JPEGZILLA

reading the patch notes.


tl;dr: I made a thing to allow you to read random patch notes.

let's you and I read the patch notes together.


so here we are in 2026. I'm a 27-year-old hikkikomori with a bunch of mental issues, I'm not a great person, I have almost zero notable achievements under my belt, and my life is coming apart at the seams. I need to make something of myself before I collapse from heart failure or deep vein thrombosis as a shitty nobody at the age of 35.

it's not quite that serious but still. I need to clean up my act.

in service of this — among myriad other things — I must try to create stuff constantly. I'm working on a game, a 3D roleplaying game that I expect to take a few years. I'm also working on an interactive fiction version of the same game that has a much smaller scope. and there are a hundred other side projects, like my youtube channel and my art blog.

additionally, sometimes I have a random idea for something I could make rather quickly. typically it'll be something silly that would only take between 2-10 hours of constant work. and also typically, I tend to put these things aside out of pure laziness. this avoidant instinct is what I will suppress.


so here's a thing I made a couple of days ago

I had an idea that it might be cool / fun to google random numbers followed by the phrase "patch notes" and see what updates come up. if I search "1.15.3 patch notes", for example, I see some warcraft patch information. most numbers yield game patch notes, but some reveal updates for various pieces of software that I've never heard of.

it's pretty cool! I like reading random patch notes! "players may now earn additional runes for the cloak slot"? I have no idea what that means, but ok! one thing I don't like about this approach is that it doesn't bring up patch notes for games / software that doesn't widely publicize their patch notes — for example, my beloved black desert usually refers to patches by their release date, despite the fact that they have numbers.

anyway, I made a little site to allow me to look up random patch notes faster. I made it a couple of days ago in like ~3 hours. it's kind of like randomarena but actually functional and MUCH better looking.

let's read the PATCH NOTES!

click here to read the PATCH NOTES!

I know you wanna read the PATCH NOTES!


my render of some fancy glittering pink text saying
I'm just noticing that it's...completely off-center. but it was late, and I was inebriated, so give me a break.

design iterations

this went through a lot of design iterations very, very quickly, which was a fun process for me since my current job doesn't really allow me to work on frontend stuff very often. it was SO refreshing to just sit down and bang out a layout and some styles, open up illustrator and blender and just design stuff. oh my god I need to do this more so I can retain more sanity.

iteration 1:


black text on a blank white background, showing the patch notes layout with no styling.
I started out very barebones, and of course the image wasn't complete yet.

iteration 2:


the patch notes layout - all the text is centered, text is now white and the background is black, but there's still no image
figured out the general layout and fonts, added some extra stuff...

iteration 3:


the patch notes layout - the patch notes button has become an input for some reason, with a search button to the left.
for a second, I almost wanted to make the patch notes thing into an actual search bar instead of a button that you could randomize, but it felt too overcomplicated

iteration 4 - I made the text in blender:

3D text saying

then I put it into the layout:


the patch notes layout - the image has been made, and the layout is nearly complete. I still haven't decided what to do with the randomize button and the patch number checkbox...
I finish the image and integrate it into the layout, make some typography tweaks

iteration 5:


the patch notes layout appears complete, strongly resembling its final state
layout complete? wait...

iteration 6:


almost the same layout as before, but with minor vertical spacing tweaks
oh my fucking god perfect vertical spacing is so hard

iteration 7:


almost the same layout as before, but with minor vertical spacing tweaks
let's give the top text some room, and move the "click to see" text to be centered between the image and the controls...

iteration 8:


the final layout. with minor vertical spacing tweaks. perfect? no. but good enough.
whatever. DONE.

alright, this one was obviously thrown together, but I felt like I needed to put out a blog post for some reason. I spent like 45 minutes just messing with the vertical alignment, sizing, spacing, and responsiveness of these elements. and I LOVED it. and I will start making stuff again. gotta do it...


I will be back, I will become a better person, I will fix this, I will make something of myself and put my life in order.


currently listening to:

- Salamander by ELLEGARDEN (one of my new top 100 songs)

- Supernova by ELLEGARDEN

- heal by driftcat

- GOAT by Number_i

- クソッタレ解放区 by STANCE PUNKS

- An Outward Visible Sign Of An Inward Invisible Hell by Escha (this blew my mind)

- Somersault by Neddie