The last few weeks I’ve been happily sidetracked. I haven’t stopped writing poems or submitting… I have been learning to code!
Learning to code is something I’ve always wanted to try. With the help of Lon Böder, Liam Kincaid, and their great patience, I was able to understand the concepts of coding. I built a game using the programming language Ruby. A tutorial I found and worked through was based on a spaceship collecting stars. I felt it was missing something…so I added Starry The Pony! And some carrot cake for her to eat in space, of course. Everyone knows ponies make everything better.
![](http://penneyknightly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/starry-buttons-arms.png)
![Here is Starry, striving mightily for the carrot cake.](http://penneyknightly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Starry-in-Space.png)
After spending some time with Ruby, and building a game, a friend introduced me to Unity. Unity is a powerful tool set for building games! You likely have played games on your mobile phone that have used Unity – or even on PC – Gone Home, and the recently-released Firewatch come to mind. (Here is a showcase of Unity-made games if you’re interested. It’s quite impressive).
I worked through this star-collecting space tutorial which I modified to include Starry and carrot cake (because those things are instant improvements to anything!), I downloaded Unity.
![Screenshot of Ruby code from Starry in Space game.](http://penneyknightly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/starry-in-space-code-game.png)
This tutorial in Unity is a Space Shooter. Arcade-style, with minimal movements and player objectives. Even though it’s simple. and barely even a game, it was a lot of fun to build. I never thought in my entire life that I would be capable of even following along with coding or instructions about coding. But I did! I was an abundance of fun. I learned a great deal, and am inspired to create more games in the future. Maybe even some first person exploration story-driven games that I am becoming so fond of! Wouldn’t that be just the most beautiful merge of story-telling, art, symbolism, music, and poetic flair? I am really, really looking forward to learning more.
So, yes! You can play my space shooter game (here). Not much to it, but still amusing.
![Screenshot of Space Shooter.](http://penneyknightly.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/space-shooter-start-scrn.png)
Doing these little projects made me appreciate and understand more: that growth comes from extending beyond normal comfort levels.
I’ve known this intellectually for a long time, and have been told it countless times, too. The reality of the truth of it reawakened me in a positive way. Instead of thinking, “Oh, I’m doing something not related to art or poetry right now,” and feeling guilty (!) about that…I will be thankful and open-minded, looking for new possibilities and inspiration. Time spent doing new things is not wasted time. Time spent doing anything is growth. Expansion. New material. A viewpoint enhancer. Another tool to enable you to be more you than you knew you could be.
Keep creating and being great!
Love,
Penney