I often thought about creating my own retro tech haven I could turn to whenever I want to relieve some stress or just dwell in nostalgic memories. I hold a lot of fond memories on computing in the 90s and early 00s and, as you may know, some projects resemble these nostalgic feelings. For instance, Casual Desktop Game, my fan remake of the old Desktop Destroyer game. Or AquaShell, a hommage to old scripting environments such as AutoHotkey or AutoIt. 

At some point, I stumbled on WINDOWS93 and Windows 96 web based OS parody apps and they got me hooked. I figured, I wanted to create such as system as well, so I can build my own retro tech haven. I eventually decided to make it both my portfolio and a sandbox. My portfolio app was born. I spent some days to turn my win98 styled portfolio homepage into a win9x inspired retro portfolio application. This way, the portfolio features are still present, while it also provides cool sandbox features. 

Of course, given that I like extendable software since ever, I decided to implement an applet system. This way users can install applets of their choice. It also allows me to provide more features without the need of altering the core system.

Here are some screenshots showing the result:

I'm pretty happy with the results. I quickly added 17 applets with cool and witty features that may unlock some core memories. There is a strong retro tech flair woven into many of these applets, so you should check them out!

Here is also a demonstration video:

➡️ You can also check out the sourcecode of my portfolio app on GitHub:

https://github.com/danielbrendel/dnyPortfolioApp

If you like my work, I'd really appreciate a donation, or even a sponsorship on GitHub. Also I'd be very happy if you star the repository on GitHub. 💚

It's been a while since the last major update of Krepagotchi was published. Thus I'm happy to announce another cozy improvement to your beloved virtual pet game. 💚

The Bubble Update is now available!

While I tinkered around with some ideas, I eventually found a small widget of another project that resembles popping bubbles of bubble packs. I'm pretty sure, many of us found it extremely relaxing and satisfying to pop bubbles. Hence I decided to add a similar feature to Krepagotchi.

Before the update, there was only the ball game available as an alternative to simple petting. So, I wanted to have the bubble feature as a second alternative. Now you can use petting, the ball game, as well as bubble popping to give affection (also still manually exploding food still works every time).

For Krepagotchi, I went with soap bubbles. They float around, and you can pop them. This will make the Krepa happy and increase its affection value.

The affection of your pet will increase by half the value when using the ball, as I found that the affection values go up too quickly otherwise. Also, it's just very enjoyable to pop these bubbles. 😄 

When your Krepa is not sick, there is still a 50% chance that you Krepa is playful. If that happens, there is a 50/50 chance that either the Krepa wants to play with the ball or wants you to pop bubbles.

I also fixed a bug that users were able to send empty bottle messages. Now, bottle messages must contain at least 5 characters and may not consist of only empty characters.

Okay, that's it for this update. 

If you are new to the game, feel free to check out the following game trailer. 

Already eager to play the game?

>> PLAY KREPAGOTCHI <<

And here is a recent trailer of AquaShell, including gameplay footage of the space shooter.

Here is a cool YouTube Short on the CS Retroboard project.

The game jam is now over. Thanks to everyone who participated!

This game jam is powered by HortusFox, the opensource self-hosted management, tracking and journaling app for houseplants and gardens. 🌿🦊

The submission period for the Spring Plants Jam is now over❗

➡️ You can now rate submissions from the jam page:

https://itch.io/jam/spring-plants-jam-2026

The winner will be announced once the rating period is over. 💚

This game jam is powered by HortusFox, the opensource self-hosted management, tracking and journaling app for houseplants and gardens. 🌿🦊

Alright, the jam has started! You can still join if you want!

Only less than a day until the jam starts! You can still join though!

Hey, just watched the stream, was very fun to watch! I was really LOLing when the Krepa was overfed so much. :D

The idea guy transformed into the vibe coder

Given the recent hype of AI slop infesting projects and the web in general, I finally got the time to discover the secrets behind the curtains of the newly established vibe coding phenomena.

Essentially, the vibe coder has always been pretty much known to all serious developers. Back in the days - when AI wasn't a thing - they were known under the infamous term idea guy.

But finally, their revenge is at hand!

Now they can "create" and "ship" their own projects without abusing other people's labor. They can leverage the glorious sloppiness that is AI, and bless their users with security vulnerabilities, bugs and garbage.

Want to read more? Check my recent blog post!

https://www.danielbrendel.com/blog/58-vibe-guy-the-idea-guy-turning-into-a-vibe-...

Only one week until the jam starts! Check it out. 🌿🪴

Thank you! :)

It's all answered here in one of my blog posts:

https://www.danielbrendel.com/blog/53-three-major-reasons-to-reject-vibe-coding

Spring is coming! Are you looking forward to warm weather, beautiful plants, and cute bumble bees? Then this jam is the right choice for you! Let's celebrate nature waking up in spring. Let's celebrate the season that lets all the plants, flowers and animals bloom! Join & Have fun! 🌱

Theme

Pick one of the following. Feel free to combine.

Rules

• Every level of experience is welcome
• Feel free to work solo or team-up
• You can create a new game or update an existing one
• Only submit content of your own, or the content you have permission to do so
• AI generated content is prohibited
• NSFW games are not allowed
• Political content is not allowed
• No harassment, bigotry, discrimination or any other likewise content
• Abide by itch.io platform rules
• Have fun

This game jam is powered by HortusFox, an open-source, self-hosted tracking and journaling app for your houseplants! 💚🌱🦊

>> JOIN GAME JAM <<

It's been a while since the last major update of Krepagotchi was published. But today is the day, and I'm happy to announce the next big update of this cozy and wholesome virtual pet sim. 💚

The Letter Update is now live!

You may already assume what this update is about: Yes, you can now send letters to other pets using a bottle message system. This brings some more coziness to the game, as you can now send and receive letters to/from other random pets. The bottle messages are assigned randomly, so you never know who receives your letter. Likewise, you'll receive letters randomly. Of course, the letter system is moderated, to ensure that only kind, friendly, witty or random informative posts are exchanged. Krepagotchi is a place that is designed to bring you much coziness and wholesomness throughout your day. 

Another cool addition are the birthday and New Year's Eve celebrations. Your Krepa is aging per each month, so you can celebrate its birthday once per month. Furthermore, your Krepa likes New Year's Eve, and will always enjoy partying with you. 🥳

On its monthly special day, your Krepa will be fed cake instead of TNT. But don't overfeed it. 🍰😂 Likewise, on New Year's Eve, there will be fireworks exploding on your screen. 🎇🎆 Last but not least, the music theme will be different on these two events. 🎶

Of course, there are some other additions and changes provided within the recent update. Some of them are listed below.

• Additional birds flying across the screen
• Music button to toggle theme music playing
• Changed some sound effects
• Refactored code
• Improved window appearance  of the Windows build
• Many bugfixes and improvements

You can also watch a new game trailer here:

Already eager to play the game?

>> PLAY KREPAGOTCHI <<

Currently building another game using AquaShell. This time it's a tank simulation game, using top-down perspective.

AquaShell on itch.io!

You can now also obtain AquaShell from itch.io, as it got its own page yesterday.

➡️ Visit the page:

https://danielbrendel.itch.io/aquashell

Casual Desktop Game December Patch 2025

The latest patch will introduce awesome gameplay updates that will further expand your gameplay experience. 🕹️

With this update you'll now be able to save / load scenes using the blueprint feature. This will allow you to create cool battle scenes that you can just quickly load and save, and alter whenever you want. A blueprint state will include all combat entities as well as the current selected background (if any). Another cool thing - that was also requested by the community - is the pause key toggle. This is especially useful if you want to take a longer look at a frozen state of your current destruction - and make better screenshots. Furthermore two more fireworks tools have been added, given that we're heading closer to new years eve: The cake and the mortar. Check out for yourself! See a full changelog below.

Note: Since there have been changes applied to the API, all workshop items must now comply with the recent changes! Please update your workshop tools accordingly.

Full changelog:

⭐ Blueprints: Save/load gameplay scenes

⭐ Cake tool: A fireworks cake with beautiful colors and explosions

⭐ Mortar tool: A fireworks tool with beautiful colors and explosions

⭐ Pause toggle: Pause/resume game to make better screenshots

⭐ Better looking general decal sprite

⭐ API endpoint to use the popup message feature

⭐ Misc improvements and bugfixes

I'm very thankful for all the players supporting the game throughout the last years. It's really awesome that this fan remake game of the ancient Desktop Destroyer is so well recieved by the community. I hope the new features will spark even more joy. To many more years playing Casual Desktop Game! 💪

>> PLAY THE GAME <<

Homepage | Bluesky | Discord

AquaShell v1.0.2 released! 🧩🚀💯 

The latest version 1.0.2 along with the previous version 1.0.1 cover some cool additions, improvements and bugfixes that will further empower your shell scripting experience - a tremendous update in december, 2025. 💚

➡️ Detailed release information:

https://www.danielbrendel.com/blog/51-aquashell-v102-released-empower-your-shell...

➡️ Games:

https://danielbrendel.itch.io/aquaspace-game

https://danielbrendel.itch.io/aquaboard-csrb

➡️ View release:

https://github.com/danielbrendel/dnyAquaShell/releases/tag/v1.0.2

Hey jammers  

The Virtual Pet Jam 2025 has ended and the results are now available for everyone to see! 

The jam winner is: 

Game: Virtual Pet Prototype 

Author: Shiro 

Link: https://itch.io/jam/virtual-pet-jam-2025/rate/3963800 

Congratulations!!  

All results: https://itch.io/jam/virtual-pet-jam-2025/results 

If you want a continuation of the Virtual Pet Jam, please take the survey in my discord's polls channel (or reply here) Thanks to everyone who participated and I hope you had a wonderful experience.

The Virtual Pet Jam 2025 has ended! 🕹️ 

The jam winner is: 

> Game: Virtual Pet Prototype 

> Author: Shiro 

> Link: https://itch.io/jam/virtual-pet-jam-2025/rate/3963800

➡️ All results: https://itch.io/jam/virtual-pet-jam-2025/results

Congratulations! You won the jam! <3 I've announced this also in discord, but I didn't find your name, so I couldn't assign a jam winning badge. If I just missed your name in the list, feel free to let me know. If not, that's fine too. Once again, congrats and have a nice day. =)