It’s confusing out there for a young man. There are a lot of toxic loser “influencers” putting out the wrong message about what a healthy relationship looks like. So as a married man with kids, I want to give young men a realistic picture of what women want:
Women want a man that turns his head back to look at her The pupil pushing to the edge, the eye crazy white He cracks a smile: Long canines. Avril Lavigne. Two. Three. Four of them.
Why are your gums so dark? Is it all the coffee you drink? Port wine at night to unwind?
Your breath smells like freshly killed rabbit Are you on that keto shit again?
Hairy masculine arms
She runs her hands over them, hair bunches up between her fingers Muscles moving under skin
Those alpha-male eyes Tapetum lucidum glints when the headlights bounce off them
What women want is a sensitive man.
Sensitive to smells Acqua di Gio on the torn shirt bit she holds up to his nose Find a path
Sensitive to sounds The snap of a twig in the nighttime forest Quarry
Sensitive to the little details Careful: that man by the bar hides a gun in his jacket. And the waitress is with him
You're getting up there into middle age A bit of a pouch around your midsection, no? But you've also been accumulating Scars Scars are like medals on a man's body
She's lightly tracing her finger on your skin Starting from the belly button, up to the chest Burns slashes old gashes
Her mouth turns up in a gentle smile Do you remember when you got this big one? Three AM in Busan. We were running through back alleys
I don't
The moon was full All you remember is a harsh white circle in the sky. And pain. Pain breaks the rhythm she winks
Women want a man who forgets the bad times
Her finger is still travelling up your chest Down her pale arm is a constellation of lines, tattooed Once, you asked about them Ley-lines on my skin To direct my Body Energy
Sometimes she sticks in acupuncture needles. To send it all to one finger. You can't make energy from thin air You have to snatch it away from somewhere
You don't need to be rich You just need to know that every desire has a price Women want a man who's willing to pay the price.
You don't need to be strong You don't need to be smart You don't need to be handsome
What women want is a man who is utterly focused When she opens her mouth and whispers
When she parts her blood-red lacquered lips And you see the tips of her little teeth And you are willing to do anything She whispers
When she parts her shiny red lips A man who is completely obedient Teeth like little porcelain pebbles They gently click against each other when she whispers
When she opens her red lips A man obsessed All you see is the reflection of the moon blitting across hard small teeth And she whispers:
Sometimes I mishear things, and then I have to go and create them.
Dear reader: I’d love for someone to create a cereal where the 3 mascots are named Hork, Dribble and Plop. If you’re up for the challenge then send me an image of your creation!
If she should ever If she should ever If she should ever darken your couch with her presence burn the sage and sulphur and never ever do look at your own shadow lest you never unlearn you are just as unbelonging in this place as her
Now, you can’t judge the game harshly because it is a prototype.2 For the full epic story of making the game, read on:
Previously, I created a stunning true-life 3D simulation of life on a Victorian London street. So I had mastered a game engine and could make the boat game real quick.
Pictured: “Fancy an oyster, ‘guvna?” – an uncanny simulation of London street life
I figured “how hard could it be?”
Just steal some aerial photos of canals, slap invisible 3D walls on the canal’s sides so the boat bumps against them, make the camera follow the player from above and 💲💲💲💲💲💲’yknow?
Except, I don’t know how to use actual 3D modeling software.
Nevermind. There must be a simple way to create those 3D canal borders. Apparently “Paint 3D” is great for beginners like me. Oh, what’s that? It’s been discontinued you say? Well, I’ll go on a quest to download an old version and what is this extruded sausage nonsense?
Pictured: Paint 3D’s extruded sausage nonsense
It’s fine. No worries. Maybe we’ll represent the borders of the canal with these things called heightmaps so it’ll kinda make the walls happen on their own?
Ummm… no?
Well, lets try a whole bunch of things and oh Sweet Jesus of Nazereth:
What 3 days of work looks like.
So, Dear Reader, how far do you think that one should go for a joke game conceived in an addled state of mind?
Pretty flippin’ far I tell you.
I had to get serious. Learn to develop with a Real Game Engine™. Man up. Hit the gym.
I reviewed a variety of engines and decided to use a popular engine called Godot. I called up my developer friend Chad G. Petey and we set to work on this gritty canal extravaganza.
From start to finish, the whole game took 2 months and 22 days to finish. This includes the “false start” with the CopperLicht engine that I knew from before. Working in the evenings for about 2 hours a day.
The game itself takes just 3 minutes to complete3. I think of it as my month-a-minute game as each minute of gameplay took a month of dev.
What I learned as a game tycoon
I am astonished at how powerful and straightforward the Godot game engine is. In my career, I have seen the perfection that is Excel and Salesforce.com. But I didn’t realize that other industries also have heavyweight software that’s just a pleasure to use.
The “fun” element makes game development different from other kinds of programming. The game code might “technically work” but that doesn’t accomplish the mission of being fun. You have to keep playing and perfecting an enjoyable formula. There’s real challenge and magic here.
Once you get one game level working, with the core dynamics dialed-in to be fun, building out additional levels feels very simple.
You can get away with a lot of mistakes if you keep the player moving fast and focused on a certain part of the screen. For example, Canal Carnage is missing portions of the background, but you wouldn’t notice because you’re focused on escaping the tsunami. You’re not looking around at leisure.
You can keep polishing a game forever. I’d like to improve the animation of the explosions, move the health meter next to the player, add a leaderboard + timer for calculating how fast you completed a level, add mobile boat enemies, create a proper splash screen, and and and and… all of these tweaks take time and push out the launch. You need to be disciplined and stop yourself.
I gained an added appreciation for the work of artists. For example, while finishing up the game, I watched Alien: Romulus and I could spot certain tricks that the director/writers used for heightening tension. These elements were completely unnecessary to the story, but I could see them using the same cheap tricks that I used to heighten urgency. (“There’s a xenomorph attacking her in the elevator shaft! Oh no, there’s also a face-hugger that joined the fight!!! Now she’s really done for!”)
ChatGPT set me up with all the boat dynamics, vector velocity, rotation, friction from water resistance, applying drift as an additional vector… I wouldn’t be able to figure this all out myself by reading tutorials (unless there’s literally a “boat controls” tutorial). I moved very fast. Also, by using ChatGPT I missed out on learning the underlying physics of the game. But, frankly, I don’t have any interest in that.
When ChatGPT fails, it looks like the conversation going around and around in circles. It takes some time to notice when this is happening. At that point, Youtube videos become invaluable. I especially benefited from the videos Godot particle emitter tutorial and Godot Control Node (UI) masterclass.
If you want to be the best at something, just pick a weird niche that nobody would ever want to build something in. Like gritty canal boat games. I’m truly #1 in this space. For more “useful” life advice like this, subscribe to my RSS feed.
I vibe-coded a game in 3 months that an experienced developer could’ve made in a weekend. Take from that what you will.
Both my friend Rafal and I were surprised that the child-oriented Kidscancode Godot tutorials had genuinely valuable information that was unavailable elsewhere.
Game Soundtrack
Here is are the music credits for all the scenes in the game4:
Level 1
The track “Turbokiller”, shamefully stolen from Carpenter Brut
Level 2
Klasey Jones – Romanova
Smoke break at the canal locks
BACKWHEN – Flashback
Level 3
Miho Nakayama – Sherry
Level 4
CRYPT – PSYCHO [INSTRUMENTAL]
Level 4, redone on massive amounts of drugs
Hannah Laing – Poppin’
Interlude at the boat dock
Midnight Premiere – Your gaze
Background music in Yakuza nightclub where you lock eyes with a new, younger boat
iacon – suchatease
Scene where the hot new boat dumps you because of your hero complex. You limp back to your old battle-boat.
Danz CM – I don’t need a hero
Scene where your old boat takes you back. (Jeez, you better not blow it again. You’re a real piece of work.)
Funny Falentine – Together
Boss battle where you have to defeat L.T.C. Rolt on the bridge of the canal boat. He’s dressed head-to-toe in Gucci and you a scrub.
iacon – redalert
Game victory celebration music
Dylarama – Comme des dominos
Credits roll – you and your canal boat are relaxing in the sauna
A “prototype” is a word I discovered that lets me serve up unfinished junk to my readers and get away with it. ↩︎
The game is so short because it is just 1 level. I told you: it’s a prototype! That makes everything OK. ↩︎
What is that you say? That none of these levels exist in the game, and that this is just my excuse to post a playlist?! Well – of course – IT’S A PROTOTYPE! You know, Dear Reader… sometimes I worry about you. ↩︎
Below is a simulation of how I browse the web now. Not everyone uses phones in the same way. I hope this tool helps Web Designers ensure that their website is readable and accessible for all sorts of folks 🙏
Press backspace button in the browser to go back.
This project was inspired by my crappy phone. Love you lots, “Mr. Crackles”!
What’s a dab o’ the pen ? Weel, a dab o’ the pen Is a very wee thing as ye surely maun ken ; But a deal may be dune to mar or to men’, Wi’ a very sma’ dab o’ a very sma’ pen.
Ye may fasten your friens or embitter your foes, Ye may add to your comforts or fill up your woes, An’ a word in gude season is better than ten That we sometimes let slip wi’ a dab o’ the pen.
By a dab o’ the pen ye may get a gude wife, Or may get ane wha’ll mak’ ye be sick o’ your life ; And its better off-han’ in a way ye suld ken To say a kind word than to tak’ up a pen.
Some tak’ up the pen an’ write to a lass, And say that a minute they canna’ let pass, Withoot dreams o’ their dearie—an’ richt oot comes then, A proposal to marry by dab o’ the pen.
An’ dab comes the pen by return o’ the post, She says that in wonder an’ trouble she’s lost, Sin’ the day she was born she couldno bide men, But noo she’ll be Jamie’s—by a dab o’ the pen.
