More dream world, bread baking and a wedding

May 29

May 29 More dream world, bread baking and a wedding

We back! Longtime readers will remember that I learned about SMART goals at Wharton. So without further ado, let’s check in on our life streaks.

#1 Writing to this blog

Last time around we had 45 days between blog posts. This time around we’re at 24 days. We’re trending in the right direction!

#2 Workout

I maintained a workout streak (defined as either lifting weights + a 2 mile walk *OR* running a 5k every single day) for 46 days before a trip to San Francisco to attend a wedding brought the streak to its conclusion. RIP.

I actually tried to keep the streak going on the road. The day we flew into San Fran I got into gym clothes and literally walked to a gym to attempt to workout, only to discover that day passes were only available to people who had a SF address. I still could have just gone for a run and been a super hardo, but having flown across the country earlier that day, it was easy to just accept the death of a good streak.

However, following five days off during the San Fran trip, I hopped back on another streak and am back up to an active streak of 13 days. Fitness!

Side note - the wedding

The trip to SF was to attend a wedding. The person who got married went to college with Erika, so I was in a lower-stress “+1” wedding mindset. I.e., I was not an important person at this wedding…at all. It was great.

When I think back to this wedding, one thing that I think will stand out is that they held a wedding-wide rock / paper / scissor tournament to decide which attendee would get the honor of signing the marriage certificate as the “witness”. Scissor was the winning throw in the final. I didn’t win - I just saw the scissor being thrown in the final and am telling you about it.

Erika and I had pretty well coordinated outfits for the wedding itself:

We also had matching nail polish to round out the look. This was the sort of wedding where you could dress in a not-conservative way and it didn’t feel weird - which I appreciated. I went more gender-bendy for the ‘drinks the night before the wedding’ event the night before:

So the drinks event was a Friday, wedding was Saturday, and then we stayed Sunday and Monday so Erika could spend more time hanging out with her friends that live in SF + some others who flew in for the wedding. I think Erika had fun hanging with her old friends. I mostly got stoned and stood around the beautiful parks of SF.

#3 Game Dev

The last streak being tracked right now is consecutive days working on the game for at least an hour. Similar to the workout streak, the SF wedding was a five-day interruption. Also similar to working out, I hopped right back on the streak when I got home. The streak that ended when I went to SF was 10 days, and the active streak I’m on right now is 13 days (so game dev and working out are on the same streak right now - all 13 days since getting back from vacay).

Game Updates

So where is this game at!? Since the last update, I’ve mainly continued to build out the dream world. Here’s a super zoom out.

So you’ve got the area in the top right that is Rob’s bedroom. Walking left, you encounter the animated sign we looked at last update, then the area that resembles a classroom, then the area with all the teeth, and finally the airport area. Let’s do a little zoom on each.

Here’s the classroom. As a reminder, this section is part of the dream as a reference to those dreams where you have a final exam for a class you didn’t even know you were signed up for. Previously we only had the teacher and the blackboard - I’ve added the desks and the purple rug to add more classroom feel.

Next up we have the teeth section. This section references nightmares where your teeth are falling out. Since last time I’ve added a rug and a pedestal for Rob’s detached head to sit on.

Next up we’ve got some DIVERSITY! This airport area has already caused me to create 8 different NPCs, so this led to me spending some extra time working out general NPC logistics. On this list was creating a palette to make varied skin tones.

In general, I want these NPCs to be re-used frequently in the game, and for them to feel like characters. For example, we COULD just palette swap a few NPCs (give them a different colored shirt or hair or other surface-level changes) and consider them new people. Many RPGs (including many very good ones) do this, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

A contrasting approach that appeals more to me is to have there be fewer total NPCs but for each one to be more interesting. I’m picturing it to be like the Simpsons - there’s a set cast of characters who crop up regardless of what that day’s episode is about. Chief Wiggum is the police chief, but he also attends local sporting events and goes to the bar and over time you get to know him better.

Mother 3, Stardew Valley and the Persona series come to mind as video games that did this. Of course, for these games to have more-interesting NPCs, the tradeoff was that the setting of the game was limited. In Mother 3 you spend a lot of time in the main village the game takes place in. Same with Stardew. In Persona you spend a lot of time in the high school you attend. I’m not sure how I want my game to handle this conflict - either the places you go or the people you meet seem like they need to be limited. New places means new people. Deepening relationships with the same people requires consistent places.

I made some airport chairs and a few more NPCs to sit in them. For each of these NPCs, I first made a model of them standing, and then modified it to have them seated. I also included a kid in a pink hoodie who will eventually be part of a gang where every kid wears a different hoodie color.

Lastly, we have the opening of our ornate, mysterious door. The image of the door closed we had at the end of last update. The update is making the second frame, which shows the door ajar, while maintaining the door decorations. This was hard to do but definitely a good lesson in perspective.

Bread Projects

Like everyone, I got into baking bread during COVID. Unlike everyone, I am waking up the yeast and firing the pizza oven back up now in 2023*! I will be posting unique bakes to the blog.

*I do not own a pizza oven

robbie sandwich bread

This is just your plain loaf of white bread. Flour, salt, yeast, water. That’s it. There isn’t really even a recipe to link. I have a book called Bread Head that calls their basic white loaf the “look I made bread” bread. That’s what this is. Whenever we run out of it, I bake another loaf. This is our everyday bread.

BROWN bread

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/brown-bread-5596230

My next pivot off of the sammy bread was a molasses / honey / coffee type thing. You can check out the recipe above. It came out a bit sweeter than I thought it would. It was fun, but I don’t think I’d make it again.

In the screenshot that shows both loaves, the one on the right was baked in a cast iron skillet, while the other was baked on a baking pan. The one from the cast iron (featured in the close up) looks a lot better.

cast iron pizza

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/crispy-cheesy-pan-pizza-recipe

While I wouldn’t make the brown bread again, seeing the one loaf do much better in the cast iron did make me want to try another cast iron bake. Enter the cast iron pizza - I’ve already done this one a second time. I bet this gets eaten for dinner once a week for a while to come.

flourless chocolate cake

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/flourless-chocolate-cake-recipe

The only recipe without yeast actually didn’t have flour either - I made this over last weekend and the last piece of it is still in my fridge. It was great and I’d love to eat it again, but we shall see if I ever make it again. I feel like there’s so many chocolate cakes to experiment with that while this tasted great and was very satisfying, there may be too many dessert options to warrant making it again any time soon. Fun though!