Dana Anne Dread @danana_dread@cybre.space

After many months tinkering in the proverbial workshop, I'm ready to share the first demo of Redlander!

This one spotlights Max, the tiny tool-wielding gremlin technician. Play it here: https://sunspider.itch.io/redlander-demo

You can find more details in the devlog below!
https://sunspider.itch.io/redlander-demo/devlog/402053/redlander-devlog-1-hark-a-playable-alpha

It's hard being sexy, self-directing, and intimidatingly competent.

It's hard and nobody understands.

Experimented with a yogurt banana peanut butter breakfast smoothie, by adding some dried cyanobacteria.

It's the food kind of sea algae, not the poison kind, and it tastes nice and vegetal with hints of toasted nori...

But it still looks like some kind of horrible potion?

Wondering what changed, but I'm pretty sure I stopped getting interviews with game studios as soon as I added (She/They) to my CV.

Might have to run some tests.

...though it'd probably help if I started skipping studios with teams entirely made up of homogenous 30-50-something white guys.

Gluten-free pancake mix from scratch, with cinnamon, cashews, and some bittersweet dark chocolate chunks.

Sauce is pears and raspberry, simmered with a vegan butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Blended it up, and served it with runny fried eggs and unsweetened non-dairy yogurt.

My food isn't always pretty, but it's tasty!

Birthday cake?

Birthday pancake, to be precise! Dairy and gluten free, with raspberry pear sauce. Wanted to do something nice for the GF's most recent trip around the sun.

It's 90F and humid on a workout day, but I promised myself I wouldn't skip it...

I'm wiped! But I feel good. And maybe it's the endorphins, but I thought my pudgy abs and I looked cute when all sweaty.

(Spoilered due to topless tiddy observation being a fireable offense at some workplaces)

One of my favorite things about mid-sized US suburbs are all the confusing little handmade signs for local shops.

They invite such wonder. What could it be...

Correction: It was 45 bug bites from an hour's hike by the river.

(I can tell, because even when I don't scratch them, they swell to a bump the the size of a quarter.)

Hiking Fore River Sanctuary in shorts with no bug spray was a mistake, but it was a pretty enough day to be worth 27 bug bites.

I was expecting it'd be made of something soft and cheap like pine, but after tasting it*, I'm thinking it was maple or beech?

(* A field biology class had us learning to ID trees in winter by tasting shavings of their inner bark. Not a skill I get to practice much, so I use it when I can.)

GF: "Don't drink that broth, it's been sitting out for two hours."

Me, fishing the wood cap of a Cholula bottle out of the trash, so I can chew on it to identify what kind of tree it was: "Oh, I'm sure it's fine."

How have I gone several decades of coffee drinking without making my own cold brew?

I just set a mesh pour-over filter of coffee hanging in a big measuring cup full of water overnight in the fridge, and this stuff is so smooth. And it's cold, and ready as soon as I wake up. Wow.

Replacing my dying smartphone, and struggling to find a decent phone with a headphone jack anymore.

Was bad enough when they took away the ability to replace battery packs. Hate this.

Been resisting it for the whole summer, but when the landlord offered to bring our AC unit upstairs for us, I finally caved.

The mind is willing, but the flesh is sweaty and feels kinda gross.

I was invited to [Big Prestigious Film Festival] for a project I made, and I'm probably supposed to be more excited about it, or ready to jump at the chance to network professionally.

But TBH I'd rather just let people engage with my work instead of me, not spend money I don't have, and stay home in my little workshop?

Like, I know this is a rare opportunity, and also how people secure future work, and all that.

But heat wave/pandemic notwithstanding, I don't think I'd enjoy it? Industry hobnobbing events like this just seem expensive and exhausting, and I'm not the sort who could take good advantage of 'em.

Somehow I'm simultaneously shocked and deeply unsurprised that Unity laid off hundreds of employees, then immediately partnered with a company known for making malware delivery tools.

I would blame Unity going publicly traded on the stock market 2 years back... but even Unity's investors are freaking out about this?

I just do not understand why they're so intent on crashing and burning as hard as possible.