https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/ Recent content in Blogs on Pixel Kitty Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/lp-update/ <p>We&rsquo;re back with another monthly update and some fantastic news! We are finally back to releasing videos on YouTube! While the situation with YouTube hasn&rsquo;t fully resolved in a way I would like, it is moving in a positive direction.</p> <p>From now on, the plan is</p> <ul> <li>Continue recording at a slowed pace (up to ~20 videos per month instead of the previous ~40+ per month)</li> <li>As 1-week video batches get done, continue releasing them as Early Access via torrent on Patreon</li> <li>As larger batches of videos get done (e.g. major plot beats are reached), release them publicly on YouTube</li> </ul> <p>The goal is to maintain a healthier pace for myself so I have time to work on things <em>other</em> than video creation.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/razors-and-blades-got-worse/ <p>A common sales model nowadays is the &ldquo;Razors and Blades model&rdquo;. The basic premise is you divide a product into two parts. These two parts depend on each other, frequently having one reusable part and the other needing replacement. The reusable part is sold for cheap, the replacable part constitutes the primary revenue stream. The prototypical example is right in the name - razors and blades. Sell a razor handle for cheap, sell the razor blades themselves often at a markup.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/time-management/ <p>One of those &ldquo;wonderful&rdquo; struggles with ADHD is time blindness and general time management issues.</p> <p>Talk to most people with ADHD and they&rsquo;ll tell you they experience time blindness. In other words, they don&rsquo;t have a properly functioning internal clock. Keeping track of how much time has passed is a nightmare at best without the aid of clocks, alarms, timers, etc.</p> <p>Add on top of that the ADHD tendency to hyperfocus and you can easily imagine how impossible proper time management is. A good many people with ADHD will get into a habit of&hellip; &ldquo;I have plans for later today! I can&rsquo;t possibly do anything before those plans even though the plans are 5 hours away!&rdquo; There is considerable crossover with autistic people in this trait. I would not be surprised at all if this is a response to time blindness and time management issues. I believe Alice Averlong recently posted similar on her tumblr? Can&rsquo;t find it though. Buried in the timeline.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/04/dysphoria-and-euphoria/ <p>I was roughly reminded recently why I don&rsquo;t go clothes shopping by the fact that I was forced to go clothes shopping. Old clothes were wearing out!</p> <p>So it appears that I have for quite some time been subconsciously avoiding putting any thought into my appearance, which includes what I wear from day to day. This is an experience that probably a good number of trans people go through. Thinking about your appearance, if it doesn&rsquo;t match with your preferred gender presentation, can be quite&hellip; dysphoria inducing. Ignoring the problem makes it go away right?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/leaning-into-weakness/ <p>Slightly misleading title ahoy!</p> <p>As part of my game development, I am finding myself needing to learn a good many new skills. In particular, creating pixel art has been an interesting challenge. It is definitely a skill I could be good at with a lot of practice, but I am simply not there yet.</p> <p>Right now, my pixel art is&hellip; definitely amateurish. I have little confidence in my ability to color or especially to shade. This is not aided by my colorblindness. But I want my game to look good (and I cannot afford to pay a pixel artist a wage they deserve while I myself am making retail wages). So&hellip; what to do?</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:11:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2026/03/godot-nodes-as-logic/ <p>I recently realized an interesting way to use Godot&rsquo;s nodes as a sort of &ldquo;visual scripting&rdquo;. I would not be surprised if this is already common knowledge among Godot users but that doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not worth discussing. It arose fairly naturally from trying to solve a problem, so I figured I&rsquo;d detail what happened here.</p> <p>While working on the first area for Chasing Elysium, I was finding myself wanting a way to be able to trigger specific cutscenes or check for specific story flags to control what nodes actually appear in a scene. Writing a bespoke script every time would be&hellip; tedious at best. Inefficient. And a blatant violation of the DRY principle.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 18:46:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/a-step-away-analysis/ <p>The following is an analysis of a song from Xenoblade 3 that I originally wrote for cohost. It was originally published on December 14th, 2022.</p> <p>Major spoilers for Xenoblade 3, particularly Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 with a little of Chapter 7 near the end. Content warnings for mentions and discussions of in-game suicide attempts, deaths, and grief.</p> <hr> <p>A Step Away is the first of two vocal tracks which play in Xenoblade 3. Vocal tracks in these games are reserved for critically important scenes and often are sung from the perspective of one or more characters about the situation they find themselves in. In a sense, they can be considered &ldquo;musical numbers&rdquo; like what one would see in a musical on Broadway, although the music is not sung <em>directly</em> by the characters themselves so it doesn&rsquo;t <em>quite</em> qualify.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 15:35:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/ttm-beach-episode/ <p>So back in late September, the Sigmund Corp franchise got its Beach Episode (available on Steam as &ldquo;Just a To The Moon Series Beach Episode&rdquo;), and with it the series is nearly at a close. While I am going to avoid naming any specific spoilers in this blog post (<em>please</em> play these games yourself, they&rsquo;re around 4 hours each and <em>very</em> worth it), I should probably provide some context!</p> <p>While I refer to it as the Sigmund Corp series, officially this series of games by Freebird Games is referred to as the To The Moon series, named for the very first game - a 2011 release titled To The Moon. In this series, you play as a pair of doctors (Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene) whose job is effectively a sci-fi Make-a-Wish for the elderly. Using a special machine, they are able to analyze the memories of those on their death beds and then <em>rewrite</em> those memories so that in their final moments the patients remember their life as if they had accomplished whatever life goals they missed out on.</p> https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ Tue, 24 Sep 2024 09:25:00 -0600 https://www.pixelkitty.org/blog/2024/isat-mental-illness-it-can-happen-to-you/ <p>The following is a repost of an essay I wrote in special interest induced delirium one night while hanging at the RP bar run by one of my girlfriends in FFXIV. It was originally posted to cohost, but with the website shutting down, I wanted to be sure it was preserved.</p> <p>Anyone who&rsquo;s been following me for a bit may have noticed that around the end of December 2023/start of January 2024, I became absolutely <em>obsessed</em> with an indie game called In Stars and Time. I wanted to spend a little time talking about <em>why</em>.</p>