Well, to say the past couple of months have been unique would be an understatement… The first half of 2020 in general has already been a rollercoaster, and it’s looking like it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to since my last post, and a few things I am currently working on.
I’ll get the bad news out of the way first. Last September I announced in one of my posts that I had finally found someone, yes, I had a girlfriend… Unfortunately I have to write that things didn’t work out, and we have officially broke up recently. I don’t regret giving it a try, but it does suck things didn’t work out. We are still friends, and I don’t have any ill will toward her. On top of all the other chaos of COVID19, we got to go through this, which naturally, again, sucked. I’m doing well enough though all things considered, so on to more positive things…
Speaking of the whole COVID19 virus, It’s been over two months since I last commuted to the office for work. Thankfully I am still able to work from home full time. It is rather weird, even for a homebody like me, to not really leave the apartment complex for over two months straight. I do try to get outside for walks and to take out the garbage. Otherwise, I have been complying with the Stay At Home order put in place since mid-March. Restrictions are starting to lift somewhat, as of today. Some businesses are allowed to be open to the public now, but groups are limited to ten people or fewer, and no large gatherings are allowed.
This includes major technology and gaming events that I look forward to every year. There is no E3. WWDC is delayed and online only. Many other tech and gaming events are either outright canceled or have gone online. On one hand, having these events digitally is kind of great. I’ve been able to attend so many virtual conference and webinars in the last couple of months. I’ve learned a lot, and even started a couple of new projects because of them. More on that later… On the other hand, I will kind of miss the yearly June E3 hype, especially with two new consoles still launching later this year.
Even before the pandemic, E3 was on rocky footing due to many publishers pulling out over the past few years. And then there was the whole security fiasco from last year where loads of attendies’ information was leaked due to poor security practices. Even before the pandemic, E3 was looking to be a different, shadow of its former self this year. Still, I was looking forward to live streaming the press conferences, as I started doing last year. I was also looking forward to doing live reaction streams with both Riley and myself, but that definitely isn’t happening now, for multiple reasons.
Still, I will be doing my best to cover the summer technology and gaming events. Many smaller live events have been announced, like the Summer Game Festival, separate live events from Sony and Microsoft, and others I probably don’t even know about yet. I have already started, and will continue to cover these events via Mixer and YouTube in my new Non E3 2020 streams. When possible, I plan to still give live reactions to major events, and when that’s not possible, to recap my thoughts on the events, including accessibility.
Despite working from home, and being on lockdown for the past couple of months, I am keeping quite busy. I’m still able to work from home, which I’m very greatful for. I have been attending lots of training sessions, webinars and conferences, and working on other projects. I learned of one such project via a recent virtual conference. There was a session on XR Accessibility, which is virtual and augmented reality accessibility. I learned of a group called XR Access that sounded quite interesting. I did some research, E-mailed some questions to the group, and now I am a member, working on improving virtual and augmented reality accessibility through a few teams within XR Access. I’ve already attended a few meetings, and have been diving right in to help. It’s been fun so far, and I’m really hoping that this helps improve the accessibility for both virtual and augmented reality.
I have also gotten to participate in a couple more Microsoft consulting sessions virtually. Unfortunately I cannot ssay much more, as I am under NDA. I can say though that I am excited at the possibilities of game accessibility going forward. I love doing this kind of work, and also love that I am doing this kind of work, even part time, professionally now.
Within the past week, the Sable Audio RPG creation tool has been released in a timed alpha version. Sable allows someone to create their own turn-based RPG without any coding or scripting at all. I have worked some with the tool, and even did a live stream of it. Overall I am very impressed and excited for the final product. I have also been communicating with one of the game’s developers, who has been very generous with his time, answering several questions I had about Sable. Huge shout-out to Paul from Ebom Sky Studios for being so helpful. If I can, I plan to create my own small RPG for blind players using the Sable tool, once it’s released. I am currently in the design stage right now, and am trying to write a kind of design document that details the setting, story, characters, enemies, etc. I’m hoping to figure out these things ahead of Sable’s full release, so when it does come out, I can start actually creating the game itself.
That’s a bit of what I’ve been up to, and am working on right now. I’m also still regularly releasing videos, doing live streams, and the usual stuff. Lockdown hasn’t slowed me down at all. I actually think I’ve been even more productive than usual for the most part. Breakup aside, things are going pretty well despite the lockdown. It looks like I’ll be mostly working from home for quite a while, so hopefully I can keep this productivity train rolling.