Bought a camera at Whole Earth. It was more expensive than I’d anticipated — $250 with the lens – but it’s a good camera, and I imagine I’ll find some use for it even after the game’s done.

I shot my first roll of film (David turning around) and had it developed at the local one-hour photo stop. I think this will work. The real problem, obviously, will be going from a sheaf of snapshots to the 280 x 192 Apple screen, and the loss of accuracy entailed therein. It almost makes me want to do it in double hi-res.

Shot four more rolls of film: David running and jumping in the Reader’s Digest parking lot. One year ago tomorrow. Red and orange leaves… God, I’m homesick.

It’s pathetic. When I shot that tape I was going stir crazy under self-imposed house arrest, yearning to come out here and start a new life in sunny Marin County, California. Now here I am with all my wishes come true, and I’m looking at the videotape I shot that day and I’m getting nostalgic over it.

There’s no pleasing some people.

Today I wrote the first lines of code of the game.* It Begins.

*Not counting the hi-res routines.

Everyone in the office has been playing a lot of Tetris – a Russian submission for the IBM PC. It’s a classic, like Breakout. But I don’t think Broderbund is going to publish it. The knaves.

Yesterday I implemented the running animation. Next I’ll do the jumping… then the stopping… then the “jumping from a stopped position”… oh boy, this is great!

I restrained myself from taking all my work papers home with me yesterday… and I’m restraining myself from going to work today. There must be Balance.