A whole underwater world running in your browser. The fish are low-poly. The dying is high-fidelity.
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Uncle Matt makes things
I build things and show you how I did it: the ugly drafts, the dead ends, the parts that caught fire. I don't always know what I'm doing. I've decided not to let that stop me. Pull up a stool.
Latest from the bench
Freshest posts first, across everything.
- The cheapest tool in the shop
A pencil and a cheap notebook beat a good memory every time.
- Why the PolyFish die
Eating in PolyFish gives you zero energy, so every creature is on a countdown clock from the moment it's born. No population caps, no spawners, just collisions and math. The population runs away and crashes on its own, every single time.
- The two kinds of wire
A line between two games can mean two completely different things: one I draw by hand because it tells a story, one the machine infers from the data. Plus the boring duplicate problem that nearly ate the whole project.
- It started with beer, not fish
PolyFish is twelve years old and it started with beer. A private VR experiment about yeast and a population curve that crashes on purpose, which turned into an ocean I actually showed people. Here is where the fish came from.
- It started with a music map I couldn't stop clicking
I borrowed the idea off a music influence website, then went looking for the same hidden wiring in games. It turned into a 3D star map of fifty years of game history, and one problem I still haven't cracked.
Finished
Proof I actually finish things. Some of them, anyway.
The history of video games, wired up like a conspiracy board. Everything connects to everything.
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The Backyard
A camera, a feeder, and one very confident raccoon. An observation post for whatever wanders through.
build notes coming soonOddball Creature Club
Made-up critters with real attitudes. Character design, and a sticker habit I can't quit.
build notes coming soon
Still on the bench
In progress. Sawdust everywhere. Check back.
Hoverbike
in progressA game about going much too fast, a few inches off the ground.
Numen
in progressA game. That's all I'm saying for now.
Living room LEDs
in progressToo many addressable LEDs and a soldering iron I probably shouldn't be trusted with.
Down the rabbit hole
Still reading, sketching, and taking things apart to see how they work. No promises yet.
Animatronics
researchingTeaching motors to act. So far they mostly twitch, but menacingly.
The Crossroads
researchingA story you walk into instead of read. Still drawing the map.