A (delayed) year in review, and a look ahead to 2026

2025 was something of a mixed year for me. It was filled with both frustrations, and achievements. The old adage continues to be true, “the older you get the less time you have” and that was none more evident for me than in 2025. 

The frustrations of time 

As with any hobby that requires skill and learning, time is the main factor for getting good at it, it’s also the one thing that I find myself having less of. In terms of my passion of developing games last year was severely lacking, I couldn’t really get anything off the ground, prototypes came and went and as you can see from my previous blog posts, even games that I was ADAMANT was going to be my next obsession, fell by the wayside. And to top it all off, in around August of 2025 my PC completely fried and took almost 4 months to get fixed. My frustration was at a all-time high, my itch to create something was as strong as over and my promises to the 5 people that read that, shattered... 

It wasn’t all frustrations for me though as i had mini successes in my personal life. I finally moved in with my long-standing girlfriend (she might regret that one), I ended up switching my full-time job to another company who treat me MUCH better (and with a slightly higher salary) and not being able to create anything meant that I had more time to learn my craft. I read a TON of books, both about making games and stories from the industry. The highlights being ‘Level up!’ by Scott Rogers and () by (). I’ve also been watching informative YouTube channels. ‘AI and Games’ (not the slop kind) and ‘Masahiro Sakurai on creating games’ being some of the standout channels for me. If you ever wanted to learn the inner workings of games, or tips from a pro, I would recommend checking these two out. I also came across something of a holy grail for a game developer. Alexander Kullman has spent the last few years collating a huge list of resources for all parts of game development and put them in one handy google doc. You can find this [HERE] and honestly, I don’t know how I lived without it before. 

So, while the majority of 2025 was a real mixed bag of highs in my personal life and much frustration on the hobby side, thankfully the end of 2025 (and so far in 2026) has brought more calmness and stability and has allowed me to focus back towards game development and more importantly to FINALLY re-start my Aliens: Redacted remake and get that finished and out to the public. 

Light at the end of the development tunnel 

Since the end of 2025 to the time that I write this article in early March I am back in the full swing with development of my remake, finally nearing the end. Whether I like it or not. 

When I released the original game back in 2024 I decided to do it on what is affectionately known as ‘Alien Day’. To be more specific, it was 27^th April (LV-427 is the planet from the original and sequel films) so I wanted to keep the remake consistent, and somewhat poetic, by releasing it on the same day in 2026 and I fully intend to keep to that schedule regardless of where I am on development.

But, now we get to the exciting parts, with a quick update of where development is currently and what new improvements have been made. I'll make a more in-depth post at a later date but i wanted to go over some of the key essential changes and additions from the original game.

• Improved and more immersive lighting - With updates to the EFPSE engine that saw per-pixel lighting being implemented I thought it was the perfect opportunity to implement it in the remake, considering I emphasised the atmosphere so much in the first iteration of the game it was a no-brainer.

• Improved enemy AI - I've tried to improve the AI with the limited options available through the engine. the Xenomorphs now run away and try to flank you and the eggs can now open by proximity ensuring that you stay on your toes.

• Enhanced gore mechanic - One of my own personal gripes with the original game is the lack of feedback when firing weapons or lack of impact when killing enemies so I re did the deaths and you can now gib the Xenos.

• Ammo, Health & Saving functionality change - While the original game used a classic pic-up system for ammo and health I changed it for the Redux where ammo and health can only be obtained from specific 'dispensers' in the map. I also changed the save system from save anywhere to specific save locations. This is to make the experience more tactical and tense when traversing the level.

  
  

• Secondary objective rewards - While the secondary objectives in the original was a nice side that players could do it didn't really reward anything for doing them. That's why for this version i decided to add rewards in the form of stat boosts and weapons to give the players incentive to complete them.

• Bullet Time mechanic - This is one of the coolest features i think I've ever added to a game. The whole point of playing a boomer shooter like this is to kick some alien arse and look cool while doing it and i hope everyone enjoys this as I've been having a blast in testing it.

There's obviously a ton more that I've either added in or am planning to but I can do a deeper dive into that in a future blog post. Thank you so much for reading and for supporting me :)