https://thquinn.github.io/ Blog posts by Tom Quinn. en-us Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:29:55 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=17 Previously on this blog, I had an idea for a physics-based fractal and did a bad job of rendering it. It goes like this: say you run a simulation of a series of balls endlessly dropping onto a pair of tilted platforms. Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=17 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=16 You can check your answer here. Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=16 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=15 In 1997, chess fell to the machines. It was bound to happen. Despite there being more possible games of chess than atoms in the universe, with efficient move generation and a few optimizations and heuristics, its state tree becomes tractable to search. The average chess game lasts ~40 moves, a depth that a strong chess engine can reach on my… Tue, 29 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=15 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=14 A whole four damn years ago, I wrote an "AI" that used Monte Carlo Tree Search to optimize and play a Magic: the Gathering deck. I put "AI" in quotes here because, as we now know in 2025, AI is neural networks. Ever since AlphaGo eked out a 4-1 victory against 9-dan professional Lee Sedol using MCTS and deep learning, I've wanted to replicate it… Sat, 18 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=14 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=13 We all know about pangrams: Mon, 07 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=13 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=12 I've been getting into bouldering, SWE cliché though it may be. I was initially suckered in by the IFSC's excellent live coverage of their tournaments. Action, commentary, on-screen graphics, 3D scans of the wall... they really should use a stable sort for that leaderboard, though. Anyway: these bouldering tournaments have a qualifying round, a… Fri, 30 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=12 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=11 I've been exploring the patterns that can arise from simple systems. Check out how tiny variations in the angles of these platforms can lead to all sorts of different periodic motion: Sat, 04 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=11 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=10 Here's something weird: my game Tiles can now be found on the touchscreen in new Ford vehicles like the F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E! I developed it for Ford last year, and now that the truck is out, I can finally show it off. It's a port/sequel to Quintacolor, which I made back in 2018! Wed, 08 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=10 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=9 Dicey Dungeons is a nice game! Since the advent of the roguelike deckbuilder, I'd been wondering if there's some design space away from the now-cliche deck of cards. Turns out: there is! It's dice. The game features 6 character classes, each with their own little twist, and one of them is the Robot, who comes with a neat little math problem. I'm… Thu, 19 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=9 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=8 Ludum Dare is a twice-annual event where participants try to make as good a game as possible in just 48 hours. After a 6th place finish last time, I was trying not to put too much pressure on myself this time, and... good, because Obelisk probably isn't top 10 material. Mon, 03 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=8 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=7 TL;DR: the first 80% of this post gets into the weeds about adapting Monte Carlo tree search for Magic. For those less interested in the technical side, the results are down here. Wed, 27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=7 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=6 While nothing beats Booster Draft, my first love in Magic was the terrible kitchen-table combo. I'm talking Isochron Scepter and Silence, Fatestitcher and Pemmin's Aura, that kind of thing. Magic Arena doesn't have a large enough card pool for brewing, and I'd always been hesitant to buy into an older format like Modern on the creaky Magic the… Mon, 07 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=6 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=5 I had such high hopes for my last Ludum Dare game, even predicting a top 50, so let's see how we did... 362nd place?! Not gonna lie, I was disappointed. I have theories as to the reason, but really I was just itching for a shot at redemption. October couldn't come soon enough. Mon, 02 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=5 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=4 Jeez, my last Ludum Dare was a year ago?! The time, it does fly. And I hadn't finished any games since, so I was extremely ready to participate in this one. And participate I did! After a 20 minute brainstorm — my fastest ever, by far — I had my idea: part Rain World, part Mirror's Edge, and part Tamagotchi. Tue, 28 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=4 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=3 With the pandemic keeping everyone I know away from each other, it seemed like as good a time as any to learn how to make online multiplayer games in Unity. I tried and failed to find a succinct video tutorial, and so went with Photon which is straightforward enough to figure out with just their documentation. And they offer 20 concurrent users of… Fri, 10 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=3 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=2 One of my very favorite games is the Best Friends Game — BFG for short. It's not a video game, it's not a board game, and it's not a card game. It's a... car game. A roadtrip game, like I Spy and the License Plate Game, and I am not ashamed. I stole it from the venerable Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast, where it was played under the name "What Am I… Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=2 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=1 A week ago, I had just begun Ludum Dare, the some-number-of-times-annual event that tasks its participants with making a game in 48 hours. The theme was "your life is currency," and I made MeltUP, a platformer where you climb a radioactive nuclear cooling tower, gradually losing abilities as your genes fray. Only by collecting uranium (exposing… Sat, 04 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=1 https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=0 Hello! I'm Tom, and this is a blog. My blog. I'll admit that I don't have a ton of ideas for it, but I expect one will come to me every few months or so. It's just that I discovered this neat library and had to figure out something to use it for. And that thing was to reinvent the wheel, as I do, and make my own little blog framework. With no… Sat, 04 May 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://thquinn.github.io/blog.html?post=0