Hi there, and thanks for dropping by. I am a web and app developer and private tutor living in the Boston area. While I grew up in Virginia, I have now spent more of my life in Massachusetts. …

Recently I came across a vexing trigonometry problem that uses a number of different concepts, such as unit circles and factoring. I thought it would be helpful to share what I found while it’s fresh in my mind. This one is Problem #4 from AnalyzeMath, a terrific site with free…

Can we write an algorithm that makes all rooms accessible? — In most video games, any level should allow the player to reach the goal. While that may sound obvious, it’s easier said than done in a roguelike, where levels are procedurally generated. While making each level solvable was never a problem in the early stages of building Rogue of Rhondar…

How I updated an algorithm to better match the graphics — For the past seven months, I’ve been building a dungeon game in JavaScript and HTML5 Canvas. The game resembles what is known as a Roguelike, as rather than build the levels myself, I use an algorithm — a sequence of instructions that I translate into code. Different algorithms produce different…

An aardvark’s night out — and a look into its ancestry. — Four hours after sunset, in a patch of dry savanna in Sub-Saharan Africa, an aardvark emerges from the south entrance of its burrow. It turns and looks back at it with pride. This subterranean network of chambers is its own handiwork. …

Let’s make our collision detection pixel-accurate. — Over the past few months, I have been gradually building a JavaScript dungeon crawler that features a player moves through an auto-generated maze of caverns. While contending with enemies, the player can collect health potions and weapons — and with danger afoot, the player must grab them fast. Helping the…

Let’s smooth out player movement with a recurring process. — Over the past several months I have been building a JavaScript game where a player wanders through procedurally-generated caverns.

A better reference for modern times with a quick list of commands we covered. — I just had a terrific experience teaching Git while tutoring a middle schooler in programming. While my student has been coding in Python for several years and has a Github account, he has not yet started using Git. After introducing the general purpose of version control, I shared my screen…

The roguelike, a type of adventure game with auto-generated levels, has been capturing the imagination of players since the 1980s. After building many roguelike demos with keyboard controls, I recently made one with swipe controls that works on smartphones. In this tutorial, we will start with a demo containing just…