If you're reading this, the site finally looks like it's from this decade. WordPress served me well for a long time, but between plugin bloat, update fatigue, and wanting something that actually felt like mine, I rebuilt casual.fridays from scratch — flat files, a tiny custom devlog engine, no database, nothing for anyone to break into. Publishing a new post now just means writing a markdown file. Refreshing, honestly.
While I was at it, I went a bit further than planned.
Not Just This Site
Turns out once you start rebuilding one thing, it's hard to stop. I also rebuilt jonroymusic.co.uk from the ground up — same philosophy, static and simple, built around the actual music instead of a template fighting it.
And separately from any of my own projects, I've spent a fair chunk of the last couple of months doing serious infrastructure and security work on a Ghostbusters fan community site I help run — the kind of unglamorous, unpaid work that never makes a portfolio but genuinely sharpens you as a developer. Locking down a live site under actual pressure teaches you things a green-field project never will.
So: three sites rebuilt, not one. Apparently "small" is a relative term for me.
Which Brings Me To...
Remember when I said, back in 2020, start small? Great advice. Advice I gave myself. Advice I have, at time of writing, not followed even slightly — Safe Zone is still very much in progress, and I've also quietly started work on something new. More on both very soon.
Safe Zone — Phase 2 landed back in March (research trees, a minimap I'm still unreasonably proud of, actual working save/load). There's more to show since then. Next post.
Something else — codename "Open City" for now. Unreal Engine 5, C++, a paranormal-investigation story. That's genuinely all I'm saying today — more when there's more to show.
Two active projects, a day job's worth of volunteer infrastructure work, and a website rebuild trilogy I didn't plan for. Past-me, the one who said "start small," would have some questions. Fair questions, honestly.
More soon. I mean it this time.