There's Always So Much To Write About
Wednesday July 9, 2025
It's been an eventful four months since arriving back in Toronto. Upon returning to my apartment, I'd discovered a pigeon had disposed of the rosemary plant in the planter I'd left outside and replaced it with a small white egg, and multiple piles of pigeon shit all over the balcony. It was too cold to clean everything up, but the next day, a second egg had appeared so I knew I had to do something. Fortunately the temperatures skyrocketed to 16C one wet day in March, so I took the opportunity and binned everything.
The weather didn't really warm up properly until May. But when the city's cherry blossoms, magnolias and tulips burst into bloom, it heralds the start of True Spring and it's such a wonderful time to be out and around the city to visit all the beautiful trees downtown. The University of Toronto, Queen's Park, Christie Pits and High Park have some magnificent flowers, and it's all a matter of finding the less crowded ones so you can avoid the Instagrammers. We had the Victoria Day fireworks and very soon after, the official 1.0 launch of Lynked: Banner of the Spark.
Though it's only been a year and a bit since I joined FuzzyBot, it's felt like I've slid in and made myself useful pretty quickly. Shipping a game is intensely stressful for everyone. Console development is hard. Programming for TRC requirements is hard and often those features will never been seen by the majority of players. But we did it. The team did it. We pulled through for a largely successful launch and quickly patched some major issues. Reception has been very positive, but I think the game has struggled with discoverability, which is a very common problem these days. It's satisfying though, and we're all incredibly proud of what we've accomplished, and we should be! We celebrated in style - the three of us in Toronto, with partners, at Barberian's Steak House.
There was also Doors Open (Got to see the Mayor's Office and a bunch of cool things in the City Hall, as well as a guided tour of the murals out in Islington), a week in Montreal, Eurovision, and the usual street festivals like Taste of Little Italy and Do West Fest. There was the inaugural Toronto Video Games Month; one of the events they had was to project some video games onto the wall of a factory building by Billy Bishop Airport while people played - that was really cool to watch for a bit, but the highlight was getting to meet the Mayor of Toronto, Olivia Chow, who has an incredibly strong Asian Auntie vibe about her. She tried really hard to sound like she knew about video games but ended up talking about Angry Birds. There was also the Rat Race, a scavenger hunt of sorts through Toronto's underground PATH system, which we achieved second place for! There was Pride, a few days in Bruce Peninsula, and a week in Sudbury visiting Manitoulin Island and Killarney Provincial Park, some of my favourite places in Ontario.
Summer is truly a great time to be in Toronto, it's really a shame that it goes by so quickly. This autumn though, my parents will be visiting me, here in Canada, for the first time since I arrived eight years ago, so there's plenty to look forward to in the months ahead.
Posted by Jeremy at 12:35am on Wednesday July 9, 2025 :: 0 comments :: 
A Wisconsin Thanksgiving
Monday December 2, 2024
I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Wisconsin, this short stint over American Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly interesting place, but the people that I got to meet and catch up with were my primary reasons for coming here. There was a lot of food and alcohol, and some hilarious memories that we’ll talk about on our Discord for years to come. Insinkerator-gate!
I guess it was nice to just have a very quiet holiday where I could wake up late every day and not worry about work for an extended weekend. No obligation to code something for the website or fix bugs. Couldn’t even really go explore by myself since it was so cold and I had no transport, but I did get to see a little bit of the surrounding towns and countryside. Stoughton has a very strong Nordic presence, and I got smashed off a 10oz cup of cider before sobering up at Culvers, known for their butter burgers and frozen custard. Went up to Madison once to have brunch on Saturday, there happened to be a cat store with two cute voids sitting around. At dinner, we watched a bit of Jet Lag, a YouTube channel where in this particular season, they had turned New Zealand’s highway system into a board game and raced from Cape Reinga to Bluff. We also played Lynked: Banner of the Spark, and it was a genuine joy to learn that so many in the room had purchased the game and were playing it too.
I was supposed to meet Matt in Chicago during my six hour layover but he wasn’t feeling too well so I ended up venturing to Logan’s Square for some food by myself. It was all terrible. The pizza was too salty and the ice cream was gross and too sweet. Better than being cooped up in the airport at least, so after I had acquired all my food, I headed back to the airport. Security was a breeze and I’ve just been sitting around monitoring my Duolingo progress and organising things for my last full week in Toronto.
Posted by Jeremy at 2:10am on Monday December 2, 2024 :: 0 comments ::
Busy. Busy busy busyyyyyy
Thursday November 28, 2024
It seems like the only time I have available to sit down and blog is when I’m at the airport. I’m on my way to the US to visit some old friends from Psypoke days for US Thanksgiving. FuzzyBot has declared a studio holiday for today and tomorrow so I took advantage of it and booked flights to Wisconsin when they dropped to $360. This might also be one of the last times I’ll be in the US for the next four years.
It’s been crazy busy for the past few months. We released our game into early access on Steam and have been met with very positive reviews so far, but a few issues around stability and performance. But we’re all incredibly proud of what we’ve made, and I’ve never had such encouraging feedback from my friends who have actually downloaded the game to play. We have a lot to do before world wide launch next year, but things are looking good for Lynked: Banner of the Spark!
Summer was busy too. There was Pride and Canada Day. I got Fourth of July off as well, so I did a day trip to Hamilton to see the waterfalls, as well as a Costco run where I didn’t think I would buy much, but I ended up spending $96 on cereal, dried fruits and a beautiful hydrangea plant that later died. There were food festivals, barbeques, lots of cat friends, a trip to a free zoo in Peterborough, ice cream, and many lobster dinners. I went to the CNE and got some soft shelled crab and saw a kapa haka performance from a troop from Canterbury. We went up to North Bay for Labour Weekend and Algonquin for Thanksgiving to see the fall colours. There were some stunning auroral lights that we caught by Brampton - twice this year! - a great sign of the solar maximum. There was the salmon run at Port Hope and Etienne Brulé Park. There was Mooncake festival and the Final Fantasy VII REBIRTH concert with Arnie Roth conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra once more. I got introduced to Activate, I went to Nuit Blanche, I went comet hunting, I did a day trip to Niagara on the Lake, I met my fellow Torontonian workmates for dinner, I made dumplings and I wandered around the Christmas market at the Distillery District (but it was on a Tuesday so it was free). Things have really been so much nicer with someone to join me on all these things to do around the city and the province.
I’ll be heading back to New Zealand for Christmas this year. Looking forward to all that summer sunshine again, as well as family and friends that I haven’t seen since…well, technically last year, I guess. I’m lucky to have a job that lets me work remotely and will try to use this benefit as much as I can.
Posted by Jeremy at 3:40pm on Thursday November 28, 2024 :: 0 comments ::