I may have to re-assess my priorities. I wanted to get back into Game Boy Advance development to make cool games for the system, but the only dev tool I'm comfortable with is DragonBASIC, and its original creator no longer supports it or even acknowledges its existence.
Some "helpful" German engineer decided to rebuild the compiler to make it compatible with modern computers and address issues with the original design, but declined to, you know, actually build it for users. Instead, he offers users the source code and asks them to build the compiler themselves.
Well, that's one hell of a monkey's paw. BASIC users are expected to wade through a mountain of third party software that gobbles up hard drive space, and is exceptionally stubborn and counter-intuitive. Do you know DOS? Well, you don't know MSYS2, which looks like DOS but isn't as familiar or user-friendly. Oh, and while we're at it, let's throw in a C++ compiler and a thing called ProDevKit and god knows what else. Have fun with THAT little rodeo.
You couldn't just compile the damn thing for the sake of the end user? I get it, this is all done for free, but it's practically worthless if you can't use it, and 99% of users can't. I can't fathom a single damn reason you would do this, aside from encouraging users to make forks of the software. Sure, fine, whatever, but I just want the standard build. I don't need anything fancy here, but I do have to be able to use it.
Asking for help results in the usual vacuum of silence I've come to expect from the internet in 2026. DragonBASIC 2.0 creator Ulrich Hecht has vanished from the face of the Earth, and none of the places that may know the solution to this vexing issue wish to provide it. The indifference is massive, which is puzzling as I'm actually pretty good at designing video games. I made GORF for the Game Boy Advance in 2009! I can make more games like that, but I just need a little help with this compiler that's intentionally left half finished. That help never arrives.
Meanwhile, when faced with a recent cash crunch, THIS community chipped in to help. (Thanks to Shade and Lulshi for that, by the way.) I felt displaced from the babyfur community after the mess with FurAffinity, but perhaps I was looking at things from too narrow a lens. There are still people who want me to draw... just not there specifically. And maybe for the sake of my dwindling funds and sanity, I should give them what they want.
I'm sure as fuck not getting that love and support from the video game community. People in that clique who I've known for years- even decades- don't talk to me on BlueSky, and the only meaningful profit I get from my software is royalties for my ColecoVision games, from a French-Canadian outfit. Bless them for that, but you know, it's a ColecoVision. The machine's pretty stunted from a visual perspective, and you start to feel the pinch of working with fifteen mostly crappy colors and a graphics chip that can't put more than two colors on a single line pretty quickly.
I'd rather be making Master System games, but there is el zippo profit motive for it. Gamers (always looking for a free fix, and conditioned by the internet to feel entitled to it) expect you to make games on passion alone, but passion doesn't put gas in the tank or food in your stomach. I pretend to be a diapered cartoon bear on the internet, and even I have a stronger grasp of reality than these cheap schmoes.
I'm babbling, so I'll wrap this up. I'm thinking of doing art commissions again. They'll be more expensive than they were in the past (EVERYTHING is more expensive than it was in the past), and there are still things I won't be comfortable drawing. However, I'm starting to think that I bet on the wrong horse with indie gaming. I'm getting no traction, no press, and little interest.
It's time I thought long and hard about who my friends (or at least, my supporters) really are. I'm sure not finding any in the world of video games.
Keywords
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bear
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gaming
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anger
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tech
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frustration
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helplessness
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sloth bear
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disappointment
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annoyance
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2 days, 12 hrs ago
19 Sep 2026 02:04 CEST
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