Favourite Nightmare
Published on 2026-08-10 by Stuart SpenceForeword
Days after first watching Obsession (2025 film) it's still on my mind. Then driving to (and from) Ottawa and listening to dark wave witch house music I felt an unusual need to get creative like I was 20 again. So I took some notes and later wrote this horror …
Release 1.17: Champions and Items
Published on 2026-07-06 by Stuart SpenceGreetings, stranger. I'm not surprised to see your kind here. Many adventurers have traveled this way since the recent troubles began.
No doubt you've heard about the tragedy that befell the town of Northwood. Some say that Surtr, the Lord of Fire, walks the world again.
Since at least 2005 …
Art Assets in ChessCraft
Published on 2026-06-09 by Stuart SpenceThis post is a chronological tour of all the types of art assets in ChessCraft (images, sounds, music, voice) and how they were made.
A ton of different methods were used. There's 200+ chess pieces made by me in GIMP, the adventure map was hand drawn on paper then scanned …
My Media Diet in 2026
Published on 2026-06-09 by Stuart SpenceThis is how I like to get all my news and information in 2026. Writing it all down should help me sort, cut, and review my media diet. Maybe you'll find this useful too - if you like what I like anyway. This mega list is sorted best to merely good …
Sick Days and Happiness
Published on 2026-04-15 by Stuart SpenceI've had this on my mind for years. What if you made a graph of sickness versus happiness with respect to paid sick days? Here's my first good attempt. Your graph may be different than mine because:
- I have paid sick days.
- I feel some duty to my work.
- I …
How-To Government
Published on 2026-02-10 by Stuart SpenceI'm a senior computer scientist for the government of Canada, there since 2018. Sometimes reality doesn't reflect the official messaging in government. So this page lists some of my own guidelines, truths, and tools that have most helped my career in government and guard my sanity. I hope this page …
ChessCraft in 2025
Published on 2025-12-31 by Stuart SpenceI've often liked year-end reviews like from Wendover Productions. So here's another for ChessCraft. See also:
Metrics
This year ChessCraft passed one million installs. Curiously, the page on Google Play still reports just 500,000 several months later! I guess Google doesn't care about my vanity metrics …
One Million Installs!
Published on 2025-09-18 by Stuart Spence
Wow! How about that. Do I get a gold plaque from YouTube now? I still remember celebrating 100,000 in 2021:

And if we really go back, 100 in 2019:

I guess I like round numbers. If you haven't passed it yet, I recommend celebrating your one billion second birthday …
Why I'm declining your AI generated MR
Published on 2025-08-26 by Stuart Spence
Sometimes a merge request (MR) doesn't merit a code review (CR) because AI was used in a bad way that harms the team or the project. For example:
- Code deletion would improve the MR a lot.
- You don't know the basics of the language you submitted.
- Documentation spam.
- Blatantly inconsistent …