10 year anniversary update

Today the website turned 10! I've learned a lot about programming concepts and designing games. Mostly by studying books I've bought. I've had various people testing my games (especially Super Mario 2020) and provide feedback which is fun and interesting! In my free time, I study Unreal Engine 5 and its tools (if not gaming or working on other games).

I switched from Unity to Unreal, because it appeald more to me. This is because of I felt it was easier to create projects with much more detail, the extend toolset and because it allows me to apply my C++ knowledge where needed, and the simplicity and expandability of blueprints. The expanded toolset that comes with this Engine allows full control over assets without payments for individual tools which is usually the case with Unity.

Between 2012-2017 I experimented with GameMaker Studio, and in 2020 and 2023 I used GameMaker Studio 2 for the realisation of various internship projects.

Around 2017-2019 I was thinking about developing an own 2D game engine from scratch using the OpenGL/Vulkan or DirectX backend rendering engine, but stopped because the complexity and because they are usually made in teams.

In 2016 I wrote a basic custom encryption for files, applying it in a game that I started building in 2022.

I created software using C# .Net for internship and a specific program for my father.

In 2021 I developed an iOS app for the first time in Swift at school!

In 2023, I met Floris Kooij from Gorilla Games in person, where we were speaking at various subjects such as Unreal Engine preference and the Decima engine.

In that same year I spoke with an AI LLM  (copilot) and found out how assistive the tool is. Not much later I came across Stable Diffusion,  generative AI image rendering software, which I found handy to create textures with and to generate normal / bump maps and etc with.

I have created hundreds of games between now back to 2010, and tens of games between 2015 and now.

However I've been feeling really sick lately, which is one of the reasons why I did not release a new version of Super Mario 2020 in 2024. Recently I started working on the game again, and a lot of new features were added, such as new animations for Mario, various animation fixes, and new content (items, levels, enemies etc.) and most important, a game breaking bug which is caused by selecting Waluigi Missions in the mission selection menu. The new version will be uploaded soon.

My love for Mario games never went away, and I'm always playing them when the time comes. They are main inspirations for my games!