 meters from each other, so I didn't mind at all. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/527bd-20161217142227_1.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/527bd-20161217142227_1.jpg) </td> </tr> Santa isn't safe from trolls either </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Bob and his friend were waiting outside for me to arrive and I gave the disc to them. I told them I couldn't stay since it was really late, so I went back home. They went together to install the game. Next day at school Bob's friend approaches me and returns the disc. He goes on and on about how fun game it is. This made me really happy since I had made someone else happy. Spirit of christmas, I guess? And that's why this game holds a special place in my heart: I had made someone happy with such a simple gesture. It also reminds me of those days when people just borrowed cd's from each other to install games and tried them out. This was more fun though since it was a free game, so I could just share it to anyone who wanted it, and they didn't need to have the disc to play it. Unfortunately, this game can't be found on CDV's official site anymore, but don't worry, here's a christmas gift: Download link!</a> The link is safe, I used it to download the game too, and it was in the description of LGR's video</a> about the game and I trust this guy 100%. According to him there's also a sequel, but I never got to try that unfortunately. Maybe one day though. In conclusion, Santa Claus in Trouble is a very christmas-y platformer that is perfect for those cold winter nights to keep you smiling. Merry Christmas everyone and happy holidays! Or should I say: Hyvää joulua! Bitksel - Visiting local arcade! Akseli — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Today I visited the local arcade called "Pelibunkkeri." My fiancée went to play laser tag with her classmates and that arcade is in the same place so I spent 20 minutes playing some arcade games. I just had to pay 5€ to play all these games as much as I wanted, so the pricing wasn't bad at all. There was also ice hockey tables etc. but those are obviously multiplayer games and I was alone there, so I just settled with the arcade games. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to get properly into the games so this post will be a bit brief. Also sorry about the image quality, I used my phone camera since that's all I have and the lighting in there was really bad for photos. The games!</a></h3> First I played Sega Rally! I barely could fit into the racing seat because I'm 191 cm tall and these machines are clearly made for smaller people, but I managed to play it just fine. Really fun game, the steering wheel really fights back when you turn your car. There was something going on with the graphics though, the 2D images like your time and speed dial suddenly broke and were all weird and blocky. Besides that the game worked just fine and it was a blast! [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140527.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140527.jpg) </td> </tr> Sega Rally </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> After that I tried some shooter game called Warzaid. It's a game about WW2 soldiers shooting zombies and skeletons or something like that, I didn't really get the plot. But who cares about a plot when you can shoot zombies with light guns! First I just played it in normal single player mode with one gun, but then I decided to try playing as two players, so I went akimbo with the light guns. It was actually easier to play that way since I could just spam both of the guns and zombies kept dying on the screen. Warzaid was the game I enjoyed the most at the arcade. Next to it was two games, Harley Davidson L.A. Riders and Sky Targets. Sky Targets is a game about flying a fighter jet and shooting down other planes and huge boss planes, so it was really cool looking. I didn't really enjoy playing it though, the joystick was quite stiff (I know what you're thinking) and it was hard to aim at the enemy planes. It just felt.. Floaty and odd. It's not a bad game though, I would probably like it more if I had more time to play and practice. L.A. Riders was a really fun motorcycle game where you cruise around L.A. trying to reach checkpoints in time, while destroying the city property like a "Bad Boy." Honestly, that's what the game called me after choosing my character. :D The controls felt a bit floaty here too, the bike could turn a bit faster but overall it was really great to play and the music was top notch. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140650.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140650.jpg) </td> </tr> L.A. Riders, Sky Targets and Warzaid </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Next to those three there was one more game called Panic Park. I didn't really get to play it since I played it quickly before leaving, but it seemed to be game about running through stages and avoiding obstacles. Controls were really different from others, it was a joystick that you rotated to left and right. </a> Panic Park and a game I didn't get to try on the left </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> On the other side of the room they had Sega Touring Car and Sega Racer (even the cabinet says "Megalo") just in a bigger screen, probably for taller people like me. Sega Touring Car was a really fun game aswell but I couldn't fit in the chair at all so it was really difficult to play, sadly. It was a lot like Sega Racer but had two different cars and different maps, plus some great eurobeat playing on the background. I would've enjoyed it a lot more if I could've fit in the seat, but #tallpeopleproblems. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140618.jpg?w=300)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_140618.jpg) </td> </tr> Sega Touring Car and Sega Megalo/Rally </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Last but not least, I played good ol' Speedtester. This was very popular in Finland since there was a TV show called Speden Spelit where famous Finnish people would play different kind of games, including Speedtester. It's a very quick game to play which makes it very addicting. Best score I could do was 60, but with a bit of a practice I'm sure I could get over 100. :) I love how the machine is still talking about MK in the instructions, MK is the old Finnish Markka which we used until we switched to euros in January 2002, so it was quite a blast from the past. [![](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_143250.jpg)](https://bitkselblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/img_20161214_143250.jpg) </td> </tr> Speedtester </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> All in all, it was a fun place to visit. Unfortunately these days arcade machines are hard to find anywhere so I rarely get to play them. I'm sure I'll visit the place again and hopefully have more time to play everything. Thanks for reading!

AksDev - posts

My PostgreSQL database got nuked lol

What even are Breeze, QtQuick, QtWidget, Union..?

Breeze QtWidgets style changes to help us prepare for Union

My blog has now webmention support!

Happy Holidays 2025!

Adding Customizable Frame Contrast to KDE Plasma

Desktop examples</a></h2> Some examples how it might look like in desktop setting.</p> </a> </a> </a> </a> </div> All items are updated to follow this:</p> QtQuick windows (qqc2-desktop-style)</li> QtWidgets style and decorations (Breeze)</li>

Why not change the whole color?</a></h2> Currently across all of our apps and styles, we do the following:</p> Take background color and foreground color</li> Mix them with previously hardcoded frameContrast value, which was 0.2</li>

The move from Blue Systems to TechPaladin

My experiences at TechPaladin</a></h2> TechPaladin has always paid my salary in time.</li>

Akademy 2025 - My first talk!

NetSurf on reMarkable 2

Various desktop Linux tips for newbies

Learning resources</a></h2> Again, do not rely on AI tools.</strong> They can lie.</p> Instead, search information from various forums and wikis, such as:</p> ArchWiki</a> Despite the name, it can be useful for whatever distribution you use!</li> </ul> </li>

Kate and Python Language Server: Basedpyright

KomoDo, my first KDE app

Shedding (Cosplay Photos)

todo.txt tasks in my TRMNL

Game Ramblings: Quitters, Splitgate 2, Daggerfall

I got my first tattoo

Ramble: Tired and Emotional

My changes to saving Konsole tab layouts

Current tab layouts</a></h2> In Konsole, you can even in current version save your tab layout:</p> Open Konsole</li> Split the current view into multiple ones</li>

Kummacon 2025 cosplay photos

Forgejo webhook to auto-update my blog and my frustrations

Codeberg hook</a></h2> In Codeberg, I added the new webhook to my repo settings:</p> Target URL: http://akselmo.dev:9000/hooks/deploy-blog?secret=Alright then, keep your secrets</code></li> HTTP method: POST</code></li>

Anubis protects this blog now

Kate and Python language server

How I use Kate Editor