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• Post #2738830

  Wrote a #blog post about a game making philosophy I care deeply about. I love games that do more than just entertain, but enrich your life, by teaching interesting subjects, imparting wisdom, or inspiring with impactful stories. Games are uniquely good at this: understand complex systems via interaction, or experience empathy by living in another’s shoes. https://cxong.github.io/2026/05/nutritious-games And I would love to see more people make such games! #GameDev #GameDesign

• Post #2661339

  Added a poison bubble effect to #CDogsSDL Unusual for an action game, C-Dogs is full of status effects like poison, confusion and petrify. Adding some juice like this helps make it clearer that something unsettling is going on! #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday #OpenSource #PixelArt

• Post #2661338

  It's #BandcampFriday and I've just released a new #electropop #chiptune track! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkTq2FAN57E This and an earlier similar track are both now available at https://congusbongusgames.bandcamp.com Fun and boppy #WaveTracker #music. Perhaps I'll make more?

• Post #2661337

  More eye-candy and also an important gameplay bug fixed for #CDogsSDL. Added flame particles, so anyone taking damage from a flame-type weapon visibly looks like they’re on fire! The bug fix is missing “squares” in randomly generated levels. This is a big deal because it’s such a key part of the experience - details in alt text! #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday #OpenSource #PixelArt

• Post #2661336

  In #CrystalCaves, there are occasional signs with boomer memes like “Kilroy was here” or “Winners don’t use drugs”. If you’ve encountered these contemporaneously, it’s time to schedule a colonoscopy OTOH #OpenCrystalCaves’s “remaster” mode will show a set of (relatively) modern memes! #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday #OpenSource #DOS #RetroGames

• Post #2167259

  RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@congusbongus/115748839684742331 This easter egg is giving me jump scares while testing #CDogsSDL. I guess it's a special day today! #CincoDeMayo #GameDev

• Post #1950695

  Added BONUS eggs in #OpenCrystalCaves! A classic easter egg in #CrystalCaves. Did you ever shoot these? If you did they seem to leave random letters that are worth 100 points, but the eggs alone are 1000 points. Smarter not to shoot them right? This is where the game tricks you! Because the letters aren't random, they exactly spell BONUS (there are always 5 eggs when they appear), and the last gives you 10000 points! #GameDev #OpenSource #DOS #RetroGames #ScreenshotSaturday

• Post #1538702

  Big progress with #OpenCrystalCaves: levels 13 and 14 are done, including the “low gravity” mechanic! Why the scare quotes? Because it doesn’t - as you might assume - make you jump higher, despite what the sign says. Instead it means when you fire it pushes you back a bit, so in “remaster” mode the signs are replaced with “heavy recoil” or “light recoil” depending on the level. #CrystalCaves #GameDev #ScreenshotSaturday #OpenSource #DOS #RetroGames

• Post #963667

  New release for #OpenCrystalCaves! https://congusbongus.itch.io/opencrystalcaves/devlog/1479607/levels-8-12-savecontinue-game We’ve completed levels 8-12, and implemented game save and continue. Also made a quality-of-life feature where the game controls are shown to first-time players, complete with @kenney's keyboard sprites and mini-Mylo #ScreenshotSaturday #GameDev #PixelArt #OpenSource #CrystalCaves #DOS #RetroGames

• Post #737138

  I've seen a lot of game devs overthink how to make their data files backward compatible (save files, maps, mods etc) but it’s actually easy! In this #blog post I show you how, with realistic examples https://cxong.github.io/2026/01/easy-backward-compatibility The key is that these files are often simple, so adding extra translation code and using a simple versioning strategy is sufficient. If you’ve made versioned APIs before you knew this already, but if you’ve never done anything lik...