by Chris Billowsin Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: dungeons & dragons, memories, nostalgia, ttrpgs
I was born in 1970 and grew up loving superheroes, fantasy, sci-fi, monsters, computers, video games, and Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve always gravitated to the nerd sub-culture. In thinking about my past hobbies, I thought it would be fun to review my brief history of with TTRPGs that lasted 4-5 years during my teenage era and left a huge imprint on me. It was 1982 and my cousin Russell brought over a blue box which mixed fantasy storytelling with stats, which was a combination that blew my mind. The box came with some books and dice I’d never seen before. The book looked like this: Me and my buddy Jason were directed to rollup characters and we played X1: Isle of Dread. We didn’t play it very well as we really didn’t know what we were doing but boy did we have fun. We didn’t roleplay, we didn’t have a character story arc or campaign plot. It player like a 1980s Fantasy A-Team where we moved on from problem to problem and we solved the problems by killing everything. We were wandering murdering hobos. The adventures we played in our first campaign was X1, B4, X2, and X4 and then […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings, Uncategorized0 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
. I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2026. I wish that the new year brings you peace, good health, and good fortune. This upcoming year will be another one where I balance my career with my sideline. I’ve definitely noticed that since hitting my mid-50s I don’t have the energy I once did and working on the sideline projects has been much slower. This has forced me to re-evaluate my priorities and I have begun a review of my projects including honestly reviewing where I am putting my energy. . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I remain thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, GameDev Skills, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
Like Napoleon Dynamite, I’m going to embellish what I did this past year. Yeah, I was hunting wolverines with my uncle in Alaska. It would explain in a cool way why I got so little accomplished. Here is a summary of what happened this past year: . . Like I did with Heropath, my plan is to start refactoring the Roguelike codebase to fit what I want to do. I attempted to two experiments with AI Coding and I must say they were pretty atrocious. I will use AI to help educate me but it will be up to my own raw effort to learn what to do. . Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for my family, friends, and the amazing software and tutorials that has allowed me to get to this point. “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” ~ Simone Weil
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
. I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2025. I wish that the new year brings you peace, good health, and good fortune. There is not much to report as far as my projects are concerned but I continue to plug away at them and do find myself inspired for periods of time. This past year had some non-serious health setbacks that impacted on my energy levels. Plus the full-time career does seem to take its pound of flesh from me. What is exciting is that I will have put in enough years of service at my career that I could retire with a pension later this year. That is very exciting but I don’t think I’ll retire just yet. There are some financial goals we want to meet before taking that step. It will be interesting to see how I will feel when I do reach the milestone. I’ve heard from others that knowing that they could retire, the relationship with work is transformed. . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I am thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings1 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Business Development, Change of Mind, GameDev Skills, Personal Resolve, Self Analysis
It has been almost a three years ago that I made a commitment to spent time developing coding skills and I’m providing an update about my efforts. . . Thanks to Procrastitracker I am able to share these images of my progress when I started October 1, 2023 up to September 30, 2024: This past year of work on Heropath was limited to design and story research. In addition, some Procrastitracker data is missing and Heropath development was restricted due to: . Chris Zuchowski gave a YouTube talk about being careful about the genre of game you create for and that you should not try to make your first game your masterpiece. I am going to follow his advice by switching to a ‘prequel’ that is placed in the Heropath setting but will be much simpler, allowing me some momentum and easier skill development. This new Heropath-related game will be known as Mythway. In summary, I’ve spent about 41 hours working on the game including research, writing, and design. I’ve done no actual coding so at this rate it will take me years to get to 1,000 or 10,000 hours. This past year has not had the direct progress that I had planned for, but […]
by Chris Billowsin Business Beller, Hobby Heedings0 commentstags: Awareness / Understanding, Blogging, Business Development
I am wishing everyone a Happy New Year for 2024. May the new year bring you peace, good health, and good fortune. There is not much to report as far as my projects are concerned but I continue to plug away at them and do find myself inspired for periods of time. . . In summary: . As I’ve said previous New Year Days, I am thankful for the privilege to pursue these projects and wish that everyone could have the same opportunity.
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