Journey Through Code

            Around a year and a half ago, I decided to take a shot at teaching myself programming. It was a decision a long time in coming, and something I hadn’t attempted since I was 16 or so – when the resources I found weren’t very good, and I quickly gave up on. However, I’ve always had a vague interest in programming – with a slight lean towards making video games – and I wanted to figure out if it was something I could do.

            So, I did some research into various coding languages and landed on a wonderful website for teaching C++, which is a low-level programming language (which means it provides very basic functionality, making more work for the programmer, but also giving far more flexibility and control over the program). Being a low-level language, that made it harder to learn, but it also meant I was being taught exactly how everything worked – something important for someone like me, who is very curious and wants to understand how all the pieces fit together.

            I was delighted to find that, not only did I take well to programming, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as well. The ways of communicating instructions to computers meshed with my own logical way of thinking so well that I felt I was made for this. However, the lessons only took me so far – and they stopped without teaching me what I really wanted to know, which was how to make a Graphic User Interfaces – basically, all the stuff people see on their displays and can interact with, rather than needing to type in specific instructions.

            Some research taught me that these GUIs are extremely complicated to create, ad, as such, most programmers use pre-designed systems for designing them. This was disappointing for me, but I continued on with my learning experience. A random ad that had noticed how much programming research I was doing brought me to a site that offered me some free lessons in another language, Python, for the purposes of data science. I took to this new, higher-level programming language fairly quickly and easily, finding that different programming languages function in essentially the same way – you just need to learn the new keywords and syntax.

Then my father-in-law gave me a Raspberry Pi – a small computer designed for teaching programming and other computer sciences. This also had some functionalities that taught Python, including a built-in GUI system. I played around and learned with it for quite a while, but, again I felt limited. Then I came across code.org, which provided an excellent course in both computer science and coding with JavaScript – a higher-level programming language that is often used for web programming. The lessons also included an app-building program, which was great to learn with.

            I was coming to the end of those lessons earlier this year when something I’d been waiting for happened. Magic Leap released their standard developer kit. For those who haven’t been following my interest in Magic Leap, this is an augmented reality headset that’s being developed. Rather than forcing you to have a screen in front of you, it allows you to bring put interactive digital objects into the world around you. This can range from digital pets that wander around the room, to work screens you can place wherever you want and carry around with you, to... well, almost anything, really! I’ve been following the progression of this product for years, since I discovered it, and my interest in all the possibilities it offers was part of what resparked my interest in programming. And, while the product itself isn’t set to be released until later this year, they had now released everything needed to star programming applications for it – and I was now at least partially competent at programming.

            Needless to say, I immediately signed up, downloaded what was needed, agreed to all the non-disclosure and other agreements related to it (which, yes, I actually read), and happily launched it. The functionality I saw was really cool and exciting, but I also learned of another step I needed to take – this new technology was being combined with game-engines – programs that make it easier to build and create video games. It wasn’t necessary to use one of them, but it was strongly encouraged and would make life easier.

            And that’s what brought me to Unity, a system I was aware of because I’d played games made with it before, and that was, in fact, already on my computer because I’d considered learning it before. However, as excited as I was about learning how to work with Unity and Magic Leap, I had to hold myself back until I completed my code.org lessons – after all, what’s the point of learning if I’m just going to skip the last, and often most important lessons, just to move on to the newest, most exciting thing?

            And I finished those lessons this week. Now I’ve finally moved on to working with Unity, and I’m loving it! I’ve already made my first little game. It isn’t much – just a ball that you can roll around to collect floating boxes – but I made it myself! And while I did have a tutorial through the whole thing, the most important part to me is that I actually understood at least 90% of what I was doing – including writing code in C#, which appears to be the next language being added to my coding repertoire.

            So that’s my programming journey to date, and it’s very exciting. Where will it go next? Who can say? But you may eventually be seeing little games I’ve made, which will be fun, and when the Magic Leap finally comes out the augmented reality world won’t know what hit it (although, in all fairness, this could end up being because I won’t have learned enough by then and I won’t be sensible enough to let that stand in my way).

Check out my YouTube channel where I tell the stories of my D&D campaigns.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Work or Play?

            I have often wondered about the appeal of certain aspects of video games. These aspects are not, by any means, in every video game, but they show up in a lot of them. So, why is it that we enjoy playing games that, when it comes right down to it, are a whole lot of work?

            I’m currently playing one of the older versions of a game called Harvest Moon. This is a game series where you play a character trying to run a farm in a little village. You basically have to build the farm up from scratch while trying to make money and trying to be part of the small community (maybe even getting married). But there is only so much time in the day, your character only has so much energy in a day, and you start with very little money. In the beginning, the game is all about time management and money management – once you get a ways in and have your farm established, it’s about maintaining a daily routine to keep your farm going. Doing the same thing, day after day after day.

            Sounds an awful lot like work, doesn’t it?

            Another game that I played way too much of when I was younger is Runescape. This is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. There are many aspects to the game, but an important part is trying to get various levels raised. At lower levels, this is fairly quick and easy, but at higher levels you can literally spend days just mining, or cutting down trees, or fighting monsters, or cooking, just to gain one level. Day after day, doing the same thing.

            Hey, that sounds kinda like work, doesn’t it?

            Even in combat-heavy games like Starcraft or Call of Duty, you get an aspect of this – at least if you’re competing against other players and want to do well. You don’t just pick up a controller and become the best on the team – you have to work at it. At the professional level you have to practice and train, day after day.

            Doesn’t that sound like...? Well, yes, okay, at the professional level it is work, but you get my point.

            I believe the presiding theory about this is that video games give a sense of accomplishment without any risk to the gamer. This is a fair theory – you gain a level, and that is a reward for all your hard work. You defeat a difficult opponent and they reward you with treasure. You accomplish the same repetitive tasks one hundred times and you earn an achievement.

            Yet, it’s still just another type of work. Yeah, we don’t take it seriously because it’s a game, but it’s still work. And the general consensus is that work is bad and boring.

            What this tells me is that work can be made fun. All it takes is some gameification – the process of turning life into a game. Like Mary Poppins always taught us (not the blue one). This can be done fairly easy with a variety of apps, or simply setting goals and rewards for oneself, but that only goes part way.

We need employers finding ways of making their workplaces more fun. Having a fun work environment wouldn’t only make employees happier about going to work, it would raise productivity as people try to earn achievements or beat their best score. It would likely improve the employee-customer relationship – especially if the customer was happier at their job.

The augmented reality – being developed by companies such as Magic Leap – would make transitioning workplaces into fun, game-like environments almost simple. Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone loved their job? That’s a future I’d like to see.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Augmented Reality and the Future

            In the past couple of weeks, the internet (and, indeed, the world) has exploded about the new augmented reality game, Pokemon Go. There are two major opinions – the people who love the game and those who think it’s stupid. To me, though, the important thing to look at is what this game means for the future.

            Last year, I shared the story of the Zombies, Run! app and how it got Colleen and myself out exercising regularly when otherwise we could hardly dream of it. Pokemon Go has done the same thing across the whole world – people who would normally be inside all summer playing video games are now outside, exercising, exploring and socializing. People with mental health issues, such as depression and PTSD, are reporting improvements.

So, what do those two games have in common? They make exercise fun, rather than a chore.

            Now, the term “Augmented Reality” is something I’ve become quite familiar with over the past year. Why? Because one day, while out running from zombies, I said to Colleen, “Wouldn’t it be cool if someone developed a technology that would let us actually see the zombies that are chasing us in the story?” I then went on to hypothesize that you could take a virtual reality headset, mount cameras to feed in the scenery and then add in the digital characters.

            I figured I couldn’t be the only one to come up with this idea, so I did some research. What I found was astonishing – in particular, a company called Magic Leap that is working on a piece of technology far beyond what I had been imagining. My brain was flooded with ideas for the possible uses of this technology – yes, games were at the forefront, but there are so many practical purposes as well. It functions as an immersive mobile computer, an art platform, a communications device. With it, people have the potential to holo-comute to work.

            To me, though, the best application of augmented reality is the ability to combine work and play. Imagine being able to go into work and have the work you do become part of a game. You could have high scores that you try to beat each days, achievements and awards for completing a certain amount of work at a certain speed. Goals and praise that can break up an otherwise dull and tedious work shift. From an employer’s standpoint, it could be used to improve worker output and even work quality through turning work into a game.

            Pokemon Go is just the tip of the iceberg. We’re entering a future where science fiction is becoming a reality, and it has great potential for improving life in innumerable ways. All it takes are some deceptive photons and a little imagination to make the world a better place.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.