iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dri @dreamnoid.com · 01/10/2026

Fog is tricky because vertex colors are multiplied to the texture. The only workaround I've found so far is drawing another semi-transparent triangle on top, but that almost doubles the number of triangles to send to GPU & raster. Untextured geometry for the furthest LODs may help reduce overdraw.

A screenshot showing the voxel world (with LOD for distant chunks) fading toward the fog color.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 30/09/2026

This "no 3D API" challenge wouldn't be any fun if I didn't try to make a vast open-world! Gotta have some challenge.

A screenshot of a billboard character standing on the roof of a voxel house looking at a distant low poly castle.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 29/09/2026

This is entirely rendered using SDL_RenderGeometry, a 2D API. No OpenGL, no Vulkan, no SDL_GPU, no depth buffer, no perspective correction, nothing.

A screenshot of a 3D scene showing a billboard character in a textured voxel castle's hall. There's slight texture distortion.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 29/09/2026

Interestingly, it doesn't have to be aligned on the grid to work. As long as there's no overlap, it's fine:

A screenshot of an interior voxel environment with random perturbations applied to the vertices. It's rendered without a Z-Buffer and yet exhibits no sorting issues.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 21/09/2026

I'm working on a post-jam update for Starfall Advance. Among the stuff I'm excited about was finding a way to lift the maximum number of tiles. The environments really benefit from the extra tiles! #gbadev #homebrew

A screenshot of Starfall Advance showing the player in a casino.

A screenshot of Starfall Advance showing the player in a spa doubling as a boss arena.

A screenshot of Starfall Advance showing the player in front of a lighthouse.

A screenshot of Starfall Advance showing the player outside of the casino.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 13/09/2026

Have some screenshots:

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 09/09/2026

First real test on hardware for my next Game Boy Advance game, Starfall Advance.

A photo of a Nintendo DS Lite showing the title screen of my new GBA homebrew, Starfall Advance.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 14/08/2026

Gotta wonder how much Bureau Valley paid for those AI-generated slop ads. Anyway, that's not how books work

A pseudo-cartoonish AI-generated illustration for an ad. A kid(?) is wrapping a school book into plastic wrapper. The book's binding is on the wrong side.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 05/07/2026

Je ne sais pas quel chiffre je suis supposé lire (10 000 ou 100 000? Où est la typo ?) mais les deux restent faux. On est même pas 1000... Pas cool de la part du Mag de Bordeaux de faire croire aux parents qu'il y a des débouchés dans une industrie en plein crash

"Plus de 10 0000 [sic] c'est le nombre d'emplois dans l'industrie du jeu vidéo à Bordeaux"

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 27/05/2026

Finally a JRPG protagonist I can relate to! You bet when the party stops at an inn, this guy only recovers 10% of his HP because he couldn't sleep

Screenshot of the protagonist of Dragon Quest 12 (in human form) with dark bags under his eyes

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 22/05/2026

These days I'm busy porting the Aereven games to my DreamBox "fantasy console". In Distant Paradise and Secret Paradise, the inventory menu was built in the console itself, so making this custom menu is a good test case for various building blocks

An in-development screenshot of the inventory menu for the Aereven: Lunar Wake remake

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 10/05/2026

Working on the traditional raycaster now, but with support for different floor heights. I can probably use a Depth Buffer to combine it with the terrain...

A screenshot of a CPU raycaster featuring floors of different heights.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 10/05/2026

It's even better after some interpolation!

The same 3D landscape as before, but way smoother at the near plane. Still rendered entirely on the CPU using "VoxelSpace" raycasting.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 09/05/2026

Still looking into how to render 3D environments without a GPU and the "VoxelSpace" technique is super impressive. I can already see a game using it for a worldmap and traditional Wolfenstein-style raycasting for the different locations. (Bonus points if you recognize this map ;))

A vast terrain landscape entirely rendered on CPU

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 06/05/2026

I'm completely on board with having overlays on top of pixel art, even some simple additive lighting can really make it pop. I'm no stranger to this technique :p (of course it couldn't happen on a SNES or GBA)

A screenshot of Aereven: Sleeping Azure showing a dark cave lit by torches. Those "modern" lighting effects are on top of traditional pixel art.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 05/05/2026

Like look at this sign! I guess we're in Mode 0 and limited to 2bpp (4 colors = green, dark green, brown and black), so it was probably a limitation they chose to get an extra layer, but it really hurts the look of the game for me...

A screenshot of a sign in Zelda Alttp. The sign itself is a flat color with a black outline.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 25/04/2026

It does work! As expected, textures are distorted and some triangles are not correctly sorted, but both issues can be mitigated using smaller triangles. Very interesting.

A screenshot of a 3D scene rendered only with 2D triangles, just like the Playstation

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 19/04/2026

So weird: there's a bootleg boxart for Aereven Advance making the rounds. As far as I can tell, it started with a YouTube channel editing the game's banner, then a ROM site badly photoshopping it further. Why???

On the left side, the official boxart for the game and its banner. On the right side, the two non-official boxarts followed by the legend "Who made these? Why?"

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 11/04/2026

A little funny to see this message after playing the entire game on the Deck. Well, Valve may not have info on Steam Deck compatibility for Silent Paradise Anthology, but I do: it works perfectly!

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 02/04/2026

Testing Silent Paradise Anthology on the Steam Deck! I love how vibrant the colors are on this screen <3 #gamedev #indiegame #indiedev

A photo of a Steam Deck playing Silent Paradise Anthology

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 28/03/2026

Working on new content for Distant Paradise as part of the Silent Paradise Anthology. Couldn't resist sneaking in a reference to an Elvis song! #screenshotsaturday #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame #metroidvania #pixelart

A screenshot of Distant Paradise, a 2D metroidvania, showing the protagonist talking to a sentient ape who says "They said: 'When a man sees his Blackstar, he knows his time has come.'"

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 28/03/2026

For that I use contextual button prompts at the bottom of the screen (where you also display the button used to close the menu). Here's an example of what I mean:

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 16/03/2026

For the Steam release, I want to avoid GPU issues and tech support as much as possible. I've decided to replace my OpenGL code by the simpler SDL Renderer API... but this means removing shaders! The water effects were the harder to replace, but I'm pretty happy with the results. Left is new:

Two screenshots of Silent Paradise, showcasing the same room with water and a waterfall. The results are only slightly different but one uses shaders and the other doesn't.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 07/03/2026

Wait, Jabba's son? The goofy larvae from the Clone Wars movie? This guy? Ok they won me over, it has the potential to be hilarious

Screenshot of the Clone Wars movie showing Ahsoka holding a baby hutt

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 16/02/2026

As I prepare Silent Paradise Anthology for its Steam release, I have to make sure the games are legally unimpeachable. Sadly, it means the Samus easter egg/homage needs to go...! #gamedev #metroid

A screenshot of Silent Paradise with the player character wearing a secret suit making them look like Samus Aran from Metroid.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 11/02/2026

And I finished 2025 with Zendo - The Hidden Path, another 3D metroidvania with a twist: knowledge of the world and its rules can replace every ability: dreamnoid.itch.io/zendo It was inspired by "metroidbrainias" and going "out of logic" in randomizers.

A screenshot of Zendo showing melee fighting

A screenshot of Zendo showing interaction with an NPC

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 26/01/2026

It's been a while since I last posted a #gamedev screenshot. So here, have a gamedev screenshot:

A screenshot of a game in development. The side-scrolling view shows the player character facing a boss on a rocky platform over lava.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 19/11/2025

"Dr Kawashima's Motherbrain Training"

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training boxart but with the doctor's face replaced with Motherbrain from Metroid

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 12/11/2025

Google's incompetence cannot be overstated. They pushed a mandatory Android update that breaks Google Maps on a Pixel phone. They control every link of this chain but somehow can't guarantee that basic buttons are clickable! Amateur hour...

A screenshot of the Android system's buttons overlaying Google Maps buttons like 'Directions', making them unusable

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 20/10/2025

For years I've been experimenting with 3D but in the summer of 2025 I reached a point where I could see it becoming more than a prototype. So I made Dear Clockmaker, a short 3D action-adventure game, to prove it could work

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker, showcasing an icy cavern

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker, showcasing a desert temple

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker, showcasing a shinto-inspired underwater palace

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker, showing the player emerging from under water to reach a powerup

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 20/10/2025

I can't remember if I ever posted this complete map of Legends of Aereven: Lunar Wake, my first #zeldalike. I've always loved finding those kinds of maps in the walkthrough magazines

A complete map of the entire world from my first 2D Zelda-like, Legends of Aereven: Lunar Wake

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 24/09/2025

It's getting better and better: Ubuntu does not install a media player out of the box! OGG files are opened by Firefox and WAV files just won't load. Are they assuming nobody got the sound working? (And to be fair the sound is indeed not working inside my VM)

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 24/09/2025

I just installed Ubuntu 24 LTS on a VM and the file explorer doesn't give you any command to create a new file. You can apparently go to a special "Templates" folder to create presets you want to show there (though you still need to create the file through an app first) and this is just baffling

A screenshot of the Ubuntu's Files explorer application's context menu, with no option to create new files

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 19/09/2025

I took some time today to invest in the UX of my tools. Most behavior is scripted using deeply nested objects but it wasn't very readable before. Better now! #gamedev #customengine

A screenshot of a game editor showing a deep hierarchy of objects. It's all gray and hard to follow.

A screenshot of a game editor showing the same deep hierarchy of objects but this time there are colored icons directing the eye, better indentation and visual priority.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 15/09/2025

There's foes to battle, movement abilities to unlock, outfits to collect and lore to piece together. Have a few more screenshots:

A promotional screenshot for Dear Clockmaker

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 15/09/2025

Dear Clockmaker is out! It's my first complete 3D action-adventure game, a white whale I've been chasing since 1998. It's a short (1~2h long) #indiegame #metroidvania adventure through an interconnected world and it's *free*, so check it out: dreamnoid.itch.io/dear-clockma...

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 14/09/2025

One last batch of screenshots before tomorrow's release? "Dear Clockmaker" is a big breakthrough for me! Very proud of that one and it was a lot of fun to make #gamedev #indiegame #metroidvania

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker showing the player zip with the grappling hook

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker showing the player in icy caverns

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker showing the player fighting two robots

A screenshot of Dear Clockmaker showing the player looking at a distant tower while a big enemy prepares to attack

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 08/09/2025

I may have already posted a previous version of my goals for my custom game tech, but here's the latest. It's not obvious to me how to hit all those points at once, if it's even possible #gamedev

Goals and sub-goals, ranked by importance:
1) Productivity: the ability to quickly add new elements, features and content to the game
a) Simplicity: maximize the ease of adding new elements by minimizing the number of steps required, the cognitive load associated, etc
b) Reusability: the ability to easily reuse elements already added in the current project or past releases, often modified to work in new ways
c) Immediacy: the ability to quickly iterate on an element by receiving instant feedback and being able to change it directly
d) Discoverability: the building bricks and tools needed to implement an element offers themselves to you without the need to remember them or look for them
2) Stability: the assurance that what you added works and didn't break stuff added prior and that it will keep working in the future
a) Short term: adding a new element to the game won’t break previous elements
b) Long term: the additions and requirements of new projects won’t break previously released projects
3) Compatibility: the game can be distributed far and wide
a) Portability: the game is compatible with a wide range of platforms and can be ported easily
b) Longevity: the game is expected to remain playable on hardware and platforms decades from now
c) Embeddability: the game can be embedded or grouped with others
4) Availability: the toolchain can easily be setup and used on multiple machines without much dependencies

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 07/09/2025

2025 started with another entry in what became the 'Paradise anthology': Distant Paradise. A smaller game made to run on the web, using a custom C engine similar to what I used for Aereven Advance: dreamnoid.itch.io/distant-para...

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 04/09/2025

Almost done with level design...! #gamedev #metroidvania

A screenshot of my latest jam game, showing a japanese-style palace under the sea

A screenshot of the map editor displaying the entire world at once

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 03/09/2025

Working on the final boss for my latest jam game. It's the first time I've used data-driven state machines as a graph (rather than a simple tree of instructions) and it rocks #gamedev

A screenshot of a visual editor to create state machines and a graph

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 27/08/2025

I did not expect to like 3D level design as much as I did! It's challenging tho

A screenshot of a map editor showing a high level overview of the current state of the game's world (the ice cavern is still in its blockout state)

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 27/08/2025

Making some progress on the ice cavern #gamedev

A screenshot of a 3rd person action adventure game in development, featuring an ice cavern environment

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 24/08/2025

After a week of jam, I finally got the first "tutorial loop" implemented. It's not quite a game yet, but starting to look like one. More importantly, most if not all workflows are now in place #gamedev

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 23/08/2025

Cubemap reflections! (pre-rendered, one per 'biome', so it doesn't 100% match the actual rooms, but it should be good enough) #gamedev

A screenshot of the game with a shiny mirror sphere in the center of the room. The reflections on the sphere do not 100% match the actual room

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 22/08/2025

New screenshots! I finally landed on a 2x3m grid size for walls, so I can start working on the kits. I also made a character creation tool.

A character creator used during development to create the player, NPCs and humanoid enemies

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 18/08/2025

It's jam time again! This time I'm hoping to actually finish a full 3D game with my engine. It's a constant challenge, but I'm hopeful! 🤞

A screenshot of a 3D action-adventure game

A screenshot of a custom map editor showing the same room as the previous screenshot. Edition is done using a modular kit.

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Dri @dreamnoid.com · 29/05/2025

Have a little screenshot! (I know it's only Thursday but today is a bank holiday in France so it feels like #screenshotsaturday)

Screenshot of a metroidvania game I'm making, showcasing the jungle tileset

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