PETI's Indefinite Retirement
Last Updated: 2026-06-18 00:00:00 -0500
In a move which more or less surprises nobody, I am retiring PETI, effective immediately. There are reasons for this that go past simple boredom with the project, but I know it’s something of a sad announcement, so let’s lay them out.
The Project Has Run Out of “Interesting Unknowns” in Firmware
Most of the PETI firmware is, at the time of writing, effectively implemented. While there are gameplay features that are still missing (sequential sounds, sickness, healing, death, to name a few), most of the truly interesting problems that needed solving in the game are solved now. If programming for PETI was an enjoyable experience, this wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately, writing the code for this project has become a real bear. It’s not something I can tinker with in spare moments from my couch, but requires a full setup of peripheral equipment and to be done from the same desk I spend all day working at.
Recently, my working days have gotten longer and more involved than they have been in years. The last thing I feel like doing with my evenings and weekends is spending even more time engaged in essentially the same activities.
The Remaining “Interesting Unknowns” Are In Hardware
The few remaining interesting-to-solve problems in PETI revolve around hardware that is yet to be developed, such as:
- needing the audio circuit redesign that was part of Dev Kit Revision D to be manufactured before any meaningful work can be done to improve the audio firmware;
- A redesign of the power and battery circuits to support a higher-capacity battery;
- the Expansion SPI system
- The design of the pet as an actual pocket toy.
These are genuinely interesting problems to solve, but to be honest, even though I make more money now than I did when I started the project through my aforementioned fancy day job, hardware development is more prohibitively expensive to the home player than it has been for many years. I can’t afford to have boards milled up in china and shipped to me anymore. Component prices that involve even tiny bits of semiconductor have gone through the roof. And if we were honest, the last several years of development on this project were driven by me looking at a Sunk Cost Fallacy warning sign and going “That sign can’t stop me, because I can’t read!”.
The Future of PETI and the Future of Arcana Labs.
Later today I am going to push the current working branches of the project up to github - more or less just to say I did. PETI will remain available in its current - unfinished - state, if anyone wants to fork it and keep it going, or build on what I’ve learned here.
Arcana Labs will continue to pursue technical projects as time, energy, and expense allow, but it does seem that for at least the immediate future, we’ll be focusing squarely on the software side of things, where costs are essentially as low as “time spent”.