Back in October 2019, when things were just bad, not outright terrible, I got sent a request to review a game called Superliminal, by Pillow Castle. As usual, I don’t take up such requests because I don’t want to become beholden to the publisher in anyway and so I politely declined (by ignoring completely). I had seen some trailer footage, and certainly there was a suspicious “hype” campaign, and in all honesty I just dismissed it as yet another “indie” game trying to make a splash. Quickly, it left my radar and I forgot about it.
Continue reading “Game Review: Superliminal (Spoiler-Free)”Anything worth doing is worth doing… Poorly
When I was a sophomore in High School, my English teacher introduced himself to the class for the first time. First, matters of protocol. How he preferred to be addressed; the level of mutual respect he expected from his students. All in all.. Boring and basic stuff you expect from any moderately skilled teacher. Then he said something that would have a lasting impact on my life.
He said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.”, he continued by asking us if we understood what he meant. I remember thinking to myself “You messed up the saying, it’s ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing right’!”. But I, like many of my classmates, stared stupefied. “How often do you do something perfectly right, the very first try?”, he asked the class, “Not many, I’d be willing to bet.”, and he went on talking about the importance of failure and the fears that typically accompany it. He spoke at length about how he’d rather see us try and see us fail than to see us not try at all. I wish I could tell you that I knew in that moment the true meaning of the words. But his phrase stuck with me “Poorly”. The reversal of the saying made it stand out in my head and I’ve remembered it ever since. More important, as I matured it was something that helped me get over the apprehension of trying new things. Failing, learning, improving, and mastering. Well, maybe not that mastering part. The point is, nobody starts out being the best at… anything.
I don’t really have an overarching point in this post except that maybe someone else will benefit from being told that it’s okay to try… and fail.
That’s It.
Unpopular Opinion #2: Open World Games Suck
The premise of living an alternate life in a different universe is enthralling. It’s what as gamers, we all desire. Those of us of a certain age used our imaginations (self constructed images and thoughts in your head) to try and make the best of what was available to us, in the hope that some day, just maybe, we will be able to actually inhabit the game. Oh it was exciting! As the years passed, we saw glimpses into the future, and it was happening! Finally, our dreams were coming true! Then, it happened, open world games arrived…
Continue reading “Unpopular Opinion #2: Open World Games Suck”Unpopular Opinion #1: Teach Raw Pointers First
Being the administrator of a large programming Discord server, and the owner of a YouTube channel with a large audience of programming beginners, it is with some frequency that questions about the basics of programming are asked. In fact, it’s often the same questions. This is perfectly fine, after all, the ethos of One Lone Coder can be encapsulated in the phrase:
Continue reading “Unpopular Opinion #1: Teach Raw Pointers First”Javidx9 Top 5’s
It would seem people are quite curious about things I like, so I thought it would be useful to have a page that I can point such individuals towards. Here are my Top 5 “things” in various categories.
Continue reading “Javidx9 Top 5’s”Announcing The Inaugural OLC Relay Race 2020
On 20th June 2020, the One Lone Coder community will host its first ever coding relay race.
Edit [14th June 2020]: There have been some minor changes to the way in which teams will be set up.
Continue reading “Announcing The Inaugural OLC Relay Race 2020”PGE Driver – upcoming olc::PixelGameEngine game

PGE Driver is an arcade style racing / death-match game where the aim is to win – by any means necessary! With nitro boost and heavy machine guns at your disposal, along side pre-race upgrades such as engine power, tyres, and armour – the choice really is yours… Win by being the fastest, or the deadliest, it’s your call.
Continue reading “PGE Driver – upcoming olc::PixelGameEngine game”Intrinsic Functions – “Easy” Parallelism
This is a follow on video by viewer request where I explain how I implemented the Mandelbrot fractal using the AVX2 extension set on my CPU. It also acts as an introduction to intrinsic functions in general.
How to attribute/credit/cite the olc::PixelGameEngine
Hello! Firstly a big thank you, the fact that you are reading this means you actually care about doing the right thing, and want to acknowledge the software you have used from other developers.
The olc::PixelGameEngine is open source and is released under the OLC-3 licence. This means you can use it freely, even for commercial projects. However, the licence requires that appropriate attribution is required.
Continue reading “How to attribute/credit/cite the olc::PixelGameEngine”Using parallel processing on your CPU to render a Mandelbrot Fractal
Using SIMD processing and multi-threading to smash through calculations!