Categories
Uncategorized

2021, What Was That?

I feel like 2021 came in after 2020’s shitshow and went, “Hold my beer.” It started off alright, with everything open, very few covid cases… Then halfway through the year, the world just went “Psyche!” and everything just went to shit again. Melbourne hit the record as the most locked-down city in the world, much to the detriment of everyone’s mental health. Vaccines just was a whole other situation that needed to be solved quicker than it was, and we finished the year with Omicron coming in and spreading like wildfire. Now testing queues are stretching for blocks, tens of thousands of cases a day, and RATs are non-existent.

So, how did I go achieving my goals for the year? Let’s check off the list.

  • Get a job
    • Short answer, yes. Long answer, I got myself a part-time job after the lockdown to boost income and start building up for moving out. Unfortunately, it’s not what I’d hoped for, in terms of wanting a full-time job.
  • Screw my head on straight 🟡
    • This was a bad goal in hindsight. This was never going to get instantly good; it was always going to be a process. But, aside from a month of barely managing to keep myself going, I like to think I’m improving. I’m developing processes to help manage my brain and my life better.
  • Pay off at least 50% of my HECS debt
    • This relied on me getting a job fairly early in the year, although I also ran into a change of plans. Unfortunately, paying off my HECS has dropped wayyyy down the priority tree, and moving out has gone up. More on that later.
  • Bowl 300
    • Sadly, did not happen. Disappointingly, in the time I had, I never really achieved quite the same level of performance coming back at the start of this year, compared to before 2020. However, after 2021’s lockdown, I really felt like I picked back up, and I’m going into 2022 with high hopes.
  • Increase my bowling pace (cricket) 🟡
    • Another pretty bad goal in the end. I feel like I’ve maybe improved my speed marginally, but I’ve really improved on my consistency and my ability to tie down the batsmen. Overall, my cricket is actually improving fairly rapidly on all fronts, and I’m thoroughly enjoying the game again, after a disappointing 20/21 season.
  • Complete my Breakout Urban Android game
    • Ugh, this is this close to being thrown in the ‘I don’t care any more’ pile. It’s probably going to just be one of those projects that never gets completed. It sucks, but so does solo game dev.
  • Participate in at least 3 game jams
    • Man, I kinda let myself down on this one. I can’t remember what stopped me from doing the April Ludum Dare, but October was a bad month for me so I didn’t do the LD jam then. I did do the GGJ though, at the start of the year, even if I didn’t quite finish the game on my own.

Not a great list, if I’m being honest with myself. Let’s see if I can come up with a decent list of goals for 2022:

  • Move out
    • This is my big one for this year. Because of certain circumstances, I’ve developed a strong desire to move out and support myself. I’m already more or less managing myself in my parents’ house, but I’m not comfortable there any more. My general plan for this is to build up my hours with my current part-time job, maybe pick up another/different one, and eventually land a full-time job. I hope to achieve full-time by the end of June, which will give me enough money to safely move out and not worry too much over my budget. Also rent is expensive, I hate this.
  • Bowl 300
    • This is the everlasting goal, at least until I reach it. I’ll be bowling one time fewer each week than I have in the past, but I’m more than capable of bowling 300 now. It’s a case of fine-tuning, practising, and knowing what to change, when.
  • Get into the 1s, based on my performance
    • This is my cricket goal for the year. My game is improving everywhere, and I’m really starting to feel comfortable with what I can do. I do hope I get to play a bit higher up the order sometime, and take the chance at being a number 7 or 8 batsman. But my main asset is my bowling, and it’s improving consistently. Now, I specifically mention being picked based on performance because I actually had the opportunity towards the end of last year, which I rejected based on having only just gotten into the 2s, and the fact that it was a lot to do with the fact I trained twice a week. I want to prove myself in the 2s, so I can say I’m ready for trying the 1s when I get called up.
  • Create a game a month
    • My career goal, I want to redevelop my game dev skills, having not exercised them in about 7(?) months now. I want something to show on my portfolio; not necessarily full games, just the fact that I’m out there making stuff, publishing them to itch.io. These games won’t individually go on my portfolio, they won’t be worth that kind of coverage, but the idea is to show off this process as a learning experience, where I try new things and practice my craft.

I’m keeping this list of goals shorter than last year, trying to avoid bad goals, and also noting that these goals have lots of process and smaller goals involved in achieving them.

That’s all from me for now, I hope everyone had a happy new year, or as happy as it could be with everything. Let’s just hope this is truly 2022, and not ‘2020 too’.

Take care, y’all!