Lots of things happened this 2025 (duh, like any other year), both in my personal life and my """career""" as a game dev.

But, if I had to pick one, the theme that defined this year for me would be "change".

Academically, I just took a step closer to getting a degree and having to settle on being something for the rest of my life. On the games and creative side, it was all about creating new things and trying out ideas I had on my mind.

The bad

I know starting with the bad is a bit pessimistic, but I think portraying it this way will make much more sense once I get to "the good".

"Too late"

I think one of the hardest things to do when as a creator online is keeping your community interested in what you do.

Releasing games like "World RNG" and "Mad Carousel" (a.k.a "Mingle Madness") under the Ransomwave's Games label wasn't a good idea. Not only do games like those not require a community to succeed, but it actively damaged the community since most came for story-driven games akin to GADA3, not algorithm-driven games.

I've learnt from this and haven't made a big deal of these algorithm-driven games in the community since, but I wish I realized this soon.

Mad Carousel (Mingle Madness)

Building on the last point, I believe this project was a turning point for me.

I started making this game back when Squid Game Season 2 was still popular, and ended up missing the mark by a bit which made me drop the project. However, I retook development once I realized there would be a Season 3 coming out.

I was entirely convinced that this game would do incredible numbers, just like the project before it did (World RNG). I promoted it to my existing audience the same way I did, and I spent more than I should've on advertising this game. I was sure it was going to be a hit... But reality struck.

The game's stats were subpar, players weren't staying for long enough, and I was left trying to find a rationale as to why the game didn't work.

The other games

My subsequent ideas for games were Steal a SOUL (a Deltarune-themed "steal a" inspired game) and Sideways Only Tower, which didn't really get any sizeable audience neither.

I did, however, learn a lot about these sorts of "algorithm-driven" games when making these 2 so, depending on how you view it, this could be a win.

The good

Despite the somewhat negative outlook I left previously, there's still some good to be seen.

The Guide of The Realm

By far, the biggest highlight of this year was The Guide of The Realm. It was always a game I held dear to my heart, and it was awesome to make the YouTube video and to eventually mark this Lost Media case as solved.

I think this helped prove to me that I'm still capable of making good things if I try my best, especially when it comes to YouTube content creation. It's always on my mind to try my hand at creating videos, and I hope to be able to make more in the future! (at least for the new projects)

Open source development

Starting late 2025, I've been getting into publishing open-source projects to my GitHub. It's a fun hobby that can also help other people in the process.

All of these projects were done mostly out of necessity:

• Azul: My latest, greatest, most popular OSS project (20 stars on github is crazy!). A two-way sync tool between your PC ↔️ Roblox Studio. I build this since I needed an alternative to Rojo (hence the name, Azul) that worked in a certain way that better fit my way of working. I'm not going to get too technical here, but there's a good explaination on the project's README.
• Aseprite Extrude Tool: Frankly, I made this for ABOVE (we'll talk about it later, no worries). Again, I won't get too technical, but since Roblox doesn't allow "true pixel" textures on Meshes, tilesets require "padding" to get working properly in Studio.
• Rbx Shortcut Launcher: This was made after I saw a Reddit post on a similar tool, decided to try it out, and realized it could be heavily improved if a few changes were made. What ended up happening was that I rebuilt the whole thing from scratch. This tool basically creates Desktop Shortcuts for Roblox games as if they were "real applications", with a custom icon and all, that will launch the selected game when opened.

The future

Great, reminiscing about 2025 is over. I went through the most important highs and lows of this year, but, what about the future?

ABOVE

A story-driven RPG about belonging, guilt, and a world that grows colder the closer you get to the truth.

With one of the most unique art styles you'll find on Roblox, I think this game is the best thing I've made so far. It's been in development for a while (almost a year, what?) and it's been floating as an idea in my mind for even longer.

I'm really passionate about this game. It encapsulates the features of my favorite games into a new formula that I really enjoy playing. I've also had the hindsight to plan everything since the beginning this time (thanks, GADA3!), so I bet the story will be by far much more enjoyable than what any of my other projects had to offer.

In conclusion

I'm very excited for my upcoming game release and I can't wait to hear what people think once it's actually playable.

And, well, this is all for now. There's still lots more work to do, but the groundwork's already set.

2025 kinda sucked, so let's make the big '26 the best it can be.