Every year i like to make some conclusions, overview things i’ve done, and set the track for the new year. The 2024 was emotional for me. I’ve changed my attitude towards money drastically, reviewed my relationships and made a first step to control my emotions. One goal was missing though: publishing a game. At the spring of 2024 i’ve worked on a rogue-like game, but with Unity engine price changes, and realization that it could be changed to be worse for developers at any point of time, at July 2024 i’ve stopped the project. Stopped after almost 5 months of intensive work of progress. Moved to Godot at September 2024. I like it, in some areas it’s worse than Unity, but general sense of “open-sourceness” and ability to access the engine make me feel better about it. At Unity i’ve felt too much constrained, though the need of modifying the engine have not yet arised.
So i’m staying with the Godot for the time being, especially while i’m making smaller games. Later on i want to try Unreal. And maybe combination of Godot-Unreal will serve me well in my gamedev journey. Superwish: make own engine. But it shouldn’t be made on it’s own: only with a certain goal (i recall Noita). This year i want to have time to start such work, at least as a researching project. Can i have time for this?
But most importantly: this year i’m going serious with gamedev. It’s a tremendous amount of work and, probably, stress. With no certain reward promised. But the journey is beautiful. I want to publish several titles to steam, try different ideas. Ideally: publish every season - winter, spring, summer, autumn. My winter game was started at October 2024, and about 30% is done. I want smaller games, i.e. 3 months in production (prototype-core-polish).
Along the way, i want to develop my personal brand, and the brand of Slimebones Entertainment. This means: blogs, youtube, telegram. My personal sources will be more like of a free will: various posts, thoughts. Slimebones source will be more focused on the product: announces, news, patches, trailers, etc. A bit more official, though i don’t want to jump off the ground too much. For ryzhovalex.com i want to write a post every day. Don’t know if it’s possible, but i’ve accumulated a lot of things to write about.
Of course, i still engaged with my contracting work - developing hardware/software stuff for money. It’s brilliant that i have such source of income, and it is a good income in my country. I will stick with it until i start feeling solid ground under my gamedev studio.
For 2024 i’ve achieved very good results in sports. I’ve started my table tennis journey in November 2023, and by the end of the year i’ve started to make a progress at local tournaments. This year i want to become a contestant for a local tournaments’ podiums.
I also have a range of side-projects, but intensity of my gamedev goals may put them aside for while. I want to implement these projects but with such limited time we have to make decisions:
Main Points:
While for me 2024 can be called a Reborn year, the 2025 i will make Ascension.
Happy New Year!