Game Developers Refuge

We're a couple days away from 2022, but I've been pondering my goals for the new year early. So, NEW THREAD! The remnant of the 2021 thread is over here.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21

Things we did achieve this year:

- My company made money. It's too soon to call it successful, but so far it's working.
- Setup a group health insurance plan in the company.
- Did a variety of computer upgrades, inexpensively. I'm rocking so many Lenovo ThinkPad's now, hehe.
- I got a deal and kitted out my office with dedicated cameras. A Sony A6400 is my main camera, and multiple A5100's (one top-down on my desk, another top-down on my workbench, a 3rd on my standing desk). My Fujifilm X-T3 is my "camera camera", but the Sony's are my office cameras.
- I learned alot about corporations, taxes, investing, and generally improved my knowledge of money (including how terrible inflation is)
- Acquired a working VIC-20, broken Apple IIe, and an incomplete Macintosh 128k
- Read/Listened to Neuromancer again, plus more of William Gibson's books (homework for a video project of mine)
- Learned a lot about security and privacy, and began taking steps to be "less shit" at it
- I think I'm fully on board with Rust now. I have little interest in working in C/C++ again. Rust excites me, in a way coding hasn't in a long time.
- Accidentally learned a lot about cars. Personally installed a new stereo; Installed a new battery; Dealt with 3rd party mechanics for the first time.
- Came to terms with the fact that I've been struggling with ADHD, and it's okay to get help
- I think I agreed to marry my girlfriend...

Things we didn't:

- Failed to hire someone. I went through the motions, but I couldn't find a suitable candidate. Will try again soon.

2022 Goals

2022 Goals wrote:Personal Goals
- Speak with doctor and start ADHD meds ('bout time)
- Do better with work/life balance (take weekends off and play games)
- Organize "the office"... the past year my floor has been a disaster
- Read more books, more than just technical books
- Do less social media, more blogging (I switched to Hugo which I now low-key hate, so I haven't blogged in a while)

Professional Goals
- Build something with Rust <3 (I have a security app I've been toying with recently)
- More writing

Hobby Goals
- Mod a console (PlayStation, Dreamcast, etc)
- Finish making video cables for Commodore 64, Atari ST, etc.
- Further refine my retro gaming setups. I have 2x MiSTer's and a Retro Pi. I've so far installed GameBase64 (C64) and collection of DOS games on them.
- Build Gundam models (I got a deal on a pair of these)
- Do *something* with audio
- Design and build something using a circuit board

Company Goals
- Hire someone
- Successfully run Ludum Dare 50 and 51
- Line-up enough sponsors for those events to keep company alive
- Migrate "New" LD servers
- switch to Object storage
- attempt to deal with spam problem
- kick-off LD Encore
- Simplify "corporate bullshit" somehow

Video
- Make more videos ... I've got a pretty great setup. Just need to use it.
- Get streaming from the workbench and desk working (I have cameras mounted that look straight down).
- Do something with the Asus (a freebie I got from Intel)
- Do something with the cheapo Lenovo (my pitch was that you can make good games on a budget of $50, refurbishing a used laptop, etc)
- Make my freaking Neuromancer video game annotated playthrough I've been meaning to make FOR YEARS... C64 month (August)?

Stretch Goals
- Rerelease Smiles somehow (even if it's free, just so it exists again)
- Do something with distraction.engineer. As someone that grew up obsessed with making games, I've had an identity crisis of sorts the past few years as I moved away from "making games" as my thing. Yes sure I'm "the Ludum Dare guy", but my passion isn't herding sheep, but creating. A "title" and domain I settled on was that I'm someone that engineers distractions, hence distraction.engineer.
- Install the backup camera in my car
- Upgrade my car speakers
- Install car soundproofing
- Road trip somewhere... HAVE A F*CKING VACATION

I didn't post in the last thread on the old forum, so I have no list from last year to refer to .... but hey, why not.

2021 In Review

• Went through two complete stinker jobs. This resulted in a lot of depression for most of the year. This is all after coming out of a job in late 2020 that I absolutely loved with a fantastic team. Quite the negative contrast year-to-year for me.
• Wasted a lot of time scrolling through social media crap (Twitter, Reddit mostly).
• Participated in the GDR 4x4x4 summer challenge! This was probably the highlight of the year for me honestly. I don't feel like my entry was really "finished" but it was great to work on as it was definitely the closest thing to a finished game I've done in over a decade. Also did some pixeling as a result of this, which is also a huge deal for me.
• Learnt Rust! It's not likely I will ever use Rust for anything professionally, but I like the idea of using it for some personal projects in the future. Built some simple tools for myself with it. I still have tons to learn, but it is overall a fun language to work with and I'm glad I spent the time to get into it.
• Cleaned up my home "office" set up a bit, as well as my kitchen, and bought some shelving to organize a lot of my junk better. Nothing super major, but it is all stuff I had been procrastinating on for years and now that it is done it has made a big difference on space utilization in my small apartment.
• Slowly getting back into some open-source work relevant to day-job stuff that could help (in a small way) with finding new work in 2022. Maybe.
• Survived! I mean, with all the crap going on in the world nowadays, I feel like this is important to mention.

What I Want 2022 To Be

• Find a new job. Hopefully not a stinker this time. I suspect that I will be looking at mostly remote positions with American companies. I've not been wanting to go this route, but there are (professionally and personally) some upsides that I cannot ignore especially with the tech that I have been working with over the past decade (assuming that I want to continue working with this same tech, and I think that I do).
• Stop looking at social media so much. For the little bit of social media that I use (Twitter/Reddit), I think there is some value in keeping tabs on, but mostly I want to stop scrolling through "current events" crap. E.g. local/regional/political subreddits and things of that sort. It just seems to be a feedback loop of negativity and depression and I want to break out of it!
• Go for a walk every single day. This is kinda getting into cliche "new years resolution about exercising" territory I suppose. But no, I know myself very well, I would never ever be able to commit to regular exercise at a gym, or even with home equipment. Walking though. I used to do this every weekday before the pandemic hit. My day job office was 3.5 km away from me (one way) and I walked there and back every weekday for work. Then the pandemic hit and I stopped doing this when we all went WFH. At 37 years old, I apparently either a) still have a high enough metabolism and/or b) don't eat enough junk food during the day, which has thankfully meant I've not really gained much if any weight over the past two years. But even still, I think daily exercise of some sort would be good physically as well as mentally. I've been getting back into daily walks over the fall, but I want to keep this up and make sure I do it every day in 2022.
• Read some fiction. Kinda self explanatory. I've had people recommending me books for years, and I never check any of them out. Not because I don't like reading, but because I just never seem to prioritize it. I think this also lends itself well to my other point about scrolling through social media less, because I suspect I do that to fill time. I just need better things to fill my time? Reading some books sounds like one good idea.
• Do some more pixeling. Whether this is for another 4x4x4 challenge or not, I want to get into this more. I know that my game projects in the past usually fizzle out at least in part due to art. I definitely lack self-confidence in this area, so I want to both build up that self-confidence by getting better at it through practice, and also help make myself a little bit more self-sufficient at gamedev by becoming better at producing my own art so that less of my projects fizzle out. And I just think it'll be fun.
• Do some audio coding. I've never really done this before. The deepest I've got into it is loading a WAV file or something and playing it through some canned API. Simple. For my retro-coding with DOS, I want to write Sound Blaster code. And this means writing my own simple digital sound effects loading and mixing stuff. I have to do some reading in this area too as my general audio knowledge is ... well.... lol.
• Participate in another GDR 4x4x4 challenge. I don't expect I will participate in all of them, but I would be very happy personally if I did at least one each year.
• Play some games. I own a bunch of games. I don't really play a bunch of games though. Again, I think that accomplishing this will help me also accomplish my desire to stop looking at social media so much (as I will be spending time doing *something* as opposed to scrolling).
• Downsize / Stop "hoarding" so much stuff. Over a decade ago I went and threw out a bunch of stuff. Shortly thereafter, I regretted it and even ended up buying back a few things I had tossed (e.g. CRTs). As a result of this memory, I tend to not throw stuff out. I've also lived in a small ~700 sq ft apartment for the past 12 years, so I don't really have a lot of space to store things. In particular, I have far, far too much retro computing hardware and CRTs (9 CRTs! wtf, why do I need that many!?). I do want some redundancy in case things fail, but what I have right now is overkill even with that in mind.
• Maybe move? I am a little bit unsure on this, as I really like the area I live in here in mid-town Toronto. But, it is increasingly hard to justify staying here in Toronto, especially with the building management where I live increasingly going downhill over the 12 years that I've been here. And with some large and disruptive construction work planned for 2022, that is really providing more incentive for me to consider other options. This will have to follow my efforts in finding a new job and seeing how stable it ends up being, of course.
• Stay positive! I've always been a generally "glass is half empty" kind of person, but this past two years has been especially bad (as it has I think for most people). It is hard to have a positive outlook with the way the world is going (personally, I am expecting the 2020's to be fairly bad economically). But I still need to try to be more positive I think. It's hard, but the alternative is probably not good for my health. And again, I think that putting social media away as often as I can will do wonders for helping me achieve more positivity in 2022! Hopefully.

No idea how many I will accomplish, heh. I definitely think all of this is fairly easily achievable if I put my mind to it though.

Downsize / Stop "hoarding" so much stuff. Over a decade ago I went and threw out a bunch of stuff. Shortly thereafter, I regretted it and even ended up buying back a few things I had tossed (e.g. CRTs). As a result of this memory, I tend to not throw stuff out. I've also lived in a small ~700 sq ft apartment for the past 12 years, so I don't really have a lot of space to store things. In particular, I have far, far too much retro computing hardware and CRTs (9 CRTs! wtf, why do I need that many!?). I do want some redundancy in case things fail, but what I have right now is overkill even with that in mind.

Hehe, that's a work in progress over here too.

I'm sitting on 7 CRT's (4x PVM's), but I should be free of a few of those by this time next year. I have a bit more space (1k square foot), but when my partner moved in with me in 2020, I had to "optimize" my personal space better. The apartment is a 2 bedroom, one reserved as my home office. Unless something makes sense to share (TV, fiction bookcase), when I want something just for me it needs to fit in "the office".

Something I'm slowly doing is getting rid of game consoles that are redundant or I'm not personally attached to. For example I never really cared about the Wii, which I don't need since the Wii U is backwards compatible. Xboxes I'm outright selling, and PlayStation I've been upgrading then selling (PS4->Pro->PS5). For retro/vintage gaming, I got sold on open source FPGA gaming with the MiSTer, though you'll never take my Commodore's from me.

Maybe move? I am a little bit unsure on this, as I really like the area I live in here in mid-town Toronto.

Ah, I'm a couple hours south of you in London. I've never lived in Toronto, but even still I've never liked visiting Toronto. Housing/rent prices got stupid here too, but frankly nothing on this side of the country is as stupid as Toronto. I'm basically stuck where I'm living now, which is fine since I like the place and the area, but I'm here until the housing market crashes. It's crazy, but rent for new tenants in my building are DOUBLE what I pay. Yikes!

I highly recommend seeing if you can take-over someone's lease INSTEAD of signing a new lease with wherever you move to. I did that like 6-8 years ago (what are years anymore), and that shaved off like 10-20% of the monthly cost even before things got stupid.

Stay positive! I've always been a generally "glass is half empty" kind of person, but this past two years has been especially bad (as it has I think for most people). It is hard to have a positive outlook with the way the world is going (personally, I am expecting the 2020's to be fairly bad economically). But I still need to try to be more positive I think. It's hard, but the alternative is probably not good for my health.

Yeah this. I'd say I've flipped a bit, being a very positive person that has grown more cynical. But I've never been big on MOST social gatherings anyway (hanging out with like-minded indie gamedev friends at GDC was pretty great), so lockdowns and staying/working from home are not end-of-the-world for me.

So in the grand scheme of things I'd say I'm okay, and I'll continue to be okay. If I'm able to avert my eyes to the sensationalism and the incompetence of the world, I can be productive and find ways to be content. Will things ever be the same? Unlikely, but we can find new things (or old things) to encourage and inspire us. If nothing else we all have the technology to connect, we just need to find healthier ways to do it.

I'm sitting on 7 CRT's (4x PVM's), but I should be free of a few of those by this time next year. I have a bit more space (1k square foot), but when my partner moved in with me in 2020, I had to "optimize" my personal space better. The apartment is a 2 bedroom, one reserved as my home office. Unless something makes sense to share (TV, fiction bookcase), when I want something just for me it needs to fit in "the office".

Oh jeez, yeah, PVMs. I have a few of those too (and I grabbed another a few months after taking that pic which was taken 5 years ago). The problem is I have too many 20" ones and they each take up too much space. One is broken and I have been it around keeping for parts (and also telling myself "you might be able to repair it" ... which may or may not be true) ... for 6 years and counting. lol.

I live alone, so my little bit of space is all thankfully my own to fill with whatever junk I convince myself that I want/need. But therein lies the problem. No externally applied pressure to get rid of the junk!

Something I'm slowly doing is getting rid of game consoles that are redundant or I'm not personally attached to. For example I never really cared about the Wii, which I don't need since the Wii U is backwards compatible. Xboxes I'm outright selling, and PlayStation I've been upgrading then selling (PS4->Pro->PS5). For retro/vintage gaming, I got sold on open source FPGA gaming with the MiSTer, though you'll never take my Commodore's from me.

This is definitely an interesting idea, and I keep mulling over it, but always end up rejecting it because, yeah, I do have attachment to all my old childhood consoles and games. It's exactly the kind of thing that if I sold, I would regret for a long time after. And with the way the market is for retro-gaming today, buying back in would be crazy.

Replacing it all with a MiSTer would save me a lot of space though, which is why I keep re-visiting the idea in my head! That or replacing all my physical game carts with flash carts for each system (most of which I already have anyway ... ).

Ah, I'm a couple hours south of you in London. I've never lived in Toronto, but even still I've never liked visiting Toronto. Housing/rent prices got stupid here too, but frankly nothing on this side of the country is as stupid as Toronto. I'm basically stuck where I'm living now, which is fine since I like the place and the area, but I'm here until the housing market crashes. It's crazy, but rent for new tenants in my building are DOUBLE what I pay. Yikes!

I highly recommend seeing if you can take-over someone's lease INSTEAD of signing a new lease with wherever you move to. I did that like 6-8 years ago (what are years anymore), and that shaved off like 10-20% of the monthly cost even before things got stupid.

Yeah taking over a lease for sure makes the most sense in this market. Since rent in Toronto was already stupid high before the pandemic hit, my 12 year old rent-controlled lease hasn't quite hit 50% of what new tenants are paying in my building (that's crazy to hear about that in London ... I guess all the people moving out of the city has taken its toll, at least a bit?)... but the difference between what I pay and what new tenants do for the same sized suite is still shocking. And it's likely to only get worse in the short-term. More annoying to me is the difference between 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom units being so ridiculously insane ... over $1000/month more than what I am paying right now to bump up to a 2 bedroom apartment in my current building. Just comparing to what I see right now via quick search over there in London, looks like my current Toronto rent would very easily get me a real nice 2 bedroom place (and it would on average be larger than what I see here in Toronto!).

Man, just think of all the junk I could hoard with all that extra space ... mmmhmmm. Oh wait, I'm supposed to not be doing that anymore ...

I think I will try taking it day by day, week by week this year: Make a lose plan for the next week every Sunday evening.

Going to keep it simple for 2022:

1) Prioritize my health this year (see if I can get a longstanding injury healed, exercise and eat better)

2) Ship Rijn : Isle of the Damned

3) Have fun with it all

week 1 review
I had set up a very simple spreadsheet to journal/schedule my weekly goals (three columns: date | plan/goals for next week on Sunday | review, daily summary). For this first week I wanted to put small achievable goals to get going, so I scheduled some mild exercises for Monday and Friday (1000 steps on the stepper) and light weights for Wednesday.

In addition to that, I started to try out intermittent fasting (been skipping evening meals) and I'm doing 4x10 half-vertical push-ups on the stairs (different step and distance between the hands for each set of 10) every time I go up into the attic (where my new me-space is that I prepared last year).

Also picked up work on my Arduino custom mouse project again (will post a write-up when it's done) which got interrupted by renovation works last year (and by moving my dev biotope into the attic).

And I wanted to put a different book into my schedule each week. Was going to start out with "Hearing And Writing Music" by Ron Gorow.

Did all of the above according to schedule except working with the book. Hoping to finish the shell for the mouse next week, want to keep up the exercises.

Primary goals for the year:
- Release Isle of the Damned
- Become comfortable+confident with drawing the human figure & character design
- Put in 500 hours of intentional drawing (studies, practice, and game art)
- Release an album of remixes of my band's music (music already done, just needs to be mastered and published)

Secondary goals:
- Release some mini-games (4x4x4 compos and others)
- Start some form of GDR newsletter with Deleter
- Misc fixes around the house
- Read 5 books
- Do 100 hours of yoga
- 100h of intentional guitar practice

week 2 review
Finished modelling and printing the shell for my mouse project. Next week I want to program the Arduino inside for different input profiles and a visual menu and status display.

Exercises were skipped on two out of three days ... need to get back on track there.

Once more I did not get around to reading or practicing piano but at least I managed to bring some order into the chaos of my notes from earlier last year which are now sorted neatly into three stacks: theory/scales/exercises.

the mouse (I am still not entirely happy with the ergonomics so I will probably redo the shell someday.):