Hi! I’m still alive (I’ve already said that previously, no? 😅)
It’s been a pretty quiet year, unless you’ve contacted me privately. In that case, someone already knows my future plans.
A year ago, a new phase in my life began. I started a new job, and my free time has become even more limited. Plus, this job is in the programming field.
Creating a software project at work and then going home to work on another one is no easy feat. It took me some time to get used to it and still I’m not. Some projects are difficult to do and often I need to rest at home, not work again.
Have you done anything?
Yes! By now, you know that you’ll rarely see non-original software from me. I’ve tried many new projects and continued many old ones (especially some that were in high demand). Unfortunately, this year too, there have been many projects I started but cancelled. But something has come out soon or later…
I’ve also had my full month on Minecraft.
PROTO_1987_01_IT
I haven’t talked much about this.
It’s a little NES adventure game I developed for the Spaghetti Invasion Game Jam by Lino (Soloumido) and Karim (Yotobi). This is also my first Game Jam since my time on Game Maker Italia Forum.
Yes, it’s a real NES game for UNROM, not a “NES Style” game.
I’ve always wanted to experience the thrill of creating retro games, and after “Comuni Non Comuni,” I gave it another try, this time with a more narrative and interactive game.
The theme of the jam was a horror game about alien invasions in Italy.
I found the game short but cute. For this game, I also focused on the lore outside of the cartridge. I love following channels, sites, and associations like Hidden Palace and The Cutting Room Floor, and I was inspired by them to create this horror mini-game.
To create the game, I used NESFab, a programming language that I found well-crafted and well-documented.
After participating in the Spaghetti Invasion Game Jam I fell in love with game jams again. If you browse through old posts on my website, you’ll discover that my very first projects were games made with Game Maker. Getting back to making games reawakened the teenager in me, who was starting to see the computer as something capable of creating.
Dorotea
When Siormax, ErDadone, Soloumido, Yucali, and my dear Termosifoni announced the Italocurso Game Jam 2025 I immediately said yes and got to work.
This time, the theme was local folklore, a perfect fit for me, as I’ve always wanted to do something themed around Conversano, my hometown.
After a failed attempt at creating it for PlayStation, I started from scratch, creating a Game Boy game called Dorotea.
As mentioned before, Dorotea is a top-down horror / adventure game for Game Boy, best played on Game Boy Color.
Dorotea is a historical researcher who began working for the city archives. Her job is to catalog artifacts for an event.
“But the past never stops watching her…”
What inspired it? What legends and folklore are mentioned in the game? I invite you to read the game’s page, which will be coming soon on this website and it’s available on itch (if you read this sentence, I haven’t finished it or I’ve forgotten).
Also, here’s a deep dive on the lore (Italian only)
IGDB and Retro-Reverse Engineering
Last year, I started a treasure hunt to find and play the most obscure or forgotten Italian video games.
Excluding my own games and thanks to my research I’ve added 6 games and 12 companies, with more on the way. This also includes recreating old logos and covers and researching documentation and old websites.
Not only that, I’ve also started some reverse-engineering of these games to allow for modding or simply archiving them.
I invite you to see my reverse-engineering project of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for the original PlayStation.
My projects for Windows
Right… Many of you are asking me what happened to projects like ModernGlance, Live Tiles Anywhere, and Flipuent.
Long story short: I still tinker with them every now and then. The first two need a rewrite, but it’s not easy, especially with other projects in the works that interrupt the flow.
I hope one day I’ll be able to release some of these, including new projects. I worked on them a lot and I want them to work as I want.
Also, it’s not exluded that i’ll release some of these programs as open source tools. I don’t think I’ll release the current versions of the tools, but the updates in development may appear on GitHub.
The Twitch Channel
Yes, I’ve a Twitch channel that I rarely use and also a YouTube channel dedicated to gameplays, where I usually only upload past broadcasts of my games (and usually forget to upload them).
Unfortunately it’s in italian because I’m not that fluent in english, sorry…
This year in live I’ve completed Spyro 2 as best I can and have done a few other streams of random games for the original PlayStation. I’d like to make some other games by the end of the year. I have a few ideas…
All the overlays are made by me. I love the one made to look like the Playstation BIOS and my pre-live, made to look like the Windows 2000 intro
So…
Again, I apologize for being so quiet. I know I occasionally miss a message, especially emails, since they always end up in spam and I don’t notice.
I’ll try to be less shy and update you more about my creations.
Also I want to thank some people that donated to me via PayPal. I won’t quote them here because I don’t know if they want. Your support is important for me to know that some people like my tools.