First, the whole idea of Dolce as a framework on top of Allegro to allow an absolute minimum amount of startup code for a game was a good idea on paper. All of the initialization details were tucked away behind a single method call. In practice, it's rather silly. I was happy with the little example I gave some time ago. But, the number of options that need configuring in order to make it useful actually make it more complex than it would be if I didn't hide all of the initialization details. So, now I don't. Now, you initialize the modules you need as you need them. It's cleaner, still takes just a few lines to get to the good stuff, and makes more sense.
Second, I've forgotten how fun it is to make a game. Once I dug into the A5teroids source, I decided it's not something I really want to port. It appears to have been cobbled together with little thought or consistency. So I decided to mostly start from scratch. I'm using the same resources and related data, but that's it. I've not spent a whole lot of time on it so far, but I'm having a blast. Along the way, I've been tweaking Dolce to make it more useful. I've also begun to expand it a bit and start implementing some utility modules.
Finally, as a result of moving forward on all of this I've hit on some aspects of D that would make useful posts here. I've been rather quiet here for a while, so it will be nice to have something to say again.
I anticipate that over the next three or four weeks I'll be able to get a lot more work done in D-Land than I have up until now. Not only do I need to refine Dolce and prepare it for public consumption, I also need to get busy putting the finishing touches on Derelict 2 (which I've also finally decided to move to github, thanks to a bit of encouragement). Fun times ahead.
