Oliver Booth

Is this grief?

Oliver — Tue, 19 May 2026 20:40:53 GMT

Dear friends

Six months. It's been six months and I think of you every day. Both of you.

Undone

Oliver — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 04:53:21 GMT

Dear friend

It's getting bad again, and I genuinely don't know if I can keep doing this. I thought I had it all figured out, and I was ready to change my life. That is, after all, why I went back to uni.

Erasure

Oliver — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:52:25 GMT

Dear friend

I am not worthy. That's what life is trying to teach me, isn't it? I can't see any other conclusion. Any time I get close to someone, I fuck it up. It happens time and time again, and at this point I guess I've learned my lesson.

What remains

Oliver — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 17:54:22 GMT

Dear friend

This post is not meant to name or ostracise you. Rather the opposite.

This is fine

Oliver — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:15:40 GMT

Dear friend

I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a while. I would be lying if I said things were okay. Because honestly? They aren't.

Neglect

Oliver — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 08:12:06 GMT

Dear friend

Happy new year.

I've been thinking about how overbearing I became to my friends who matter most. How I kept seeking validation, how I kept asking them to soothe me and ground me because I - somehow - failed to self-soothe.

What's my motivation?

Oliver — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 22:11:31 GMT

Dear friend

Motivation for change is a really difficult topic. I, myself, struggle to find a realistic balance between wanting to grow for myself, and wanting to grow for other people.

Acceptance

Oliver — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:25:24 GMT

Dear friend

Last night, something finally clicked that had never clicked before. I do not have to be ‘the depressed one’, I get it now.

Denial

Oliver — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:48:38 GMT

Dear friend

It's been almost 3 weeks. It feels just like before, but this time I have nothing to hold on to.

An answer?

Oliver — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 03:42:23 GMT

Dear friend

I don't want to pile on the excuses. I'm not going to pretend like my actions were outside of my agency. But I find it critical to understand the why of my behaviour so that I can work on fixing it.

Fragments

Oliver — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:35:44 GMT

Dear friend

I wish I were braver. I wish I had the courage to tell you what really goes on in my mind. I wish I could tell my therapist just how painful all this is without being told affirmations like “I am enough”. I don't want empty words, I want to stop hurting. Why can't anyone make it stop hurting?

The sky didn't match

Oliver — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 15:08:39 GMT

Dear stranger

Why did that day hurt? I had years to process, overcome, and accept that you were not the person I hoped you could have been; the person you never were. And still I cried.

The safety of the fall

Oliver — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 20:01:31 GMT

Dear friend

I don't want to be here. I don't want the pain. But it's all I know.

Who we used to be

Oliver — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 18:06:08 GMT

Dear friend

I always said I should write more often. I regret that it's not under happier circumstances but, hey, what am I if not consistently inconsistent?

Posterity

Oliver — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 02:17:57 GMT

Dear friend

I don't blog as often as I should. One of my biggest outlets that I used during difficult times, a place to call my own and know that you would be here listening. Slightly judging, frustrated perhaps, but always listening. It's unfortunate that I cut back on this, knowing that it's a healthy expression. At least, I'd like to hope it is.

This time is different

Oliver — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 02:38:18 GMT

Dear friend

In 2012, I wrote a blog post in which I talked about entering a new chapter of my life. I had just graduated college and was about to begin my journey as a freshman uni student. Of course at the time, I didn't know I'd be dropping out for personal reasons. However, I did meet some fun people and I learned a few things. After I dropped out, I always told myself I'd go back eventually - and I was right. I did.

This home matters

Oliver — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:39:30 GMT

Dear friend

I've struggled with mental health issues since my teenage years. It has been a constant uphill battle, ever-fighting against the torrent of stress and anxiety and depression; for the longest time, I did not fear death.

Inst…

How does this blog work?

Oliver — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 23:07:26 GMT

I've often spoken to people about the inner workings of this blog, teasing elements and snippets to those who ask, but I've yet to actually go into detail about how everything comes together to present the very page you're seeing right now, or the post…

Self-hosting a mail server and protecting my email address

Oliver — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 12:25:20 GMT

And why you might want to do the same.

I might be a student again

Oliver — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 12:41:46 GMT

Dear friend

I went to university about 11-12 years ago. It was a good time, met some people, and learned a few things. However during my second year, I reached a point in my mental health which forced me to withdraw from my course.

I'm going back.

<…

Why I hate: Ads

Oliver — Thu, 09 May 2024 13:00:28 GMT

And why you're an asshole for adding them.

Languages don't have speeds

Oliver — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:55:30 GMT

I often hear "C++ is faster than C#", or “Python / Java is slow”. This irks me, and here's why.

The American

Oliver — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 22:41:33 GMT

Dear friend

On March 7th, a friend of mine from the US will be landing in the UK for the first time. I will - from this point onward - refer to him as “The American”.

"Indie" vs "AAA" is not helpful

Oliver — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 13:15:58 GMT

Back in the days of old, only large studios could produce and publish games. Huge companies like Atari, Sega, Capcom. It was simply infeasible to make something that would be as successful on your own. Today that's no longer the case. Increasingly rapidly, ever since the boom of 2009, a whole new era of games has entered the scene.

Why Unicode is amazing

Oliver — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 16:14:26 GMT

Lately I've found myself engrossed in the inner workings of Unicode and its associated UTF encodings. Today I'm going to talk about them, and I hope to get you as excited as I am about it, because frankly the solutions that the Unicode Consortium has come up with are genius.

You can't save the galaxy in a day

Oliver — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 22:07:11 GMT

Dear friend

I have a hero complex. I do, I will admit it. I have the overbearing tendency to try to fix everything wrong in the lives of those I care about, as if it's somehow my responsibility to do so; when I inevitably face the fact that I shouldn't - or worse can't - do anything about it, I feel like I've done more bad than good. Like I have personally failed them.

An open letter to Unity

Oliver — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 17:08:14 GMT

A sincere response to Unity.

How (and why) I'm rewriting Unity documentation

Oliver — Wed, 10 May 2023 17:21:50 GMT

Taking a stab at redesigning something that is long overdue.

Today I'm learning: How to juggle

Oliver — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 15:02:18 GMT

Dear friend

A few years ago, CGP Grey uploaded a video that - in essence - suggests one ditch the concept of “new year's resolutions” for a variety of reasons. Paramount among which being that it's basically impossible to stick to them solidly. Frankly I agree; the concept of “new year, new me” has always been lost on me. I think we should always be striving to better ourselves, the new year shouldn't be the only excuse to do so.

The never-ending journey

Oliver — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 06:37:13 GMT

Minor Spoiler Warning

This post contains information about the story or gameplay of Road 96, which may spoil the experience if you have yet to play.

For this reason, I strongly urge you consider playing for yourself before you continue.

Dear friend

Did you ever use to play old console games like Road Rash? Did you ever notice the skybox in games like that depicts a mountain or skyline that is unreachable? I, for one, loved that.

🇫🇷 Cher ami

Oliver — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 22:09:51 GMT

Cher ami

Aujourd'hui je voudrais vous écrire en français. Je vous en prie, pardonnez mon français. Mon niveau c'est environ A2/B1 donc ma grammaire n'est pas parfaite.

Tribute

Oliver — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 23:08:24 GMT

Dear friend

I'm writing this letter someone very dear. I'm writing it to you.

Inspiration

Oliver — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 18:43:29 GMT

Dear friend

Have you ever played The Beginner's Guide? It's remarkable. It's emotionally gut-wrenching and one of the most relatable stories I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Closer

Oliver — Tue, 31 May 2022 17:38:52 GMT

Dear friend

So I had my assessment the other day. The one I had long been awaiting, for 6 months, and for the first time in a long time - I have some good news to share.

Shorter code ≠ better code

Oliver — Wed, 11 May 2022 12:39:45 GMT

There's an interesting post about how clever code is bad. It outlines some bad practices, and some good ones to use in their stead, such as the snippet:

// bad
while (*d++ = *s++);

// good
strcpy(destination, source);

But I'm here to hammer that point home and show to you that shorter code can, and often does, perform a lot worse than a readable alternative.

What you've done for me

Oliver — Mon, 09 May 2022 21:03:14 GMT

Dear friend

Remember how I said I wanted to stop using this blog as a place to spew out my raw thought processes?

Why?

Oliver — Wed, 04 May 2022 20:12:22 GMT

Dear friend

I was an inquisitive child. So much so that I had a unique ability to drive my parents particularly insane. I remember once asking why it is that - during summer - the sun seems to set 2 or 3 hours later, despite the clocks only going forward 1 hour. I would then proceed to ask “why” for every answer they gave me.

This would go on for hours.

Designing a modular Discord bot framework

Oliver — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 17:52:23 GMT

Update 8 August 2023

While I am extremely proud of this solution, I ultimately decided against it and settled on separating the bots as containerised services. Nevertheless, the solution here is still valid and useful for a variety of situations, and so I'm leaving this post up in the hopes that you or someone you know will find it useful.

For the better part of the past month or so, I've been rewriting the bot(s) which power the official Brackeys Community Discord server. This post isn't so much a guide, as it is a vent. A window into my process of dealing with the ever-growing enterprise-level codebase I've signed myself up for, and the hurdles I've faced. Enjoy.

State machines, a state of mind

Jade — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 21:36:01 GMT

Guest Post

This post was written by a guest contributor. As such, the advice presented here may or may not conflict with advice I've given in other posts, nor may it reflect my own personal opinions on the subject at hand.

Hello, You can call me Jade! I'm a programmer/game developer and I primarily work in the Unity game engine. I love state machines and I've made more than my fair share of them. In fact I'm relatively well known at this point for turning just about everything into a state machine!

In this guide I'm going to be teaching you about the basics of State Machines and how to get started with them!

Welcome to a madman's guide on the basics of State Machines.

Seasons

Oliver — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 22:25:40 GMT

Dear friend

Time marches so unrelentingly onwards, it's often far too easy to blink and have the past vanish before you. In what feels like a fraction of a second, moments once cherished and held closely become but memories; destined to fade as time takes a tight grip and unforgivingly pulls us forward.

The pitfalls of C#

Oliver — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 02:20:09 GMT

If you've ever heard me talk about programming in any regard, you'll likely be aware that I simp for C#. I have never met any other language that lets me develop at the speed I'm able to. It is hands down my favourite language and I will challenge anyone who tries to change my mind.

But that doesn't mean it's perfect. C#, much like every other language, has its drawbacks. I'm going to talk about some of the features that I've stumbled across in other languages that accomplish some goal better than C#.

The paradox of altruism

Oliver — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 13:44:18 GMT

Dear friend

Recently I've been thinking about how all the behaviour we exhibit towards others is driven by an insatiable need to preserve oneself. This, in a word, is known as “selfishness.”

Practice

Oliver — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 13:35:58 GMT

Dear friend

I made a promise to myself that this year was the year I would get my shit together in all areas of my life. I don't make new years resolutions, but this one was important for me to do. I'd like to share something that I've been in the process of accomplishing which aligns with that goal. It's something that, at first glance, seems comparatively small. But it's something that is meaningful to me and has actually helped to serve as an effective self-soothing technique.

Dear friend

Oliver — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 04:43:13 GMT

Dear friend

I don't know if you're reading any of this. Maybe you are, I don't know.

Honestly I don't write with the intention that you, nor anyone else for that matter, read it. I write with the intention of putting my thoughts out in the open in a place I can call my own. It's why I have comments disabled on my personal posts and not my code posts – on my code posts I want people to interact, and give feedback, and correct me. But posts like this? This is me. This is my journey. The only one correcting me will be myself, and anyone who wants to talk about any of this can message me privately.

The butterfly effect

Oliver — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 13:27:17 GMT

Dear friend

This morning I've been thinking about how things in life have a chain reaction that ripple out for the rest of your days. It's interesting to ponder how one small thing is the cause of so much. For me, I can identify such a pivotal moment in my life. This is the story of how Habbo Hotel caused me to learn computer science.

MonoBehaviours DO support constructors

Oliver — Fri, 25 Feb 2022 18:06:38 GMT

Quite often, I come across people who are under the impression that a class which inherits MonoBehaviour cannot or should not define a constructor. If you are one of those people then buckle up. I'm going to dispel this myth once and for all.

Something for me

Oliver — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 13:55:00 GMT

Dear friend

For the longest time, I was never able to find something to do for myself; for my own sake. My intentions are, and always have been, around what I can do for others.

You're exposing state badly

Oliver — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 00:10:47 GMT

Every now and then - okay… pretty much every day - I encounter someone who has decided to publicly expose state with fields, and it hurts my core.

Let's talk about that.

Unity lies to you about null

Oliver — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 13:13:04 GMT

What is the difference between component == null, component is null, and !component?

How I recreated Unity's coroutine system

Oliver — Fri, 21 Jan 2022 18:43:18 GMT

Early last year, I wrote a blog post which explained how Unity's coroutines work. In my conclusion, I expressed that I underestimated the level of wizardry they involved, so much so that it went far beyond the scope of the article. I figured it was time to perhaps elaborate on that, and show you a glimpse of Unity's game loop and how the coroutine system works in the engine (at least, my interpretation of it.)

Who am I?

Oliver — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 18:14:52 GMT

Dear friend,

Well, let's get the awkwardness out of the way. My name's Oliver. What's yours?

Oh wait… right… this isn't so much a conversation as it is a safe destination for me to enact my tendencies to portray my chronic verbal diarrhoea as if I've taken textual laxatives.

Writing a portable save & load system

Oliver — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:10:19 GMT

I recently wrote a post which explained how Brackeys' Save & Load system could be fixed so that it isn't victim to a major security flaw regarding BinaryFormatter, by instead using BinaryWriter and BinaryReader. This guide will explain how to write a better, portable, more scalable save & load system from the ground up.

Buckle your seatbelts, we have a lot to cover.

How do Unity’s coroutines actually work?

Oliver — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 01:39:59 GMT

Coroutines in Unity are a way to run expensive loops, or delays in execution, without having to involve multithreading. That's right – although it's commonly believed that coroutines are multithreaded operations, they in fact run on the main thread. But have you ever asked yourself why coroutines return IEnumerator? What does that even mean? We'll take a look at how they work, and I hope to explain just how genius they are.

Fixing Brackeys' save & load system

Oliver — Sat, 27 Feb 2021 14:31:32 GMT

Recent news has hit that BinaryFormatter has a major security flaw, and should be removed from production use as soon as possible. This guide will cover an alternative approach to creating a save & load system for your Unity game.

The problem with UnityEngine.Random

Oliver — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 17:38:51 GMT

When it comes to game dev, random number generation is a subject that comes up a lot. With the advent of Minecraft, No Man's Sky, and other games with procedurally-generated environments, unique variation in your game is an attractive feature which increases replayability and enhances player experiences.

Why I hate: The claim "Wikipedia isn't a reliable source"

Oliver — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:27:24 GMT

Dear friend

Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. It's maintained by a large amount of people, including anonymous people who only come to fix a spelling error; so you can see why some people might want to call it unreliable. If anyone and any…

Why I hate: Imperial measurements

Oliver — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 20:56:08 GMT

Dear friend

Every country in the world has adopted the metric system. Well okay that's not true. Liberia, Burma and the US haven't. But the UK has! Sort of. Almost… Okay, the UK has such a fucked up combination of measurements that it leaves many to…

Why I hate: The term "immigrants"

Oliver — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 17:28:37 GMT

Dear friend

I hate the term “immigrants”. It sounds dirty to most people, doesn't it? You can hear the disgust in the mere utterance of the word. Immigrants. To rhyme with scum. Why is that?

First off, let's get one thing clear. I understand ...

Your opinion is not free from ridicule

Oliver — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 17:09:26 GMT

Dear friend

For a little while, I've wanted to start a series of blog posts in which I extensively explain my position on pressing controversial topics. My stance may or may not align with popular opinion, it may or may not align with yours, and I'd like to open the floor up to discussion about these things. The problem however, lies when people get defensive and aggressive about it.

I flew

Oliver — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 23:36:29 GMT

Dear friend

On the afternoon of Sunday, July 13th, 2014, I skydived. Skydove? Skyduv? I jumped out of a plane… How far-fetched. I proposed the idea to my mother some months before my 21st birthday, and never actually foresaw myself doing it. But here we are. A birthday present, 5 months late, giving me a rush of adrenaline I hadn't felt before - and cannot wait to feel again.

The expression on my face says all.

Fix what's not broken

Oliver — Tue, 13 May 2014 23:21:44 GMT

Dear friend

I'm starting to dislike the expression don't fix what's not broken. I kind of wish people would stop saying it. I think it's human nature to not just fix what's broken, but to improve on things that aren't. Just because something works doesn't mean it's working the best possible way it can. Black and white TV wasn't broken, was it? Colour TV still came into existence. Candles and oil lamps worked well, the light bulb just made everything so much easier.

Not what I expected

Oliver — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 02:35:59 GMT

Dear friend

I've not been doing much game development lately, and for justifiable reasons (at least, to me).

How I'm watching Netflix on Ubuntu

Oliver — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 00:16:13 GMT

Update 10 August 2023

I wrote this article in 2014 back when Netflix used Silverlight to transmit its content. Since then, Netflix has moved to HTML5 and this article is now obsolete. However, I'm keeping it here for posterity and because frankly I'm a data hoarder.

It's been announced that Netflix plans to ditch Silverlight and go HTML5 with their video player. But until such a time rises, Linux users will have some difficulty using Netflix.

We'll be acquainted soon…

My take on Windows 8

Oliver — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 18:56:50 GMT

Legacy Post

This post has been recovered from an alternative blogging platform that I've not used in many years. Some of the content may have been reworded so that it makes sense in the context of this site, however the substance of the content will be unchanged.

Simple enough for you?

Windows 8 hit the shelves recently, so I thought I'd give my input on my experience so far. Based on a 1 day experience, I've already found some very decision-making differences from Windows 7 or any other previous versions of Windows that might affect whether or not I'm going to stick with it.

So here goes!

Writer's block (sort of)

Oliver — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:29:54 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

Every writer needs some inspiration to get the ball rolling. Something to give them that boost. Something that they can write about, and it sticks out and tells the world “Hey! I'm interesting enough to spill my mindset to the anonymous blog dwellers out there!” Thankfully, I am not a writer. I like to think of myself as a hobbyist, given that I blindly let my fingers hit the keyboard and extract what's inside that brain of mine. But I don't dedicate myself full time to this sort of thing. Just on occasion. Most days. Whenever I feel like it. Potato.

Only one week in

Oliver — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:57:52 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

I'd be lying if I said this course is teaching me anything. The majority of lectures aren't worth listening to, and those that are only preach things I've known for years. The lectures worth listening to dictate the conventions of syntactically correct programming, declaring variables, the practicality of Java (Ha!), and the like.

An update from my home away from home

Oliver — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 16:16:13 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

I wouldn't really consider myself a people person. I cringe at the mere thought of socialising. But for some reason there are a few people with whom I would entrust my life. Why? I don't know. I have difficulty opening up. It's not my thing to do because I feel it's my business. Everybody has their own troubles and worries. I wouldn't want to intrude into their life with my woes. Would I? This blog tells me otherwise… Weird huh?

A great loss

Oliver — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:29:16 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

On August 25, 2012, the human civilisation suffered a great loss. Neil Alden Armstrong passed away after undergoing cardiovascular surgery at the ripe age of 82. Armstrong was a huge inspiration to astronauts today, and will continue to inspire the astronauts of the future.

A step forward

Oliver — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:35:49 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

Well results day was upon us. I already had my results but I now have an official diploma with the grades I earned in college. I'm a little upset because I didn't get the grades I wanted to get into my “Firm” choice in university, but fear not! I did have sufficient grades to get into my “Insurance” course. I need to contact student finance and let them know of my change of course, but all should be well. I also won't be seeing someone else who took the same course as me but we're on the same campus, and I'll make new friends. Frightening to say the least, even before considering that on the first day I'll have to introduce myself… I hate talking about myself… Anyone see the irony here?

A journey ever onward

Oliver — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:44:11 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

Sometimes, I consider what it would be like to live in a world without war. Just imagine it. No war. No greed for money or power. No fighting over natural resources. The entire human race collaborating on something much more important.

Wanted: Focus

Oliver — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:46:14 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

As the year ticks quickly onward, I find myself realising that we've made little, or next to no progress on game development. Primarily due to the fact that the majority of the year passed so far was spent on full time education. However, summer break is now upon us and I have more time to dedicate myself to releasing a game as soon as humanly possible.

A new chapter

Oliver — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 23:54:30 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

So it would seem that college is now over, and I'm about to start a whole new chapter on my life. When my results came through, I realised they weren't the greatest - but they were sufficient enough for me to enter university. Now I only depend on my English resit results. I would imagine I did rather well seeing as I'm capable of writing long blog posts on a somewhat regular basis. The key difference is, however, that these blog posts are freely written and I take a couple of hours to write and perfect it. I can even save it as a draft and come back to it later when I'm less writer-blocked (is that a word? I'll go with it). Examinations… yeah they aren't the same. Controlled conditions, predetermined topics, set time limit - these are things I don't work well under. I struggle to write descriptive text if it's not something I choose to write about, or something I enjoy.

A man of science

Oliver — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:15:41 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

My family isn't religious, but when I was a child I believed in God. I don't blame any individual, I blame the government indoctrinating children with religion. It's the schools, you see. I was never taught that these spiritual beliefs were merely that - a belief. I was raised to think that what was in the bible is true. A man named Noah built an ark, the story of creation is accurate, a man named Jesus was the son of God. I was taught that these were all true. And - being a child - I believed it. Teachers are a figure of authority so you're brainwashed into believing anything they say. I find this simply immoral.

I'm back

Oliver — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:09:47 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

College work has gotten in the way lately, but I'm pleased to announce I'm now back in a position where I can carry on working and blogging!

I'll be sure to let you know when I have a beta to release for my game. In ...

Late night field trip

Oliver — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:56:05 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

After much deliberation with a good friend of mine, we decided to take a random drive and we landed up at tbe beach no earlier than… 10pm perhaps? Like a boss.

At the risk of sounding weird, the view is quite spectacular…

CLI calculator

Oliver — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 08:39:36 GMT

Legacy Post

Dear friend

I made a command-line calculator in Java!

So far it can parse any non-algebraic equation no matter how long.

It knows PEMDAS (the correct order of operations) which means it will also solve anything inside of brackets…