The sweet rock band I’m currently in, Fly Like Venus, is getting more legit everyday.

The RPM Challenge is an annual, um, challenge to make an album of music in a month. That’s 35 minutes or 10 songs, whichever comes first. I completed it once in 2010, which was when I made my first album of both music and lyrics.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

I have a new album of music out. It’s a 5-track EP called Gray.

Note: these albums didn’t necessarily come out in 2016, but I listened to them A LOT in 2016 (I’m behind on a few things)

Presenting: Utterly, a macOS app that puts a GUI on top of Apple’s built-in speech synthesis technology.

Download version 1.0!

My previous attempt, Utter, has been rewritten with state-of-the-art tools and the newest of operating system version. Also, I added a picture of a cow to the app itself (instead of just the icon).

The Github Game Off is over, and my “finished” product is Axeracer (source). It’s a simple, one-track racing game that has you piloting a little insect car thing with axes for antennae, all the better to “hack” through the grassy track on your way to the finish line.

This post is not meant to go over every detail of the game, but just to hit on some of the highlights.

I’ve been listening to Composer Quest for years, spurred on by this tweet from a Mr. Whitaker Trebella, who is a friend of the podcast host, Charlie McCarron.

Spurred on by Github’s Game Off game jam, and inspired by Hook, Line, and Thinker, I’ve decided to use Pico-8 as my game engine workplace, as writing everything from scratch can be a bit of an ordeal. An all-in-one minimalist design shop, Pico-8 has the ability to do the cart, sprites, and audio all in one neat little package.

The band I’m in, Fly Like Venus, played their first show recently! It was at the Company Pub and Kitchen, which is a pretty nice venue, with its own stage and crew. We got it on video and it can be viewed in the little box below.

As an addendum to the last post, I would be remiss to forget to talk about Fly Like Venus for a little bit.