iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 31/07/2026

All of the materials in End of Blackjack were made using the awesome Material Maker software by @rodzlabs.bsky.social This was probably my favorite part of working on 3D art this time, which is ironic considering Antistatic has no textures at all

A screenshot of my "metallic fabric stuff" material, made using Material Maker

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 31/07/2026

You can also experience exciting new play locations, such a table in the sky, or a table in a dark void, or no table at all floating outside the room above the water and it gets really dark at night.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 31/07/2026

I shipped an update for End of Blackjack (and the demo) to fix some bugs I found and polish the visuals a bit.

A current screenshot of End of Blackjack on max settings.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 31/07/2026

Played a little Melee today to test a controller I fixed for someone. I love Yoshi

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 21/07/2026

End of Blackjack launches in 7 minutes, and I've managed to do less marketing than I did for Antistatic. Here's a screenshot I took today scrambling to make store assets.

A screenshot of End of Blackjack, showing the USB-style ports on the board. Not used in gameplay, but felt necessary to include.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 14/07/2026

The aquarium had big lizards trying to pretend they're fish

A photo of a lizard swimming in an aquarium

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 13/07/2026

Hexagon fish are the bestagon-fish

A fish in an aquarium with a hexagon pattern on its side

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 11/07/2026

Reminds me of my favorite review for my game

A Steam review for Antistatic: "i genuinely don't know how i figured out about this game, and how i managed to play it for 25 hours (probably left it on in accident), but i'm probably one of the only people in the world who are still aware of this games existence. pretty fun game, especially with friends, and feels pretty nice to control."

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 03/07/2026

Bug feet train Yellow flies of the dismal swamp love people (for our blood)

A macro photo of a yellow horse fly's front legs and feet. It has funny toes.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 04/05/2026

I've been maintaining this for a while now, huh.

The initial commit for the Don't Starve Food Guide was on Jan 31, 2013. 71 files changed (a lot of images from the game), 1,512 lines added.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 04/05/2026

I've wanted to add internationalization support to the Don't Starve Food Guide since I first made it, and finally got around to doing the first pass on it. Spanish and Chinese, all machine-translated so far. I tried to make it look a little nicer, too.

A screenshot of the latest version of the Don't Starve Food Guide, showing the Chinese machine translation.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 02/05/2026

I think every computer should have this "shake mouse to make the cursor larger" feature. We could apply it to terminal and text cursors too.

A screenshot of KDE Plasma on CachyOS, where the mouse has been shaken for quite some time. Plasma has a feature to help find your mouse cursor by enlarging it when you shake it, and continuing to shake will continue to grow the mouse cursor.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 27/04/2026

"Star Wars Haters" is the only weird list I've been added to. Zero clue why.

Clearsky screenshot showing me on the "Star Wars Haters" list, with this description:

People who whine about “bAd wRitiNg” or “woke”, act like their opinions about media are somehow objective, or post negative and antagonistic comments replying to people enjoying the franchise. Acolyte or sequel trilogy disparagers in general.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 26/04/2026

Recovery was a success. Example attached.

A macro photograph of a honeybee on a flower.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 20/04/2026

Screenshots of a previous version, for reference

An older screenshot of the Discovery page, showing the same ingredients as the newer example in the parent post.

The old version's crock pot choice highlight was very yellow.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 20/04/2026

This seems like a good occasion to mention I recently did a big visual pass on my open source Don't Starve Food Guide

Side-by-side light and dark mode screenshots of my Don't Starve Food Guide after the visual update

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 01/04/2026

Happy #Wingnesday This house finch was having a midday snack in my yard Look close to see the seed in his mouth Protest the oligarchy and stand up for human rights His color depends on his diet With that, I end my @drbrianpet.bsky.social impression. For now.

Another house finch(?), this one with a seed showing in its open mouth

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 01/04/2026

Floofy when not shaking, too

A photo of a house finch's wings and down from behind.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 01/04/2026

Moments earlier. Always on the lookout.

A house finch (?) standing on a signpost viewed from behind, looking back at the viewer

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 01/04/2026

I know the seeds inside the glass look really appetizing, but it'd be easier to get the ones right below you

A photo of a bird hanging onto the side of a glass birdfeeder, looking at the birdseed inside.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 26/03/2026

I'm especially glad I worked on the logo

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 18/03/2026

fighting game timeline cleanse post a clip of you playing a fighting game that you enjoy playing

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 04/02/2026

No matter how much harder I commit to the Compute Box joke I'm trying to make, I don't think it'll get any more practical. I should call it here.

A small portable HDMI monitor mounted to the lid of a cardboard box plugged into a running Raspberry Pi 4 inside of the box. A ball mouse and old keyboard are plugged in.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 28/01/2026

Lucy thinks we should all help save the world

Lucy is my adopted cattle dog. She loves laying in the sun and coming up with grand ideas. Right now, she's working on a constitutional amendment to abolish the presidency.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 13/01/2026

A quick #PortfolioDay post. Photography, game development, 3D art, and full stack dev sorta stuff.

A macro photograph of a roly poly I took a few years ago

Antistatic is a currently-paused platform fighting game I built from scratch, available on Steam. Bespoke engines and systems for graphics, audio, gameplay, collision, animation, online play, and so on. It was the first PC game to support direct USB access for first-party GameCube controller adapters. All custom SFX, music, etc. Everything was done using as much open-source software as possible.

The current card model and table for End of Blackjack, a post-apocalyptic blackjack simulation I'm making in Godot. 3D modeling has all been done using Blender, and PBR materials were created from scratch in Material Maker.

Minimal Clicker is a pointless full-stack website/MMO "clicker" I built to learn Ruby on Rails. The button is really wobbly and you can drag it around.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 05/01/2026

In an early draft the back of the cards had a transparent window with electronics showing through, but it was too hard to get a look I liked and I would have spent too long on it anyway.

A prototype of a card design for End of Blackjack, featuring a transparent back with components inside

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 30/12/2025

Inscryption had a lot that stood out to me, but what surprised me the most was finding this card a few months after my pet mantis, named God, died.

Mantis God, a 1 HP card that deals 1 damage in a three-way split. From Inscryption, a fascinating deck builder.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 31/10/2025

End of Blackjack's reveal trailer was my first serious attempt to edit a video. I think it came out OK despite rushing it, but I'm hoping to do a better job next time.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 23/10/2025

The world is over, but this machine lets humanity play a forgotten game for the last time. There is still plenty to do before launch, but getting End of Blackjack's Steam page up is a big milestone. store.steampowered.com/app/3884650/...

End of Blackjack by bluehexagons. Wishlist on Steam. Also coming to itch.io

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 09/10/2025

I didn't intend for the file to be this large, but I almost got to avoid encoding it again.

A screenshot showing a 501MB file selected next to Discord's max 500 MB file size error message.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 09/10/2025

Mantidflies are also very cool. This one randomly landed on me while I was indoors and waited around for its photo to be taken.

Phone photo of a mantidfly. It is not closely related to a praying mantis, despite the resemblance. I think of it like carcinization, but for the mantis form.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 25/09/2025

Some of my Phob 1 builds from back when I worked on Gamecube controllers. The clear one was made from junk parts, and the white one is still my main. Good times. More info in the alt text.

A photo of a Phob GameCube controller build, using spare and third-party parts. The right stick was 3D printed and felt awful. The clear shell and yellow buttons were cheap third-party options. The donor controller had T2 stickboxes, but I think I upgraded them to T3s later. The D-pad and Z buttons had random different tactile switches to see what fit.

Another Phob 1 build using better donor parts and a white shell, which is my main controller. I designed and printed the Y/A/B buttons, with the Y button having a custom slope for my claw-like grip. The start button is replaced with a home button from a Wii-era Controller. The right trigger is also shaved down and smoothed over, but that isn't pictured. The left stick is from a Nunchuk, with signs of wear. The right (C-stick) rubber is worn to the plastic. The X button was a one-off cast from resin as a quick experiment to learn about making silicone molds.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 23/09/2025

Got curious where I took this seagull photo on my first time in San Francisco and went to check a map. This must be a popular perch, because there's also one in the street view image.

Top: Google Maps photo of some railing along a wharf with a seagull perched on a concrete corner slab.

Bottom: My photo when I visited this wharf. There's a seagull in the exact same spot.

My first seagull photo on my first visit to San Francisco.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 18/09/2025

I accidentally bought worms that were too big from the pet store once, but they seemed well-received. I also got a very Metal photo of her eating one.

The mantis holding a feed worm. "For me??"

The mantis eating its worm meal like a noodle, hanging from the ceiling of its enclosure. It's holding another piece of the meal in its other arm. This is very metal.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 18/09/2025

A great friend. She lived for almost an entire typical mantis lifespan despite being fully grown when I found her, and even made an (assumed sterile) ootheca while I was around.

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Loren Crain @bluehexagons.com · 18/09/2025

A few years ago, I met this huge mantis in my yard. I learned it's problematic for the native mantis populations, so I took that as a good excuse to adopt it.