It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, so I wanted to drop a quick update on what I’ve been doing.

Customizing my Linux desktop#

I have been using Linux as a daily driver for the first time in over a decade. It’s come along so much since then that I no longer need to boot into Windows. It is stable and runs every game I have thrown at it so far.

Most of my free hacking time lately has gone into making my Linux desktop feel more like my machine instead of just another generic setup. You can check this out in my dotfiles

I’ve been:

  • Tuning my window manager and status bar so everything important is one glance away.
  • Cleaning up keybindings and shortcuts so I can stay on the keyboard.
  • Iterating on themes and layout to give things a more cyberdeck / netrunner console vibe instead of a stock desktop.

None of this is huge on its own, but the small quality of life improvements stack up. The end result is a system that feels fast, minimal, and built around how I actually work.

ghost: small, steady improvements#

I’ve made a few improvements to the UX of ghost.

  • Better missing model detection.
  • Cleaning up code and structure.

When it reaches the next meaningful milestone, I’ll do a deeper post.

Learning game development with sprawlrunner#

When I was a teenager I loved playing ADOM. I started playing it again and don’t care much for the newer versions.

This inspired me to finally learn some game development and make my own cyberpunk roguelike game called sprawlrunner.

A few things about it:

  • Vibe: Shadowrun style cyberpunk. Gritty streets, megacorps, magic, chrome, all that good stuff.
  • Style: ASCII / terminal style roguelike. Think old school: text, glyphs, tiles.
  • Tech: Written in Go, running in the terminal. I want something I can iterate on quickly, keep portable, and actually understand top to bottom.

My goals with sprawlrunner:

  • Learn the fundamentals of game development: input, rendering, game loops, state, combat, progression, etc.
  • Explore how to make a world feel alive with minimal graphics and a lot of systems.
  • Have a playground for experimenting with ideas around hacking, runs, and emergent gameplay in a cyberpunk setting.

I’m intentionally starting small: menus, movement, basic interactions. No promises about timelines, features, or whether this ever becomes a real game. The main goal is to learn in public and have fun building something weird and nerdy.