As per usual, January 2023 (hey, we're less than a year behind now) saw the creation of a great variety of projects. We're now interleaving 2022 and 2023 Projects of the Month posts so that our members don't have to wait a year to see their 2023 projects featured: let's take a look at their always-impressive work this month:

• Calculator Street Racing II: Evolution: Oxiti8 made some great updates to CSR II this month, most notably the addition of a new custom car format, as well as plans for another program that allows users to create and customize these cars. Additionally, a variety of bug fixes and quality of life improvements were made. Go check out the thread and suggest some cars for Oxiti8 to add to the game!
  
• CEleste: commandblockguy made some new updates to the PotY 2021-winning CEleste this month, saving on exit and a speedrunning practice mode among them. Try out this very polished and enjoyable platformer if you haven't already!
  
• CETris, another Tetris game for the TI84CE: This month, Minxrod added dark mode, grayscale, and further customization options to CEtris. Take a look at the thread and the Github and try out the recent testing builds!
  
• Citadel: A TI-84+ Roguelike [Axe]: kilo implemented the A* algorithm for pathfinding into Citadel this month, as well as implementing mob movement. The process to get there wasn't easy and involved many fancy data structures--you can read all about it in the thread.
  
• Crossroads CE - Crossy Road/Frogger-inspired infinite runner: epsilon5 unveiled a new project in January, an infinite runner game inspired by Crossy Road and Frogger for the CE calculators. Map generation, entity movement, and player movement were all mostly completed this month--check out the progress in the thread and give epsilon5 some much-needed encouragement to make some new updates!
  
• DUSB Wireshark Dissector: As part of the larger TI-Toolkit project, commandblockguy introduced a Wireshark dissector for various calculators this month, as well as publishing a preliminary release. Check it out and give some feedback and suggestions!
  
• Elimination: An RPG inspired by Earthbound / Pokemon: Hot_Dog added a few new weapons to Elimination this month, as well as planning out some potential improvements. Head over to the thread and give Hot_Dog some suggestions and feedback!
  
• New game idea: Unknown: AchakTheFurry released a new game this month for the CE, which pits two players against each other in the "Forest of the Unknown." The forest contains many resources and items that can be used in the battle and which create a variety of possibilities and strategies. Grab Unknown and a friend and enjoy!
  
• Procedural Terrain Generation in Javascript: This month, Michael2_3B added ridged noise, settings saving, dynamic shading, and much more to this neat terrain generator. Try it out here and post some feedback in the thread.
  
• Self-contained WIFI capable TI-84: Nibroc6 started work on a Wi-Fi capable TI-84 in January. Some of the current progress includes finding a way to get the calculator communicating with an Adafruit WiFi dev board and finding a suitable microcontroller. Read through the thread and give Nibroc6 some support!
• SomeCoolGuy (as Zexxerd)'s Web Projects: SomeCoolGuy created a website to show the specification for .8xv files this month, which is viewable here. It's a useful resource for anyone working with appvars, so be sure to give it a look and SomeCoolGuy some kudos.
• Sonic 2 CE: A port of 8-bit Sonic 2 for the TI-84+ CE (WIP): grubbycoder worked on an SMS palette converter in Scratch (!) to help with this Sonic 2 port in January. It's a very large undertaking, so be sure to give grubbycoder some encouragement in the thread.
• Ti-83+SE/84+(SE) Video + Audio Player: Crazy_Fox2 released a video player for the TI-83/84+ this month that is capable of playing high-quality video and audio on the calc simulataneously. The videos are at 20 FPS with grayscale, and with mono audio at 10.24 KHz--all of which means an exceptional viewing experience. Give it a download and transform your calculator into a video player!
  
• TI-Floats Library: iPhoenix implemented some of the functionality of TI's float format this month in Rust, and promises fast and accuruate emulation of said floats. A work-in-progress build is available on Github--check it out and give iPhoenix some feedback.
• Unit Tool: commandblockguy used some recent work on app generation to convert this CE homescreen unit conversion tool into an app, which allowed for significant optimization. If you're interested in some unit testing, it's available on Github.
• [Ti-Basic] Hearts: zeldaking restarted development on this Hearts adaptation after eight (!) years. Improved knowledge of programming meant several seemingly-unsolvable problems from the past could be overcome, including memory management issues and the start of a CPU player. Read through the post and give zeldaking some recognition!
  

That's all for now! Be sure to vote for your favorite released project in the poll, and stay tuned for February.

• Calculator Street Racing: A drag racing game for 84+/CE: Oxiti8 has continued work on his racing game. This month, he’s updated the UI, made a few optimizations, and added the paintshop to customize your cars.
  
  
• CEsh: A native ANSI terminal for the TI-84 plus CE: calclover2514 has started work on a command-line shell on the CE. So far, it already includes many features, including program execution, a filesystem, an API, and more. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already!
  
  
• DEADMATH: Quill has begun work on a TI-BASIC remake of the game Dead by Daylight. He’s already made some progress and has a lot of ideas, so be sure to give him some support!
  
• Elimination: An RPG inspired by Earthbound / Pokemon: Hot_Dog has continued work on his RPG. This month, he’s made a lot of progress on porting the game to the TI-84 Plus CE, along with plans for more attack animations and further polish to the game in the future.
  
  
• Gimme 5!: A word-guessing game [TI-84 Plus CE]: Captain Calc has created a word-guessing game inspired by the game Wordle, with a few features like word-sharing that aren’t in the original Wordle. If you enjoy word puzzles, this is the perfect game for you!
  
  
• Isometric Minecraft on the CE [C]: Michael2_3B has started work on an Isometric Minecraft game, with a lighting engine, basic redstone implementation, and more. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t yet!
  
  
• KhiCAS, a full-featured CAS for Casio CG50/Graph 90+e: parisse has been working on an update to his CAS program, adding a 3D rendering system, MicroPython interpreter, and more!
  
• micrOS: another shell for TI-84 PCE [ON PAUSE]: nanobot567 has continued work on his shell, this month adding file listing, credits, a help window, and more!
  
  
• Prototype 3d Engine[TI84+CE]: Zaalane has re-written parts of his 3D engine, along with great speed improvements as well, bringing rendering down by over 1 million cycles per frame in some examples.
  
  
• RushCE: ZebraVogel has created a Rush Hour clone for the TI-84 Plus CE, featuring almost 2000 levels! Like the original game, it features lots of traffic-themed puzzle fun!
  
  
• S.A.M.M. - A Metroid-vania for TI-84 Plus CE [beta]: Captain Calc has started work on a sci-fi exploration platformer, featuring polished graphics, a mini-map, and multiple game save slots so you can have up to 3 different saves at once. If you’re a fan of Metroid-vania style games, be sure to give it a try!
  
  
• Snorlax's Lunch Time port to TI-84+ CE: TIny_Hacker has released his clone of the game Snorlax’s Lunchtime for the Pokemini handheld console. If you want to give your button-pushing reflexes a test, be sure to give it a try!
  
  
• Supersonic Ball HP Prime G2 remake: DJ Omnimaga has revived his Supersonic Ball game, now for the HP Prime G2. The game features speed improvements over the original, along with custom themes as well!
  
  
• Suzan: Wavejumper3 has released her chatbot for the TI-84/83 Plus calculators, written in Axe. The program is currently in a proof-of-concept state, but more features are planned for the future.
  
• Userbar SAX Client: commandblockguy has turned his userbar into a SAX viewer! You can try it out yourself by finding the userbar in his post signature, ctrl-clicking it twice and then reloading the page by pressing F5. This month, he has restored functionality to the userbar, as it was broken for a little while.
  
  
• VYSION 2 CE: the ultimate CE shell: epsilon5 has continued work on his awesome shell. This month, he�s worked on some updates to the start menu and the file explorer.
  
  
• Wordle BASIC: kg583 has created a Wordle clone for the TI-84 Plus CE written in pure TI-BASIC!
  
  
• Wordle CE: commandblockguy has continued the trend of Wordle games, with his port being written in C! It’s impressively faithful to the original version, and the puzzles are taken from the official word list as well.
  
  
• Wordle CSE: mr womp womp has created Wordle clone for the CSE, written in hybrid TI-BASIC using Celtic II and xLIBc. If you own a CSE, be sure to give it a try!
  
  
• Zelda for ti 84+ ce: IceWorks has started work on a Zelda game written in ICE. It’s a big project, so be sure to give him some support!
  
• Zombie Chase CE [C]: Spenceboy98 has been updating his game. This month he has updated and added stuff to the store!
  
  

January 2022 was a particularly good month for Cemetech projects, in no small part due to our members having time to pick up projects over the winter break from school or work. We saw rapid progress on games, shells, audio libraries, and much more, for calculators and computers. The updated projects:

• A transliterator on the CE: Privacy_Dragon completed and released this project to the Cemetech Archives, allowing users to transliterate text into five writing systems: Elder Futhark (Runes), Nyctograph, Ogham, Phoenician, and Proto-Sinaitic.
• BallzCE: PT_ took off his administrator hat for a moment to build this C game for the TI-84 Plus CE. It takes some gameplay elements from Arkanoid/Block Breaker-type games, from Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move-type games, and others. You fire a stream of balls at a point on the screen, attempting to erase a group of blocks: every time a ball hits a block, the number written on it is decremented, until at 0 it disappears. Check out this unique arcade game in the topic, and encourage PT_ to continue the game!
  
• Catylizm [TI-84+ CE] [C]: In January 2022, Spenceboy98 returned to this game after time spent on his other projects, polishing the graphics in this cat-themed winning entry to Cemetech Contest 13. The improvements even sped the game up! Check it out in the topic, and bug Spenceboy to push the updates to the published game!
• CEleste: commandblockguy released a couple of updates this month, adding a practice mode for speedrunners, implementing saving on exit, and fixing a variety of bugs. And now CEleste has won the Cemetech Projects of the Year 2021: even more reason to take it for a spin on your TI-84 Plus CE!
• DuckHunt Development [C]: Alvajoy123 started a port of the NES classic Duck Hunt, publishing concept art of how the game could look on a 320x240-pixel screen, rapidly iterated on a prototype from simple placeholder boxes for the ducks to sprites, added a menu, and solved bugs.
• Elimination: An RPG inspired by Earthbound / Pokemon: Hot_Dog planned to release this monochrome TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus RPG on January 31, 2022, but decided to also port it to the color-screen TI-84 Plus CE, delayed the final release. Hot_Dog did tune graphics, difficulty balancing, and UX in January 2022, discussed in this post.
• HASHLIB - Cryptography Library for the CE: This month, ACagliano release version 8.0 release candidate 1 of his cryptography library, including additional protections against sidechannel attacks and two new algorithms, HMAC-SHA256 and PBKDF2-HMAC.
• Jetpack Joyride for the TI-84 Plus CE: Continuing its consistent presence on this list, version 0.20 of this game by King Dub Dub was released this month, primarily to fix a bug.
• micrOS: another shell for TI-84 PCE [ON PAUSE]: nanobot567 began experimenting with building a TI-BASIC shell for the TI-84 Plus CE at the beginning of 2022, and made some progress before discovering some of the limitations of TI-BASIC for writing shells. This project remains on hold.
• Pony Express [C]: Candledark's clone of the Pony Express Google Doodle progressed forward this month, but the image host they used has lost their screenshots. Nevertheless, the Github repo remains.
• potatoscript: an esoteric programming language: nanobot567 tried their hand at an esolang, resembling Befunge or Unlambda and with a parser written in Python. They have yet to collect feedback on this project, so perhaps you can be the first to provide some! Like most good open coding projects these days, the source is also on Github.
• Quest of Maybe Something Thing (pure-BASIC color sprites): DJ Omnimaga showed off a demo of a pure TI-BASIC map and walking engine using sprites and tilemaps for the TI-82 Advanced Édition Python. It adheres to the usual high standards of RPG design you'd expect from DJ Omnimaga, and like some of the other paused projects on this list, could use some encouragement and feedback to get to the next step.
  
• RISK on the CE [C]: matkeller19 showed off a tech demo of a RISK port, including a cool tech demo that uses a fixed map and palette-swapping tricks to color each territory.
• Snorlax's Lunch Time port to TI-84+ CE: TIny_Hacker announced a TI-84 Plus CE port of this past TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus PotM game, taking the unusual step of making it a faithful port, large green-and-gray pixels and all. If you're not familiar, the goal of the game is to make a Snorlax eat the food before the arrow moves across the screen, or if it's not food (The Pichu) don't eat it. TIny_Hacker missed releasing this in January 2022 by one day, so you'll see it again next month!
  
• Super DX-Ball [TI-84+ CE] [C]: Spenceboy98 picked up another old project, this one an Arkanoid clone, switching to tilemaps for the speed boost they provide and trying to debug collision detection. It remains paused.
• Text Encryption: achak prototyped a text encrypter in TI-BASIC, using a replacement dictionary and indices produced by the calculators' PRNG as a pseudo-one-time pad. Zeroko deserves props here for a thorough explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
• Untitled TI Audio Subsystem (For TI-83+SE & TI-84+(SE)): Crazy_Fox2 built and released a set of useful audio routines for the TI-83 Plus SE/TI-84 Plus/SE calculators (that is, the 15MHz monochrome calculators). Like QuadPlayer, mobileTunes, and similar, it provides 4-channel audio, and unlike those examples, allows two of the channels to contain noise (e.g., to emulate percussion). It also supports pitch sweeping/bending and variable duty cycles, and uses the crystal timers to ensure that the pitches are faithful. Best of all, it is designed to be used in others' programs: check out the topic for demo videos and the download!
• VYSION 2 CE: the ultimate CE shell: epsilon5 added too many improvements and fixes to list here, so check out the update post for the full complement. This TI-84 Plus CE shell continues to look even more polished.
  
• Xenon Development [C]: Alvajoy123's shell also made significant forward progress, especially with a command line interface (CLI). Take a look at the latest screenshots, followed by a beta release.
  
• Zombie Chase CE [C]: This was the month for Spenceboy98 to work on older projects: he made tweaks such as improving the graphics and expanding the game's font, and experimented with rotating sprites to make it more realistic.
• [C] CEdit editor for the TI 84 plus CE: Michael0x18 decided to rewrite this project from scratch, and unlike many project rewrites, quickly was able to show off progress. He even demonstrated a computer-side counterpart to this text editor.

Onwards to February 2022!

The well-utilized poll for Projects of the Year 2021 has ended, and it is time to announce the results! We might be over a year late, but we're on the right track, and we're thrilled to finally be featuring a host of great 2021 projects, including the one you all picked as your favorite. In was a much closer contest than last year, so congratulations are due to all of the creators.

In 7th Place, we have 3 projects:

• BBCode Library by Tari. This Rust library is part of a continued and more general effort to improve Cemetech's entire backend, making parsing BBCode markup easier and faster.
• HexaEdit CE by Captain Calc. This powerful hex editor for the CE calculators is useful for both developers and calculator power users.
• Folders by Frederik. It adds folders to shells that do not include them by default, or even the programs menu with no shell.

In 6th Place, we have 5 projects:

• CEyboard by TheLastMillennial. CEyboard was the result of an effort to document every key in the TI-SmartView software, culminating in a program allowing you to use your calculator as a keyboard for your computer.
• HASHLIB by ACagliano. It provides many hashing and other cryptographic functions for developers to use in their own programs.
• (sprite) Designer by Frederik. As the name suggests, it's an on-calc color sprite editor with many useful drawing features.
• AgneCE by ordelore. This port of the Agnes NES emulator for other devices brings it to the CE, an impressive achievement given the hardware limitations of the calculator.
• CEdit by Michael0x18. This fully fledged text editor for the CE includes features you would expect from a computer text editor, like text selection, copying, pasting, and searching.

In 5th Place, we have Programmer's Calculator CE by DrDnar. It includes many programmer-oriented math features, including hexadecimal and binary conversion and bitwise operations.

In 4th Place, we have 3 projects:

• Tiny Jumper by RoccoLox Programs. This is a platformer game for the CE with a focus on speedrunning, that also features very smooth gameplay, customization, and much more.
• Calc2KeyCE by Dmalenke. It's a neat utility allowing for many types of calculator <--> PC functionality, including screen mirroring and input.
• Fruit Ninja CE by Michael2_3B. It's what you'd expect: a faithful port of the game Fruit Ninja, adapted to allow you to slice fruit by swiping the calculator's keypad.

In 3rd Place, we have TI-81 CE by tr1p1ea. Run a TI-81 on your TI-84 Plus CE, even faster than the original, including a neat skin and the classic greenish-colored LCD.

In 2nd Place by 16.7% of the votes, we have Alien Breed 5 Episode III: Impact by JamesV. Including 3 episodes, many levels, multiplayer (!), smooth animations and gameplay, bossfights, cutscenes, a non-linear campaign in Episode III, high scores, achievements, and much more, it's likely one of the largest calculator games ever released--and it's available for both monochrome and color calculators.

And our 1st Place winner, with 25% of the votes, is CEleste by commandblockguy. It's a port of the classic PICO-8 platformer Celeste, a neat game with many levels to play through that required a significant amount of work to get ported due to hardware differences and issues with the graphics of the game. It looks beautiful, and our members think it's a great deal of fun to play.

Thank you to all of our members that participated in the poll, and be sure to keep the great projects coming in 2022 2023 and beyond!