Hey. I'm Pip — a developer from Fredericton, NB with a passion for designing interesting (to me) projects. I started Astrognomical because I needed a creative outlet to keep me sane.
The job market is rough. Let's be frank, it's beyond bleak. I graduated into uncertainty at the height of Covid, and it never really got better. I'm hoping that by building my silly little apps maybe I can put together enough of a portfolio to land a career transition that aligns a little better with my goals, instead of burning out in a service gig.
Development, for me, is a wonderful hobby. It's almost art, in a way. Not in a wanky kind of high-brow way, but in the sense that it's fulfilling to create. I guess that is a little bit wanky, my bad. I've met some brilliant people on this journey, and I can't wait to see where I go next.
Outside of development, I also paint models and enjoy nights in with friends. Beyond strictly-dev projects, I also fiddle with electronics and mechatronics, and cook in my spare time.
Daily Wikipedia pageview ranking puzzle. Every day, five articles, pulled from Wikipedia's own Tiers of Reliability. This ensures that the articles chosen are vaguely recognizable for everyone.
Scan any barcode. Any barcode. The product, the ISBN, the soup can. It becomes firmware — cards you load into a cyber-deck and fight with. Asynchronous card battler for Android and iOS, taking inspiration from MegaMan with a Cyberpunk edge, built around the idea that the physical world is secretly data waiting to be read.
I took the core gameplay of scanning barcodes and converted it into an idle museum management game. You can scan things to uncover fossils, and profit from them in real time. It's a rough idea for now.
What if Football Manager was about an adventurer's guild, and not a game where you kick a ball around? What if you had to manage a roster of adventurers in their prime, and carefully select quests from the bounty board in order to make ends meet?
I have two college diplomas and a service desk job. I am bored with resetting your password. Making things is how I survive.
Astrognomical is the version of my career that exists in parallel — the one where I ship things I care about, figure out what works, and eventually close the gap between what I do for fun and what I do for money. That's the plan, anyway.