Game over

[unexpectedpanda]

I've never been good at letting go. Even when something is weighing me down and detrimental to my mental health, I have a need to see it through, do the "right thing", or finish on a high. I've looked on this as a sort of perverse skill in my life, as it's allowed me to push through and create things that people ordinarily wouldn't, while still producing something that I can be proud of.

But it takes its toll.

I started Retool — named so initially because it was the "Redump tool" — over four years ago now. Back then it only had one purpose: to select English titles in Redump DAT files and discard the rest. Its earliest iterations were CLI only, and it had lists of manually curated titles to remove. It showed an ASCII logo when it ran.

 ____     _____ ___   ___  _
|  _ \ __|_   _/ _ \ / _ \| |
| |_) / _ \| || | | | | | | |
|  _ <  __/| || |_| | |_| | |___
|_| \_\___||_| \___/ \___/|_____/

The whole point was to learn Python, and to wrap my head around programming concepts. In the years since, Retool has added 1G1R functionality and No-Intro support, sprouted a GUI, added useful tools like exclusions and remove DAT files, and has been updated to automatically detect numerous clones. One of the more satisfying experiences while building Retool has been seeing exactly how many clones it automatically finds between Redump and No-Intro updates, even when months have gone by.

As Retool started to become a more capable filter tool, people with vastly different preferences for their collections started to turn up with suggestions. It could never be everything to everyone, but I tried to imbue in it the flexibility to suit most while sticking to my own values and not making things needlessly complex. To their great credit, almost everyone was polite, thought through their requests well, and understood if things didn't go their way. Mostly they made Retool better by providing different points of view, spurring the creation of extra functionality, and helping me to crystalize my own ideas as to what it should be.

My quiet hope for some time has been that other tools, or even the No-Intro and Redump websites would start to incorporate Retool-like functionality. For that to happen though, a whole new DAT file standard would need to be agreed upon, title relationships and priorities would need to be added to databases, and websites would need their capability expanded — not a small task, assuming you even have someone in the first place to do that work. Somewhat perversely, Retool's existence has probably slowed down that evolution. Even though it demonstrated a need for this kind of filtering, it's been too easy to rely on to fill that gap.

I've known for some time this job can never truly be finished until I walk away. I have an internal roadmap that has the next six major revisions of Retool planned out — things that a part of me would still really like to see — but it's long been a grind. It's time to put it down.

Thank you to everyone who used and loved Retool, and especially thank you to those who contributed along the way. Knowing I had like-minded people helping and educating me was always a huge boost.

What happens now?

Unless No-Intro or Redump dramatically change their DAT file format or naming system, Retool should continue to work fine as a filter tool.

For 1G1R though, its efficacy will wane over time. While it will pick up many clones automatically that follow proper naming conventions, the clone lists will slowly go out of date, meaning more and more clones will slip through the cracks as time passes.

I don't hold any delusions that someone will attempt to make sense of my code, clean it up and extend it. If someone just wants to host updated clone lists though, the capability already exists in Retool to repoint where it looks for updates, either by changing the cloneListMetadataUrl key in config/internal-config.json, or by going to File > Settings in Retool GUI.

As for me — I plan to reinvest myself into things that inspire me and renew my connection to the world. See you all out there.

[retroNUC]

Thank you for all of your hard work over the years, and the fantastic repository of much-needed information missing from the internet.

It certainly filled the gap in the current system, and while I share your sentiments about required long-term structural changes, it does feel like the existing preservation projects are too old and monolithic to allow something like that to happen. It works 'good enough' for most people, even if it annoys the hell out of the perfectionists like ourselves. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take care of yourself, and all the best for any future projects!

[TomTurbine]

Sorry to see you go, wish you well.

[IDmedia]

I'm in the same boat and I totally understand your decision. Unfortunately I've just been developing a fully automated solution that uses Retool and Igir to build 1G1R sets with minimal/no config, so really sad to see such a great project die.

[updawg]

Appreciate all the work you've put forth on this tool. I wish you the best on your future projects!

[emmercm]

Much love to you @unexpectedpanda and all of the work you've done to fill such a large gap in our community. There's no other tool out there that even comes close to Retool. You should feel proud of your work here, the Sisyphean task that it was.

You deserve the break. It's heartbreaking when we lose the passion for our passion projects. It sounds like you're putting yourself first, and I think that's so important. I wish you well!

[SiriusVI87]

Oh wow, this is really unexpected. I've been using your tool for a ton of systems and was planning on periodically update and clean up my collections with this tool going forward.

So sad to see you go. Wish you all the best!

[pirsir76]

@unexpectedpanda I hope you stick around longer, I have more of my handmade lists to share in hopes of finding bugs. Retool is a noble goal!

[SiriusVI87]

@unexpectedpanda I hope you stick around longer, I have more of my handmade lists to share in hopes of finding bugs. Retool is a noble goal!

If Retool is no longer updated, you could share your lists with the creator of this tool, which will probably build on what Retool has achieved:

https://github.com/andrebrait/DATROMTool

[maxexcloo]

Appreciate all your work mate, hope you enjoy the new challenges :)

[rufotheone-fr]

Hi, I just learned that you are stopping the Retool project. Even if I am sad that this tool is disappearing into limbo, I am proud to have contributed to it at my humble level and I thank you for your infinite patience, your kindness, your desire to help and to do things well. I wish you many good things for the future. Godspeed!

[franklesniak]

Hi, I just learned that you are stopping the Retool project. Even if I am sad that this tool is disappearing into limbo, I am proud to have contributed to it at my humble level and I thank you for your infinite patience, your kindness, your desire to help and to do things well. I wish you many good things for the future. Godspeed!

Hey @rufotheone-fr, would you consider being a maintainer for the clone lists? I saw from the contributions graph that you've worked on them since the project was deprecated.