From Rubber Keys to New Worlds
The story behind WOMBATSOFT 84
WOMBATSOFT 84 didn’t begin in a boardroom.
There was no funding, no development team and no carefully prepared roadmap.
It began much earlier—with a small black computer and a set of rubber keys.
Where It Began
The ZX Spectrum was where games first became more than something to play.
There was the anticipation of loading them from cassette, the strange noises, the coloured borders and the uncertainty of whether they would actually work.
Sometimes they loaded.
Sometimes they crashed.
Sometimes you typed something in and accidentally broke everything.
But behind all of that was a growing curiosity: what was happening inside the machine, and what made these games work?
That curiosity never really disappeared.
It simply changed direction.
From Understanding Games to Building Them
For years, I approached games from the outside.
I reviewed them, analysed their mechanics and tried to understand why one idea worked while another did not. That eventually became The Games Ingredients—a place built around examining what games were made of.
But there is a limit to how far you can go by analysing the work of other people.
Eventually, there is only one meaningful next step:
Build something yourself.
Why WOMBATSOFT 84 Exists
WOMBATSOFT 84 is that next step.
It isn’t simply a rebrand or another name attached to The Games Ingredients. It represents a change in direction—from understanding games on the outside to creating them from within.
The knowledge gathered through years of playing, reviewing and questioning games now has somewhere new to go.
Into mechanics.
Into systems.
Into experiments.
Into playable ideas.
Not a Studio—Yet
There is no team behind WOMBATSOFT 84.
There is no funding, polished pitch deck or attempt to make it appear larger than it really is.
Right now, it is one person learning by doing, building games from scratch and trying to finish what gets started.
That matters.
Ideas are easy to collect. Prototypes are easy to abandon. The challenge is turning an idea into something complete—something another person can actually play.
The aim is not to make everything perfect.
It is to make it properly.
What It’s About
WOMBATSOFT 84 is about experimenting with game mechanics, building systems and taking inspiration from both classic 8-bit machines and modern game design.
It is about creating unusual little worlds, testing ideas and discovering what happens when they become interactive.
Most importantly, it is about finishing things.
The Name
The name WOMBATSOFT 84 sounds as though it might have appeared on the loading screen of a forgotten game from the 1980s.
That is intentional.
It sits somewhere between an old software label, a modern independent developer identity and something still being shaped as the games themselves develop.
The “84” connects it to the era that inspired it, while WOMBATSOFT gives it a personality of its own.
Where It Connects
WOMBATSOFT 84 does not replace The Games Ingredients.
It grows from it.
The Games Ingredients was about understanding games.
WOMBATSOFT 84 is about creating them.
The roots are the same. The direction is different. Where It Is Going?
It is still early.
There are experiments, prototypes and systems being worked out. Some ideas will grow. Others will be discarded. That is part of making anything.
But the direction is clear:
Build something real.
Something that does not remain trapped in a notebook or unfinished folder.
Something playable.
Something complete.
Something that stands on its own.
And this time, it gets finished.