And so we reach the end of 2025, a year that I can only describe as pretty fuckin' awful for reasons that I'm frankly pretty loathe to get into, not least in part because everyone else in the world has their own ton of shit weighing down upon them like a ton of fecal bricks - often to a far worse degree than I'm dealing with - and I'd rather not add to that or inadvertantly kick off some kind of Despair-Comparison Contest. And I'll be blunt: 2026 isn't lookin' like it's gonna be an improvement! But again, I'm not much for pity parties, so let's take a step back, look at last year's end-of-year post, and ultimately see what we accomplished, and what we didn't.

Cacowards

Hey, the Cacowards invited me to contribute to another year! One day, they'll learn.

Once again, I contributed half of the gameplay mods bit along with an assortment of sidebars throughout various other bits of the whole enterprise. Helping out with this incredible project continues to be a huge honor, and I'm proud to highlight new and exciting creators in the community.

Behind the scenes, it felt like this year went a lot more smoothly on my side than the last couple of years of the Cacowards, which was much appreciated with everything else going crazy around the same time. Usually I wind up in a college-tier last-minute rush to tie the ends off of everything, but this year I was basically home and dry a week early. Something to aspire to for next time (if they don't get wise and change the locks, anyway)!

Hey, Speaking of Doom Stuff

Last year, I lamented the lack of progress on my Doom mods. This year is a slightly different story: Reelism 2 has been going incredibly hard as GZDoom UZDoom development suddenly made multiplayer a thing. We were somehow able to form an alliance with the modern engine team (which is a feat in itself - the old management wasn't especially partial to my bullshit!) to test their work by pushing it to the limit while building out our own multiplayer functionality into the bargain, and with their support Shadsy has pulled off some utterly insane things that are a true sight to behold.

I chipped in a bunch of stuff, though I feel a bit guilty about not contributing more. That's a strange thing to write, right? I wish I'd chipped in more to my own project. In a way though, it's almost as if it's grown up and out of my control, moving out into its own destiny. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, and I'm probably being a bit harsh on myself about it, but it does feel a little bit like your child leaving home and forging their own destiny if that child were a Frankenstein's Monster made out of bits of other games.

In any case, it's a strange and magical thing that has congealed over the last twelve, and the end results have been utterly hilarious to test when we haven't been tripping over desync bugs (the least-debuggable kind) tied to weird engine oddities from 20 years ago. We can't wait to get it into your hands, hopefully in the next couple of months!

Streaming Stuff

Last year, according to the stat-keeping Unwrapped nonsense maintained by the Amazon Chaebol, I streamed on Twitch some 38 times, which I considered a pretty decent effort. This year, I somehow managed 41 streams despite feeling like I ultimately streamed less! Not sure how that works, to be honest. My activity has certainly died down in the last few months due to the life stuff, and lord knows I've mostly missed out on my usual MS-DOS-themed December antics and the most recent Steam Next Fest, but I hope to get back on the horse soon, even if it's just shorter unannounced afternoon broadcasts while playing random games for fun. I have some ideas for Jankuary though, but let's see if those pan out...

I'd also like to bring back my abandoned "Not Quite The Arcade" project of playing weird old (and occasionally not-old) arcade-game-clones for old computers (and modern indie single-screen arcade-style games) in a new form, maybe as one of those list-creating things like Jeff Gerstmann's Indisputable Science? We'll see - that seems like quite the committment, and making long-term plans over the next twelve seems like a sucker's bet. I'll just have to play things by ear.

Pen To Paper

Last year, I considered returning to a comic I started ages ago. This year I am pleased to say that... I still haven't touched it, and should probably just either bin it or restart it at this point. :V I didn't completely down the tools, though - Once again I took part in Inktober, and I should probably get off my ass and make a proper page for all my Inktober stuff from over the years so you can witness my ascent from awful to mediocre. A lot of the drawings inevitably ended up half-assed to try and get something onto paper for the day, but there's a few disparate fragments in there I'm very happy with. Progress?

One fun/highly distressing thing about the census/profile gimmick I used for this year's Inktober was I actually had to finally define solid, concrete names for characters I've been drawing for years where the name was basically the only thing I hadn't defined for them. Sure, I knew who the blue-skinned goblin girl with a headband was, where she came from, how she reacted to every situation, and all her major and minor dysfunctions, but god knows I certainly wasn't on a first-name basis with her or her dirtbag hired-gun buddies! I'm not sure if my desperate last-minute decisions were the right thing, per-se, but worst-case scenario I can just pretend I forgot and come up with something better later once their number comes up to have their story told. :V

I'm not sure if it's a credit or a condemnation that I was able to get through entire years of drawing half of these weirdoes without ever having to brand an identity to their flesh, but there we go. Maybe it's just a Guy Thing where we can maintain entire multi-year friendships with our peers without ever having to address them by name? I'm pretty awful with remembering names, and lord knows there are people out there I've broken bread with that I'd be lost to call for in a crowd with anything more specific than "hey you"...

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