Ben Slinger

53 Followers
120 Following
89 Posts
Co-host of Bit Storm (@bitstorm), hobbyist game dev, CTO of Podchaser, father of 4.
PronounsHe/Him
LocationMelbourne, AU
Game Design Podcasthttps://podchaser.com/bitstorm

#Abortion access is healthcare.

First Orange Hospital, now Queanbeyan... NSW this has to stop.

And we also can't have places that say on paper that they provide abortion but in reality shame and push people away from it against their wishes.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-13/email-proves-queanbeyan-hospital-has-banned-surgical-abortions/104584910

Email proves Queanbeyan Hospital has banned surgical abortions, as pressure mounts on NSW health minister to intervene

An email obtained by the ABC confirms Queanbeyan Hospital has stopped providing surgical terminations for fetal anomalies and medical reasons, restricting access to a legal and time-critical form of reproductive health care.

ABC News

Laser Train came 7th overall in the recent
#scorejam
- 1st for Sound and 2nd for Gameplay which is rad!

I'm a little disappointed I didn't get one of the judges picks as I think it would've played really well on stream, but oh well.

Maybe a mobile release in the future?

https://bslinger.itch.io/laser-train

#gamedev #gamejam #solodev

Laser Train by Ben Slinger

A retro arcade game - save the present from your future self!

itch.io

New stuff in my (still unnamed) game!

Workers now spawn regularly rather than being an 'upgrade';

Some new enemy art and animation to better show when they're going to fire;

Started on a weapon powerup system!

#gamedev #godot #gameai

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrz72wDkoNA

Sentry Game 2024-08-07

YouTube

A bit more progress on this game.

Started playing with Behaviour Trees for the enemy AI which has been fun, LimboAI for Godot is a nice little tool, loving the visual debugger.

(It's a bit long, but you'll get the gist in the first 30 seconds)

#gamedev #godot #godotengine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfFVJzySyPU

Sentry Game - 2024-07-29

YouTube

After a long time, I found some motivation to work on this sentry game again and I'm pleased with my progress! It has a real game loop now, with upgrades and a fail state, and I can feel it coming together.

Next steps: try out some smarter enemies, add some different weapon types.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlAxHdr8K9k

Sentry Game Prototype - 2024-07-28

YouTube
We desperately need to start a Slow Software movement. High quality, intentionally designed, low defect software done at a quarter of the pace for the same price. Because we've been destroying the mental health of developers for the last quarter century, and what do we have to show for it but a giant mess?
Finally found some time to get a bit more done on this game. Explosions, basic enemies, some screen shake - I nearly have all the elements to actually see if I can make this fun!

If you think about it: overpopulation doesn't exist. Humanity can harbour billions more people than exist today, a multitude of those, even! We have (and already produce) more food than would be needed to feed everyone many times over, yet people still go hungry. Additionally, current estimates see humanity's total population stabilize at ~11 billion.

The idea that there are simply too many people nowadays weirdly only came up the moment birth rates in western nations declined — the idea of overpopulation is hence a racist myth. It's a problem of distributing resources, not the amount of people that need or produce those resources!

We have enough food, wealth, and space for everyone, just a small sum of people (billionaires) hoard more than they need resulting in the poverty of the many. When the resources are distributed in a way that only a few get them, you wouldn't claim the problem is the amount of people, right?

For some reason, world hunger, poverty, etc. have always been around. The larger the population grows, the larger this system that distributes resources grows along with it. It's this system of distribution that's wrong and unfair. Simply saying “the people are at fault, we're all just greedy” is counter-productive, because it makes the problem seem unfixable, much rather it pretends as if the problem lies within human nature (which isn't the truth).

There's an economic system that distributes resources in the most unjust manner, the amount of people is irrelevant, and this problem is fixable, despite how incorrect the word “overpopulation” frames the issue.

Minor progress, but I'm trying to stay motivated given I only really get 30-60 mins a day to put in real progress at the moment. Bullets!

#godot #gamedev

Threw together a mock up to try to capture the general feel of the game I'm dabbling with in Godot, pretty happy with it!

Gameplay will be a cross between Space Invaders, Missile Command and Angry Birds, with a dash of colony management thrown in, with narrative and gameplay driven by storylets.