https://calebmakela.com/ Recent content in Home on Caleb Makela Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/on-writing-2/ Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/on-writing-2/ Last year, I “won” my first NaNoWriMo, writing more than 50,000 words in the span of a month. I felt as if I’d rekindled some old flame, reviving the feeling that I should be a writer that I hadn’t felt since I was in high school. When I was reflecting on the process, I thought I had just entered a new era of creativity, and that I’d be writing every day there on. https://calebmakela.com/posts/the-mountain-first-draft/ Tue, 14 Jan 2025 12:00:00 -0500 https://calebmakela.com/posts/the-mountain-first-draft/ Am I avoiding it? I thought to myself last night, thinking of this very post and the first draft that it’s about. I originally planned to write about ‘The Mountain’ a month after finishing the first draft, thinking that would be enough time to wait before reading over it again and writing my thoughts on it and the process. Now here we are, two weeks later–and while it’s later than planned, it’s better than never. https://calebmakela.com/posts/where-have-i-been/ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:00:00 -0500 https://calebmakela.com/posts/where-have-i-been/ Literally: New York! Metaphorically: Everywhere, keeping my head up in a sea of uncertainty. New York Let’s start with the big one: I live in New York now! Not New York City. I’ve found that I constantly have to explain that New York is actually huge, and I’m six hours away from the Big Apple. What started as a joke with a couple of friends planning to move here turned into joining them for the adventure. https://calebmakela.com/posts/gwj-68/ Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:33:10 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/gwj-68/ As I’m writing this, it has been about a week since Godot Wild Jam #68 wrapped. I hadn’t realized it when I submitted my project, but it has been three years since I last successfully finished a game jam. While I do want to talk a bit about the game and the jam, I also want to talk about the things that have led to me getting out of this cycle of self-hatred for the things that I make. https://calebmakela.com/posts/2023-retro/ Mon, 08 Jan 2024 12:30:00 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/2023-retro/ Reflecting on the past year, I’ve experienced a mix of ups and downs. Overall, however, I’m feeling delightfully positive about the whole thing. At the start of the year, my friends and I all came up with goals for 2023. I didn’t achieve either of my goals. A younger Caleb would have fixated on that, but when I look back, I still did cool things this year! This shift in mindset is, undoubtedly, one of the biggest victories of the year. https://calebmakela.com/posts/arcadis-one/ Thu, 07 Sep 2023 10:25:19 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/arcadis-one/ After returning from EVO 2023, I found myself filled with this desire to build my own controller. Walking the convention floor, there were so many amazing sticks in use: ones built into cosplay props, one scaled up as if for a giant, and one of my personal favorites, the Potemkin hitbox. How could I not make something of my own? A few ideas circled around my head, but only one stuck: a hitbox wholly contained in a book. https://calebmakela.com/posts/evo-2023/ Wed, 09 Aug 2023 11:08:28 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/evo-2023/ EVO 2023 just wrapped this last weekend. It was my second time attending, and it was even greater than last year. Attendance absolutely dwarfed last year’s numbers thanks to the release of Street Fighter 6 and the place was packed. You could definitely feel the crowd as you moved through the place. Between the conference days and the finals, the energy was electric. This year, I signed up to compete again, this time in both Guilty Gear Strive and Street Fighter 6. https://calebmakela.com/posts/i-want-to-run-a-marathon/ Thu, 13 Jul 2023 17:38:39 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/i-want-to-run-a-marathon/ The ridiculous thought came to me about a month ago. It wasn’t the first time, I’ve always wanted to get back into long-distance running, but I haven’t seriously worked at it since high school (a decade ago, jeez). I started thinking about it while I was soaking in the victory of my workout challenge I mentioned previously, so I was already feeling great about exerting myself. On top of that, I have a support network now. https://calebmakela.com/posts/on-building-habits/ Wed, 05 Jul 2023 21:28:17 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/on-building-habits/ I think I finally understand all the productivity YouTubers that talk about building habits. They make it sound so easy. “It’s simple. Just get started. Just keep going. Then you’ll build the habit.” No matter how many times I’ve heard it, I could never really act on it. Now that I have, I have nothing new to say! They’re right. In the words of Sister Creep, “One step, and then the next gets you where you’re going. https://calebmakela.com/posts/starting-2023/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:53:51 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/starting-2023/ We’re about to wrap up the first third of the year, so I felt like it might be a good time to reflect on what’s happened so far. At the beginning of the year, a friend and I decided this year was going to be a productive one. We set up goals, we talked about milestones throughout the year, we even set up a channel specifically for this effort in our Discord server! https://calebmakela.com/posts/i-went-to-evo/ Mon, 05 Sep 2022 18:55:36 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/i-went-to-evo/ It’s been a month since EVO, and a month since I put “write about EVO” in my to-do list. What’s new. While there’s plenty to say about my time in the overwhelming adult playground that is Vegas, I just want to talk about the event. TL;DR: I was absolutely destroyed, losing my two games in the double elimination bracket. Despite that, it was a blast, and I’ll be going back. https://calebmakela.com/posts/guilty-gear-training/ Sun, 10 Jul 2022 16:25:30 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/guilty-gear-training/ How Did I Get Here? In April of this year, my friend Conlan (a long-time fighting game player) proposed the idea of going to EVO, just for fun. EVO (The Evolution Championship Series) is one of the largest fighting game tournaments out there, and is one that can be entered by anyone willing to travel to Vegas. We signed up to play Guilty Gear Strive, his current “main” game, and the one he had been pushing me to pick up the most. https://calebmakela.com/posts/recent-projects-march2022/ Thu, 17 Mar 2022 11:24:57 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/recent-projects-march2022/ I had been thinking about writing posts on a few different projects I’ve been working on, but none of them had any sort of substance. So instead, here’s something of a showcase, with a few projects I’ve made in the last month or two. Scatterbrain The first project is a simple to-do application, made just for me. I’m making it with Qt, using C++, which I haven’t touched in any serious capacity since college. https://calebmakela.com/posts/autumn-of-creation/ Wed, 16 Feb 2022 11:56:41 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/autumn-of-creation/ I had been meaning to write this post when the Autumn of Creation ended, at the end of December. Procrastination turned to forgetfulness as time went on and now, two months later, I’ve kicked myself in the rear enough to sit down and get it done. I introduced the theme in my post about Tumbletile, which was one of my bigger projects for the season. Overall, it went well! My original plan was to create something new every week, no matter what it was. https://calebmakela.com/posts/tumbletile/ Mon, 08 Nov 2021 11:24:22 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/tumbletile/ This Fall, I’ve been trying to do what I call the “Autumn of Creation”. This was inspired by CGP Grey’s video “Your Theme”. This is my third season where I’ve given them these themes, and this one was inspired by the fact that I just haven’t been putting out much creatively for the last year. Now, I want to talk about Autumn of Creation, but it’s still ongoing, so I’m going to leave it with this introduction and I’ll revisit the topic in the Winter. https://calebmakela.com/posts/two-knights/ Sun, 11 Jul 2021 11:50:16 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/two-knights/ Last weekend, I spent the majority of it working on a game called Two Knights. Two Knights is a very basic two player fighting game, where two knights throw their swords at one another. I’m going to keep talking about it and the process, but if you want to check it out, you can do that here. The Making of Two Knights Two Knights started as nothing more than a joke. https://calebmakela.com/posts/looking-back-on-a-game-in-2020/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 12:00:00 -0800 https://calebmakela.com/posts/looking-back-on-a-game-in-2020/ At the beginning of last year, I told myself that 2020 was going to be the year I finally released a game. I’ve only ever released a simple mobile game before, and outside of that, I’ve only ever “finished” jam games. Now that we’re in 2021, I can safely say that the efforts I collectively referred to as “A Game in 2020” were a failure. My friends are very supportive. What I Wanted To Make I didn’t enter 2020 with a plan, and ended up exploring a few ideas in January. https://calebmakela.com/posts/unity-alternatives-devtober-and-more/ Wed, 30 Sep 2020 21:00:00 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/unity-alternatives-devtober-and-more/ I’ve been letting ideas for posts build up, allowing myself to be lazy instead of sitting down and at least writing a first draft. So rather than write multiple articles tonight, I figured I’d just lump everything together into one. Why not, it’s my blog after all. I want to talk about my recent exploration outside of Unity, what I’m going to be doing for Devtober (which I’ve just learned of this year), and a few other things that have been rattling around in my head. https://calebmakela.com/posts/the-beginning-of-scrubbot/ Sat, 29 Aug 2020 11:29:48 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/the-beginning-of-scrubbot/ ScrubBot is a Discord bot I’ve been making for ScrubLords, a small server I’m in with some college friends. I’ve made a few bots before, but this has turned out to be quite different from them. I suppose that’s why I’ve decided to write about it, it feels meaningful. ScrubBot was started with a purpose. Friday Night Gaming In ScrubLords, we tend to get together every Friday for some games. More than a handful of times, though, we’d end up scrambling last minute figuring out who was actually available to play and what we wanted to play. https://calebmakela.com/posts/late-night-scrub/ Sat, 22 Aug 2020 00:57:55 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/late-night-scrub/ Well here we are, weeks after creating this site, and not a post to be seen. What did I say, I knew I’d be a bit less than attentive to the thing. This isn’t much of a post, and instead is a sort of preview of a post. It’s late, and I really just wanted to say that I had an incredibly productive day on ScrubBot, the Discord bot I’ve been making specifically for the server I’m in with my friends, called ScrubLords. https://calebmakela.com/posts/its-the-first-post/ Sat, 01 Aug 2020 18:48:07 -0700 https://calebmakela.com/posts/its-the-first-post/ It’s another day, and another way to collect my thoughts that I’ll undoubtedly abandon. I’ve spent a lot of time playing around with different frameworks, working on a ton of versions of personal sites. I’m not much of a web developer, so naturally I’ve settled on the easiest option: just some HTML and CSS. I’m using Hugo to throw it all together, which has proven itself to be relatively simple. https://calebmakela.com/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://calebmakela.com/about/ I’m a software developer that got into the trade through my love of video games, starting in middle school with some absolutely terrible Rogue clones using C++ and OpenGL. That love sticks with me to this day, and making games is one of my greatest hobbies. I spend my days throwing myself at (and leaving behind) far too many creative endeavors. On top of making games, I enjoy writing, making music, and creating art. https://calebmakela.com/links/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://calebmakela.com/links/ https://calebmakela.com/progress/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://calebmakela.com/progress/ Progress of Life Day Month Year Life* *based on a generous life expectancy of 90 https://calebmakela.com/projects/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://calebmakela.com/projects/ Project Ithaca Project Ithaca is a narrative game created for Godot Wild Jam #30. The player takes on the role of a mech pilot tasked with the eradication of enemy outposts. During their missions, they will come to question what it is they're really doing there. Created using Godot and Procreate. Splitzball Splitzball is a fast-paced ball game created for the DayKnight 30-Day community challenge. In Splitzball, the player is able to separate and recombine their character at-will, controlling each with the two halves of their controller.