STATE OF THE TRASH 2024

um... hi.

these past 9 months have been a very transitional period for me, both creatively and as a person. it has been the beginning of my attempts to finally get out of the rut i've been stuck in and learn to love making things again. i'm also recently undergone probably the biggest change in my life: moving away to college.

ESCAPING THE RUT

if you want more context, read this

i started this year with the goal to work on my projects for at least 30 minutes every single day. but predictably, i fell... a bit short of that. i only actually logged ~66% of days. so, there's definitely room for improvement, but... overall i'd say i'm still quite happy with this. at the very least, it's a huge improvement over years past and i can say that writing in that log every* day was a very useful reflection for me.

however, it was also quite burdensome in many ways. i'll get more into my college situation later, but for now i'll say that it's much harder to write every single day now, as the times i work are much more random. this is a problem since traditionally i would write in the log before i went to sleep, but it's much harder for me to do that now. additionally, i feel that the value of writing every day is subject to some pretty heavy deminishing returns and isn't really worth the effort. the only logs that were especially helpful to me are the ones where i took the time to do a long post, where i could actually reflect in greater detail. for many of the logs, i was just too tired to write anything particularly meaningful. my intent is to keep those long reflections while ditching the useless 1 sentence logs.

going forward, my new routine will be to mark on my calender everyday that i work, and then every sunday write a reflection on what i worked on and how i did.

BY THE NUMBERS

i know i haven't started making any music yet but i put it in there just for the futuuuuuuuuuuure

i don't wanna toot my own horn too much, since realistically this isn't that impressive, but the i think at the very least this represents a pretty sizable improvement over the 2022-23 rut. if i took these statistics last year, i suspect they would have (almost) all been much lower. i say almost because there's one stat that is glaring low: i have barely programmed anything this year. in fact, it's now been over two years since i released a game, and it kind of terrifies me that it's been that long. so there's definitely lots of room for improvement, but i'll get to that.

BLOOD (RED), SWEAT, & TEARS

the project that easily caused me the most pain this year was the first chapter of blood red harmony which took me a ludicrous 10 months to write. in my defense, i was definitely working off and on and i only considered it my 'main' priority for probably around 2 of those months, but it's still pretty staggering how long it took me to write just 6000 words. for some background: i have been wanting to write a short story for years but i just never got around to it, or writing any sort of story, until now. not even a story in a game. i don't know why, maybe it's as simple as just a confidence issue, but i feel so much more vulnerable writing stories compared to designing a game. i suppose it just has a lot of heart in it. whatever it is, it's often left me quite fearful when i write, and i often find myself editing excessively as i'm writing because i'm not confident enough to just write something that's bad and fix it later, even though i know it's just a first draft. this, combined with simple lack of experience, is why i've been writing so slowly. there's really only one solution, i think, which is to just keep going. the more i write, the faster and better i will be, and the more i will be able to just ease up and get words on the page. while grueling, i did finally manage to start enjoying the process a bit more towards the ending of writing this first chapter. although i'm far from finished, i'm glad i took up this challenge, and i hope i can face the next chapter with more confidence, skill, and maaaaybe i could try to finish it a little faster, too.

i don't track how many hours i spend on each project, but i think if i did, this website would probably be at the top. while i had a pretty low output of actual code, i happily hammered out thousands of lines of html no problem. in fact, i wrote more javascript this year than c or anything else. yikes!!!!! meming aside, this website has been a really nice project that always manages to maintain my interest. as easy as it is to work on it, though... well, that's kind of my problem. i have some pretty unrealistic lofty aspirations, and i want to be working on things that are hard. this website has had some challeges and i've learned a lot from making it, don't get me wrong, but it's not exactly my magnum opus. ultimately, i am thankful to have a project, a never ending one at that, which manages to always seem appealing to work on, but i also worry that it might pull me away from some of the work that's more important to me. i'll do my best to keep it in check.

making videos has also served as a similar outlet for me, although my motivation sort of comes in much briefer (but stronger) bursts. but i definitely see it as more of a hobby. gamedev is also a hobby of course, but i would definitely say that i take it more seriously and have much a level of... i guess 'pride' that i just don't have with video editing. i'm perfectly content to just keep making videos whenever i randomly feel like it. my only concern with quality is whether i'm skilled enough to edit my own trailer, which as far as i'm concerned, i already am. one thing i don't like about youtube is how analytics driven it feels - every inch of the youtube creator studio is just chock full of numbers and graphs and advice and how you can get even bigger numbers and graphs. despite telling myself that i don't care about """"making it"""" on youtube, i admittedly found the urge a little hard to ignore, especially after one of my videos randomly got thousands of views. so because of that, i'm not sure if my video output is going to remain consistent, or perhaps it'll increase even more. time will tell.

MAKING THINGS WORK

all my life, i've been worried about growing out of creativity. i've always heard people talk about it, i've seen it happen to some of my friends, and honestly, i don't think it's unfounded. in all likelihood, every step forward from here on is going to leave me with less and less time to pursue my creative endeavors.

i've recently just moved away to start my freshmen year of college. and while overall i'd say i've taken the transition suprisingly well, it's definitely impacting how i work. it's not that i have a super loaded schedule or anything (at least, not this semester) but moreso that i'm just in a new environment with a roommate and i don't always feel super comfortable working around. the truth is, i'm pretty used to being in relative solitude. i never show my work to family these days, and i'm used to always having an entire room to myself... so someone being able to just look over and see what i'm doing at any time feels a bit weird. i've found working in my university library is a good alternative, but it is an adjustment. perhaps not an entirely bad one, i have found myself spending a lot less time scrolling since it's a public setting and i feel more obligated to actually work. but going down to the library is a bit of a pain if i'm not already at campus for class. in some ways i think this might be kind of a good thing as it establishes a clear routine for when i work, but it's much harder to a little every day now as i've been accustomed to (which is why there's been a lot of holes in the "daily" progress log).

there's also been thinking a lot about my future career wise. for a long time, the plan has been to major in computer science (which i am) and maybe try to get some comfy webdev job or something so i can go home early and work on my games, and maybe one day, if i'm lucky enough, i could make that my full time job. i like this because it minimizes risk. i would love more than anything to just have a guarantee of financial stability so that i could work on what i want to work on. a lot of the general culture around tech really urks me, in part because it's very money driven... at my college orientation, people from my major were asked why they picked computer science, and the responses were pretty predictable. the money. and look, i don't judge anyone for that, but where i'm at right now is that i don't care about being rich. i would feel incredibly lucky to ever own a house. all i want to do is survive while still having some time to persue my creative projects.

and overall, i think the plan i've got is the best way to achieve that. but to be perfectly honest i am dreading getting a 'real' job. the idea of trying to make money off my creative projects sounds... tempting. even though i'm still so young, i often feel like i'm running out of time. like if i'm to ever make a living doing this, i have to make it happen now or else i'm going to have to get a day job i hate, and it'll be over. so it's perhaps natural that i've been thinking a lot about how i could be successful monetarily. i've probably watched every indie game marketing video and GDC talk known to man at this point, and i originally intended to try and crank out a commercial game by the end of this year, which is just insane to think about. i have even thought about putting teralite on steam and making a paid DLC, even though i know that game's combat system is pretty mediocre and i should really just leave it behind.

i know that there's a very small chance that i ever make this into a living. but what i've realized is that if i ever do, it's probably going to be from making something great. something that deserves support. and the way to do that is to not focus on monetizing my creativity. this desire to make money will make my games worse. i'll rush games. i'll follow trends. i'll push what i really want to make out of the queue just to... what, make a thousand bucks or so per game, at most? what i've realized is that my best shot at being successful is to not try to be. so i've decided that until then, i will never charge money for anything that i make. i don't want money, or fame, or "success," i just want to make something that really resonates with someone.

FUTURE TRASH

while i am proud of what i accomplished this year, there were still a lot of struggles. for next year, i aim to try and improve my output a little, especially inregards to game development. i have three major projects planned.

first up, i have finally started working on a game again. originally this was going to be for the september 2024 game of the month jam. however, i'm not making the game in godot this time, but in c++ with raylib. needless to say, there's a lot of technical challenges and learning that i'm going to have to do. combine that with balancing other projects, and i can 100% say it's probably going to take more than a month. but that doesn't mean i'm giving up. one thing i did while making teralite that, inretrospect was a really good idea, was to make a private discord server dedicated to the game with patchnotes and a channel for feedback and the like. at the time i thought it was a bit silly, but honestly, i think seeing that server whenever i open discord was a strong moivator. having a place to shout into about what i was working on was also very powerful, and it made me appreciate progress a lot more. each time i released and announced one of the 36 update builds to my friends on there, it really felt like an accomplishment and i think it's a big part of what allowed me to get through the 18 month development. i plan to do the same with my next game, although i might potentially keep it as a more permanent server rather than just for the game.

second on the prioritity list is finishing blood red harmony. i won't lie, i think after i'm done with this, i will never wanna do another novella. i feel way more adept at telling stories in games... it'll probably always be my favorite medium. BUT!!! i have struggled on this thing way to long to not finish it. i'll have to see how things go, but i hope i can squeeze in enough time for it to get at least a first draft done by the end of the year. i currently estimate it will be around 20-25,000 words.

the third big project i have planned is a complete overhaul of this website. as i've spent spent more and more time browsing the personal web, i can't help but look back at my site and see it as kind of... bland. the layout is very boxy and i think some pages lean way too hard on old web aesthetics. so i want to overhaul it and rewrite most pages from scratch. while i do enjoy graphic design, i'm honestly pretty bad at it. i expect that aspect to be quite a challenge but i'll figure out something. this overhaul would also give me a chance to refactor a lot of the code. overall i am actually pretty happy with how i handled a lot of things when i made this site, even if it is rather unconventional^*. [*] did you know, almost every page on my site uses two css files??? but a lot of the code styling and naming is inconsistent, and i might consider using web components. i also plan to move the site host to nekoweb to make it more discoverable and also get a custom domain..... the only annoying thing is to use git on nekoweb, i have to buy the $3/month tier which really is still a good deal but im used to having it for free so it's like aGGHHHH!!!!!! i'll survive.

lastly, i want to just sharpen a lot of my skills, and pick up one new one: music. i have floated the idea around of using famitracker or renoise, but honestly i think i would do best with just a simple piano roll so i'm probaby just gonna bite the bullet and try out FL studio. i expect to struggle a lot at first with making music, but i'll try my best! i also want to continue practicing drawing and continue with drawabox, and hopefully get through the rest of lesson 1 and maybe the box challenge next year... like many things, i've been taking my time with it but i'll make sure to see it through.

i've often felt like i've been working so incredibly slowly, but i think if there's one thing i've learned this year is that i have to be patient with myself. while i don't intend to squander it, i still have so much time ahead of me.

i don't have to rush. i don't have to be perfect.

all i have to do

is keep going.

NonGMOTrash
september 16th, 2024