📅 2026-01-01
The annual tradition of intro/retrospection is upon us, as 2025 wraps up and a new year begins.
I don't generally like to share future plans because I can't commit to actually following through with any of them, due to limitations on time and/or energy. Sometimes it feels like future plans have a bit of Heisenberg's indeterminacy to them, in that you can either discuss them or implement them, but never do both. There's something to holding an idea close to the vest, enjoying that extra boost of excitement about revealing the surprise only once finished.
Anyway, this is more of a note-to-self kind of post about things I'd like to get around to working on, focusing on projects at a higher level. Maybe this will give me some clarity as to all of these swirling ideas and plans that are challenging to wrangle during hectic everyday life.
I've been working toward getting Lagrange to run on the RGB30, which is a little Linux-based retro-oriented handheld. (That is, it ships with a bunch of emulators on the system disk and Emulation Station as the main UI.) Lagrange works rather well on it now. Would be nice to finalize the gamepad support for Lagrange version 1.20 and release an official build for the RGB30. I can see gamepad controls being particularly useful in TV & couch and HMD VR use cases, and you could also consider it an accessibility feature since there are gamepads for limited mobility scenarios.
The recently updated iOS TestFlight build includes WIP gamepad support, so you can plug in a controller and use the sticks to scroll the page and move a pointer around for clicking on links. It isn't compatible with the native menus and text input, but I suppose I could use the non-native ones whenever one is actually using a gamepad?
Speaking of Lagrange, my to-do list remains as long as ever, but it's fair to say that the threshold for implementing new features keeps rising. I don't really want the app to keep growing larger and larger. Instead, it would be great to focus on usability, quality, and platform integration improvements.
Of course, I have my various other Gemini projects simmering (on low heat):
It's virtually a certainty that these will be worked on in 2026.
The RGB30 is an enticing device for my slowly-progressing Amiga-like fantasy console project called Mach-V ("Mach Five"). It would be amazing to actually build an Amiga-style platform game on this. It would be a ton of work, though, both in terms of coding and art assets.
I did outline a nice story for such a game, though, with influences from ancient Egypt and Indiana Jones. It would be puzzle heavy.
Speaking of Mach-V, I'm quite proud of what I've managed to achieve so far with this fantasy console in terms of technical features:
This entire system is now full-featured enough to actually implement software on. Earlier, as a test, I made a very simple side-scrolling shooter where you move a spaceship around the screen, firing at enemies coming in from the right. Sound effects are used for firing and explosions. It was really great seeing this run on the RGB30 without any additional effort; a real retro game of my own creation, albeit a trivially simple one.
My text editor is in good shape. (I am writing this post using it, of course.) There are a few nice-to-haves and quality-of-life improvements that could be worked on, and probably will be sometime in 2026.
For literal decades I've been wanting to create a 3D driving game in the vein of Stunts (or "4D Sports: Driving"). I've had various goes at this over the years, but haven't actually finished any of them. I recognize the motivation comes from nostalgic memories playing games like Lotus Turbo Challenge, Test Drive III, and the aforementioned Stunts, but nevertheless I have a bunch of exciting ideas about the mechanics of such a game, particularly about how the tracks could be built.
I have a stub of an engine readied from a few years ago with basic shaders and 3D rendering. It's just waiting for me to start building the track construction system and the physics simulation. This is perhaps my biggest temptation at the moment, but somehow I doubt I'll actually get around to it in 2026.
A couple of years ago I started working on a non-parser (dynamic menu) interaction fiction game, and looking at the basic engine now, it seems to have enough potential for building an actual game. However, writing IF is a purely creative endeavor very similar to writing regular fiction that requires focus and careful planning; given my rather hectic schedule at the moment, it's difficult to find suitable time for this. Would be lovely to actually construct a full-blown story/game, though.
"Adventure" is an untitled 16-bit-style 2D fantasy RPG. This is the first project I based on the_Foundation, and it was great fun to build the map and lighting system, not to mention doing 16-color pixel art for the map tile set. The world has a daily cycle between day, dusk, night, and dawn, affecting the general light level in outside regions. Objects can emit light around them, and there are ray-cast shadows. The basic mechanics are in place, but then I started working on a scripting system to implement various artifact effects, and it started getting a wee bit too complicated. I suspect I was procrastinating with that, avoiding figuring out the actual game behavior... A scripting system kind of makes sense, though, since it allows implementing quests/storylines as well, in a way that is not hardcoded and manageable as data instead of code.
I'm still undecided whether I want this to be more like a Nethack roguelike with a totally RNG world, or should it have a more hand-crafted story. Perhaps some combination of the two?
I've been coming back to Adventure every year or so since 2019, so doing a brief stint in 2026 is likely.
Nethack left a big impression on me back in the day, and I've always wanted to make my own text/character-based roguelike. I've tried it a few times, but my downfall has been that I tend to overcomplicate the game mechanics with too many details. Do I really need to simulate each arm and leg of the characters separately so combat can have more interesting outcomes? In the Adventure project I've tried to consciously limit the realism to keep everything simplified, but when the visuals are text-based and super simple on their own, the focus of the game design kind of shifts to the internal mechanisms, so there is a temptation to make things too sophisticated.
It would be great to devote some time to making new music, probably in Logic Pro or Bitwise Harmony. This activity could support the game-making endeavors: a reasonable objective could be to make some background and/or title music.
Sometimes inspiration strikes and I find myself compelled to work on something unexpected. Who knows, maybe this will happen again in 2026?
The realistic outcome is that in 2026 I won't have the opportunity to work on many of these projects. I suppose thinking and planning counts as something, too? It's always fun to make notes in my private wiki, diving deep every now and then to sketch out this or that idea.
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The original Gemtext version of this page can be accessed with a Gemini client: gemini://skyjake.fi/gemlog/2026-01_anticipating.gmi