ARRRR
Sorry, I’ve not been present much here or on social media, because things are going on here, Artelier-wise!
We’ve been sitting on this pirate flag for a while, waiting for our handyman to be available. And now, it’s flying proud, making the little grandpas sitting at the coffee shop in front of our house laugh (which is such a bonus!).
It has multiple uses… Of course, the first one is once again affirming to our beloved street that we’re weirdos! But the added bonus is to be able to tell delivery persons that usually have a hard time figuring out where our house is that it’s the pirate flag house. 🏴☠️
And yes, we chose THAT ONE in particular, the Captain Harlock one (Albator in French), because we’re fans… and we’re old. 😂
Artelier Improvement: The Before
The Artelier has been like this for MONTHS.
I’m living on the day bed I’ve had installed, surrounded by boxes of furniture and stuff that I don’t have the space to put away yet.
Even though I am suffocating, barely surviving in all this mess (drama 9000 inside), it’s for a good reason.
Today, things are starting to change. The furniture is getting installed. It’s part of my 50 Goals for my next year of life (50 to 51):
Artelier
- get all the furniture installed in the Artelier
- finish organizing the Artelier
- setup gaming desk
- setup big aquarium
- decorate and make the Artelier cozy
I have most of the furniture ready, the rest arrives next friday.
I wanted to keep some memories from that time. It has followed a very difficult time in our home, and even though it is very hard for me to live like this, it is a promise of a cozy, happy future in my Artelier. The piles of boxes will slowly disappear, leaving dedicated spaces for books, yarn and decor.
The desk that was my gaming space will be replaced with a crafting station, where I will put my art supplies and crafting tools. An always-ready space to just leave my work-in-progress pieces, where I will feel free to leave messy because its purpose will be to create and not just exist.
The gaming setup will be build as a customized Ikea desk on the left of it. I’m looking forward to have that 2m desk where my husband and I will be able to game together. I’m already planning to organize it for maximum comfort and fun. I’ll add streaming tools too, since they’re planning to install fibre-optic internet in our street, at long last!
Two more drawers are waiting to be installed in the kitchenette that was built last summer.
I enjoy that kitchenette very much: I have a dedicated space to make tea, coffee, or ice cubes. I have a tiny fridge where I can store some diet cokes (because otherwise I never find any after the kids locust them up in the common fridge. The double sink is great too—one sink, on the left, for dishes and stuff like that, and one on the right for messier stuff like paint, plants watering, and in the near future changing water of my big aquarium.
I’ll have some shelves installed too, at some point, but I don’t know yet how it will look. I’m someone that has difficulties projecting myself in a space that is too far from being finished. I’ll take the time later to add those last details, and it will be great.
My husband and my youngest kid helped me take stuff out from under the aquarium, in order to work out the plumbing and electricity stuff for it.
The cabinets under it are reserved for the filter. It also has a dedicated small water tap for convenience—it will allow me to put water in without any balancing act on a stepladder.
I also have two lazy Susans and two drawers in the right corner. I put decor and aquarium stuff in there. I also have a chest in the garden to keep my old tanks and stuff like gravel or sand. My goal is to have everything I need for aquarium scaping and fish/shrimp care nearby.
Above the big aquarium, I will have a pegboard installed. I intend to put terrestrial plants in the aquarium, and they often are climbing plants, so with the pegboard they will have something to hold on to that will not be my wall. I will also put other stuff there, so it’s a win-win situation.
The future crafting desk has been emptied for customization. I am looking forward to put all my art supplies there once it’s done!
I have hoarded Ohuhu markers, Tombows, Prismacolors, Caran d’Ache Neocolor pastels, watercolors, various oil and acrylic paints, and all kinds of crafting supplies like leather work, resin, wood carving, etc. It’s time to actually do something with those, right?
On the right, I have another desk that is supposed to be a working space. For now, I can’t work-work, but I can still use it for projects in the meantime. And then, in 2027, hopefully it will be used as intended.
All these drawers have to be organized too. It will be done after everything is build, so I can make sure to group supplies together.
My two display cases will have to find somewhere else to live. I’m a bit sad about it, but I need the working space more.
Now that the cats live outside (it was a living hell in here with all the fur and cat puke, so we installed heated cat houses in the backyard, and now I can finally live in a clean environment), I don’t have to hide my precious, fragile decor behind glass doors. No one is going to sleep on it, fur it, claw it, or make it fall on the floor….
On the TV wall, I will have two Billy bookcases for my books. For now, they live in my husband’s Boudoir, but he always need more space for his own books, so it will be beneficial for both of us if I get that space for mine!
On the furniture in this part of the room, I will also have countertops. The countertops will have electric plugs (most of them hidden) so that I can leave my gaming consoles, vinyl record player, etc. plugged in. I also got myself a Govee table lamp, and Govee TV backlight for ambiance. It’ll be the last part of the improvement: decorating and making the Artelier cozy.
I was glad to be able to keep my big Alex drawers. They’re amazing to store all my crafting supplies, and they don’t make those anymore, so I would have been sad to part with them.
There will be countertops on them too, and probably shelves to display all my beloved decor.
And, probably one of the first things that will be done: add three kitchen wall cabinets between the A/C and the aquarium, right about the sink and the kitchen-side countertop.
Again, I don’t plan on spending my time risking breaking my neck on a stepladder, so in those I will put things on display, mostly. I ordered glass doors and glass shelves for that purpose.
It’s time! Our handyman has arrived, and is going to start working on the aquarium. Yay!
Enemies Sprites: Zombies!
I needed some enemies for my Save the Geddonverse game, so I made some zombies the other day. Today, I added an idle version, because I might at some point decide I want them to go after the player in particular circumstances (at night? if the player is too near?) and at other times they might be… evaded? We’ll see!
-
- Chibi Zombie
Now I just need to insert the zombie sprite sheet to Godot and add them to my game. And then, make them shamble around!
Save the Geddonverse: Progress Log (1)
I’ve had a hard time understanding why my game was bugging the last few days, so I decided to take a break and play video games with my husband this week-end. We had fun with Slots & Daggers and Super Fantasy Kingdom.
Today, I’m back with a refreshed mind and enough motivation to finally debug it all, and make some progress with my game!
Done
I first created a sprite sheet in Aseprite with my Irmz character’s animations: idle left, idle right, run left and run right. Then I imported it in Godot and created the animations in the animation player.
character_irmz.tscn
Then I had the hardest time to make it do what I want (face the last horizontal direction pressed, but use either idle or run animations with it).
irmz.gd
character_irmz.tscn
And at last, I searched how to remove the mouse cursor when the start level begins.
start_level.gd
It’s probably not perfect code, but I saw a video the other day on how Undertale is a horribly made game and it totally removed my complexes. I am not claiming I will have the same level of success, but I also don’t fret about writing perfect code anymore, and in my book that’s a win. 😊
Check it out!
To Do Next
I still haven’t found a way to do this easily, so I will keep on searching:
- Find a way to have the fullscreen checkbox toggled on in the options menu when starting in fullscreen mode
- make the game save the options chosen
- Add enemies (zombies!)
- Have the camera follow the player
But this is a problem for next time. I will now rest.
Have a great day! 😊
October 2025 Recap
We’re in November, it’s time for a little recap of what happened in the Geddonverse last month. It has not been a productive time—I have been sicker than usual, and spent a lot of time broken in bed. Health-wise, and thus mental-health-wise, it has not been great.
Blogging
I published 13 blog posts in October, which is only two less than in September. Since I haven’t been able to do much, it’s pretty good still.
- September 2025 Recap
- Geddonverse Games: Building the Menu System (Part I)
- The Problem With Being Undiagnosed
- Drawing Maps & Dungeons
- Shadowdark Village Map
- Choosing My Color Palette
- A Dumpster Fire Life
- I Live for Small Delights
- The Difficulty of Doing the Things I Want to Do
- 50 Goals: Create a Grand Tally for My Project
- Create Chibi Avatars in Aseprite
- Geddonverse Games: Building the Menu System (Part II)
- Creating Background Music in LMMS
I had 16 posts so far, that makes it 29 in total that I can list on my homepage.
October Goals
I had quite a few goals I wanted to reach in October:
- write September Recap
- create more pixel art assets for my game with Aseprite
- create some designs on Procreate
- decide on a color palette
- create some music with LMMS
- work on systems for my project game dev with Godot Engine
- post regularly on Bluesky
I was quite afraid as the end of the month was getting near that I wouldn’t be able to check them all off, but somehow I regrouped during the last days, and was able to do at least a little for each of them.
I worked first thing on my September Recap, because it’s important to me to see what I am working on, and how much I got done. It is always fun, but also a little bit disheartening sometimes, to see that there is not a lot of people around that care about what I do.
I made more pixel art: Chibi Avatars. I don’t know if it is counting towards my game assets, though. Close enough, I guess.
Regarding drawing on Procreate, I created two maps for my husband’s scenario—that will be trad published in a zine with other Shadowdark contributions from TTRPG peeps he knows. A dungeon map, and a village map. More on that when it actually gets published and I receive a copy!
I decided on a color palette for future illustrations and projects. This solved one of the barriers I had that was preventing me to start on other projects. It is possible that it is going to have some changes in the future (probably the pastels), but so far I am happy with the choices I made.
I created a small loop in LMMS for my Save the Geddonverse game dev project. It’s good enough for me to be happy to use it—though I certainly am not what you could call a music producer!
I worked some more on my game dev project. It’s been hard to show up because of my health problems, but I found some renewed motivation and energy at the end of October, which allowed me to make some progress.
I also, as planned, posted more regularly on Bluesky. In September, I had 15 followers and 22 posts. In October, these numbers grew to 21 followers and 121 posts. I think I did good with posting more, but somehow this did not translate to a lot more following. It’s still fine, I’m still enjoying the process.
I did a little more than those goals:
- I also posted three shorts (here, here and here) about my game on YouTube and other social media platforms—I will be counting those as assets creation videos on my homepage,
- I worked on more pixel art, that I have not posted about on the blog yet,
- and I started working on a secret project (more on that in the future).
So, all in all, still progress!
Learning
Still watching YouTube tutorials on pixel art and game dev in Godot, but I have also watched quite a few YouTube growth strategy videos—mostly the ones that are more up my alley with slow living and slow working.
Social Media
October’s numbers are not great. I’m consoling myself with the fact that it might be because I didn’t post as much as I hoped, due to my health and mental health struggles, but if I want to be real, I’m not having much of a reaction to what I’m posting. Heh. 🤷♀️
- Bluesky: 21 followers (+6), 121 posts (+99)
- Facebook: 211 friends (+32)
- Instagram: 6 followers (+4), 16 posts (+11)
- Mastodon: 6 followers (+2), 50 posts (+33)
- Medium: 0 followers, 2 posts
- Pinterest: 1 follower (+1)
- Quora: 0 followers
- Reddit: 0 followers
- Threads: 1 follower
- TikTok: 1 follower (me), 3 videos (+3), 2 likes (+2)
- Tumblr: 0 followers
- Twitch: 0 followers
- X: 3 followers (-1)
- YouTube: 1 subscriber (me), 3 videos/shorts (+3), 486 views, 0.4 watch hours
I will still follow the social media plan I brainstormed. I’m playing the long game. If it happens, good, otherwise I won’t have spent all my energy in something that yields few results. Next month, in November, I will focus on Facebook. I will of course still post on other accounts, sharing my links and thoughts, and chatting if someone interacts with me there.
In conclusion
Future looks cloudy, my body has chosen violence, and time is fleeting by. It’s a miracle I was able to work on all of my goals in October, and do real progress.
There haven’t been a lot of work done on future passive income streams, but still:
- I created and posted 3 shorts
- I worked on my game Save the Geddonverse
- I created two maps that will earn some income (my husband will earn those, since I am forbidden to work)
- I worked on a secret project with earning potential in the future
I am feeling more confident with my drawing/pixel art and even if coding in Godot is pretty difficult, I’m still making progress. I just need to buckle up and keep going, for as long as I can.
See you next month for the November 2025 Recap! 😊
Creating Background Music in LMMS
This is my first attempt at creating a loop to use as a background music for my game. It uses simple beats and basslines, a slower tempo, and also a kind of lofi, old-school kind of vibe.
That’s it for today!
Geddonverse Games: Building the Menu System (Part II)
Oh hai there! Yeah, I know… It’s been a whole month since I have worked on my game. Between feeling shitty heath- and mental-health-wise, and working on other projects (here, here, here, and here), I hadn’t taken the time. It all felt very overwhelming.
I needed to have a plan, so I decided that today was game dev day.
It may seem like a very small step all in all, but it’s still a step forward.
Choosing the Game Title
It’s been challenging. I keep switching between ideas, because I wanted to have keywords in my game title.
In the end, I have settled on “Save the Geddonverse“.
I am plotting an idle tower defense and Vampire-Survivors-like bullet heaven/hell crafting game, and I will just use the corresponding keywords elsewhere (for example, in the description).
Changing the Button From Labels to Icons to Avoid Localization
Localization is very important if you want, at some point, to sell your game. Yes, a ton of people know English, so it’s a good bet to make it in English… but what about other languages, like Chinese? It is a huge market that is hard to crack due to language issues. Non-English speakers will not buy what they can’t read.
As someone who suffered as a young girl with the game localization space, that used to inflict weird translations upon French gamers for a lack of space in the dialogs, I really don’t want to have to think about that.
So I’m using a strategy to avoid text altogether. I will do my best to do everything with images. Buttons, resources, dialogs, character needs, etc.
I still don’t know if it is totally doable, and I have already a first problem with it (the title and description!), but if I can contain the problem to a few areas, it’ll be fine.
My Start Menu Buttons Do Stuff Now
I created a scene where the game will start. So far, it has nothing in it, it is just to allow the Start Menu to point to it when I click the Play button.
I also have created a scene for the Options. I still need to implement stuff (like volume, for example).
The Quit button already worked, but I’m including it as well.
All the buttons are still sending information to the console in Godot, so that I can check they work.
Preloading Useful Scenes
Maybe this is not useful yet. My files are not that big, they shouldn’t take too long to load. Even then, why not future-proof things—they might get bigger in size in the future, and I’ll be happy I made sure to preload them.
I guess professional coders are probably laughing at me right now. It’s FINE, I accept that I am a complete n00b. 😊
Trying to Organize the Scenes and Assets in My FileSystem
In order to make it simple on me to reuse code in the future, I’m striving to stay organized. I’m dividing everything into self-contained scenes, easy to find in the FileSystem in Godot Engine.
All the assets are also organized by usefulness and type, in order for me to be able to call them from wherever in the game as need be.
Starting on the Options Menu
I already only implemented a way to go back to the Start Menu. It’s a start!
Now I want to have the option to toggle my game to fullscreen (I’m old, my vision isn’t as good as it once was… also it feels better for immersion).
After a little bit of testing, it works!
It’s still a little bare, and I want to add another functionality today.
Adding Some Music for the Menu!
In October, I played a little with LMMS.
This is in no way some kind of professional music, but I’m pretty pleased with the simple loop I made for my Start Menu background music.
You can listen to it here:
It may or may not change in the future, I don’t know yet. For now, it will be a perfectly fine stand in for the background music in the menus.
Sadly, in WordPress, there is a tiny pause when the track loops, but when it’s in the game it works fine.
Back to the Options Menu to Add a Volume Slider
I don’t have any SFX yet, but I want to add a volume slider for the background music. I added both buses in the Audio console in Godot Engine, for future use, to allow for customized tweaking for players.
I created a slider for the background music’s volume.
One point that stumped me was that the slider was always showing at muted even though the music was on—I found that adding the HSlider’s Value property at 1.5 put the slider at the maximum volume.
And then declared variables and created a function to be able to modify the volume.
This is it for today!
I’ll probably go back to the Options Menu at a later date, if need be, but I’m hoping to start programming the Start Level next. I need to brainstorm how I want it to go, though!
See you next time! 😊
Creating Chibi Avatars in Aseprite
Health-wise, these past few days have been… hard. I haven’t been able to work much on anything, and mental health was in the dumps too. I was watching the days go by, unable to do anything besides mindlessly watching videos on YouTube.
But in my head, I was longing to do all the things, despite the little hope I had to achieve my goals for October.
I feel better. I’m not aching everywhere, fatigue is manageable—though I still have my heart beating very fast every time I get up.
Panic is there, though. I wanted to do so much more. For a while today, I even doubted I would find the strength to open the computer and do anything.
Opening Aseprite was easier than working on my game in Godot.
I used the color palette I created. I will definitely have to add more colors at some point—it was hard to work within the confines of the ones I chose.
I enjoy the chibi style—cute, small peeps with big heads. I decided of a fun (for me), no-commitment assignment for myself. These are 32×32 pixel art characters, with very little in terms of animation—they’re just walking side by side. I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Not sure I’ll use these characters in my game, but MAYBE. I’m counting them.
