April 2026 Wrap Up

Sooooo… I kinda dropped the ball on these, lol. One moment it was December, and the next thing I knew it was the end of April. Oopsie. Oh well, that’s life! Can’t change the past, but I can use it for the future, and there’s no time like the present to pick this back up.

The Past Four Months

I’ll try my best to summarize the past four months and catch up to the present day. I feel like a lot has happened, so let’s get started!

Putting a Pause on Boots

I finished the SQL course and I think (it’s been a while, lol) I enjoyed it. I’ve always heard about databases and database management, so it was good to actually learn more about it. I’m still curious how to mix it with Go, which I’m sure is what Building a Blog Aggregator does. However, I’m taking a pause on my Boot.dev coursework.

My year subscription to Boot.dev expired in February and I didn’t renew it for a couple of reasons.

The first being that I want to focus more on gamedev. I think video games are so stinking cool and I want to know how to make them! When I think about programming and what I want to do with it, it always comes back to gamedev. I was talking to a mentor about six months back, and I was telling him I was learning to program for fun and how I’m interested in gamedev. During the conversation I was getting really excited, and he just stopped me and said, “There’s something there—follow it. You rarely get that excited about something unless it’s something you’re supposed to do.” So here I am, finally following it. I actually forgot about that conversation until recently, but it was a nice reminder. I’ll talk about that more in a little bit.

And the second reason is simply because of lack of funds, lol. My wife and I aren’t struggling month to month and we have a lot of margin in our life, but at the time when it was time to renew, we just didn’t have the money. Since I’m interested in other things in programming, I decided I’ll come back when my project requires more backend development! I still love Boot.dev and I’m so grateful for the skills it’s given me to learn on my own.

Leaving ComplyHealth

In my last update, I mentioned that I was helping launch an app with a coworker of mine. Well, the app is about to launch into open beta testing, which is so exciting! However, I’ve decided to leave the project/soon-to-be company. I’m grateful for the opportunity to build something like this because I’d never built an app before, and it was a great learning experience. However, the past couple of months I’ve found myself dreading working on it. This is for three reasons.

First, I found myself stranded without the use of AI to do anything, and I don’t like that feeling. Besides some basic text changes, if I wanted to build anything on it I had to use Claude Code, and I hate that feeling. It doesn’t align with why I started programming in the first place—to learn how to program. This cognitive dissonance is really hard for me.

Second, building apps simply doesn’t interest me like I thought it would. Again, the more I get into programming, the more I just want to focus on gamedev.

Lastly, the guys I was building the app with are starting to have some disagreements on the direction of it, and even after several conversations we’re still going nowhere. My thought is, if we can’t find an agreement on these small things before money is on the line, what will happen when there is money involved?

Chalk & Coffee Studios

So with the end of one thing comes the start of another! With my interest in gamedev, I’ve decided to just full send it and turn my Galaga clone into a full-fledged game. It’s called ABX!, and my preliminary short description of it is “A Tactical Retro Arcade Shooter.” I’m actually so excited to be working on this. I’ve learned so much already in development, such as: procedural generation, data-oriented design, entity component systems, pixel art, and soon I’ll be getting into the music and sound effects. It’s so interesting, and I could definitely write an entire blog about the learning and resources I’m using.

For this project, there are so many different things to learn and do, which some people could find really intimidating. However, I find this exciting! For example, if one day I’m working on procedural generation and then the next day I’m kinda burned out on it, I can just work on art or the level-up system. There are so many different pieces that I’m almost never bored while working on this. It’s so fascinating to me.

With this, I’m going to be starting a dev log for ABX! It’s going to be a dedicated place just to write about my process with the game, what I’m learning, and my general thoughts. I might use those blog posts to turn into YouTube shorts so that when I get closer to launch, I can use it as marketing material.

To Wrap This Up

Man, I forgot how much I love writing these. They’re just fun, and it’s fun to think about everything I’m learning in this process. Definitely going to be picking these back up, plus writing a dev log for ABX! and hopefully any other games that I make (I already have other ideas, hehe). I’m remembering how much I struggle wrapping up these posts, lol. So to end, I’ll just close with a quote that I think about all the time:

And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.
— Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings