A YIMBY’s Modest Proposal

Let’s say there’s a nice house, around 100 years old, on a street. It’s been well-maintained and had normal renovations done over time to keep it comfortable and practical to live in (electrics upgrades, HVAC improvements, new roof when necessary, etc.). Now, suppose an inventor buys the empty lot next door. This inventor loves theContinue reading “A YIMBY’s Modest Proposal”

Centering a stupid box in Unity

If you have a 2D game with a board and you want to center it on the screen, here’s the best way I came up with to do it. Suppose you have a variable-size board (could longer or shorter in either dimension) on a variable-sized screen (could be a phone, tablet, web browser, console, etc.).Continue reading “Centering a stupid box in Unity”

Setting a random seed for Unity

Over the holidays I’ve been playing with game development in Unity, so I’m going to post a couple of things I’ve discovered that I think are handy. First up: setting a random seed for your game. Not exactly a groundbreaking discovery, but I implemented this early on and it’s game-changing (har har). I added aContinue reading “Setting a random seed for Unity”

Co-founder analysis

I recently signed up for yCombinator’s cofounder matching platform. After a week, I deactivated my profile with over 100 founders (or potential founders) having reached out to me. That seemed like a lot of responses, which might be because I had fairly flexible requirements: open to someone technical or non-technical, geography didn’t matter, and aContinue reading “Co-founder analysis”

Optimizing resource allocation

Every year, I go to GenCon: a gaming conference where tens of thousands of nerds descend on Indianapolis to try out new board games, RPGs, and other assorted nerdery. Indianapolis is no stranger to huge conferences, but GenCon stretches the city to its limits. GenCon buys thousands of hotel rooms throughout the city and thenContinue reading “Optimizing resource allocation”