I wrote a CHIP 8 emulator using C.
At the time I wanted to learn C but it led down a rabbit whole of algorithms and graphics programming (I used raylib and later SDL) and some immediate mode GUI (nuklear and another one I can’t remember) and it was TONS of fun and incredibly educational!
It kind of reminded me what was it that I actually liked about programming, that is, learning, applied said learning into solving problems and creating things!