Update and Future Projects

Current State and Update

Over the past year, many things have changed for me. From moving to a huge city, starting a new job and reshaping many other things about my daily surroundings, to the more limited time I can now afford to spend on personal projects. Even though things have changed I am more motivated than ever to continue creating.

Since everything around me was now new to me, I wanted to start creating something that was equally new to me creatively: Music. I never had the same inclination towards music production as I did with programming or art, but after a few years of listening to DnB, Jungle, Old-School Hardcore and UK Garage, I knew I wanted to finally do something with some of these vibes.

Over the past few months I learned to produce DnB / Jungle Music using Renoise 3. Three of these tracks / experiments I am now in the process of finalizing, set to release under the title “palpitations”. I will post about it very soon on this blog.

Besides this I have set a few goals and have some good ideas for projects that I would love to work on.

Future Projects:

Games - Homebrew:

With game programming and design obviously being one of my main creative and technical outlets, I absolutely want to work on another game! After finishing my bachelors thesis on game development for the Sega Mega Drive, I have been aching to actually release a game for the system. I have a specific idea for a new title that I would love to work on, however I do not currently feel skilled enough to attempt that concept with my current skillset on the Mega Drive.

Instead, my current idea is to first work on a few arcade ports! This would give me the opportunity to put something familiar and playable into the Mega Drive Homebew communities hands, while honing my skillset and knowlege of the system, SGDK and 68K assembly (where recquired).

The main idea is to create three unique ports / interpretations of arcade games, release them individually, and then release a collection / multi cartridge ROM of them with a neat menu system and maybe some purposefully cheese promotional material. I have already started working on a Pac-Man port and am considering Centipede, Pang and Galaga among others for the next two entries. After this process my Skillset should be up to par for the more advanced game concept I have in draft (more on this eventually).

Games - Engine based:

Beyond Mega Drive stuff, I also have some other things I want to get to in due time. First is a game idea which actually came to me in a dream a few months ago. A portrait-mode mobile game about a small fishing boat attached to a buoy, floating across the ocean. The boat is moving in a circular motion around the buoy and the player, through touching and sliding on each side of the screen, can control the movement speed of the boat and the length of the chain (circle radius). This way the player has to avoid obstacles, collect items and survive as long as possible. Really a simple concept that would work well on a phone and could be done in just about a Weekend! I plan to set aside a few days towards the end of the year to realise this project, focusing more on the core gameplay and possibly polishing at a later stage.

Unreal Engine 5 is another thing I really want to get my grubby hands on. Not being much of a photorealistic artist, some of the rendering features might not be in my reach to use effectively, but I would still like to release a small game or demo using the UE5 technology.

Games - Modding:

Finally one other thing I have dabbled with over the last few months is Quake Modding. I have trenchbroom, blender and the a QuakeC compiler setup in a dev folder on my main machine and have started getting the hang of things. Releasing a Quake mod with custom levels, weapons, enemies and music is a dream of mine. Nothing concrete yet, but I will keep at it. Hopefully by 2026, at the games 30th anniversary, I will be able to release something.

Quake is one of my favorite games of all time. Coincidentally it was released within a week of another one of my all time favorites: Super Mario 64. The SM64 Modding community is absolutely insane. The decompilation project blew my mind when I first heard about it and even more so when I saw what people could do with it. I have had an idea for an autumn themed mod consisting of 4 levels and a few additional mechanics. I made some sketches for paintings / levels I would love to flesh out, but nothing much else yet. The breakneck speed at which SM64 modding is evolving is somewhat initimmidating, but it is one of those games I would absolutely love to release a hack for!

Videos and Streams:

Unfortunately, I currently do not have many plans for videos, at least not for ones of the previous quality and structure. I suppose I will start using the main YouTube videos as edited showcases of my projects, when they are at a decent stage. The YouTube Shorts will be used for sneak peaks or interesting findings / expirements. I am also thinking about attending a few retro tech adjacent conventions or meetups, which I might capture in a short clip to be posted there as well. Nothing concrete for now.

Streaming is something I am more interested in. It would also give me content to edit down into a “best of” once in a while. This is rather low effort, but could be interesting, if not overdone. The streams would consist mainly of playing retro games, rom hacks, mods and maybe watching some suggested videos. I am currently not happy with my VTubing avatar which I modeled myself two years ago. Most likely, I will comission 2D Artwork of Ezo, that I can use to create a simpler 2D VTubing avatar, as well as use them in videos to showcase the emotions conveyed. More on this when I get around to it.

Music:

Having only recently begun making music and getting into the hobby as a whole, I currently have a lot of drive to keep going. You can definately expect another release of roughly three to five tracks this year. Most likely being Jungel / DnB adjacent, but mixed with other styles that I want to give a shot. Namely Hardcore, Phonk and Breakcore.

I have also been absolutely fascinated with Amiga Protracker MODs and the Demoscene. Revision 2023 was an absolute blast to watch and has implanted the idea of doing something musical with the Amiga even deeper into my neuron-sack. I have purchased a recapped Amiga 600 from eBay and will begin modding it and making / experimenting with Protracker Tunes on there. My plan is to hopefully release a few tracks in MOD format at some point, as well as starting to create MOD Mixes using two Amiga 600s, a DJ Mixer and the infamous PT-1210 MOD Player software. The Amiga mixes by Format, FastRAM, Soulux and XSM have greatly inspired me over the past months to look into this beautifully nerdy music underground.

Beyond:

There is already more than enough on this plate that I have packed myself here. I do however want to create small off-shoot projects if I ever find the time. Just to do something completely different to throw myself into something new to keep things fresh. If these little creative excursions ever come to anything remotely interesting, I will most likely post about them here.

See you soon!

This is basically just been a massive braindump of all my ideas, plans, hopes and dreams for new projects over the coming time period. I am very motivated to release new cool things and improving my skillset in these areas doing so.

I hope you will soon find something of interest in these coming projects and I am always welcoming feedback!