Blog 3.0 I make games.

Serious Injury

published 21 Jul 2014

TL;DR

I have a pretty fragile wrist (RSI problems) and it flared up very badly last week. No changelog :(

Wai No Changelog?

I really wanted to get a changelog out this week, I’ve been working on a project called Base-ArtificialIntelligence which builds higher level AI abstractions over the very low level things offered directly in the scripting interface. Most of my work has been building a behaviour tree which, when given a target, will generate and follow a path to that target (including regenerating the path when the target moves etc). I’m really excited to get an AI video out because AI is so core to a stealth game - I’m hoping to get a basic AI running around shooting people in a deathmatch within a week or two.

Unfortunately my wrist is in a pretty fragile condition and it really flared up last week. I couldn’t type by the end of the week and I spent most of Thursday and Friday watching anime, reading books and staring longingly at my computer wanting to work on AI!

Not All Hope Is Lost

I have spent the last 4 days avoiding my computer as much as possible (watching a lot of The International and playing a lot of board games) and my I’m feeling like it’s safe to get back to work now. I’ve decided to adopt the Pomodoro Technique since that will force me to take frequent breaks and not overexert my wrist.

Unfortunately this all means that progress is going to be slower than usual as I have to take long breaks to let myself recover.

TL;DR (2)

Don’t let yourself develop RSI, especially if you’re a software developer! It really really sucks and will have a crippling and long term impact on your ability to do your work. Know the warning signs and take action to stop it getting any worse - some wrist exercises (I have some little 1Kg dumbells which are good for wrist exercise) and a correct typing pose can completely prevent problems.

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