So lately I’ve been doing some thinking. You know the kind of thinking. The kind that just now realizes just how far away October is. It truly makes me wonder what I’ve done so far with the family this year.

You never really realize just how fast time passes you by the older you get. I can remember walking my kids to school when they were young, where we would just have such fun during their summer vacations because, in no time, they’ll be too old to hang out with me, and then they’ll want nothing more to do with me. I know it’s coming, and there’s something I fear the most about the thought, perhaps, that they won’t want me around anymore. We all get there at times. It’s one of those parts of life, I guess.

It reminds me a lot about playing a sim one makes for themselves. Besides my baseball sim, which I’m taking a moment’s break from, I’ve been working a lot on Silent Vector. Yes, that’s what I’m calling it. A game where you play the role of the captain of your sub. In it, it’s the late eighties, set upon the backdrop of the final chapter of the Cold War.

I’ve spent most of my time working on new missions and settled on a select number of twelve missions to play in each campaign. Honestly, I am in love with the entire concept of playing through the last few years of the Cold War. It’s just such a neat little piece of history, though I’m not looking down upon the fear and uncertainty some people faced. I mean the concept that, after that, it was a whole new world. No more boogeyman hiding in a trench coat, using code names and talking into their shoes.

But I recall discovering the great movie The Hunt for Red October, which, in my opinion, is the best submarine movie on the planet. It had it all: action, betrayal, and hope for a better life. I guess, looking back at it, people will only put up with so much, but given the smallest sliver of hope, they will do anything to survive.

I guess that’s why the game is the way it is. It’s because it was on the cusp of change.

But I wanted to give the game a real-world look, something you’d find on an old floppy disk with a label long since faded away. Something you can only find, unplayable, on abandoned gaming sites.

Now, you may not know this, but I’m only a team of one person, and just by looking at these screenshots, you should be amazed and astonished at such visuals in 2026. Now that I have the basis for the submarine sim of my dreams, I can take my time and perfect the entire system, perhaps expand on it, and have it turn into a legacy piece of software. Maybe the first one in a long line of video games with a small fanbase, and I can go to conventions and meet fans and sell T-shirts.

That would be nice.

I was honestly thinking about the entire notion of having a level in the game, or perhaps a spooky campaign, where you have to fight off a ghost pirate attack or a ghost U-boat off the coast of New York City. It’s always fun to have fun, and I do remember a time when video game franchises had some pretty great add-on campaigns and items and what have you.

Like what Doom and Duke Nukem had. I remember playing Duke Nukem with an Aliens mod, so all the enemies were Xenomorphs. That shit was fun and scary at night.

Both my parents worked night shifts during the summer, so my sister and I were always hanging out with each other. So when we discovered modding those games, we were having fun.

It’s honestly funny to me. The passion and care put into the mods back then were really something wonderful. Now you have to pay for it, and it’s just rushed junk. It’s a shame what we used to have back in the day, how we had such weird mods upon the scene, but for me that’s just what made them so special.

People actually put thought and care into every line of code.

You know, you don’t think about it, but everything you love came from putting code into the machine. You wouldn’t believe how much I appreciate the beauty of programming. Making something from one’s own imagination is beautiful, in my opinion. Just the kind of thing that should be hung up in a museum.

Well, that’s enough of me talking on this beautiful Sunday evening. I just had some dinner, bacon cheeseburgers. I love Sunday dinners. Next weekend it’s going to be a fine roast beef dinner.

Until next time, enjoy the summer evening and join me, as I truly love being able to just sit back and talk. And if you like what you see, please leave a like and a comment.

I’m just loving this whole blogging thing.