So, last week – things got a little sidetracked. Getting ready to go to church and my eldest slips and cracks his chin on the steps. MIND YOU – he was holding the handrail AND MY HAND when this happened. All the times he has walked down those steps holding a load of toys so large he can’t see over them; slip down the steps on his butt, refused to hold anything and do it with a blindfold while juggling chainsaws – nothing. But the minute we’re taking the slightest precautions… BAM – four stitches.

THIS week, my youngest has reverted back to his very needy; meltdowny phase. The running joke is that he clings to me like I was the last chopper out of Saigon. It had been slowly building for the past few days (maybe based on the amount of attention his brother has been getting) but last night he wanted to take his sippy cup into the bath with him. A small, innocuous request – one I easily agreed was fine. And I told him so.

For reasons that will baffle and confound me to the grave – it led to a hour and a half meltdown that no amount of hugging, cajoling, bribing of sweets, threats of all-boys-Christian-scared straight-military- academy, offers to buy him a college education, buy him a mountain of candy, or anything else, would fix. He then proceeded to wake a few times during the night – which led to a co-sleeping session, something I haven’t done with him in many moons.

And yet – game dev MUST continue.

I’ve been listening to a Udemy course on FPS and Playmaker, and while a lot of these courses are retreads of the ‘here is the interface / options / how to get started’ lectures, I do tease out new nuggets of advice and tips each time I listen to one. This time I was able to put together the physics I needed to make a couple of balloons on strings behave like they should, swaying in the breeze and bouncing off each other in a realistic way. I was so impressed with it, I’m tempted to make it the load screen…

I was also able to attend a ‘Level Up’ lecture with the Cleveland Game Dev group – a one in a while chance to hang with peers in the area who have similar interests, and learn a bit about making pixel art. I’m still interested in creating a point-n-click or side scroller based on my eldest and his artwork, so it was a welcome break from kids and the oppressive weather keeping us indoors and the kids constantly battling each other. I’d love to be able to spend more time with the local game dev group, but the demands of daddyhood often leave me tired and they only meet in my neck of the woods every so often.

So – what’s next? I’m currently struggling with Playmaker, Mecanim and getting meaningful acting out of my MakHuman and Fuse characters and trying to learn the new Quixel suite – both of which have been daunting and I’ll be venting about here soon enough.