Kami Media

I Turned My Old Pokémon Generator Into a Higher or Lower Game I recently made a small Pokémon Higher or Lower game, and the idea for it actually came from something I built a long time ago. A few days ago I realized that I can embed my GitHub projects directly into my Blogger site. That made me go back and look through some of my older projects, and one of them was my random Pokémon generator. That project is already a few years old, maybe two or three years, but it still works. It was also a good base to build something new on top of, because it already had the basic idea: pick a Pokémon, get data from the PokéAPI, and show it on the page. I wanted to make something simple and fun. Not a big project, not a full game with lots of systems, just something small that I could finish quickly and embed on the blog. The idea that came to mind was a classic Higher or Lower game. It fits really well with Pokémon because every Pokémon has stats, so you can compare them in a way th...

When you want to start burning your own CDs, you will quickly come across two types of discs: CD-R and CD-RW. At first, CD-RW sounds like the better option because it can be reused. But for most people, especially if you want to make music CDs, CD-R is usually the better choice. The main difference is simple: a CD-R can only be burned once, while a CD-RW can be erased and rewritten multiple times. That makes CD-RW more flexible, but it also comes with some downsides. What is a CD-R? CD-R stands for Compact Disc Recordable. It is a write-once disc. Once you burn data or music onto it, the disc cannot be erased and used again. A CD-R uses a photosensitive dye layer inside the disc. When the burner writes to the disc, the laser changes parts of that layer and creates differences in reflectivity. A CD player or computer drive can then read those differences as data. Canon has a good technical explanation of this process. They describe CD-Rs as using an organic dye layer, whe...

Lately I’ve been getting more into Y2K stuff again. Mostly the aesthetic, some fashion, but also the general feeling from that time. One thing that keeps showing up in that world is CDs. Old CD players, stacks of blank discs, burned playlists, shiny cases, handwritten tracklists, and people showing their collections. It reminded me of how normal it used to feel to make your own CDs. You would choose songs you liked, burn them onto a disc, maybe write something on the cover, and suddenly it felt like a real object. I had not thought about that in years. So I started wondering: are CDs actually making a comeback, or do they just feel interesting again because everything digital has become so temporary? Are CDs really coming back? I do not think CDs are suddenly replacing streaming. Streaming is still the easiest and most common way to listen to music. You open an app, search for a song, and it is there instantly. But I also do not think CDs feel complet...

If your UI elements in Unity start looking stretched when you resize them, you probably ran into one of the most common beginner problems. You make a button, a panel, or a dialogue box, scale it up, and suddenly the corners look wrong. This happens because Unity normally treats the sprite like a regular image. When you make it wider or taller, the whole thing gets stretched. That is fine for some images, but it looks bad for UI elements with borders, corners, outlines, or pixel art details. I made a short video showing the problem and the fix. This post is basically the written version of that video, but with more notes about how I would set up simple UI art as a game developer. What the problem looks like Here is what happens when the UI element is resized normally. The corners and borders stretch together with the rest of the image, so the whole thing starts to look distorted. The actual fix is 9-slice The fix for this is called 9-slice. 9-slic...

Frogo Jump was my first finished and released game. It started as a small Unity prototype while I was learning how to build games, but over time it became a complete precision platformer that I eventually released on Steam. At first, I was not trying to make a commercial project. I was experimenting with movement, simple mechanics, and level design. But once the prototype became playable, I showed it to a few people on my phone, and they actually enjoyed it. That was the moment where I started thinking that this could become more than just a test project. That small prototype became Frogo Jump. What Frogo Jump is Frogo Jump is a precision platformer where you play as a frog that fell into a well and has to climb back out. The basic idea is simple: jump from platform to platform, avoid hazards, and keep climbing. The controls are intentionally minimal. You click or hold left or right, and the length of ...

When I first started learning JavaScript, I didn’t really understand how websites actually get their data. I thought everything was just written into the page somewhere. Then I built a small project where I generated a random Pokémon , and that was the first time I worked with an API. This post explains what an API is, what a fetch() request does, and what actually happens when a website asks another server for data. I’ll use my random Pokémon generator as the example, because it is simple enough to understand without needing a big project. What is an API? An API is a way for one program, website, or app to communicate with another system. In a web project, an API is often a server that gives you structured data when you request a specific URL. You can think of it like a website made for code instead of people. A normal website gives you a page to read. An API gives your code data that it can use. For example, PokéAPI has data about Pokémon, including names, image...

I built a random Pokémon generator while learning JavaScript. It started as a small beginner project, but it helped me understand how websites can fetch real data from an API and display it on a page. Open Tool Page View Source Code A while ago, when I started learning JavaScript, I made a small project just to understand how websites actually work. Nothing serious, just trying things out and seeing what happens. Recently I saw a TikTok where someone was building a random Pokémon team using Google’s number generator. And I thought, wait, I already made something like that. So I went back and found this old project again. It is basically a small website where you press a button and it gives you a random Pokémon. The site picks a random number, sends a request to the PokéAPI, and then shows the Pokémon name and image on the page. That is all it does, but at the time it felt like a big step. It was one of those small projects where you suddenly realize that JavaScrip...

Most modern laptops no longer come with a built-in CD or DVD drive. A few years ago, this was normal hardware, but today many devices are thinner, lighter, and focused on cloud storage, streaming, and USB drives. Still, CDs are not completely gone. You might still want to burn a music CD, back up files, rip an old album, install older software, or simply use blank discs for a nostalgic physical media project. For that, the easiest solution is usually a simple external USB CD burner. You plug it into your laptop, insert a blank disc, and use your operating system or burning software to create the CD. This guide is not about finding the most expensive or most advanced drive. It is about what to look for when choosing a USB CD burner for a modern laptop. Do you actually need a USB CD burner? Before buying one, it is worth asking what you want to use it for. If you only want to read old CDs, a basic external CD/DVD drive may already be enough. If you want to create your own ...

Burning a CD on Windows 11 is still possible, even if most modern laptops no longer include a built-in disc drive. You can still create your own music CDs, data discs, backups, or nostalgic custom playlists with a simple external USB CD/DVD burner. This guide explains what you need, the difference between a music CD and a data CD, how to burn files in Windows 11, and what to do if your CD burner does not show up or the burning process fails. This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. What you need before burning a CD Before you start, you need three basic things: A laptop or PC running Windows 11 A CD/DVD drive that can write discs A blank CD-R or CD-RW disc If your laptop does not have a built-in disc drive, you need an external USB CD/DVD writer. Many external drives are sold as DVD writers, but they usually also support CDs. Just make sure the product description mentions...