...well that I forgot anyway. Like this blog! Yes it has been a year since my last post about squirrels. But the resillience and absoluteness of this blog shall remain resolute and keep going for a while longer. Well another four years at least since I apparently bought quite a considerable domain extension a few years ago.

A lot has happened in this year. After Oxford I spent some time in London finally ending up in Edinburgh and the summer I spent mainly in Edinburgh and various places in Italy.

Still rather unsure of what to do and where to go next, with no work and no stable future in sight, I decided to start a game project. This brings us back to the title of this blog post where Mikomwood finally gets a worthy future counterpart; HyperVentila.
Many years in the making ( in my head ) this mad science fantasy spinnoff from Mikomwood has been a bit of a mystery of how to make. While Mikomwood was to me what the Discworld was to Terry Pratchett, HyperVentila would of course seem like another jump to mad comic novelist and radio-play writer Douglass Adams and his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Not this time! I wanted HyperVentila to be something else.
A universe of exploration, making your own madness and interactivity. So a game of course!

What have I got to show so far? some screenshots! and a silly Android port on my phone...

Some things have been a challenge in designing this game so far but I've learnt a lot.

I also recently designed a website for my dear Ilaria: www.ilariagiacon.com Check it out!

That's it for this blog. Until next time.

I 3d printed some vest buttons. They're quite practical, really easy to unbutton because of the tip on one end but they don't slip out because the wider other end locks them in place. The vest I got from a clothes-swapping event that took place last week.

I also bought this cute figure of Yoda from a friend. Check out her blog you must, at HappyYarnJobs.blogspot.se.

What else have I been doing since my last blog entry?

• I started using Instagram.
• I stopped using Instagram.
• I went to a motor show.
• I got a new laptop (HP Spectre x360 13").
• Did loads of 3D printing.
• Was in a newspaper.
• Went to Holland for a few days.
• Bought silly sunglasses.
• Did more 3D printing.
• Was in a newspaper again.
• I quite got into paracord braiding.
• I now have a plant.
  
• Went to a clothes-swapping event (where I was in the newspaper... again).
  
• Stacked some wood at my parents place.
• Went biking for the first time of the year.

That's about it for this blog. Happy Easter!

Here is also a picture of the bus-ride home:

I visited another Makerspace yesterday, might even work there at some point in the future. They mainly work with bio-composite 3D printing and some PLA-based materials.

Here are some examples of things printed with these materials:

They are bringing in even more 3D printers and the goal appears to be being able to print products at any size and custom built specifically for that consumer.

It's an interesting project and place to be for sure. I'm currently learning their machines and way of operating but maybe I'll joi... OH MY GOD, A MOTHERFLIPPIN' ROBOT

...ok while this isn't part of the 3D printing-project, she is just standing there in a half-abandoned production facility in the adjacent locales. This thing is freaking massive and I think is used to stack and move around planks.... maybe. Either way, she looks lonely.

That's about it for this blog. We'll see how this turns out. That robot though...

Here's a project I have been working on for a few days now. This is a house built from easy-to-assemble polystyrene blocks and wood panels. The idea came from a French company who also make these Pop-Up houses.
My client contacted these guys but it seemed they were busy so he then turned to me instead.

This was a rather fun project to work on. Now let's see whether it actually makes it into real life or not.

Also, here's a picture of a candle:

Here is another prototype fresh from the VITRIOL 3D R&D department. The lamp I designed in my original concepts has been realized with some measure of questionable success.

I started in trueSpace more or less the same way as I did the furniture.

I bought the screws and lamps needed. Next it was off to Karlstad Makerspace to craft the final components.

When the machine was finished I went home and painted it quickly in the evening because the very next day I went back to Karlstad and assembled it at a new initiative called a "crAfter Work".
Essentially it's a get-together for people who like to craft things of any and all descriptions.

After that the prototype was finished and ready to be tested in my apartment. Mounting is still an issue but has several solutions already.

...and there you have it. This was a fun project for sure but there are a couple of modifications I'm going to make.  For one, I'd like it to be brighter so I'll probably end up mounting two lamps instead of one.
I also have some space left below the small LED lamps so I could probably reduce how tall it is as well. Perhaps arrange the lamps slightly differently so I can make it even smaller.

The paper is another issue, it was surprisingly hard to find a paper that let through enough light, was big enough and didn't cost a fortune. Especially coloured paper since for this prototype I had hoped to go for a purple or red colour rather than the pure white. Just for funky experimentation's sake.
Another issue with the paper was how annoyingly hard it was to mount in the grooves. Only bottom grooves for the final version.

Maybe I'll switch to using thin cloth instead of paper. More experimentation is needed there.

Obviously for the final results I will be using less obvious screws, or just simply paint over them.

How does one turn an idea like this into reality? I don't know but in my mind this is part of how to do it.

I wonder if IKEA is hiring...

A couple of weeks ago I made up my mind that I was moving out of this apartment but... due to certain unforeseen consequences I have decided to stay a while longer. About two years most likely, more on that in a later blog no doubt.
So right now my apartment is in a dreadful state. Boxes everywhere, random furniture with no actual stylistic cohesion and quite a lot of dust that built up over the years. Well let's see if I can put an end to this.

This new project is intended to sort out this dreadful mess and make it a much nicer place to live.

Here are some real-time rendered screenshots in trueSpace of what I've got in mind.

The bed and lamp in the corner I already have... so there's that.
As for the rest. The sofa I might be able to buy somewhere, the table can probably be made quite easily provided I can find the right wood and glass. Same goes for the little bookshelf and night stand, I will see if I can have those made or make them myself.

The table for the printer and television are very much placeholders but I'll settle for anything that makes sense stylistically and that holds up the TV. The TV itself I thought would be far to expensive, 40 to 60 inch TVs cost around the 600 Euro's. Obviously I forgot that I have two gaming monitors that cost about 700 Euro's each so that puts that into perspective I think.

Those ceiling lamps though... they're going be tricky. Maybe with some 3D printing and/or paper I can craft a couple of them.

Apartment Update Blog 2 is coming whenever.

Cheers!

Decided to call the C3 Cosmitron Transport Craft finished as I wasn't working on it any further anyway.

C3 Cosmitron Transport Craft  'Duron Five'
C3-CTC-8866-H

Class = 3
Serial number = 8866
Classification = Heavy

Crew = 8
Seats = 56
Escape Pods / Seats / Seats Total = 8 / 8 / 64

Decks = 8 + one airlock
Engines = GammaCycle MK2s (serial: 545-2-GC) x4
Main Fuel Tanks: 4
Secondary Fuel Tanks: 2

Communication = Commucon 5s x2

In other news, a friend of mine gifted my a Steam copy of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor through the somewhat dubious site G2A.com.

I must admit I wasn't all that interested in the game after watching a playthrough of the game's story mode back when it came out. Still, my copy came with all the DLC and expansions so I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and went ahead and installed the game (all 40 gigabytes of it).

Story wise the game isn't much to speak of. Just your typical revenge story with constant hints to the much broader story in the Lord of the Rings series.
The gameplay is relatively simple, often compared to that of the Assassins Creed series with a free-flowing combat system similar to that of the Batman Arkham series. However, I have to give the game credit for the amount of different ways you can kill Orcs, if you like killing Orcs and Uruks then this is the game for you.
There is the stealthy way of stabbing them in the back, this is always fun. The stealth mechanics also make it pretty easy to mess with the AI. As long as you crouch and stay more or less out of their field of view, you can take down entire groups of Orcs without them even noticing.
Personally I sometimes just like to casually walk into an enemy camp and watch them act all surprised as if the game expected me to only use stealth then have them shout a couple of voice lines about how they "found" me.

One thing the game is praised for is the so-called Nemesis System. The idea is that if/when you die the Uruk that killed you gains additional skills and a higher rank. I personally haven't seen this system in action much outside of the story missions, maybe I just haven't died enough yet.

That's about all I've got to say about Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor really. It's alright for what it is.

That's it for this blog. Have a nice day!

Here is a work in progress shot of my latest spacecraft. I haven't worked on it as much as I should have in the last couple of days but it is nearing completion.

In other news, Rainbow Six: Siege has found another way to disappoint me and this time I'm guessing for good.
By making the recently released "free" Black Ice operators many times more expensive than any of the other operators, Ubisoft has shown its true colours of continuing to funnel people towards their in-game store. As with most modern in-game stores, they are optional however this does not mean that there is any reason for them to exist other than to give Ubisoft another form of income on top of the full-price game, expensive season pass and what not else.

I am highly disappointed by this. I was really hoping that Ubisoft wasn't going to screw with this game and its business model after release but I guess that was just to much to hope for.

The indie game development scene has provided me with some hope that not all is lost for video games by providing me with the newly released game Firewatch.
Firewatch is a single-player first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness where you climb radio towers, unlock weapon skins and... oh wait, it's none of that. What it is however is... very hard to put into words without spoiling the game.

You are a fire-watch-man (is that what you call it?). Your job is to look out for fires from your tower.  The basic gameplay is this; you climb up or down cliffs, explore the wilderness and talk to someone on the radio. The environments are quite pretty but where this game really shines is the dialogue between you and your supervisor. This is not a walking simulator, this is (if anything) a talking simulator.
Now I'm not going to spoil the plot so let's leave it at this and just say that the game made me happy and made me sad. All that good stuff that comes from good writing and good voice actors.

It's games like this that remind me why video games are a medium worth exploring and not all shooty-shooty-bang-bang. While those games can be fun to, it's games like Firewatch that I will remember many years later whereas the frustration that comes from dealing with Ubisofts triple-A bullshit is something I hope I will soon forget.

That is all folks, have a nice day!