November
Thursday November 3, 2016
November has rolled around. Work has been pretty busy for me. While mostly working on the latest Doomsday Clicker updates, I've been pulled on to help fight some cloud saving fires on our next big release - Rival Stars College Football. The soft launch was to New Zealand and Australia last month, and the hard launch will be soon to coincide with the college football season and Thanksgiving. I may be pulled onto something new soon as well - and that's exciting!
Over Labour Weekend, Mike, Mana and I went to Stonehenge Aotearoa near Carterton, a man-made rock monument very much like the original Stonehenge, but modernised. Still astronomically correct and useful, and surrounded by green fields and the blue mountains of the Wairarapa. We stopped by Martinborough and had lunch at Cafe Medici, who were still serving their Wellington on a Plate burger, which was amazing, and then we made our way to the Pinnacles near Cape Palliser. We spent some time walking the track in some gloriously sunny weather, then returned home for a quick meal at KC Cafe.
The food over the past month has been delightful. Little Penang held a fifth birthday celebration a few Sundays ago. Juliann and I were invited to this exclusive event, and boy, what a memorable lunch that was. The entire restaurant was packed with friends, family and loyal customers, here to celebrate a restaurant with such humble beginnings but truly authentic and soulful food that only Malaysian cuisine can bring. There was also haggis night at James and Navi's, as well as Canadian Thanksgiving, complete with massive turkey.
We also held a music-focused worship service at Central Baptist - the first I've seen in the 8 or so years I'd been going. Being on the piano for a full hour was pretty gruelling, but I had heaps of fun with the other musicians and the small but enthusiastic crowd that had gathered. Thanks to those who came!
I've also been playing the latest Phoenix Wright game - Ace Attorney: Spirit Trials. Thoroughly enjoyed this one, loved the build up to the final trial and the big reveals that happened along the way, with plenty of nostalgic throwbacks to previous games. I felt they went a bit too overboard with some of the dialogue, which made for some extremely unlikeable characters that you just wanted to punch in the face but never got the full justice treatment. Pokemon Sun and Moon aren't too far away, so that'll be the next big time sink for me.
Posted by Jeremy at 10:10am on Thursday November 3, 2016 :: 0 comments :: 
On The Go
Sunday July 10, 2016
Pokemon Go has hit the App Store in New Zealand and the entire country is going insane. People all over the country are walking, biking and even kayaking almost aimlessly across the city to find Pokemon and claim gyms. Never before has a game like this caused such a phenomenon. It's quite endearing walking through the park and spotting other people "on the Go", with telltale swipes on mobile phones and abrupt stops while walking.
Of course I am all up in this, as are several of my workmates. We've been driving around Wellington, Porirua and Lower Hutt, looking for Pokemon up hills, in parks and by water. There have been some extremely entertaining stories of detecting nearby Pokemon from the car, at which we all either scream excitedly and yell directions for where I should drive, or I park somewhere and we frantically run in four different directions trying to locate the Pokemon in question. The game is full of glitches and the server is constantly unstable. It's incredibly frustrating sometimes. But they've captured the essence of finding and capturing Pokemon pretty damn well, and the IP itself is strong enough to carry the game through these rough patches. I hope they will iron out all the problems and release something more polished.
Things have been pretty busy, as per usual. Doomsday Clicker v1.5 is out on Android, and will soon be on iOS. This update was pretty substantial and introduces "Roomies", experimental characters that are created in your Space Base and sent to Earth to boost the performance of your bunkers and rooms. I even got to do the voices for one of the characters! The next update is going to be technically challenging for me, so I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do. In short, there's been some epic karaoke for Ramon's last day, hot pot and birthday parties for Phil, Vix and James. The Moustache Milk and Cookie Bus has finally made it to Wellington, and serving up some delicious cookies by Marion St. Winter has been relatively mild and we've enjoyed some brilliant sunny weather, but the days are definitely colder.
It's hard to believe that we're over halfway through the year. Wellington on a Plate starts next month (crikey!)
Posted by Jeremy at 11:50am on Sunday July 10, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Been a While
Saturday May 28, 2016
Things have been insanely busy, as usual. Where do I even start? So much as happened since the last blog post.
Doomsday Clicker has been performing well, and we managed to hit all our deadlines - but not without some troubles along the way. The v1.3 Android release saw a torrent of negative reviews reporting the game would not boot properly, and since we were lined up for featuring, it was of utmost priority to fix the issues. The Game Sync implementation wasn't as robust as we had initially tested, and pretty much my fault, so we scrambled to build stability around all those systems. Thankfully, things came together in the end, and we secured our featuring on Google Play and the iTunes store. I've had a lot of feedback from friends who have enjoyed the game - especially the amazing and catchy soundtrack.
In honour of its successes, the PikPok 19th birthday party was completely Doomsday Clicker themed, with an amazing volcano cake with Monkey and the Red Button on the top, and three cocktails and two shots bearing the names of some of the doomsdays you can cause in the game. The atmosphere was fantastic and it was good to see heaps of people there. There was arm wrestling - we even managed to convince Mario and Tyrone to go head to head. There was dancing and shenanigans but all in all, I think lots of people had a good time.
There was an exciting thunderstorm a few days ago, lightning illuminating the night sky just after midnight, with some heavy rain accompanying the storm. I would have counted 30 flashes of light in the five minutes I was watching, some strikes being very close to the city itself. Wellington's geography means it doesn't get many thunderstorms, so it's always such a delight to see them - as long as you're indoors and warm.
Mat was down last weekend for some 30th birthday parties. We met up with Tim for his at Spruce Goose, and afterwards Mat went for board games with that crew while I went to Phil and Will's for their flatwarming. They had moved into their new place over Anzac weekend - I helped them shift a lot of their bulky furniture and drove the truck for them. Mana and Vix rocked up with some ingredients for making mulled wine, and what a fun time that was! I didn't realise it was so simple - create your syrup first with a little bit of wine, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, orange peel, lemon peel, and any other spices or fruit you want to throw in. When the syrup is the right consistency, pour the rest of the wine in and let it warm without boiling, or the alcohol will evaporate. Easy!
Strawberry Fare's last day is tomorrow. It is truly the end of an era. They have decided to close their doors while the owners look to focusing more on their other restaurants. The past couple of weeks have seen hundreds of loyal fans trying to get the last desserts, myself and Mat included. They weren't taking any bookings, so I decided that I would try going at 11am on Sunday morning to secure my final Devil's Dream Cake. Sure enough, no one was stupid enough to have dessert for breakfast except for Mat and myself, so we enjoyed our final meal at Strawberry Fare forever. You could say that it was...a bittersweet experience.
At the start of the month, I was in Auckland for Mel and Jarrod's wedding - number four of seven this year. The weather was stunning and the location was picturesque. I was on parking warden duty, so had to be there early, but with my swanky haircut and sharp suit, I was exuding confidence and style as I greeted the guests and directed them down the driveway. The wedding was really nice, given they had only a month to plan it. Everything fell into place and it ran smoothly. The next day was Mother's Day, so we went out for yum cha to Sun World in Newmarket, and then back to my sister's to see my two nephews. They're growing up so fast, especially the little one. He's not as moody as he was the last time I saw him, so it's good to see him being more sociable and having more fun. So cute!
There's been karaoke, Andrew's 30th at Five Boroughs, NZIF shows - Eli Matthewson of Jono and Ben fame, and Taking off the Bird Suit - we had hotpot, Ghibli movie nights, Iron Giant at the Embassy, Formal Friday at work, Dianne's birthday and Vix and Tessa's flatwarming. There's been plenty of Louis Sergeant desserts, lunch at the Crab Shack and a massive seven-tiered rainbow cake for Keir's farewell. I need to remember to blog more often or I'll forget all these memories.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:16pm on Saturday May 28, 2016 :: 0 comments ::
Easter
Wednesday March 30, 2016
I cleverly took the four days after Easter off so I could enjoy ten days away from work. Last Thursday, we released an incremental called Doomsday Clicker for iOS and Android. It's been a pretty short burn project, starting on the first week of January and taking two months to soft launch, and another month to hard launch, but the team and I are very proud of what we achieved.
March rolled in pretty quietly, save for a surreptitious boozy karaoke the weekend before, as well as an historical barbeque at Rob's house and Sam and Hannah's engagement party at SFBH. There were some glorious days too, and we took advantage of the brilliant weather one afternoon by cycling around Oriental Bay and the waterfront in a Crocodile Bike. There was Newtown Fair, Cuba Dupa, Tim's stag do, Bobby's leaving and the Dreamworks Exhibition at Te Papa. It's been action-packed.
Over Easter, I was in Auckland where I caught up with Mat, Will and Tom at Circus Circus for lunch on Friday, then joined by Graeme for some board games at Will's later that night. I got a sharp-looking haircut at Hairport on Dominion Road before meeting Charlotte in Newmarket for lunch, and then rushing off to the real reason I was in Auckland - Amy and Vincent's wedding at Nathan Homestead in Manurewa, where I played Lana del Ray's Young and Beautiful as Amy walked down the aisle. It was a beautiful sunny day with a mild breeze, so cue panic when one of my piano sheets fell off the stand. Thankfully I recovered and improvised for a set of four bars before someone very kindly put the music back. Cue more panic when I realised I couldn't see Amy walking down the aisle as everyone was standing in the way, so when she suddenly appeared at the front, I had 15 seconds to wrap up the song - and again, thankfully I nailed the transition to the coda and ended gracefully. The bride and groom were both happy with how things turned out and apparently no one noticed that I had two panic moments, so job well done!
We were at the Heritage Hotel's Tearoom for the reception - a marvelous dining hall with a spectacular view over the harbour. The food was good and the company was great, but even as the reception drew to a close, people were still amped to head out for more festivities. I had to decline, because I had a flight back to Wellington the next day... for another wedding!
My bro Phil took me to the airport early on Sunday morning to catch a surprisingly on-time Jetstar flight to Wellington. Once off the plane, I was home immediately to shower, and off to Timothy and Andrea's wedding at the Island Bay Presbyterian Church. As a groomsman, my task is simple: make sure the groom gets married. As a side though, I was also helping to set up the church and pack down the reception areas, as well as smile pleasantly for the photographs. Again, the ceremony and reception were heaps of fun, and I got to catch up with heaps of people and meet new people too.
It was a tiring two days and I was exhausted come Easter Monday. I took it easy and rolled out of bed after 11am, getting KFC for lunch and doing my grocery shopping for the week. I managed to fit in some squash too, just to make sure I wasn't a complete vegetable the whole day. Yesterday I even made it to the gym, and made chizza - a pizza where the base is chicken. Today was even more productive: I went for physio, returned my suit, practiced piano for this Sunday and did leg day at the gym. And I have so much time leftover today that I even wrote a blog post.
Posted by Jeremy at 9:30am on Wednesday March 30, 2016 :: 0 comments ::