Jordan Bogaards

Week of 27 Jan – 2 Feb

1. What did you do this past week?

I did my normal school routine, classes, work, etc. Went to Anime Club and played some board games on board game night. I wanted to participate in the Global Game Jam but I was already kind of exhausted and felt it would be healthier to take it easy for one day of the weekend at least, so instead my friends and I decided to start a game project together but more long term than the Game Jam. We aren’t necessarily looking to make a game to release yet, but something that we can be satisfied with and something complete.

2. What’s in your way?

A lot of projects that have already been assigned to me, hoping they aren’t too bad so I can manage to have some free time.

3. What will you do next week?

Work on the several projects I need to complete as well as keep up on homework. Hopefully my friends and I will be playing some Space Kings (a D&D like system) in our free time and have some fun with that.

4. What was your experience of assertions, unit tests, coverage, and continuous integration?

I’ve had good experience with assertions during CS439, they were useful for finding out where the code was going haywire and slowly correcting things until all the assertions passed. I don’t have much experience using unit tests outside of those I made personally to make sure the code functioned (not nearly as many as is asked for here) and those provided by the professor. Zero experience with coverage tests though I thought the idea was interesting and made a lot of sense for ensuring all code is working. Lastly, I have had a bit of experience with continuous integration from the two times I’ve participated in Game Jams, its a really useful tool, though my team had a lot of issues with it and Unity.

5. What made you happy this week?

This weeks Anime Club was particularly good. Baccano has started to pick up from its very confusing early episodes, and some absolutely insane things happened in Revolutionary Girl Utena and His and Her Circumstances.

6. What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?

My pick-of-the-week is Slay the Spire. Slay the Spire is a deck-builder, rogue-like game that plays a lot into synergy building. This is my favorite deck-builder game and one of my favorite rogue-likes and there’s a very informational video on synergy building in games focused on Slay the Spire by Mark Brown in his Game Maker’s Toolkit series on YouTube. I highly recommend you play the game and watch the video if you are at all interested in game design (as well as the rest of Mark Browns Channel.

Mark Brown. “Why Synergies are the Secret to Slay the Spire’s Fun | Game Maker’s Toolkit”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=terD4Bk3L_8

1. Where did grow up?

I grew up all over the place. I was born in Fort Lewis, Washington and I’ve moved at least 8 times before settling in Rockport, Texas since 2009.

2. What high school did you go to?

Rockport Fulton High School

3. What was your favorite extracurricular activity in high school?

Computer Science UIL

4. Why did you come to UT?

Its a very good Computer Science university.

5. Why are you majoring in CS?

I found that I really enjoyed comp sci through its UIL program.

6. Why are you in this class?

I’m looking to go into software development professionally.

7. What are your expectations of this class?

Not sure, but I expect it to be a challenge.

8. How much Javascript/Python/Web programming do you already know?

Practically 0, though I catch on pretty quickly.

9. How did you like the first couple of lectures?

I enjoyed them.

10. How did you feel about the cold calling?

I think its a good way to engage the class, though I was a little upset at being the first one to be called, not fun when you’ve got bad anxiety.

11. What made you happy this week?

I went to see Color Out of Space in theaters and that was a very fun experience.