2024 April Retrospective

Continuing with the tradition of talking about a fresh or interesting indie games, I’d like to point out Rusty’s Retriment, which came fresh out of the oven at the tail end of the month.

Now, I am not a fan of the so called “cozy game genre”, but this one happens to be the proverbial exception that enforces and solidifies the rule itself, I guess.

Based on the Gamalytic data and the author’s own tweets, it appears that the game has been a commercial success already, mere days since its launch; which is a really thing nice to hear, because it truly is a labor of love.

Give it a try, even if you do not fancy cozy games like myself. Besides, it’s 10% off until the 7th of May.

Rebel Moon

I also ended up watching the second part of Rebel Moon, and it didn’t really change my opinion about how this should have been a series, instead of some long form two part movie-type-thingamajig.

If you were expecting any particular salacious comments, sorry to disappoint you, but you’ll have to look elsewhere on the great information super-highway.

Cursed Makefile Techniques

This is really in the “Kids, do not attempt this at home!” category, but I thought that I’d share it here anyway, just in case someone might stumble upon it and find it useful.

It turns out that it’s possible to craft a Makefile that is compatible with both (GNU) make and Microsoft’s Nmake. Now, why would anyone want such a cursed combination that could accidentally summon the four horsemen of the apocalypse? The answer to that question is for reasons! Very mature, I know.

test.c

#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("Cursed Makefile Techniques ...\n");
    return 0;
}

Makefile

TARGET = test
SOURCE = test.c

# Kids, do not attempt this at home! \
!ifndef __GNU__SLASH__MAKE__ # \
!include mk/nmake.mk # \
!else
include mk/make.mk
# \
!endif

mk/make.mk

# MSYS2 and Cygwin
ifdef COMSPEC
CC := x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc
TARGET := $(TARGET).exe
endif

all: $(TARGET)

$(TARGET): $(SOURCE)
	$(CC) $(SOURCE) -o $@
	
clean:
	$(RM) $(TARGET)
	
.PHONY: all clean

mk/nmake.mk

TARGET = $(TARGET).exe

all: $(TARGET)

$(TARGET): $(SOURCE)
	cl /nologo $(SOURCE) /link /out:$@
	
clean:
	del /Q $(TARGET)
	
.PHONY: all clean

This whole “trick” works because make respects the \ character inside comments (lines starting with #) while, nmake does not. It’s really as simple as that.

If you have a relatively small project, it can come in handy; because it allows you to just type make or nmake to build, without having to install additional tools or type in crazy incantations.

Monthly Archive

As per usual, you can find a collection of my random monthly scribblings and musings below.

I know that it’s not much, but it’s honest work.