Happy 2022! Typing that really feels like we're living in "the future." Here are some updates from my life since my last post, then I'll type some stuff about looking back on 2021:

Projected Axe Throwing Games

I built a way to "mount" a projector on my back yard pergola to use with my axe throwing target. The fam had fun testing out all the axe throwing games I've been working on

New Axe Throwing Game: Axe Match

Another easy, low-hanging, fruit kind of axe throwing game. You reveal tiles and try to make matches. Most notable here is a way to "scroll" the projected screen so you can have really large boards.

Here it is in-action at the club in Portugal:

First Axe Club Member to "Level Up!"

Our tried and true first "league" (club) member earned enough achievements to officially level up from white shirt to orange shirt. This dude is a god among men! Here he is being officially dubbed by one of our "Axe Masters."

Halloween

I dressed up as "Fat Thor" and my boys all went as Harry Potter!

Bella's 2nd Album

My daughter released her 2nd album. Check it out! You can download it for free, or pitch some $ her way if you feel so inclined. (I'm still working on her to upload it to NG too). I'm really proud of her for her dedication that has developed her musical skills and her ability to see a project through from beginning to end:

Iceberg Theory

Cubby Repair

We got a kids' "cubby" on Craigslist and it arrived with one of the pieces broken. So I "cut" out the cancerous tissue and

spliced in a replacement piece of wood with wood glue and clamps. It worked surprisingly well, and now the cubby has a cool "racing stripe!"

Christmas Tamales & 19 Years

We have a Christmas tradition of making Mexican tamales. They're prrrreettty good! Also, I celebrated 19 years of marriage this year (we went to a way overpriced steakhouse. The food was good tho). Crazy how time flies and how NOT easy marriage is. I'm grateful for a forgiving partner.

California Walnut Nativity Sculpture

I got a bee in my bonnet about 2 weeks before Christmas to make a carved nativity for my wife. The original plan was to sculpt it in Blender, then have my best friend cut it out on his CNC machine from some wood blocks. He ended up being too busy with other work, but he did let me use his various woodworking tools to "hand" carve the California Walnut I procured. I sculpted one of the pieces out of foam first, just to make sure I could wrap my head around the process. I planned to use my Dremel on the actual wood, but it ended up being too hard, so I had to use a heavy-duty "end mill" bit in a powerful hand-held drill to do the actual sculpting. The "Joseph" block had a crack running through it that ended up splitting in half, so we had to wood glue it back together. We mixed some of the walnut sawdust into the glue and it ended up masking the crack perfectly. Overall, there was a lot of adaptation along the way, but we made it work! It didn't end up matching the original vision super well, but I still think it turned out nice (and I learned a ton).

Tattoos On The Heart

The latest in my faith journey was reading the book "Tattoos On the Heart" by a Jesuit priest (Greg Boyle) that worked for 20+ years in East LA with inner-city youth and gang members. Wow, what a book! I would highly recommend. The conception of "God" in it meshes really well with where I've landed on the whole topic. It had me in tears on many occasions. Here are a couple quotes to whet your appetite:

Tower Defense Prototype

This is what I'm working on for the upcoming Flash Forward Game Jam. I've never made one of these and my boys have really been into Bloons Tower Defense lately. I miiiight be teaming up with some old friends for this...

2021 Reflection

Welp, that was a crazy year. Working from home, vaccines and boosters, lots of conference calls, hope that COVID would go away, but then having new variants crop up. New president, same ol' political rigamarole. I'm really proud of Castle Crashing The Beard HD and how nicely it meshed with Friday Night Funkin's "Week 7" release (and that it works so well on mobile devices, and isn't done in FLASH!). I'm proud and jealous of the FnF dudes for their successful Kickstarter. I'm really proud and jealous of Madness: Project Nexus finally coming out too and all the success it received. @Luis was super productive this year and that always pleases me. As usual I'm really grateful to @TomFulp and Newgrounds for creating such a great, creative, original, exciting community for creative type people. NG 4 Lyfe!

One thing I'm looking forward to in 2022 is the 10 year anniversary of Abobo's Big Adventure. Me, Rog, and Pox are planning to get together and record a "director's commentary" on it while we play through together. We're also trying to team up with the 2-left-thumbs YouTube channel (who is long-time Newgrounds member @noodle and who made a cool historical video about Pico) to do a video or series of videos about ABA. Which reminds me, this guy did one of the deepest dives into Abobo's Big Adventure that I've seen so far:

Leave me a note with what you're looking forward to in 2022, or just say "Happy New Year!"