Indie Games, Smol Keyboard, Website Updates
October 31, 2025
C'mon C'mon-ers —
Hello hello! It is I, Ratik, writing to you using a teeny tiny keyboard (pictured below!). I built this keyboard last week during Diwali week aka time off from work week. I'd originally planned on writing and sending this month's issue of CC during my time off. I had also planned on spending time on some top secret side projects. Did I do any of that?
Noooooope.
So, what have I been up to this month then? Let's find out!
Indie Games Rock
Hades II came out late September and got me back into playing video games.
Hades is one of my favorite video game series of all time. I've sunk over 75 hours into the first game and have currently spent 25 hours playing the second one. These are rookie numbers by the way. People play these games for WAY longer. They're able to do so because there is just so much content packed into these games, making them infinitely playable.
In a world where large game studios continue to raise prices for their game titles, Hades II launched at the $25-30 mark. To put that into context, GTA VI is rumored to cost upwards of $90 on launch. Mental. Hades is made by a game studio called Supergiant Games, which consists of 25 people. Together, they make Hades and make it available on literally all game platforms. On top of that, they even allow you to share save files across platforms. This lets me play a Hades game on my Nintendo Switch and then switch to my Mac and continue playing the game. I wish more video games allowed players to do this.
I've thoroughly enjoyed Hades II till now. I'm yet to beat the game, but I get closer each time I play it. I want to write more about my thoughts on the game once I finish it. I haven't written a 'piece' on a video game before. It is something I'd like to try and do to improve as a writer. When the time comes, I will of course share what I write on here. For now, if you're into video games at all, I highly, highly recommend checking out Hades. Start with the first one. You should be able to pick it up on whichever game console is convenient for you.
Keyboards: Big and Smol
Keyboards are often described by their relative length to a full size or 100% keyboard. Popular sizes include: 100%, 80%, 75%, 65%, and 60%. My favorite is a 60%. 60s have all the functionality I need.
Over the Diwali break, I was able to find time to build some boards. My Dad and I built a 100% for him, as his birthday gift, and I built a ... 40% for myself. Yup, a 40. This little ripper is even smaller than a 60. I mean, just look at this thing compared to a full-size.
TINNNNNY!!!!!!!
Learning to type on a 40 has been one helluva chore. If you look at the layout of the board closely, you'll notice that it has no numbers, no punctuation, and no arrows. To access these, you have to hold down a function key. Think of how you hold down ⇧ Shift to capitalize letters. The same concept applies here. On holding a function key, you are able to type numbers. If you hold down function and ⇧ Shift, you can access symbols associated with each number (%, &, #, etc.). Finger gymnastics.
I hated learning to type on this at first. Slowly, but surely, I am getting the hang of it. I talked about the importance of doing hard things last time. I am treating this exercise as one such hard task. With just a few days of typing, the number of fingers I use to type has gone up.
Website Freshness
Speaking of keyboards, earlier in the month, I spent some time updating my website. I'd been meaning to update my keyboards page for a while. It's a page I use to track my collection of bespoke mechanical keyboards I've amassed over the last 5 (!!) years. The page used to be a grid of keyboard photos. I've updated it now so that each board links to its own page. I plan on writing about each of the boards over time. I envision the page to have stories of why, how, when I got each board. There will be images and of course detailed thoughts on each board. This is going to be a multi-year project that I will take my time doing. I'm very excited to build this repository of information over time.
You can check out the page here. The individual keyboard pages are a work in progress.
Another small update I made was adding a page to track orgs I want to work for at some point in my career. These are orgs that resonate with me in some way. It's an ever evolving list which I thought would make sense to track over time. Available here: Dreams.
That's all for this month! A crisp edition. A glaring miss this time is a section of films. Though I watched some nice ones this past month, I want to spend more time thinking about them before writing something. You can follow my film diary on Letterboxd in the meantime if you want.
Tons going on at work right now. We shipped Kagi News — a news app that refreshes just once a day. We're trying to combat conventional News consumption patterns through this app. You can download it for Android or iOS. Read more about Kagi News here. The next app to launch at Kagi will be the one I have been spearheading efforts for. Fingers crossed!
Life is going to be hectic in the coming weeks. Many, many, many social events are lined up. Part of me is excited, part of me is dreading the social drain I'm about to endure. Wish me luck and tell me to ... C'mon C'mon!
More soon,
R
p.s., This is going out on the 31st of October, so Happy Halloweeeeen! 🎃 👻