Spent some time kicking around a new game concept today called Redline I-72.

The idea started with a simple question: what if the feeling of classic arcade driving games could be brought into a modern project without losing the speed, tension, and pick-up-and-play fun that made those games memorable in the first place?

Still very early and firmly in the concept phase. Right now I'm focusing on the overall feel, theme, and player experience rather than mechanics or technical details. If the idea survives the next few weeks of brainstorming, I'll start exploring what a proof of concept might look like.

For now, Redline I-72 joins the growing list of projects pinned to the wall while I decide which ones deserve further development. Sometimes the best ideas start as a single line in a notebook. We'll see where this one goes.

2/5 Popcorn Buckets

Just got home from The Mandalorian & Grogu. Man... what a disappointment.

For a couple of years now I've been saying Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau were our New Hope. After all the damage Kathleen Kennedy did to Star Wars, these were supposed to be the guys who understood what made Star Wars special. Instead, I sat through two hours of what felt like a Disney+ side quest.

The highlights? Sigourney Weaver was great. Seeing Zeb in live action was awesome. Everything else? Meh.

Where was Bo-Katan? Where was Sabine? Where was Boba Fett? Where was the Mandoverse we were promised? The movie should have been Mando hunting Imperial remnants while uncovering the rise of the First Order. That's the story. That's where the galaxy was heading. Instead we got Rotta the Hutt.

And don't even get me started on the synth music. At several points it didn't even sound like Star Wars. It sounded like somebody accidentally loaded the wrong soundtrack.

The saddest part is that I wasn't angry when the credits rolled. I was disappointed. I grew up with Star Wars. I saw A New Hope in 1977. Star Wars used to make you feel wonder. It made you feel like there was an entire galaxy beyond the screen.

This movie didn't give me wonder. It gave me content.

I've come up with a concept for my next game.

Still very early and mostly living in notebooks and random notes at this point. The idea centers around exploration, discovery, and creating the kind of experience I would have loved to play growing up. Nothing is committed yet and everything is subject to change, but it's a concept I'm excited enough about to add to the Lonely Ranch Games project list for future evaluation.

For now the focus is simply capturing ideas, exploring possibilities, and seeing whether the concept has enough potential to justify moving beyond the planning stage.