So, with half the year officially over and done, I wanted to take a look at my new years resolutions and see how far I’ve come towards accomplishing them so far. Without further ado, the list below will be crossed out or numbered depending on how close I am to completing it:
Get a new job – Success!
Success! I managed to get a new job (Product Specialist & Project Coordinator) with a nice pay rise đŸ™‚ Hard work certainly pays off eventually.
Put Twixel on iOS & Android
After importing the game into Unity 5, I encountered many problems with it, with animations no longer working and a lot of the scripts I used refusing to work after updating. This will take a lot of work, but I’m more focused on the second game now than this. I plan to come back to porting the game once I’ve messed around with Unity and iOS/Android more so I can learn from my mistakes and apply them to the old project.
Read 12 books – 2
So far 2 books have been read: The Science of Interstellar & Halo: The flood. I admit I’m behind on this (I’m meant to read 1 book at month), but I’m finally catching up, with me already being a third of the way through a new book. My new routine will also allow me (theoretically) to finish a new book once every 2 weeks with my entire lunch break at work (an hour) dedicated to reading.
Watch 52 new films I’ve never seen before – 45
I’m not gonna write down every film I’ve watched so far, that can wait until the end of the year. What I will say is that I’ve watch 45 films so far, so really don’t have many left until I accomplish this goal.
Write 52 games reviews (Or could be worded: Complete 52 games) – 33
As always, my games reviewing is still going strong, with 33 games completed and reviewed so far this year. Whilst this is only a little ahead of the actual current week (week 27), I should be able to dedicate some time to completing a few games over these next few weeks.
Make a second game for iOS + Android
Whilst I haven’t written about this game at all on twitter or here, I have been working on designing my second proper game. I don’t want to reveal too much just yet (I’ll write more in the following weeks), but the Design doc and background story is finished, with a very early prototype working on my phone already.
Write a novel
With everything else on my plate, I was worried this wouldn’t be possible, but I have a cunning plan: My novel is going to be the backstory/background to the world of my next game, maybe even explaining some of the events in the game itself. I expect this novel to be between 30,000 and 50,000 words.
Do a Presentation at Event
Whilst I was unsuccessful in becoming a presenter at Develop conference and another indie centred one back in March, I am still striving to accomplish this task, with my last resort being to present to a crowd of students at college, who are doing a games course.
Attend 4 games conventions
Whilst I have only attended EGX Rezzed so far, I already have press passes to Develop in Brighton once again, and will be attending EGX in Birmingham this September. This only leaves one final event to attend, to which I’ll most probably attend one in Liverpool or Manchester towards the end of the year.
Attend E3Â – Unsuccessful
This was more my own fault than anyone else’s. I managed to say to my team at VGChartz.com that I would like to attend the event, and proceeded to email the relevant team member with my details. Unfortunately, I never heard back from him, and so never chased it up. I should have pushed and asked more, but my thinking is that it’s not like I’m going to stop games writing anytime soon, so there’s always next year.
Visit Cardiff – Success!
Managed to visit Cardiff after spending the weekend camping. My thinking was that I’ve been to (almost) every other UK city, yet had never visited Wales properly. Such a weird thing to technically still be in your country but see a completely different language everywhere.
Visit Dublin
Whilst I haven’t managed to plan this just yet, Dublin should be small enough for me to just visit it in a weekend, so I’m starting to think about this for my Birthday. Should be nice, cheap, and awesome!
Get a Second Tattoo
This has been on the cards for a while, but I’m genuinely unsure on what to get still. Going to take my friends advise again and use whatever Tattoo I want as my wallpaper on my phone for at least 6 weeks, so I can be sure I love the design enough that I’ll never get sick of it.
So, there’s my conclusion of how far I’ve come this year, with another 25 weeks to go until the year is over. I’m glad at my progress so far (although a little worried about how much work has to be done on my game and novel), so here’s to hoping the second half of the year is just as productive!
Thanks for reading, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated as the year goes on!
