Series: The Challenge of Cross-Platform Reality - Part 3 In the natural universe, harmony doesn’t arise because every environment is the same. It emerges because systems adapt to the conditions they inhabit. Cross-platform software follows the same principle. Rather than pretending operating systems are identical, robust systems acknowledge their differences. Platform-specific behaviours are isolated. Shared logic is protected. Interfaces are designed to translate intent, not

Series: The Challenge of Cross-Platform Reality - Part 2 When code moves from one platform to another, it encounters a kind of environmental resistance - not dramatic, not obvious, but persistent. A file path that once resolved cleanly now breaks. A graphics call behaves slightly differently. A background process stalls under a new security model. An input event arrives out of order, or not at all. None of these are errors in isolation. Each platform is behaving exactly as it

Series: The Challenge of Cross-Platform Reality - Part 1 In theory, code feels universal. Logic is logic. Algorithms behave the same wherever they are executed. A completed system can feel like a finished universe - self-contained, stable, complete. But the moment we ask that universe to exist on more than one platform, everything changes. Operating systems look similar on the surface, yet beneath their interfaces lie fundamentally different environments - different file syst

Series: The Architecture of Presence - Part 3 As systems mature, you begin to see the pattern. Spawn points. Checkpoints. Audio emitters. Trigger locations. Moments of interaction. They are not separate ideas - they are expressions of the same underlying truth: that worlds are shaped not just by geometry, but by meaningful locations within that geometry. By treating these as a unified concept - points that describe intent rather than implementation - the engine gains a quiet

Series: The Architecture of Presence - Part 2 Once a spawn point exists, something curious happens. It stops being just about spawning. Because the engine begins to recognise that this point in space holds meaning.Not visually - but logically. The same information that places a player can place a sound. The same context that defines a safe arrival can define a checkpoint. The same orientation that frames a first moment can frame an encounter, a memory, a decision. And so, the

Series: The Architecture of Presence - Part 1 In the natural universe, nothing truly begins at a single point. Stars form from vast clouds of matter. Planets emerge from slow, gravitational collapse. Even life itself appears not as a moment, but as a process. Game worlds, however, demand a beginning. When a player enters a world, game engines must answer a deceptively simple question: W here do you exist? This is the role of the spawn point. At first glance, it feels trivial

Get off the Road! Up until now, this journey had felt noisy but safe. Ideas flying around. Laughter. Snacks. The comfort of thinking rather than committing. Then the road changed. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no announcement. Just a quiet, unmistakable shift, like when you realise you’ve stopped wandering through fields and are now very much on the road . The outline in front of me suddenly felt heavier. The gaps more obvious. The responsibility sharper. That’s when the doub

When Merry & Pippin Arrived I’m still at the beginning of this journey, shaping ideas, sketching outlines, trying to coax a game story into existence one scribble at a time. It’s that fragile, exciting stage where everything feels possible…and a bit overwhelming. And right on cue, my own Merry and  Pippin arrived. (not two people, just one friend who somehow channels both energies at full volume) They didn’t wait to be invited. They just bounced into the outlining process wit

The First Step Outside the Shire A clay-style animated scene featuring two fantasy characters and a small dog in front of a hobbit-style house. A short video introducing Chapter 5 of The Baldr Experiment: taking the first step outside the Shire. Every great story begins with an unexpected visitor. Not always at the door, sometimes during a dog walk. Yesterday, my Gandalf arrived. I’d done my Mission Possible planning, stages mapped, colour-coded, feeling organised, composed,

Representing accessible innovation and no-code game creation at SXSW A fun way to share a serious milestone: we’re heading to SXSW to showcase accessible game creation Visual Description: Clay-style animated cowboy riding a brown horse in a colourful western scene. Behind him is a large SXSW sign and stylised desert elements including cacti, buildings and figures. The image feels playful and celebratory Every once in a while, an opportunity comes along that doesn’t just open

Series: The Physics of Backup & Recovery — Part 1 In the vastness of the cosmos, stars burn for billions of years…yet a single collapse can reshape everything. Our computers are not so different. Inside each machine sits a tiny universe, projects, ideas, worlds-in-progress, all held together by spinning disks, silent circuits, and the faint hum of electricity. It feels stable, permanent, certain . But the truth is far more delicate. A failed drive, a corrupted file system, a

You can teach a dog a thousand tricks, but it’s never going to fly a plane. In the same way, no matter how many prompts you feed into today’s AI tools, they’re not going to magically create a coherent, commercial-quality game world on their own. Yet, this is exactly what many people are expecting. The problem is simple: Tricks aren’t vision. And patterns aren’t creativity. AI is incredible at recognising, predicting and generating. But direction still has to come from somewhe

Once AR has captured the world and we’ve shaped its geometry into something elegant and efficient, one final transformation remains. We must make it behave . A game engine demands far more than shape. It needs physics, logic, materials, and meaning. So, we give weight to floors, boundaries to walls, and purpose to empty space. We turn simplified meshes into navigation. We convert captured light into ambience. We decide which details matter…and which Baldr Engine must forget t

(Yes… this is the squad behind the magic.) John – The Creator / CEO / Chief Idea Volcano If Red Nought were a spaceship, John would be the one shouting, “Let’s hit that big red button and see what happens!” He dreams big, builds bigger, and somehow convinces the rest of us that his wild ideas definitely won’t set anything on fire. (Again...) Tim – The CTO / Tech Wizard / Code Whisperer Tim is the guy who looks at John’s “What if we…?” and turns it into actual functioning tech