December 31st, 2024

Hello. It is December 31st, 2024, and so it is time for my traditional, once-a-year long Facebook post. My goals from last December were:

  1. Finish my first big Steam game, Desert Angels.
  2. Sleep more.

As is tradition with me, I have accomplished neither of those things, and in fact my sleep tracker tells me I got on average 30 minutes less of sleep in 2024 than 2023. Hrm. I’ll keep working on that.

As for game development…the vast majority of my time this year was spent developing Desert Angels. It’s grown a lot since last year, and I’m almost done with it (something something the last 10% of the work is 90% of the time)! It’s releasing next year, hopefully in the first quarter, almost certainly in the first half! I have learned so much about making longer games, making businesses, and working with a team! Also it has a steam page which you should check out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3048770/Desert_Angels/

To no one’s surprise, it didn’t quite go according to plan. In 2023 I predicted, after taking six months on it, that I’d take six more months to finish it. I did not take into account things such as prepping demos, Steam page work, various advertising, events, etc. so now going into 2025, 1.5 years of development (part time) in, well. The game is playable from beginning to end! I could technically release it (and get everyone mad at me when the ending is kind of half-baked)! I like game making and I’ll keep doing it and that is not a surprise to anyone.

I did make one other game with my long-time GMTK jam team, which is another casual puzzle platformer named Portalgeist, playable here: https://jamadoo-games.itch.io/portalgeist . We got top 100 again in audience polling, though I think next year we might want to try something a bit different? We’ve been making a lot of puzzle platformers!

Outside of game development, I uhhhhhh. oh wow I spent a lot of time this year making games. I’m still at Figma, still doing graphics programming there and it’s hard and fun. I’m reflecting on the fact that I turn 30 in 2025, and everyone’s going through the different parts of adulthood at different times. I have so many friends now that are married! I’m pretty happy diving into making things and traveling, and I’ll keep that up for Desert Angels’ release. But what comes next? I’m not too sure!

(hopefully more exercise because I am now keenly aware that I spend much much too much time in front of a computer)

I also started using dating apps this year because idk, people date and I was curious. The end result so far is that I’ve made a couple friends. I feel like that’s a third, separate thing besides ‘success’ and ‘failure’.

What goals do I have for next year? I feel like every time I say something here I proceed to ignore it for the entire next year. So let’s say…I want to release my game, and I want to figure out what’s next for me. And maybe actually get some sleep this time?

Here’s to 2025! where did all the time go