iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oh, how the other half live: Talking to the barman just before last orders this evening: “I see you have some sort of console like a Switch there”. Yeah, it’s a Steam Deck that plays PC games. “Oh, that’s cool. I don’t know anything about PC gaming” #gaming #steamdeck

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This is what I'm currently working on, how the world and zones are displayed to the player, how they unlock adjoining zones, and mark their progression. Hopefully this gives people a reason to continue playing and get a clear sense of having earnt something as they complete levels.

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I'm changing up a lot within the game in terms of progression between levels. The world is being split up in to zones, you must complete the levels in a zone to unlock access to adjoining zones. Each zone contains 9 levels, which is currently 3 maze, 3, snake, and 3 arena levels.

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Buy or Wishlist Positron on Steam now: steam.positrongame.com/arena

steam.positrongame.com

Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 09/09/2026

Bit more work on my game Positron this morning, feeling like Arena mode is definitely feeling more fun now. Think I'm getting close to pushing this new mode to Steam (to join the existing Maze and Snake modes). #GameDev #IndieDev #SoloDev #WishlistWednesday #NotMadeWithUnity

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Absolutely love this song. Only just discovered Father Of Peace after hearing their latest track (also brilliant: The Chaos). Didn't even know this one is a 'cover' until I grabbed the YouTube video. Original is much darker in tone and less upbeat. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RplS...

youtube.com

Father Of Peace - Escapism. (Official Lyric Video)

YouTube video by Father Of Peace

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Reposted by Martin Caine

George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Sixty years ago today, the starship Enterprise launched and with it, a vision of the future where humanity had moved beyond its divisions. I was there at the beginning, and I can tell you...

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 05/09/2026

I have a similar stash of components but much older. Core 2 Duos/Quads and DDR2 🤣.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 05/09/2026

I’m dreading the kids having any problems with their PCs. I probably can’t afford to replace any components right now!

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 05/09/2026

WTF am I doing.. again, decided I was going to take it easy today, had muscle cramps through the week. Got carried away with the pace of the starters though, then followed the 24 pacer for most of the run. Feel pretty good! #parkrun #huddersfield #5k #saturday #weekend

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 02/09/2026

Finally got round to removing the DLL dependencies from Positron, and some asset size optimisation, bringing the game down to a little over 100MB. Most of that is the human made custom soundtrack, made by colourofsound. Check it out: colourofsounduk.bandcamp.com/album/light-... #gamedev #indiedev

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 01/09/2026

I love that there are professional photographers sometimes attending Huddersfield parkrun snapping photos for the duration. I got snapped in a few photos this weekend. The look on my face at the start line though... 🤣

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 31/08/2026

These were supposed to be half pints… I’m not complaining though 😂.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 31/08/2026

Just checking out some shapes higher up the fretboard today. #guitar #blues #improv #practice #charvel

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 31/08/2026

Back at work on my little arcade inspired indie game; Positron. Getting Arena mode finished up to push to #Steam #EarlyAccess soon with a whole load of other changes too! #indiegame #steamdeck #indiedev

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 30/08/2026

I've just cancelled mine (but renewed my monthly cinema pass). £16.99 for the cinema and can go see a few films each week... it's more use than I was getting out of Netflix in recent months.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 28/08/2026

Normally I’d cycle the 11 miles to work whatever the weather, but maybe not today. #rain #weather #bus #commute #england

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Reposted by Martin Caine

Rebellion @rebellion.com · 26/08/2026

Watch the brand-new, thrilling, gameplay trailer for Alien Deathstorm Coming Spring 2027 to Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox On PC, Xbox Cloud, PC via Steam and PlayStation 5 📃 Wishlist now: reb.to/ADS 📖 Learn more: reb.to/ADSRebBlogGC

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 14/08/2026

Did a thing today. Got my first ever piercing(s), aged 43. Done it for myself, and my self confidence. Thanks to Nelly at Silver Lining Piercing in Huddersfield for making it a very pleasant experience. I’ll be back for downsizing and swapping to rings later. #piercing #piercings #metal

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 11/08/2026

This little guy made his web in this door way a week ago, and still hasn’t caught anything because I very rarely get anything flying about in my house. #spider #web #spiderweb

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Reposted by Martin Caine

Aras Pranckevičius @aras-p.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be my main achievement in life, I think.

Border collie, Clamp collie, Repeat collie, Mirror collie

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 09/08/2026

Good start to the day, before I head out on a fifteen mile walk in Wakefield. Popped in to The Six Chimneys (Wetherspoons) for a breakfast muffin and a few beers to up my untappd unique count.

Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 07/08/2026

Ooh, I'll be half way home from work at that point, at the highest point of the ride.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 26/07/2026

Give blood. Do it now. Donation #21 for me today. Always something I fancied doing but I didn’t start until about five or six years ago. Now I donate every three months, whenever possible. #GiveBlood #BloodDonation #NHS

I don't even have LODs on the bikes yet, that's on my TODO list haha. My Mesh class has no concept of LODs atm. Should help in 16 player multiplayer arena matches.

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Well the stencil doesn't cost anything. It's required for the reflections. The biggest savings come from only rendering the bike, trails, and particle effects to reflected planes that are visible, and within range (I dial down reflectivity further from the camera).

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I wish I could afford a 4090.. or newer, haha. My main gaming PC still only hax an RTX 2070 in it. I'd rather people on lower end systems be able to play and experience my game the way it's intended. I'd need to add in better breakdowns of timings to be able to benchmark more than just per-pass.

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Honestly haven't done much in-depth profiling.. my inbuilt timings are pretty high level and not super detailed. My benchmark is that it should run 120fps on my laptop with a fairly recent integrated Intel GPU. That, and keeping it running 60fps on Switch is a must.

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Given that I'm rendering dozens of planes of reflection, avoiding rendering reflected objects for walls which aren't visible made sense. Each plane of the world geometry is rendered with it's own stencil ID to mask the reflections, and be tested for occlusion.

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Mostly a reduction in draw calls, culling anything not visible to a particular plane of reflection. Also using GPU occlusion counters, to only render reflections for walls that are visible to the camera. This is my own C++ engine, so it was a bit of work to rejig how things are queued for rendering.

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Check out my game on Steam Early Access. Big update coming soon! steam.positrongame.com/reflections

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 18/07/2026

I've been enjoying some early morning dev sessions lately on my game Positron. I just finished optimising the generation of the environment stencil reflections (now running consistently 60fps on Nintendo Switch). #GameDev #IndieDev #SoloDev #NintendoSwitch #SteamEarlyAccess

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Not sure these times can be trusted 😬.

Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 18/07/2026

Today I ran my second parkrun, and only my fifth time ever running 5K (all in the past two weeks). Maybe I should slow it down and try not to obliterate my PBs 🤣.

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alexjungle.bsky.social @alexjungle.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Mom cat leaving her human to babysit so she can sleep 😴😂😂 Drop a follow

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 27/06/2026

Thanks to everyone that came and played Positron today, and to all those who left feedback! #GameDev #SoloDev #IndieDev

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 24/06/2026

Yep. I already have the Delorian too, but thought I’d get a second for my desk as it was only £17. Also, last time I went to this ASDA the craft beers were 5 for £10, which must have been an extra special offer, as today they were just 4 for 3.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 24/06/2026

Opening my door this morning reminded me of something. #musical #osmonds #crazyhorses #squeaky #wd40

Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 24/06/2026

Early morning cycle ride to the 24 hour ASDA to get some craft beers resulted in me spending £50+ and coming out with two LEGO sets too.

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 23/06/2026

Total fail by AI at reading text from a supplied image (Google Gemini, after I googled the odd earthy smell from a beer I opened (which I knew was due to a certain chemical compound, but couldn't remember the name; Geosmin)). #AI #LLM #Gemini #GoogleGemini #Fail

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Reposted by Martin Caine

For the Love of Missy @missybbbobtail.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

A lot of people are confused by the concept of “cat years" so here's a little guide: 0-1 years - just a little baby 1-3 years - just a little baby 4-9 years - just a little baby 10+ years - just a little baby

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 14/06/2026

Seven days straight coming up to Castle Hill. I’ve found loads of cool trails and paths, and I’m looking forward to discovering even more in the coming weeks. #walking #hiking #huddersfield #castlehill #victoriatower

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Martin Caine @martincaine.com · 09/06/2026

Nice! I’ve been an advocate of #pubdev for a while now. I seem to be able to concentrate and work on stuff with other people around (if it’s not loud and distracting), but not much work gets done after a couple of beers ;-).