Days Off
Monday September 26, 2016
Taking the two days off after daylight savings weekend (the weekend where you spring forward an hour) was a great idea. This morning, I got up, had breakfast, played some Final Fantasy Record Keeper, then fell asleep again until lunch time. So good. It hasn't been all relaxation though, the weeks of neglect from going out to hunt Pokemon have left my apartment in a little bit of disarray, so there was plenty of cleaning and vacuuming to do. I still want to hit the gym at some point today. I might have an early dinner and go late to avoid the regular Monday night rush.
The past week has been relatively quiet too. We released Shadow Wars, a puzzle/collection game, for both iOS and Android. I had a minor part in this one - the platform services integration - so I'm to blame if the cloud sync or your achievements goes wrong. It's been an interesting experience though, it has made me more aware of how terrible certain technologies are, especially how we have to work around Xcode to get our entitlements and provisioning profiles working. Because we're using Unity, it generates the Xcode project at build time, meaning we can't use Xcode's GUI to manage our provisioning or entitlements or capabilities. We end up having to script in our changes to enable iCloud, allow push notifications, add associated domains, etc. The whole process takes 20 minutes to test and debug as well. It was definitely one of the most frustrating things I've had to do, but we got there in the end. It's one of those things that you tend to do once and then forget about until the next project.
I still need to catch up on food blogging. Maybe that will be a tomorrow job. I'm not always one for completely vegetating throughout the whole day, but it's nice to not have a specific agenda and to just relax and take things at my own pace.
I should take more days off.
Edit: It started raining. I did not make it to the gym. I ended up making my own apple sauce though - it's so good!
Posted by Jeremy at 2:50am on Monday September 26, 2016 :: 0 comments :: 
World Famous in New Zealand
Monday September 19, 2016
A lot of things have been happening in the last couple of months. It's been hectic, chaotic, exhilarating and draining all at once. I'm finally able to sit down and write in my blog because... well, I don't need to go out and catch Pokemon anymore - I've caught them all!
As a fan of the games, it's been interesting to see how Pokemon Go has represented the franchise, and especially its ubiquitous motto - Gotta Catch 'em All. Though the game lacks polish and usability in many places, what they have managed to do very well is - and excuse the pun - capture the core of the Pokemon games: collection. From a developer's perspective, it's been interesting looking at how particular features were implemented and how I could use that to my advantage - density and distribution, spawn points and timers, known locations and nests of particular Pokemon, and so on.
My last Pokemon was a Lapras, which I caught down by Oriental Parade at 7.59pm on Sunday 11 September 2016. It was pretty surreal, I was incredibly excited and sat in my car screaming for five minutes. The NZ Herald got wind of my story and published an article about my achievement, but incorrectly assumed that I was the first in the country to do so. Nevertheless, there were a few other media appearances - I was interviewed on Flava the radio station, and Jeremy Corbett briefly mentioned me during TV3's 7 Days show. It's been funny because I've never had this much attention in my life, and though I'm not a household name nor have I been stopped on the street, friends of friends have noticed my achievements and those friends have then told me about it, and that's awesome.
I think my friends would agree that it's no surprise that I would get this far. Pokemon has been a major part of my life, especially with the management of Psypoke, and it's no secret that all through high school, University and now at work, it's one of my favourite video game franchises. At the same time, I've still held my job, socialised with people, been to the gym (the actual lifting weights gym) and played badminton all in my regular routine, I've just squeezed a bit more Pokemon in every day so I can catch them all.
What now, then? There's four region exclusive Pokemon to catch - Kangaskhan in Australia, Farfetch'd in Asia, Mr. Mime in Europe and Tauros in North America. Generation two must surely be on the cards soon as well. I can prepare for that in advance by making sure the new evolutions are ready to go once the update drops. There's the buddy system too and I can continue levelling everything up. The opportunity to travel is exciting and a good excuse to get out of the country.
In other news, Wellington on a Plate was a blast, as usual. That will be a completely different write-up on my food blog - so much to talk about. On the whole, I thought the burgers last year were of a higher standard, but many this year were still very enjoyable. Mid-autumn festival was last Thursday and on Saturday I cooked a vegan dinner in celebration, and on Sunday I cooked a non-vegan dinner in celebration. Both turned out very well and people were well fed.
In short: there were a few very strong earthquakes centered east of New Zealand that were widely felt in Wellington on September 2; I went with Mana, Mike and Tim to Red Rocks to see the seals; I saw FFXV Kingsglaive and thought it was okay; work has been tough and I've had to put in a few more hours to get things done but the end is in sight.
We're only three months away from Christmas. The year has gone by so quickly >_<
Posted by Jeremy at 10:28am on Monday September 19, 2016 :: 0 comments ::