ezDatepad has been available in the iOS app store for quite a few of years already, but now it was time for an update. No new funcionality, but simply getting the app up to date. A technology upgrade where all the little parts that make up the app have been updated to their latest versions, so it is once again a robust (and safe) tool.
We sometimes call them sushi, but it’s actually a maki, a little roll of seaweed, rice, and some tasty fillings. In the store or in a restaurant you never see the ends, but for me that’s the best part. I think it looks beautiful, like a kind of wild maki on one side and a perfect maki on the other.
Chefs creating a maki want it to look good, uniform, all the pieces the same. I thight unit with everything pressed together. The ends are often different. Some loose rice, some extra ingredients, some things missing. For me it is like ying and yang. Opposites that unite. One side perfect, the other chaos. Together they are better than apart. Each bite unique, each flavor slightly different, each piece has its own identity. Perfection.
Alex en Alan both helped creating some very creative makis. We even have a typical Canarian maki with Pata! Here are some of our creations.
Vibe coding is a new way of building software with the help of AI. Instead of writing every line of code yourself, you simply describe the functionality you want, and the AI generates it for you. You test what it creates, and if it works, you move on to the next feature. If something isn’t quite right, you tell the AI what to fix, and it adjusts the implementation.
The surprising part is that you don’t need to dive into the code unless you want to. You focus on the ideas, the flow, and the experience, and you trust the AI to handle the technical details. It’s a faster, more intuitive way of creating software, and it lets you stay in the creative zone instead of getting lost in syntax.
For Mushroom Mayhem I started out building everything myself, it was before there were any AI assistents available, but I switched to vibe coding a while ago. All the design, the different game types, the screens, they are all vibe-coded now. The core of the game is solid, so I figured anything built on top of it would be a limited risk. For now, I’m happy with the results. Development is very fast. Mistakes do happen, but they’re usually easy to fix.
My current vibe-coding task is adding a shop to the game, so players can buy edible mushrooms to reveal what’s behind a field. It’s my biggest vibe-coding task so far, and the progress looks very promising.
What can I say. What started as a small hobby project, a half-finished but working app has grown into a professional app. I’ve been doing a lot of tinkering with the mushrooms lately. There’s now a full adventure mode that fits perfectly into the storyline. I also added a new game mode for players who want to choose between a quick match or a more strategic challenge.
On the horizon you can already see small clusters of mushrooms. As you walk through the forest, you see them coming closer and closer. Every now and then you come across a little field that you need to search through.
Watch out for the poisonous mushrooms, and look for the edible ones. You won’t find the edible ones often, but when you do, it’s always worth it. Once you’ve picked a field clean, you continue on to the next one. A perfect way to unwind.
This is what I wanted to achieve for the adventure mode of Mushroom Mayhem. What I had before was just a long list, which didn’t fit the feeling I wanted to evoke at all. Luckily, with the help of AI, I managed to straighten it out. The adventure mode has now been transformed into a beautiful map where new levels appear as soon as you complete a level. (Small) inconvenience is that you will need to start your adventure from scratch. Your old adventures don’t count anymore so you will have to start anew from step one.
There is more. The different game modes now look more alike: the game in the center and at the bottom a line of text indicating what you’re doing: an adventure level, a daily challenge, a quick game, or a (new) custom game. There are even more achievements to unlock, and the entire app has received a refreshed, improved look and feel.
The kids were happily playing, the mothers were chatting away, and I went for a nice run. I do that more often, but this time was a little different than usual. From a big skate park, I run a loop of about five kilometers through the neighborhood. It’s all mountain paths, with the occasional bit of asphalt. After about a kilometer, I came across a group of sheep. Just on the public road. There were about fifteen of them, I think, and five were little ones. Cute. I stopped for a moment and grabbed my phone to take a picture. One sheep walked up to me, and I thought, ‘Oh, how nice, I’ll pet him’.
Suddenly, I saw the sheep in much higher definition, and the rest of the surroundings blurred. I could only see that one sheep, and it was quite clear is wasn’t a sheep, it was a ram and I especially noticed its two enormous horns. Oh. At the speed of light, I understood that he needed to defend his offspring (from me), that I could easily avoid a risk of bodily harm, and that I’d better keep running. I started jogging again, and the angry ram came after me. What?! I sped up, fueled by adrenaline, and the ram finally stopped chasing me.
So in the end, a boring running route still gave me a fun story, and a nice adrenaline boost every now and then must also be healthy.
My mother-in-law’s (MIL) apartment is being painted. Time to remove unwanted shelves and screws from the wall so the whole wall looks nice and smooth. Some new holes were also drilled in the wall to move things to a better spot. Ana/MIL also wanted two paintings on the wall in one of the bedrooms. These had once been brought from Madrid by my MIL and had been lying neatly and safely in the closet all this time. They were made by one of Ana’s aunts, and they were two paintings with Chinese text/symbols on them.
The drilling went well. Plastic plug in the wall and a hook screwed on. Then I temporarily hung up the paintings so we could verify that everything was correct and I noticed something. Huh, the first painting had ‘ana maria’ written on the back. Funny. Then I saw the other one… ‘antonio’? That’s Ana’s ex. What?! Sometimes a story is just too good to let it rest. This was one of those stories.
Hey Ana, I finished hanging the two painting in your mothers bedroom, the ones with the chinese text for Ana Maria and Antonio.
When I told Ana, she immediately became defensive. It was a piece made by her aunt, the Chinese characters were unreadable, it didn’t mean anything, she never expected I would notice, blah blah. My MIL also claimed she never though about it. The whole story seemed completely normal to Ana and my MIL. That my MIL kept a relic from 20 years ago from one of Ana’s exes, brought it along on a trip from Madrid to Las Palmas, kept it in a closet for years, and then hung it prominently in the bedroom, apparently that wasn’t strange at all. Ana also thought it was perfectly normal. It was the artistic value of the work, and nothing else. Yeah sure.
Ofcourse I talked about the Antonio painting/situation a couple of times. When I mentioned it while we were meeting with a friend, it immediately became clear that I wasn’t the only one who found it odd. Even when I asked the AI the reply indicated it was just plain weird.
Now the whole situation has become tense. Removing them isn’t an option, because it was all so innocent and not strange at all, so why would you do anything about it. Leaving them hanging… well, if the family wants to have Ana’s name and the name of her ex on the wall, in Chinese characters, then sure, that’s possible. Apparently only the artistic value matters, and these paintings are apparently the only artistic value we have available. For me, all the typical MIL stereotypes start bubbling up.
The mother-in-law is stereotyped as bossy, unfriendly, hostile, nosy, overbearing and generally unpleasant. They are often depicted as the bane of the husband, who is married to the mother-in-law’s daughter.
A normal, calm month this time. No deviations from our routine, just completely standard. Not bad at all, I’m not complaining. Alan played his football matches again. Alex was busy with beach volleyball and tennis. I went running a few times a week and worked on my little game.
The kids were lucky because they had a few days off this month and enjoyed carnival. Sometimes these calm months are exactly what you need to recharge.
After my recent technology upgrade, I started getting more and more interested in the Apple ecosystem. I looked into their Airtags, but there were rumors about a new version coming up, so I patiently waited. They are here now and I think it was a smart move to wait for the new version. Better battery, better precision, better sound to help find it. All that for the same price.
I was never really interested in getting an Airtag because I just did not see the use for them, but now that they have supposedly improved accuracy it did get my attention. I sometimes play escape-room like games with my family. Solve riddles, search for things, break locks, hidden messages, etc. Adding an airtag looks like a very fun addition.
I will give it a try, and afterwards I can always use the Airtag to track my luggage for when I travel, or maybe track my backpack, or my car. I’ll see that usage is worth it for me.
It does work. I had rushed the initial version of Mushroom Mayhem into the store, with quite a few bugs still in it and really only the bare minimum features needed to make it playable. I strongly suspected that doing this would prevent the project from stalling again and me not looking at it for years. And it worked. Even though there are only around 20 people that installed the game, I’m motivated, and many evenings I find myself improving and fine-tuning the app.
Another pretty big update. This time I used an ‘agent’ to add large chunks of functionality all at once. An agent recieves a job, breaks it up in logical parts and assigns all the parts to a collection of AI tools that work together to carry out each task. After a while when all the tasks are complete the agent combines them all to a final result and marks the entire task as completed. After completion I could review everything and approve it if it was all correct. Super easy, as long as you describe the initial task clearly.
AI updates:
I also did some things myself and updated all the apps graphics, so everything looks a little bit cleaner, the app has a brand new icon and there are a number of bigger changes:
A simple costume can create a surprising amount of magic, especially when it’s worn by an incredibly charismatic and photogenic little character. Add a few finishing touches, and you’ve got pure spectacle.
Alan Presley is more than ready to take the school’s Carnival celebration to the next level. One thing’s for sure, with him around, everyone will be dancing in no time.