2026-08-01 · EN
Fenrok, graphics in 80×24
Lab notes on a terminal renderer with no GPU in sight.
Fenrok is Lab IP: a multiplayer-shaped world pushed through a character grid. The point is not nostalgia, it is constraint as a teacher.
Constraints that force clarity
- 80×24-ish frame, every sprite, palette choice, and animation must read at low resolution.
- No GPU path for the study, compositing and animation live in software logic you can reason about.
- Public surface, when something works, it should be linkable. Claims without URLs are noise.
What we take back into client work
- Data-oriented layout thinking (even when the target is not a terminal).
- Honest performance budgets before feature lists grow.
- The habit of shipping demos and logs instead of vapor.
Lab is self-funded R&D. It exists so production systems inherit sharper edges, not so we accumulate private prototypes.