Ttiki's February month letter

Hello everyone.

We live in dark times, and all my support goes to the Ukrainian people and Russians against their evil and sick government! I invite anyone who can to donate to an organization helping refugees (like UNHCR) or by donating medical supplies, canned food, and other supply which could help anyone.

I've been in a rough depression period this last couple of months now (it's getting better now, but I'm scared I will come back to square one at any time). And all of this news sorrow me at the deepest part. We end a world crisis to start another because of some dumb "president" government with horrible convictions. Just like spoiled children, and they're ready to destroy lives and start a world war against innocence. 

I am in no place to talk about this subject. I never live in war. 

The only thing I can do is donate to help those in need right now.

Let's close this message from now and let me speak about what I can speak about.

What have I done this month?

Projects

I've mainly worked on MORRIGAN this month. You can read about it in the Kickstarter newsletter. However, I did work on other projects and just started one with a friend from Stonks Life Inc. A remake (again) of Wordle, better known in France as Motus. But I won't speak about it this month, I will wait until we finish the project before speaking about it.

Don't worry, I've worked on another software. It's still under development for now, but I can speak about it.

Lord Akats_ Glitcher (LAG)

You may have understood from the name this software is made for my Lord Akats_ accounts. I like glitch art, and this was the goal for creating Lord Akats_. I stumbled upon a python script a few months ago where you can pixel sort your image. It's available as a Google CodeLab, and the original python library is available on GitHub

• I couldn't find the original Google Codelab. I've forked it to my own and didn't save the original anywhere apparently (which is strange I always save as favorite a page that interest me, even if I copy it to my personal GD or GitHub...)
• https://github.com/satyarth/pixelsort
• https://pypi.org/project/pixelsort/

Why would I need to create software when they are thousands of ways to do it? Because I'm a nerd, and I like to do things for myself because I can learn from making.

Note: this is open-source software, so anyone can download it for free and contribute to its development. 

Functionnalities

It will come (hopefully) with multiple functionalities listed below:

• Pixel sort images (including gifs) and videos
• Datamosh videos (and maybe gif, but I don't know if it's possible)

This below isn't the main focus for now. They may never be implemented!

• Glitch Art generator (Black and white glitch / ASCII art like Watch Dogs loading screens.)
• Audio glitch manipulation (repeat part like a lag, slow down / speed up certain parts of the audio, quality decrease, etc.)

I hope I can work with videos because it's new for me. I've worked with pictures quite some times now, and using Ultra Engine for the SDK helps me treat images more easily because it has a lot of plug-ins and tools for images and treating them.

However, I will have to do way more research for videos treatment.

As you can see from this first mockup, there are only two tabs for Pixel Sort and DataMosh. This mockup is still a WIP, and I didn't place every widget (the controls for audio/video, tabs missings, etc.)

I'm working on it aside from MORRIGAN, the wordle-like game from Stonks Life Inc (including the API that comes with it), and my website v2 Ttiki's HUB, which I hope to release one day...

Serie of month

The CupHead show on Netflix was a good surprise. I was a bit scared when they announced it (that it would become a cheap cartoon to use cuphead popularity (even though the only hype about the game is the new DLC coming this year). But it was a good surprise, definitely with vibes from old cartoons I (and lots of people) used to watch. 

Episodes aren't too long nor too short, characters are funny, and the voices of cuphead and mugman (as well as all other characters) didn't break "the universe" (I don't know how to explain it. I was scared bringing voices to these characters would break something, I don't know why.)

Game of the month

The latest Valve mini short game Aperture Desk Job was a joy to play, and I would love to see Valve make games again (like for real). They keep the same humor, sound design, and music from Portal 2. The characters are directly attached, the new Source engine is incredible, and damn, why only 20 minutes T_T.

If you got yourself a Steam deck or simply a steam controller (and I think most new controllers can work with it. You only need the default buttons, joystick, back buttons, and, if possible, but the game still works without it, a gyroscope.

Play Aperture Desk Job for free on Steam! (You must be equipped with a Steam Deck or Steam controller!)

That's all for this month. I couldn't find time to play any mod this month. I wanted to join the 2022 hammer competitions from RTSL, but the first challenge was a blank page for me. I thought about how to execute my map with the theme but couldn't find it interesting. So I will wait for the next challenge. (You don't have to enter every challenge to win only two challenges are taken into account for the final notation. If you decide to enter every challenge, only two will be taken into account.)

Let's hope next month will be better. My heart goes to people touched directly by this war.

Thank you,

Peace to this world.

Vive l'Ukraine et force à force les personnes touchées

Clément 'Ttiki' Combier,

Agur.