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jhax.bsky.social
JHax
@jhax.bsky.social
72 followers 880 following 60 posts
Indie Game Dev (sort of) | Mathematician (by training) | Software Developer (so I can get myself treats) | he/him | https://jhax.itch.io
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jhax.bsky.social
More PC upgrades! I've been running for a week on this now and seems stable enough (touch wood!) having swapped from my old NVidia GeForce 1060
An AMD Radeon 9700XT graphics card sitting in a box An AMD Radeon 9700XT graphics card sitting in an opened up PC, plugged into the motherboard, but not the power supply
May 21, 2025 at 12:24 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Bashing together a few bits on Spinny Wizard Game ahead of the Playtest Party table at Impact in #Bristol

Every time I see people playing it, this not happening comes up and I'm always like "ahh I need to sort that!"
Github commit message saying "Reset Mana to Max at the start of versus rounds"
May 19, 2025 at 11:04 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Took a break from opening up my PC and tinkering with its innards yesterday to open up my coffee grinder and tinker with its innards! Looks like a much more consistent grind - hopefully it'll stop jamming so much as well!
A naked coffee grinder. Black plastic tower with a yellow circuit board at the front The "oh god what have I done" stage ofnthe process. A coffee grinder broken into 4 parts, haphazardly strewn across a table along with a couple of screwdrivers. At the top of the image is the outer casing, followed by the top section where the beans go, the middle containing the lower butt and circuit board and finally, the base. The inside of a coffee grinder, comparing an old worn burr, tarnished with old coffee grounds and the shiny new clean one. Comparison of the old grind with the new one, the old on the left is much coarser and less consistent. On the right, I'd a finer and more consistent grind of coffee
May 12, 2025 at 10:39 AM
jhax.bsky.social
PC upgrade part 2, phase 3- everything was turning on at least! Couldn't find the BIOS upgrade I'd got for my motherboard. Hadn't realised I needed to unzip the download (rookie move!) Raspberry Pi came to the rescue - finally got booted into Windows 11! Almost done, graphics card on the way!
A Raspberry Pi micro computer on a table with a red memory stick inserted. Saved the day when I realised I hadn't properly got the BIOS upgrade prepared for my new Motherboard The finished upgrade. Windows 11 desktop on a monitor on the left with an open PC case on rather right Open PC case, with some marginally better cable management
May 10, 2025 at 9:42 AM
jhax.bsky.social
PC upgrade part 2, phase 2 - got the new bits into the case and plugged in. Disaster struck - didn't get any video signal on my monitor! Took a step back, slept on it, nicked the system speaker off my old motherboard the morning after to troubleshoot and found I'd just seated the RAM badly (phew!)
The ideal state of a computer, simple, streamlined, just a power supply in a case and a whole mess of wires. No motherboard or CPU or graphics card or any of that nonsense. One side open for optimal airflow New motherboard, cpu, cooler and ssd sitting happily in the PC case. Before the nightmare of plugging everything back in, getting the old graphics card back in and getting nothing on a monitor. It lives! Back end of a PC case and a monitor thankfully showing some signs of life
May 5, 2025 at 3:02 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Phase 2 of my PC upgrade complete (somewhat pending seeing how it goes under normal use)
New motherboard, CPU and SSD are in, now on Windows 11 as well (less sure about it but don't have a huge amount of choice on that!) Was very nervous about the MoBo / CPU / cooler setup!
A PC motherboard with a shiny new CPU installed! Thermal paste haphazardly added to a cpu in the classic 5 dot pattern New motherboard with the CPU, SSD and dual tower cooler installed. Plus my be-socked foot for some reason
May 4, 2025 at 12:23 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Found a relic in my parents' loft, from the first gig I ever went to
A guitar pick featuring the Italian flag and the text "Lacuna Coil"
April 19, 2025 at 5:51 PM
jhax.bsky.social
The big "oh wow my PC's too old for Windows 11, maybe this is the push I need to upgrade" process has begun in earnest today! Was going to upgrade to an SSD but I didn't check exactly how adaptable the M.2 to PCI adapter I got was
Photo of a PC tower on a table along with a new power supply unit box and some other PC parts that have been parked for the time being The inside of a PC tower, with the old power supply unit, horribly dusty, removed Insides of a PC tower with some very slapdash cable management hooked up to a new power supply. Booting as far as BIOS, as shown on a monitor nearby Insides of a PC with some slightly better cable management (and a power supply that isn't concerningly drooping down towards the motherboard and graphics card ant more). A nearby monitor shows a Windows login screen
April 14, 2025 at 2:36 PM
jhax.bsky.social
#LD57 complete - here is my final To Do list (I'll post the game tomorrow when I'm less knackered!)
Notepad that reads: LD 57 TODO Station shuttles DONE Pausing DONE Ensure uniqueness of symbols DONE Add base symbol to used codes list DONE End game handling DONE Consume upgrade on use DONE Penalties for maxing out planet cargos DONE Add fuel mechanics DONE Menus etc. DONE Space Station Spawning DONE Dynamic tutorialing DONE Code for Music (rip from plan bee?) DONE Code for sound effects DONE Sort out upgrade UI hot resizing DONE Adjust when upgrades are available (shuttles particularly) DONE Set some maximums for upgrade lists DONE Move Icons above UI DONE Cycling planet textures DONE Base rewards on distance / whether they have to be sorted SORT OF Space Station Sprite DONE Make probes act on a delay / give them an animation DONE Get ships to rotate SORT OF Music DONE LD image 640x512 DONE Itch Image 630x500 DONE Sound effects DONE Test Year Tick DONE Penalty SFX DONE Itch.io page DONE Ludum dare submission DONE Sorting Tutorial DONE Sorting Tooltip DONE More upgrades HOW MUCH IS MORE? More fun name generation ABANDONED :( Background startfield? ABANDONED Overload Tutorial ABANDONED BUGS Navigating to a planet you're already at DONE Browser saving seems to be falling over at the first hurdle? DONE
April 7, 2025 at 11:36 PM
jhax.bsky.social
The kind of self confidence we all deserve #LD57
Screenshot of a block of code that says "Get Best Spacecraft" then "return this"
April 6, 2025 at 9:04 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Aaaand we're off to the races
#LD57
Image shows a screenshot of a game window, proudly sporting a small green square in the top left corner of a larger black square
April 5, 2025 at 9:30 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Off to a strong start with #LD57

Big "I'm setting LOAD_COMPLETE to true...why does SETUP keep getting called" hours
A screenshot of a block of code. Crucially a variable, LOAD_COMPLETE is in a pair of brackets, missing an essential "if" before it
April 5, 2025 at 9:29 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Finished my first half marathon at the Bath Half yesterday! Prepared to feel worn out all week XD
A very tired man with a Bath Half finisher's medal
March 17, 2025 at 9:59 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Latest iteration on Spinny Wizard Game tutorial stuff - the checkboxes seem like a weirdly "it's becoming a real game now" thing to me XD

#IndieGame
Animated gif demonstrating a video game tutorial screen. Features checkboxes next to symbols suggesting certain actions that are ticked once the action is complete - hopefully in a clearer way than previous attempts
November 11, 2024 at 7:02 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Oh hey I've just realised I can post a video of my favourite Spinny Wizard Game bug!

#IndieGame
November 4, 2024 at 8:47 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Ludum Dare results are in! A bit surprised this hasn't done better than some of my other LD games, but being near to the top quarter seems pretty good to me! (Play the game here: jhax.itch.io/plan-bee
Ludum Dare game rating results: Overall: 625th Fun: 554th Innovation: 280th Theme: 336th Graphics: 652nd Audio: 493rd Humor: 848th Mood: 784th
October 27, 2024 at 9:59 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Sadly - although perhaps not for my PC - unable to do the infinite camera / mirror thing with the new tutorial / character select in Spinny Wizard Game
#GameDev #IndieDev
A screenshot of a video game level with various overlapping picture-in-picture zones
September 30, 2024 at 5:18 PM
jhax.bsky.social
LEFT SMBWE #GameDev #IndieDev
A diagram of a gamepad with two overlapping labels that overlap in a way to appear to say "Left Smbwe"
September 30, 2024 at 4:25 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Starting to get back into the Spinny Wizard Game dev flow!

Have revamped some visuals / the orb follow particles

Added purple enemies so I can rejig collision rules so things are a bit more consistent

(Not pictured: breaking co-op levels due to some tilemap tinkering)
A circle of red, blue and purple ghosts surround a wizard in green, who is spinning an orb of red magic
September 9, 2024 at 4:25 PM
jhax.bsky.social
More experiments in bending the rules in PixelBox...

Wanted UI for character info, don't have much screen space- mucked around with textures a bit to avoid obscuring the action!

Is it elegant? No!
Is the code at least efficient! Also no!

#GameDev #IndieDev
May 15, 2024 at 10:40 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Accidentally made a new enemy type in Spinny Wizard Game
May 6, 2024 at 3:46 PM
jhax.bsky.social
#LD55 completed! I've made a game about operating the lifts in Hell
April 16, 2024 at 1:09 AM
jhax.bsky.social
Orb.
March 10, 2024 at 12:53 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Trying to get a bit of a "How To Play" guide together for Spinny Wizard Game ahead of a playtest event in Bristol

Think I can probably leave it here tbh

#GameDev #IndieDev
Image of some badly aligned rectangles. With "How To Play" written at the top and "Use the" followed by a coloured circle at the bottom
January 29, 2024 at 9:23 PM
jhax.bsky.social
Has been a bit of a struggle to conjure the motivation to work on my #indiegame today (tbf, I'm a little bit ill)!

But I've managed to get going by putting in some very basic silly name generation stuff for power ups!

#screenshotsaturday
A screenshot of a pixel art video game. The ui indicates the player on the left has a power up called "Beelzebub's Insights" and the player on the right has a power up called "Gummo's Bibliography"
November 18, 2023 at 2:14 PM