A new year, a new promise... yada yada...

It has been several months since I posted that I was getting interested in picking up my retro projects again, yet there has been next-to-no updates since then. And not the first time I have posted with some optimism about resuming and/or finishing some project only to have it all grind to a halt again within days.

My last post in this vein was in good faith but then work suddenly got really, really busy; I was even working some nights to get through it all. Then of course holiday season was upon us and I had family visiting from inter-city and overseas and then finally went away on holidays myself. And here we are, months later.

So, where do I sit now?

Work is a bit more sane now, although I can't say for certain that it will stay that way for long. I'm also trying to allocate more time to physical activities, so that isn't conducive to sitting at a keyboard either. And, almost on a whim, I've decided to study up for my HAM licence, so that will also eat into my spare time. However, I am slowly drifting back into my retro gaming hobbies, possibly spurred on by the fact that I picked up a Nintendo Switch for Xmas.

[An aside: I've been playing Lode Runner Legacy on the Switch and was disappointed to see the "classic" mode game graphics weren't from the Apple II. In fact the animation of the player and guards is absolutely horrid!]

I should also note that one of my New Year's resolutions was to simply "get things done"; things that have been on my to-do list for, in some case, several years. Those 'things' comprise projects around the house (including my man cave / games room), things I need to build like my rocker plate (if you don't know, it won't interest you), and of course my retro ports.

So now that the year is starting to settle into a routine again (school is back next week) I can sit down and formulate some sort of plan.

As far as retro ports are concerned, I'm determined to finish off Asteroids on the Coco3 first and then revisit it on the Apple II/IIc/IIGS. I also have another target in mind. Also languishing are Space Invaders for the Coco3, Lode Runner for the Coco3 and Neo Geo, Knight Lore for the Amiga and Neo Geo and, finally, Donkey Kong for the Neo Geo.

To top it all off, I've decided on my next retro port - after the above are done of course. It's an arcade game suited only for 16-bit targets, and is going to be a mammoth task to reverse-engineer in the first place. It was originally further down on my to-do list (after, for example, Karateka and Prince Of Persia), but I've decided to attack a more ambitious project. Go big or go home!

To be continued in my next post... the 2019 wrap-up! ;)