This project cycle happened at an interesting time for me. I found myself less and less interested in hobbyist programming as AI seeped deeper into "professional" coding, and I was simultaneously having a great nostalgia-dive into Digimon and some of the franchise's games.
I think there's an interesting overlap there -- the concept of semi-sapient digital creatures skulking around on the internet causing grief.
Around the same time the project began I had been thinking about uxn again which is a forth-inspired programming system where you work in bytecode. The antithesis of the kind of coding I do for a living -- somewhere I would be in control of every single byte instead of steeped in increasingly package-managed high-level environments. I knew I wanted to make some kind of tamagatchi/digimon-inspired device for this project, but wanted the inspiration, "The Triumph of Death" to colour the work. I ended up metabolizing the with the apocalyptic imagery and played off of how much I hated when my digital pets would die in the games or on the devices. It's silly, but even as a crotchety old adult playing crappy old PS1 Digimon games I still get upset when the damn things die.
So what if we flipped it, and the virtual pet didn't die, but killed everyone else? What if the monster you were raising wasn't a digital pet with a short lifespan, but an avatar of the apocalypse?
And so I give to you: APOCKETLYPSE , the digital creature you can raise to destroy humanity! Feed its lust for destruction by destroying hospitals and forests! Watch it evolve into a powerful deity and end the planet!
...It's a bit of a stretch, but I ran with it.