My New Year's Resolution: More of the Same, Just a Year Older

The first few weeks of the new year have just went by. Day after day, things have gone by just like any other day. As my Dad joked while dropping me off to work on a foggy, gloomy January 1, "The streets are the same. The houses are the same. Even the house numbers are the same. They're all just a year older." That joke basically sums up my pursuit of an independent game development career: unchanged beyond being a year older. As things stand, I still live here at home browsing the Internet, playing video games, reading a book or two, keeping my anxiety in check via medication, and work the same part-time job to generate income. I admit I've come a long way in striving to achieve my goal of attaining a career. I confess that I haven't done as much practice as I would've liked due to various circumstances, some beyond my control and others that are entirely my fault. There are still things I need to work on first before I can start game development on a more regular basis.

I confess that I have yet to start working on creating video games. I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't made as much progress in as I would have liked, if not much at all. I still have ways to go in disciplining myself to get done what needs being done. However, I do not believe in the "just-do-it" mindset; not unless I'm fully prepared. I wouldn't really do anything unless I know exactly what I'm doing. But I haven't been wasting my entire time sitting on my laurels and mindlessly going through motions of my routine. In fact, I've been spending most of my time trying to come up with ways in which I can improve my self-discipline, diligence, time management, organization, efficiency, and productivity. Not only that, I've been making some considerable investments with using the income I've been generating from my part-time job as well as a few COVID stimulus checks. With mindful spending, I've been making some considerable investments in my workspace, my computer, my knowledge of game development, and my physical health, and my ever-growing collection of entertainment and nonfiction material.

With organization, efficiency, and productivity in mind, I've made a few investments in a few pieces of office equipment like a couple of bookshelves, a sit-and-stand desk with an adjustable height feature and a brand new printer to replace the old one that I was using for years. The new desk has proven to work out really well thanks to the larger size and much needed stability, a massive improvement to the plastic laptop table that I was using. I have yet to use the adjustable height feature, but I'm looking forward to practice art standing up once I do. The new printer, including double-sided printing, being able to print significantly more pages, and many more modern features that wasn't possible with the old one would help me print better quality images and notes necessary for my game design research. With these investments in addition to a few new book shelves to sort out my expanding array of reading material, I should be able to set up an environment more suited to my game development endeavors once I get around to it.

As you may already know, making video games requires (obviously) a working computer. And the computer needs to be working properly with the best hardware and software money can buy. How can I guarantee that I'll be able to design and develop a video game otherwise? In order to ensure that my PC is in top form for game development and PC gaming, I made sure to get the right parts and maintenance software that would make it run smoothly while keeping the chances of it malfunctioning/crashing on me to a minimal, preferably zero. Knowing that everything in my PC is in working order would give me peace of mind when I develop game projects or play games with it. And with the right tools available, I'm sure to create whatever game ideas I come up with them.

This is starting to look more like a game development space.

And speaking of which, I've spent plenty of money and time looking into various game engines and digital content creation (DCC) software that piqued my interests; some are open source while others I'd have to pay after a brief trial (at a sales discount, of course). Whenever I engage in my browsing routine on the Internet, I kept my eye out for various online tutorials regarding those tools, their applications, and other relevant subject matter. For some, I bookmarked some websites and articles. For others, I saved various YouTube videos and arranged them into appropriate playlists. Occasionally, I'd purchase a book or two on Amazon as it pertains to game development and other aspects. With my access to these various frames of reference within reach (by reach, I mean a few mouse clicks), I'll be able to relearn what I've neglected to practice over the past few years while learning some new tricks and methods along the way. Once I'm armed with the knowledge I'd develop, I'll be able to effectively and efficiently create functional frameworks for something like a platformer, an RPG, or a First Person Shooter. That way, the ideas I've been coming up with will be much more feasible than they are now as things stand at the time of this writing. And with my ever expanding collection of movies, TV shows, novels, comic books, manga, light novels, webcomics, and, of course, video games (more recently for the PS Vita and Nintendo Switch), I have more than enough inspirational fuel for these ideas. 

As for my physical health, I'd say I'm doing just fine in that area. I never did much exercise, consequently gaining a little weight in the process. But I intend to make sure I do some physical fitness once I get priorities in order. Taking my lifestyle into consideration, I purchased some pieces of exercise equipment with an emphasis on simplicity and economy. My current goal in my physical health is to lose about 20 lbs., part of it which requires being mindful of what I eat and how much I consume. Once I work out an approach that does not conflict with my schedule, I'll be able to get in shape on a regular basis with out any need for a fitness coach, bulky equipment, or a gym membership.

This may not be a gym setting. But for my purposes, it should get the job done.

Recently, I was offered to clean up the managerial offices at Goretti's Supermarket. Given my lack of progress in addition to my financial standing, I saw no reason to decline such an offer. Since then, I've been spending roughly an hour and a half doing that every Thursday afternoon and another hour and a half cleaning up the bathrooms and breakroom everyday except Sunday. With those new hours added to my normal 4-hour bagging routine on Fridays, my pay has tripled going from roughly $45-$50 a week to roughly $140-$160 a week. This improvement to my income has thus far been a boon to my investments. As long as I pay attention to my spending and save up my bank account, my financial security is assured.

As you can see, this is more of a status update as opposed to another bold New Year's Resolution like I've been doing in the past. While not much has changed, my goal in life remains the same: to become a successful indie game developer without needing to work for a company or even a team. And one of the most important aspects I've learned about being a solo game developer is the willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed alone, whether it's working additional hours at work or committing hours, days, or even weeks honing the craft at the potential expense of social interaction (by that, I mean not attending social gatherings that most people take for granted). Given my lack of other job opportunities, the current trends and controversies of the AAA video game industry, my past experiences working in teams, and my autistic tendencies, the solo route is by far my best and only option at succeeding. And I have no intention of letting current events derail me from that route whether it be the latest COVID-19 variant (which I'll be a lot of people are sick and tired of hearing about at this point) or the unhinged extreme politics manifesting themselves via social media.

Therefore, my New Year's Resolution is pretty much more of the same, only just a year older. I could possibly write more articles for sites like IndieWatch, but I haven't had much practice in a while. So, I'll have to do that before making more commitments on a more regular basis. Anyway, that's all I have to say. Here's to a Happy 2022 and to better times, probably not for a while based on the way things stand. But we'll see how it works out.

That's just me looking to see what video games I should add to my collection.