2025 in Review
Everything is changing but that tends to suit me
As the counter increments I am doomed, as we all are, to reflect on this past year. Software, games, the Internet and perhaps the world seem to be in a chaotic transitory period. Or… maybe that’s just me.
I began the year closing out WizardChess and charging into Genuary, which set a theme: breadth and experimentation. As a reaction to the hyperbolic information environment, I traded some of my trademark idealism for pragmatic investigation.
Scouting the terrain
In my professional work, I continued researching the frontier of what software design and engineering can be. Yes, that means LLMs1, code generation and tools for thought. I find, yet again, that hands-on experience running and tightening feedback loops beats every other strategy. To be smug for a moment, I accidentally front-ran many of the ‘big ideas’ in 2025:
issue management for LLMs (enabling parallel subagents)
that code beats “tool use”3
anyone can build their own own coding agent
I didn’t wait for anyone to write about these, I just honed my own tools and process like any craftsperson should. Relatedly, I actively avoided consuming social media4 especially regarding “how to use AI” or “where it’s heading”. If you’ve spoken to me in-person, you know I am the quite possibly the most cynical LLM power-user5 on the planet.
I have begun working on a new publication focused explicitly on how to leverage LLMs for software development without losing your mind or sabotaging your codebase:
Game development
Ricky and I shipped WizardChess 1.0 in December 2024 (after nearly 6 years of development) and we shipped several patches in 2025 introducing new units and balance fixes. I’m exceptionally proud of what we created but I find the reflection a little bittersweet. I barely recognise “indie gaming” and I feel more detached from the culture than I have in my 20+ years of exploration.
In response, I did what I do best: swing radically from one extreme to another. I attempted to reconnect with the version of myself making games in my bedroom as a kid… and in doing so I made more than 50 prototypes and experiments over the year across Picotron, Godot, p5js and Bevy. This emerged as the TwoPM 2025 Demo Disc, as well as PAR52, Constellations and GIAG - under the Biscuits umbrella project.
My goal was to exorcise the shallow productisation that has hollowed out game design from my thinking6. To return to my own lane and ignore what everyone else is doing.
Did it work..?
Well, I still feel detached from ‘gaming’ but… now I feel that might be a good thing. So yes, but, despite the raw output volume I find myself wanting something more. To once again look within, explore my dreams and unearth something deeper.
Music
Like many, this was the year that I flipped the bit on Spotify and churned to the marginally more respectable Apple Music7. I also joined subvert.fm as a artist member, in no small part due to my own musical pursuits acoustically, in Ableton, Strudel, Renoise and my bespoke MIDI tools. I plan to release my original music on Subvert once artist pages are official open.
Pivot points
I spent a lot of time refactoring my thinking this year. I questioned my priors and changed my mind more than a few times during, you might see a theme:
From Mastering The Core Teachings of The Buddha, I learned that insight comes in inescapable cycles - there is no ‘attainment’ of understanding
From The Artist’s Way I learned that creativity is a fount and fixation on specific creation is a trap
From Man and His Symbols I learned that there is no boundary between the conscious and unconscious, merely a local allocation of awareness
From The Wave in the Mind I learned that fiction and fantasy are essential to human thought, culture and personal growth
In response, I wrote extensively about my relationship with my imagination this year and where ideas come from8.
Principles and practices
I (finally) saw the value of archival9. Watching the internet strip-mined and polluted before my eyes, I realised that we have a brief window to collect the meaningful scraps. If you don’t capture it, you may never find it again. Perhaps we should all be capturing everything we see online so that we know when it changes… or is used against us.
I began by cataloging the albums, movies, games, shows and books that built my imagination. This lead me to a deeper practice: archival as niche construction. I built a gallery of my work spanning 20+ years to keep me in dialogue with myself. Including a synchronised ‘radio station’ playing my music, a slideshow displaying my art with more extensions to come.
The web is now full of ruins, corpses and slop… but I will build and rebuild my world as many times as it takes.
Friends and peers
I would like to take a moment to thank the people10 who helped keep me oriented and sane this year, in no particular order: Chris, Irakli, Gordon, Jordan, Zaymon, Charles, Anthea, Alex, Berni, Ricky, Jake, Ellyse, Milly, Rose, Riley, Noah, Erix, Brendan, Tex and Graeme.
Thank you.
So… next?
I think I’ve had enough breadth for a while, it’s time for some depth. Tightening the feedback loops, finding the resonance and ignoring just about everything else.
More specifically, I feel called to:
Articulate my design philosophy & process clearly
Discover a new paradigm of meaningful software experiences
Embrace music and visual art as a practice, not a hobby
Return to daily meditation
Embark on a new game project..?
Cheers,
✌️ Ben
I am still evaluating this new chapter in technology but I draw the line at publicly publishing any generated writing, images, audio. I have published LLM generated open-source code on Github.
I actually coined the term ‘Dreaming’ in early 2024, as part of my work at Subconscious with Gordon Brander
I recall chatting to Geoffrey Litt about this in late 2024
I use are.na, bluesky and YouTube still
Conservatively: ~1-2B tokens per month and to me there is nothing magic about this technology
Please, I beg you, no more gambling simulators
At least I can upload and stream my own purchases and my own music without being attacked by advertisements. I imported my library and never looked back.
This is perhaps the topic I care most about in the entire world.
Historically, I have been too fixated on future work to appreciate the present or the past.
I will spare my “offline” friends and family from this list to protect their privacy.