Hey there,

The last fortnight has been a bit of a blur. It’s still stupidly hot here in the UK, and I started work on a “weekend project” that I am now two weeks into.

I am building a tool that generates skies for 3D games. The idea is that I can instantly create a sky with a single command, rather than making a new image for every game or level. It’s looking good, but it has also become wildly overengineered. So now I am stripping it back and trying to find the simple idea buried underneath. You can see some screenshots of my progress on Bluesky if you’re interested.

This weekend was also Pokémon Go Fest in the UK, alongside a pre-release event for the next Pokémon card set. Consequently, I spent most of it playing Pokémon, chasing Pokémon around town, and talking to my son about Pokémon. It was busy, but we had a lot of fun.

Hey there,

In the UK, and across much of Europe, we have spent the last week in a heatwave. Some of the hottest weather ever recorded in June in the UK. It’s been draining, so I’ve basically spent as much time as possible hiding from the sun. I’ve always preferred the cold so this has not been the best time for me, thankfully this week has been a bit cooler.

As such, I haven’t been doing as much creatively as I normally would. My brain feels like it’s turned to mush, so I’ve managed to watch some movies and read a few books, but actual creative thought has been hard to come by.

I was also challenged by my son to use social media less, and I’ve been trying to do that. Specifically, he said to “stop using our phones so much” and made it a competition between my wife and me. We used the Screen Time features on our phones to compare our use. We ignored communication apps (phone and messaging), so it mostly counted social media and games.

Hey there,

Last week we had WWDC and a Nintendo Direct, two events I like to make time for.

WWDC is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and I usually look forward to seeing what is coming next for Apple devices. Unfortunately, this year was largely about AI and not particularly exciting. The two things I was most interested in were the improvements to macOS design, which is currently a bit of a mess, and the improved child controls, which I’m surprised they didn’t have before.

The Nintendo Direct, on the other hand, was a much more interesting presentation. A lot of the games they showed were Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), which I don’t play much, but there were still a few announcements that caught my eye.

Hey there,

I feel like I say this every other issue, but I’ve spent the last week on half term holiday, which means my son has been off school and I’ve been doing Pokemon-related things with him. We’ve been playing card games, went to a National Trust Pokemon trail, played Pokemon Go, and visited card shops. Pretty much anything you can think of related to those collectible cards, and we’ve done it. It’s been fun, exhausting, and I now know far more about Pokemon than I ever imagined I would.

Besides that, I’ve been working on Brush Ninja, mostly fixing bugs and improving speed and stability. I’ve also been working on the galleries for the website, especially the emoji art and Code Ninja galleries.

It’s not public yet, but I’m trying to make almost everything in the gallery editable, apart from animations unfortunately. The idea is that you can open an artwork, see how it was made, and remix it into something of your own.

Hey there,

It’s been a busy week in the best possible way. I’ve been juggling lots of different projects recently and feeling more productive than I have in quite a while.

The biggest launch this week was a brand new Brush Ninja app: the Stop Motion Animator!

It’s been on my wish list for ages. I assumed it would be as complex as the main Brush Ninja animation maker, so I kept putting it off, but it turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. I was able to reuse a lot of work from the Pixel Camera app, along with ideas and interface elements from the Animated GIF maker, which sped things up massively.

Hey there,

Happy Star Wars Day! I am writing this whilst wearing a Millennium Falcon T-shirt and watching the latest episode of the new Darth Maul series on Disney+.

So anyway, last week I was working on my game for the gamedev.js game jam, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Called Code Machine, it features a little robot that you control through a maze of chaotic rooms using a simple set of commands. Because of a lot of the built-in features of BeepMini, I was able to build it without doing any art, music, or sound effects, which instantly speeds development up. I did spend a bit of time improving the automatic (procedural) music, which made it sound a lot more natural, but I didn’t have to do any composition. Your ears will be grateful for that, I’m sure.

I also added some new features to BeepMini, the biggest being a simple UI layer that lets you add touch controls (buttons and regions) to games. It kind of breaks the retro console vibe, but it’s a big benefit for mobile users, and it works well enough.

Hey there,

Hope you’re doing well. I recently got back from a trip to London. I’m originally from South East London but now live in the countryside, so it’s always nice to go back, see the city, and catch up with family.

While in London we went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, and more importantly (for my son) the Pokémon collaboration. It was a lot of fun and the museum never disappoints.

This newsletter is a little shorter than normal because I’m in the middle of a game jam and, thanks to the holiday, I lost half my time. I’ll talk about the jam in a minute, but first I wanted to share some of the things we did while we were away.

Hey there,

I hope you had a nice weekend. Over Easter we decided to make our own large, hollow chocolate eggs. We bought some moulds and chocolate, melted it down, and poured it in with our own fillings. It was a lot of fun, and slightly "healthier" than shop-bought eggs since we could use better quality chocolate. I filled mine with cornflakes and peanut butter, which turned out excellent.

There’s something quite nice about making things from scratch, even when it’s a bit messy. That mindset has carried over into what I’ve been working on this week. It’s messy, but that’s half the fun.

Over the past week I’ve been working on an update to Brush Ninja, improving the drawing tool I call Paint Ninja. It’s a lightweight alternative to Photoshop, or more closely Procreate. A simple, fun drawing app that runs in your browser. I’ve collected a lot of feedback over the years, and the main request has been layers, which I’ve now added.

Hey there,

These last couple of weeks have been a bit of a blur, but I want to keep a consistent schedule, so here we are with another issue of Ninja Sparks.

I’ve been trying to finish off Splatter Balls, my new (old) game. I thought it would be quick since it’s been running nicely on Brush Ninja for a while. However, there are far more ideas, tweaks, and improvements needed to make it commercially viable than I expected, so it’s taking longer than planned.

On the plus side, I’ve added a bunch of new features, and with my son’s help we’re now at over 100 levels, which is fantastic.

Hey there,

Two weeks have flown by and it’s time for a new issue of Ninja Sparks. It feels a bit strange writing this considering everything happening in the world at the moment, but I want to maintain a small sense of normality, so I will keep doing my thing as much as I can. I hope you and your loved ones are doing well.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on two main things: small updates to Brush Ninja and a larger update to finish my game Splatter Balls.

At the encouragement of a couple of friends I’ve decided to try releasing it on some game portals. That means adding new obstacles and levels, tidying up the logic, and finally adding music and sound effects.

Hey there,

I am writing this whilst watching the closing ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. I’m not into sport, but I found myself watching a surprising amount of it over the last couple of weeks. I think I prefer this to the regular Olympics. A lot of the events are about skill rather than strength or speed, which makes them more interesting to watch. The ice skating and snowboarding events in particular were really fun.

This last week was also half term, so I spent a very enjoyable week with my boy. A lot of that time was spent doing Pokémon-related things, including him competing in a Pokémon Cup.

We also spent last Friday searching for the new Pokémon cards in the shops. This was the first time we’d been able to go out on release day when the shops opened, and it was fascinating seeing all the scalpers queuing up and then running from shop to shop trying to buy as much as they could, whilst real Pokémon fans like us were left to pick up the scraps. Fortunately, we’ve learnt over the last year the best places to get cards and were able to get what we wanted, but it’s very frustrating seeing scalpers making this harder for those of us who just want to enjoy the hobby.

Hey there,

Welcome to a new issue of Ninja Sparks. I’ve now been writing this newsletter for over a year, and it’s been a fun way to collect and share the things I’ve found along the way. I hope you’re enjoying it. As always, please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions for future issues.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing some work on Brush Ninja, mostly tidying up user interactions to make it nicer to use. They’re all small changes that will hopefully go unnoticed, but together should make the experience feel smoother and more considered.

Away from the computer, something else has been quietly unfolding. My son has recently started getting into Lego. He’s 9 now, and although we introduced it years ago, it never really stuck until recently. A couple of weekends ago he adopted a “pet” pebble and decided it needed a house. What began as a single room has slowly grown into multiple rooms, a garden, and even a balcony.

Hey there,

A couple of weeks ago I went to a reunion for my former employer Miniclip. It was a party to celebrate their 25th anniversary (and also the original CEO’s 50th birthday). It was great seeing friends and colleagues that I haven’t seen in over a decade.

I was Miniclip’s third employee and saw it grow from a small room near St Paul’s Cathedral to a multinational company with offices all over the world. It was a special evening that made me very nostalgic for the early days of the internet and online games, when everything felt a bit more experimental. Miniclip is now a mobile-focused publisher making games for iOS and Android, but back then it was all about publishing browser games.

That nostalgia stuck with me because I’ve since seen a few other companies that we worked with celebrating their 25th anniversaries too. In particular, we had close relationships with RuneScape (a browser-based MMORPG), and Raketspel (a Swedish game developer) who both turn 25 this year and are still going strong. It’s not just games either. Wikipedia also turns 25 this year. It’s amazing to think that it’s been around for that long, and it’s still such a valuable resource for information; I still use it all the time.

Hi there - welcome to 2026!

After a bit of a break over the holidays, I’m pleased to be back writing this newsletter.

I had a lovely holiday break with my family. We had two Christmas celebrations with different groups of people, so I’m well and truly stuffed full of indulgent food.

I was planning to take a bit of a break from “working”, but I really enjoy what I do, so I ended up spending quite a lot of time on BeepMini anyway. I’m now working on AI enemies. It was overwhelming at first, but I think I’m getting somewhere. I have a basic enemy that can patrol or move around randomly. It also runs away if it catches on fire (fire is also a thing now). Next up is making enemies chase the player, and then attack.

Hey there,

This is the last issue this year! I’m amazed that I’ve managed to consistently publish a newsletter every two weeks all year! Thank you for reading along and sticking with it. I really appreciate it.

Rather than sharing apps or tutorials this time, I thought I’d end the year by looking back at some of the fun, creative things that stuck with me.

Hey there,

It’s the 1st of December already! We put up the Christmas tree this weekend and started making things more festive.

I’ve been working on BeepMini this last week. I wanted to make a path editor to help with my stealth game. I originally planned to have an interactive tool that allows you to place waypoints and draw paths, but that was going to be a lot of work. Instead I realised I could use a simple text-based language to define paths. This turns the act of creating paths into a game of its own, so now I can define paths quickly without needing a complex UI.

This means I now have characters walking around my levels, which is a big step forward. There’s lots to do to make this more usable in games. The characters don’t collide with the environment, the player, or each other yet. But it’s a start!

Hey there,

Last week I joined a game jam for fun and tried to make a small BeepMini game. I got the basic idea working fast, but making lots of levels by hand felt painful. That pushed me to think about a level editor.

At first I planned a quick and messy tool. Then I realised my adventure game editor already did most of the work. So I’m turning it into a general editor that uses config files and can handle different types of games.

The first step is adding worlds and levels. This means I can build separate areas for each game and bigger spaces for adventure games. After that, I’m adding paths, which I need for my stealth game so guards can patrol. This will also help NPCs move around in adventure games.

Hey there,

Welcome to a new issue of Ninja Sparks! It’s been half term here in the UK, so I took a short break with the family. We went away for a couple of nights, did some trick-or-treating, and enjoyed the slower pace for a bit. It’s amazing how much clearer my head feels after a few days away from screens.

Back at work, I’ve been deep in the Brush Ninja accessibility review. It’s taking longer than I expected, but I’m learning loads and the site’s improving with every tweak. It’s satisfying work, even if it’s a bit of a rabbit hole.

The break also gave me space to think about what’s next. I’ve got a few new game ideas for BeepMini bubbling away that I’m itching to start on once Brush Ninja’s update is done. These last few days I’ve been watching student animations from Gobelins, and that’s what I want to focus on in this issue.

Hey there,

I’ve been super creative the last couple of weeks, working hard on my new 3D engine and trying to finish off BeepMini so that I can properly launch it. Plus I’ve had an email from someone asking about the Accessibility of Brush Ninja, so I’ve been filling out a VPAT form, which is a whole new thing for me.

Amidst all this I’ve also been doing a lot of things with my son who is really into Pokémon. He’s been collecting for years. Now we go to a weekly Pokémon club where he plays the games and trades cards, and has even competed in his first tournament. He’s quite shy but he’s been loving this and it’s been great to see him engaging with new people and making friends.

Outside of my own work and family time, I’ve been spotting a few new creative things online worth sharing. A new 3D game builder (which I’m a little jealous of), a video about the importance of boredom for creativity, and some interesting links I found recently.

Hey there,

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on quite a few different things. Firstly, I have decided to rename beep8 to beepmini. This is a relatively small-sounding change but it means rebuilding the website and merging it with the beepmini.com domain.

I still think beep8 was a good name, but about 6 months after I bought the domain, someone else released a project with the same name. I reached out but didn’t hear back. I was first, but I don’t fancy a fight, so I’ve decided to change it. Fortunately, when I bought beep8.com I also grabbed beepmini.com. At first I thought I’d use it as a games arcade, but now it just makes sense to keep everything together.

Merging the two sites, updating the code, and rewriting the copy is taking a while. Hopefully I’ll have it sorted in the next week or so.