And so, 2025 is over. An interesting game for indie gamedev. Here is the story.
This was the first year after finishing the long running contract with Zynga, so I had to be on the look for work to fill up the gap. Some interesting client projects I did included working with Teravision Games in their “Havoc Hotel” Fortnite island series, as well as hybrid mobile apps with interactive components that would led me to new work areas in 2026.
In the middle of this hectic contract work, it was a prolific year for game jams and experiments; I participated in 9 game jams, producing 8 jam games overall (for some jams I created multiple games, and some games were created as part of multiple jams).
However, there was little this year in the shape of newly released big scope games; one highlight would be the mid-year update for Ananias, now renamed as Kramora’s Shadow, getting big improvements in the UX side. NovaMundi got a single update, was awarded a design prize, and got some coverage in talks and interviews, but didn’t see a lot of movement otherwise.
I worked a bit some projects that may see the light in 2026, including a project we are working alongside Spanish indie publisher MegaLevel, and two projects I cannot tell much about for now (but they are awesome, if they happen).
Yuah-lak didn’t see any development, while for Serenade of Chaos there was some work done in reconsidering its art style (but sadly that work was interrupted and never saw the light of the day). Emerald Woods also didn’t see a single release, even when some work was done internally, ultimately no release was made. Sad.
This year I didn’t travel abroad for game conferences, but I was invited to talk about NovaMundi in Bogotá and had some fun there.
See also rewinds for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024
January
The year started with the only update for NovaMundi, a critical patch on UX especially on combat. It pushed the full release made in October into a much more polished experience.
Afterwards, I went to participate in the Global Game Jam, again with two games! neither of these saw further development after the jam… Economic Bubble Burst, as a limited pixel art arcade game strongly tied to the theme of the jam, I don’t think really has any room to grow, Glade of Tranquility OTOH I felt was an accomplishment on the ambient and experience, but lacked any substantial game play to hold the players. No time to work on it anyways.
February
Not many things went public, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t things going on behind the scenes.
After conversations with MegaLevel in late 2024, I started working in the foundations of Project S. I also touched base with a legendary indie developer about “Project Full Circle” (codename), continuing developing the idea of it as a game with commercial potential, some of that might see the light in 2026. Also held conversations with another legendary developer about the possibilities of bringing a great project from the past into the present, but sadly it hasn’t gone past the initial design phase, for now.
March
I convinced Glenn Wichman (one of the creators of an old game named Rogue) to work together in a 7DRL, Rogue Monster: Theolodorus – his main contribution was the pixel art for the world and the enemies. The game also included an amazing 16bit retro soundtrack by new gamedev buddy Dinti from Cali, Colombia (long time wanting to make something with him), pixel art work for the UI by fellow artists AguaHervida and Kevin, great sound effects by longtime partner QuietGecko, and a non-linearly told narrative by slashwareknight Stoltverd (once a slashwareknight, always a slashwareknight). All in all an amazing team topped by slashie himself, 7DRL and roguelike extraordinaire.
April
Started late on March, Reggaeton de Capibara was my entry for Latin American Games Showcase Jam.
It’s a simple rhythm game with its most redeeming qualities being the amazing soundtrack of Colombian party tunes, and party animals pixel art.
Unfortunately we were unable to catch a critical bug that prevented it from being playable randomly. I still think it may have potential as a simple rhythm game for mobile, removing some of the weird mechanics put in place for the jam’s theme.
Just as I thought I was too weary to participate in more gamejams, I jumped into creating Blue Chicken, a procedurally generated dungeon crawler puzzle game, as one of my first experiences with AI assisted gamedev. Same game developed for two jams in a row (probably the first time I participated in the Gamedev.js jam, which I kept want to year after year)
May
NovaMundi was awarded the Lapiz de Acero design award.
I managed to get a hold of the source code of The Seven Days Quest, the original 7DRL by capmango (Glenn Wichman) from 2007, and made it work for modern browsers. I need to make it public and create an executable for archival purposes.
June
Renamed Ananias to Kramora’s Shadow, and released a long due update (Steam only, for now) including a higher resolution UI with tooltips and other UX improvements. And some cool new cover art.
July
Participated for the second time in Hatsune Miku’s Magical Mirai Programming contest with Hoshikawa Harumonia, an interstellar musical journey. Great cover art by Armyboy, vocaloid portraits by Alcaraz, and UX design by Sara Rios. I basically took my JS13k entry, Distant Friends, merged it together with my Magical Mirai Procon entry from 2024, and hoped it would work fine. It almost did.
NovaMundi got some more coverage in radio interviews and participation in media events.
August
Was notified we didn’t make it to the Magical Mirai Procon finalists… oh well, 2026 maybe.
Continued work in “Project Full Circle”, adding animations and polish as expected for a commercial indie game, bare minimum.
Raptor Heist, a Teravision project I put a lot of effort in, went live.
NovaMundi was included on Games Around the World in Osaka though I am unsure what physical presence we had there, if any.
September
I ran, and participated on, the first Roguetemple’s Fortnight. A 2 weeks jam to create traditional roguelikes. I created Rogue Agent: Trinity a roguelike inspired by TheMatrix, another nice one with great contributions by QuietGecko on the music, jucarave on the visual effects, and stoltverd in the game design.
Another semi secret project, codename TGMBC start development aiming towards a vertical slice to seek potential publishers.
In preparation for the new phase of development of Project Full Circle, I stumbled upon the source code of Rainy Day, and wondered how hard it would be to backport the more recent JSRL tooling for Electron packaging. It was super easy to get it running, so decided to push a Window executable out!
Note how similar it looks to the above? It also plays pretty similar 😛
JS13k is another jam I often participate in, this year it was looking bad but in the end I decided to jump in… I probably shouldn’t, the end result was subpar but OTOH the process of making it was yet another exploration on AI-assisted coding that would yield its fruits in other projects so eh, I guess it’s ok.
I was interviewed by Bombillo Amarillo (Spanish), where I shared a lot of my indiegame dev journey. I also rescued roguebasin from spambots and crawlers.
October
Worked a bit in the fall update for Emerald Woods (but no release)
I visited Colombia 4.0 in hometown Medellín (this year there were versions in several cities) where I met back friend Luis Villegas after many years (working as CTO of Sony Interactive Entertainment now) and some other completely normal people from the local games and animation industry.
November
Two more talks, one at my local Japanese academy, to talk about Castlevania. (In Spanish, bad audio).
Made a quick AI-assisted prototype for katakanakatana, a katakana typing game.
Also visited Colombia 4.0 in Bogotá, to talk about about NovaMundi (the full story, also in Spanish), and meet again with fellow completely normal people from the Colombian game indistry.
December
Even more work in Project Full Circle, modernizing its UX and visuals further. Still waiting for a word from my main contact there.
Participated in Epic Jam Colombia 2025, an event to create content for Fortnite. I decided to wrap it up by remaking Blue Chicken in Fortnite.
Put some effort into roguetemple forums with a big infrastructure update (moved to new VPS, updated the forums software, set up cloudfare) basically rescued them but still unsure about their future (no traffic).
A DLC for Age of Empires featuring the Muisca culture was announced, which led to some plans and work and considerations for a big update / sequel to NovaMundi.
Closed 2025 by pulling out an update for Golf Over Africa out of nowhere, incremental gameplay and visual improvements nobody asked for but making the game slightly better.
Plans for 2026
Not sure how much of this is gonna be doable, but here are some goals:
- NovaMundi: Guardian of the Muisca. A new game mode for NovaMundi playing closely to classic RTS such as Praetorians.
- Colonial Golf Tactics: A Steam version of Golf Over Africa with online play support and evolved rules etc.
- Emerald Woods: Early Access release on Steam.
- Project S: Published by Megalevel, to be released on Steam.
Slashie's Gamedev Adventures 