Hi! I'm Tim. I'm a software developer based in the UK. I have lots of different interests, all of which I plan on devoting time to here.

Software Dev and Teaching

I've been working as a software developer for 4 years now, with about 2 years of that devoted to training new software developers. I was the trainer on a course called TechSwitch, which was set up specifically to help people switch into a role in tech, either from a different career or after a long career break (such as maternity leave).

I currently run software apprenticeships at a training company called Corndel. We run these apprenticeships in four languages. In descending order of how much I like them, they are JavaScript, C#, Python, and Java.

JavaScript and C# are the languages I'm most fluent in – they're also the languages TechSwitch was taught in, the languages I have most experience in as a developer, and the languages I have the most strong opinions on (which no doubt will fill up the blog).

Game Dev

Software development, of course, is both a business and leisure activity. For the latter, I very much enjoy making video games.

Thanks to my poor executive function, the only time I have ever really been able to create a game to completion is when I take part in a game jam: a competition where people get together, often in teams, to create a game from scratch in a short period of time.

I usually do these with my good friend and colleage Matt, a collaboration which has yielded six games:

• To Boldly Plant, April 2020 – Our first game. Very minimalistic puzzle/walking simulator. Possibly unwinnable!

• Penguin Tower Defense Game, August 2020 – A tower defense game in which you are a penguin defending his igloo from a land-hungry leopard seal and his horde of minions. Made for an internal game jam we held at work, so I'm afraid you can't play it online! Made with our friend Ariana.

• Quantum Genesis Hyperspeed Space Redux, April 2021 – Our first foray into 3D, with a cyberpunk aesthetic, also made with Ariana. You pilot a neon ship through a series of rings. The controls are horrible. Please enjoy!

• Chrysopoeia, April 2022 – In my opinion, where our games start to become fun. An alchemy-themed frantic factory game where you must set up apparati in your workshop to produce enough gold to satisfy the King, before he sends you to Gaol.

• Deliver us from Evil, April 2023 – XCOM meets Slay the Spire. An isometric turn-based deck builder in which you, a vicar, must battle your way out of Hell through hordes of demons. An absolute banger of a game, and one of the only two that I still occasionally play.

• Sunfarers, September 2023 – Relaxing planetary management sim. Aid a budding space outpost by placing plants and buildings on the planet's surface to balance the needs of your people. The game intentionally has no fail state – we wanted to make it as relaxing as possible! The only game we really consider "complete", if rough around the edges. I am extremely proud of this game, and I really hope I one day find the time to port it to mobile.

Unless otherwise stated, I did the majority of the art and music for the above games, and Matt did the majority of the programming (with some overlap, of course).

I've only managed to make one game by myself, which I did for the GMTK Game Jam 2023: Sprawl. A reverse factory game where you play as the factory, trying to keep up with the player's increasing production needs. Very poorly balanced – if you fancy a challenge, I am currently the only person who has ever beaten this game. Please let me know if you do (with proof!)

Academia

I studied maths at university, with a specific focus on numerical analysis (in a nutshell: how to get computers to solve physics equations and simulate physical systems accurately). I don't get to do much of this any more, but it still remains a love of mine that I would love to get back into one day.

While on this course, I did a module on machine learning. I went into this course thinking AI was a very cool and exciting new piece of technology, and I left it terrified that anybody would use AI for anything remotely important. This was in 2019, and I don't need to tell you that the field has entered the public consciousness to a significant degree since then! My opinions on AI remain the same: it's an impressive field of mathematics, but the capacity for misuse and abuse is significant, and we need to get some legislation in place as quickly as possible, before your mortgage application gets turned down by a racist pattern-matcher.

Creative Endeavours

In my spare time, I like to write and perform music and do acting.

Music

I've been very musically enclined for most of my life. My parents forced me at gunpoint to do piano lessons from the age of about 3, which I really hated at the time, but am now quite happy that it's one of the skills I have.

In my adult life I'm more inclined towards the bass guitar, which I play in a band at work (and occasionally post videos of me playing to social media).

I'm also a keen singer (keen in the sense of "enthusiastic", not in the sense of "good") – in 2015, while at university, I joined an a cappella group called Out of the Blue as their beatboxer. I stayed for a year, during which time we released an album, which I'm quite proud of!

In terms of writing music, every year my company puts on an album writing challenge, in which we collaboratively write, record, and produce an album's worth of genre-spanning music. I have written two songs for this so far (Long Cold Sleep, a blues-rock sci-fi inspired song about the horrors of capitalism, and It Has To Be Now, a funk song about the horrors of having a poor attention span), both of which I genuinely consider some of the best things I've produced in my life. (I also produced the album art for the latter song above!)

Acting

I've been doing theatre acting for quite a while, since I joined a drama group in my early teens, continuing through school. I took a break after that, but after graduating from university I have joined the am-dram scene, and appear in about one play a year on average.

I have a keen interest in film and cinematography as well, and in fact had a brief and sporadic career as a background child actor. This culminated in my role as Joe Coogan in a TV show called The Trip. I didn't stick to the acting career, so this very exciting part of my life has been relegated to a background fact about myself, where I can direct people to my IMDb page as a fun party trick, and very occasionally get recognised in social situations for a small ego boost.

My interest in film now exists entirely in my YouTube watch history, and various ideas that currently exist solely in my head – though hopefully soon to find themselves scattered liberally throughout this blog.

Why write a blog?

I've made this website almost because I have so many sporadic interests. I have far more than I was able to list here. And many of these interests are ephemeral – gone before I get the chance to use them to create something I can share with people.

I've made this website because I have lots more to share with the world than the stuff that I complete. I have so many thoughts, all the time, and almost none of them see the light of day.

I think that's a shame.