Tokyo Coding

Hello friends! Quick update because, as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve done exactly what every other blogger does and gotten really lazy about updating. Obligatory apologies etc.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of coding, especially game dev. I’m making little crappy prototype games in Unity3D. I participated in Ludum Dare, the 48 hour game-creation competition where entrants are given a topic and then 48 hours to create a game based on that theme. My game is called So Long, Space Hero and it’s ridiculously simple, but I learned a lot. Now I’m working on a planet-hopper and I think I might actually try to make something worthwhile.

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Today I’m hanging out here, at the Open Source Cafe, a cafe/coding space whose menu, employee manuals, and other things are open sourced! It’s a great atmosphere: everyone’s got skateboards and is hanging out outside in the Spring weather writing code, and they’re having a “Coder Dojo” where they’ve invited kids to come and learn how to code.

But lately I’ve been going out to Pico Pico Cafe, home of Voxatron and Lexaloffle Games. Such interesting folks there, including the owner Joseph.

A picture’s worth a thousand words and I don’t want to type that much, so here’s some more image of what’s new in my life.

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Coding in a Shared Office Space

This is the only chair I have to sit in at my computer at home:

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Art majors will recognize it from any renaissance painting depicting the seats in hell.

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So this morning I said to myself, “I’m in Tokyo, I should be able to find anything I want, and today I want a cheap shared office space to go code in.”

Half an hour’s worth of Googling later and I was on my way down the train line to a shared office space in Shibuya called Allincco.

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It was great! 15 minutes is ¥100 (about $1 USD), but the max you pay per day is ¥1000 (under $10 USD). There’s whiteboard and office space available, and in general was just a pretty good temporary work space.

There was free wi-fi of course, free Coke and other sodas, a dozen or so free coffee drinks (making it an obvious choice over working at Starbucks and paying ¥450 for a tall café latte), and cheap ¥100 snacks.

It was no Cat Cafe mind you, but for the price it couldn’t be beat, and after about 10 hours total (some of it last night in my infernal torture device) I was able to throw together a new web version of my pet project Washington’s Rules. 🙂 Today was a good day.

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Click the ruggedly handsome face of America’s first president to see Washington’s Rules for yourself.