I have realized recently, again, that my hobbies are deeply sporadic and suffer, primarily, from two flaws. While having hobbies might seem, perhaps, silly or self-absorbed, I have found that having projects outside of work that can exist without pressure and do not involve simply “consuming” that which someone else has created to be useful, meaningful, and a way to connect with others.

  • I have 4-5 “hobbies” that I cycle through depending on who I have most recently talked to or what video I have last watched. I have not worked far enough in any of them to have something meaningful but after a few days or hours of fantasizing about what the completion of some project would look like, I wander off into the next thing.
  • I am far more successful in hobbies that involve other people. When the hobby is some shared activity, I find myself more easily consistent.

I’ve found that I have a small list of topics and ideas and interests that I cycle through. These seem to be, primarily, game development related (tabletop RPG and computer game), programming language related, and principled or retrocomputing related.

Anyway, the thing I am trying to work out in writing this, is to figure out how I’m going to focus and consolidate my hobbies so that I can make progress on them over time, instead of simply wasting time on fantasizing about what hobbies I could do.

BJJ

I started training jiujitsu at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023. I’ve been consistently attending morning classes twice a week at my local gym - barring a few sicknesses and a tweaked ankle - for that entire time. I don’t believe I’ve had another hobby that I’ve been as consistent in as BJJ. Even when I played Warmachine/Hordes, I missed more weeks.

Pendragon in Space

I started running a biweekly campaign using Stars Without Number and Wolves of God, primarily, with additions from Old-School Essentials and Codex of the Black Sun and whatever else piques my fancy. The setting is very roughly Arthuriana in a sci-fi setting - with magic, space ships, psychics, and swords - that I’ve called Pendragon in Space. I’ve been relatively consistent in this, though we are only half a dozen sessions in so far, but I continue to struggle to properly prepare the game. This is an area I would like to improve. I like GMing, or the idea of it, and want to provide my players with a good world and experience to interact wiht.

Compiler and Language

I have this fantasy of designing a programming language, or three, and implementing compilers for them. The trio is, roughly:

Low-level language

In the vein of C, Rust, Zig, etc. but with my own particular idiosyncracies made manifest. My most recent, most “successful” attempt at this is called Zinc and was my attempt, inspired by some online retrocomputing bloggers (see Cowgol and PL/0), to implement a simplified systems programming language. I hoped to implement it in such a way that it would provide access to a framebuffer and perhaps audio devices or what not in a way that would allow for programming older retro game or text applications. Something like dos-like does.

I want a language that compiles on Windows, Linux, etc. and that, if possible, cross-compiles to other platforms it supports. Having been on Windows the last however many years, I find it frustrating when languages clearly make Windows development a second class citizen. And I haven’t got around to switching my home computer to Linux - which I want to do as Microsoft has continued to elevate their insane telemetry.

Unfortunately I ran into implementation issues with Zinc that required design changes and restructuring a bunch of the code. I also realized that I don’t particularly enjoy manual memory management - especially after years of C# and Java development.

Applications language

Something like D, OCaml, Virgil. A more coherent vision of a programming language designed for applications. Garbage-collected. D has a tragicly contentious community. OCaml makes Windows development somewhat painful. Virgil is a little too tied to the JVM. C#, or the CLR, might actually be somewhat close to the language I’d want - except that it’s gigantic and getting larger.

Scripting language

This is the one I am least certain about. I think I like languages like Lua or Wren or Ruby or whatever, by I am never drawn to write or to implement anything in them. I’ve tried to implement a game using Löve or PICO-8 but found myself more successful writing in D targetting Raylib (specifically the raylib-d library) or writing in Lobster.

Retrocomputing

I love the idea, at least in theory, of retrocomputing. Buying an old Amiga 1200 or Intel 486 and playing old games on it and running and writing old softare on it. Restricting myself to something humbler and less distracting than the modern internet. I wonder if I would actually be interested in doing this since I could, at this point, use emulators to play old games or write old software.

Somewhat related is the idea of writing games for a “fantasy console” like PICO-8 or TIC-80. And, of course, the next step would be writing my own fantasy console. And trying to implement this in hardware.

Like what kind of fantasy console could be built with an ESP32 or the ESP32-S3? It has builtin wifi and so networking would be easily accessible but would need some graphics processor to be able to output meaningful graphics. Or is there a way to build a GBA-like console/computer but with a little more processor power so it could be programmed with a higher-level language? Or what could be built with a modern 486 motherboard or ZFx86 SOC? Or an older generation HP thin client like the t630 or the t5720?

Principled Computing

Near to retrocomputing, but not the same, would be buying a Raspberry Pi or Fitlet and working to set up a “principled computing” environment. Perhaps running PiHole to constrain the available internet. And a different window manager and OS to simplify and limit the distractibility. And games created for that environment.

RPG Design

Sometimes I want to make and publish my own RPG. I started writing Beacon Road at one point and demoed it at a few cons. But that’s all withered away for just running OSR D&D style games. Sometimes I want to make:

  • Beacon Road (high fantasy, high dice, high cyberpunk)
  • Zimiamvian RPG (explore male and female)
  • Marshlight (my take on a Mouseguard, Redwall, or Roots RPG)
  • Fourth World (a 4e D&D clone, though this one has reached its natural conclusion)
  • Dwarven Ancestral Home Reclamation RPG (inspired by Balin’s attempt at the Mines of Moria or Thorin’s reclamation of the Lonely Mountain)
  • Arthurian RPG (not Pendragon but somehow my own take on the fairy world and the knights of the human world)

Beacon Road would possibly be a trilogy of books (high fantasy, cyberpunk, and horror/restoration):

  • Intro to High Fantasy: The Tonsuring of the First Sin-Eater
  • Intro to Cyberpunk: Opening of the Door to Midnight
  • Intro to Horror: Murder of the Last, Living Saint

Video Game Development

But I am also interested in making a computer game. At least at some level. The ideas I’ve come back to over are:

  • Starflight clone/rehash
  • Tactical roguelike shmup (Slay the Spire but a shmup)
  • Duelyst (tactical deckbuilder)
  • Bullet heaven arcade shooter (well, not that I’ve come back to it, but it seems a simple project to start with)
  • Metroidvania about a father who hulks out and accidentally killed his wife/children
  • Slay the Spire clone/rehash
  • Arthurian roguelike (again like Slay the Spire)
  • Wolfenstein/Doom/raycast/ish style RPG (Wolf3d meets Oblivion meets Anvil of Dawn?)
  • Split screen co-op beat-em-up
  • Modern refinement of old classics?
  • Divinity Original Sin but pixel-art and simplified and cleaned up. (split screen co-op)
  • Deckbuilders

Driving

I own a 1986 Porsche 944 that I quite love driving. Unfortunately it’s leaking power steering fluid and I don’t have the inclination or desire to learn how to repair old cars and the quotes I’ve received to fix the leak start at 4000 dollars and go up. It’s also old and loud and things keep breaking and expensive.

Wargaming and Miniature Painting

At times I find myself drawn to painting miniatures and playing some wargame with them. I started playing Space Station Zero (a solo PvE campaign wargame) but found playing alone somewhat “lonely” or unenjoyable. Or I just got annoyed that half of my crew got killed off in one mission. I’ve never really like playing tabletop games by myself so I guess I just wanted to try again to see if I’d enjoy it. I also have a handful of space marines and 30-some knights that, in theory, I’d like to paint. But while I often find painting itself relaxing and calming, my desire for “good painting” means that I take far too long to get anything finished. And I don’t have anyone else, besides my kids, to use these miniatures for. I’m not playing any wargames or RPGs in person these days.