Now let's get to the summary of this year, with the bad going first (just to get it out of the way).
Bad things about 2018
- Last year I wanted to get better at maths in 2018 and sadly that has not happened much, although I did do maths occasionally, I did not do it to the extent I wanted to last year - and there is a reason why: I did not really have a great plan, there was nothing I did that had a solid goal to work towards unlike my programming or even learning Japanese. With those I set myself small goals with things like learning Kanji and trying to do a couple of mini-experiments or creating small projects that could be completed in under 4 months. I did mention that I wanted to learn maths to improve my programming and I still do, but I now think that I should perhaps integrate it into my programming... somehow. I also did not improve on art as much as I would have liked although I did a lot of pixel art for Bounty Hunter II and my other games. I didn't really do much digital art or traditional art (except for the lame little doodles I would do in my lessons or, less commonly, at home).
- Due to my immense ambition last year, I started to feel the pressure of demotivation at school as I have to worry about an increasing amount of things like homework and coursework. Don't get me wrong, I still want to do the best I can but I feel like the ambition has died down since last year, to the point where I was starting to question the value of school again, like I did in 2016. I don't want to get too personal here with school but I was never really a 'school person'. Look, I can understand that a formal education is valuable to employers and it is required in some jobs like medicine or academia (maybe this might change in the future with apprenticeships). But the way the education system functions is pretty flawed in my very humble opinion and I hope to do a blog post on my opinions on education maybe at some point next year (although I am aware it may get some backlash). But I definitely learned that putting effort into something because you were pressured to do it or just because you may have been 'good' at it, can make you more likely to burn-out when the extra load comes in. Anyone who is in high school take note of this!
Good things about 2018
- I fulfilled my promises of completing both Bounty Hunter II and Red Blue Adventures: Crash n' Brawl in the time frame I set in 2017. I feel quite proud of this accomplishment - it's like I can set myself goals and work towards them as hard as I can and at the end be rewarded with an extra project or two under my belt. Both were quite a blast to develop and I have learned a lot from both projects; BHII is especially something I'm proud of since the game was the first one I've finished that actually has a clear story to follow and actual characters with actual dialogue. Although the characters are not what you would get out of an RPG game like 'Final Fantasy' - it's still a game with some sort of story to tell other than 'Defeat this bad guy and save the world'. It's more like the first Half Life game where a story is being told but there are a lack of stand-out characters (except for Gordon Freeman and the G-Man). I'd love to make another story-oriented game like this in the future - or perhaps I might already be developing one!
- I started to learn a new language which was Japanese starting in May, this can more-than make up for the fact that I have not practiced maths that much. Especially since the language is radically different from English in almost every way like the syntax and characters. It also taught me a bit about Mandarin Chinese through Kanji and I honestly don't see these symbols as weird signs from the ancient gods anymore. In fact I was thinking if I get decent enough at Japanese, I could have a bit of a go at Chinese - I could call it the Bay-Jing challenge! Anyway, I'm glad I finally summoned up the courage to learn a new language like Japanese, it helped me become more enthusiastic about learning a foreign language.
- Not only did I finish 2 games, but I also made more games than I did last year and I managed to push out their source code for the world to see. I also learned a lot making each of these games, which can show how I could accomplish a lot in a year. I learned a bit of 3d modeling, I finished a game in C++, I had a go at implementing a 3d design in a 2d environment (with partially working collisions) and I learned about the A* algorithm which are pretty cool accomplishments within themselves. I started to also learn some JavaScript (in which I'm making another small game on). I like to think that, what played a role on this was that I adopted a more focused and structured mindset on what I do, and try to not be distracted by anything that is not related to my work. This did help me a bit in school too, so I am seeing this play a role outside of my games. I also enjoyed my life a little more, which nicely leads into the next point.
- I started to really assess the value of things like social media or other things that may distract me. This was something that really affected me last year, I often went on things like twitter ,especially during summer of 2017, and I used discord (although I don't count it as social media) a lot during October of the same year. Later on I started to subtly develop feelings of anxiety and general feelings of unproductiveness. I didn't really contemplate these feelings until early 2018 where someone by the name of Cal Newport pointed out that spending lots of time on things like social media can really make you feel a sense of depression when you see someone showing off how cool their life is or how it can pull away from your work when you idly check if you have received any messages. I have adopted the name of this which is "check stimming" and it has been something I've been doing for probably longer than I'm aware of (since 2011 probably) when I would check my inbox for something cool.
These things have been in the back of my mind for a while. As a result of this realization in late April 2018, and after a lot of consideration and archiving I decided to let my twitter account fly away. I had lots of doubts, indeed I may have lost some potential friends, I may have destroyed one potential area of advertisement for my games and blog, but I was using it less and less as time went on. I questioned the value of twitter, and I honestly don't regret deactivating it. No longer do I have the temptations to check my messages or the tweets of people I'm following, (not that I cared too much about them anyways). I'm considering doing the same for DeviantArt, but I feel like it's a bit too much of a bold move to quit it cold turkey. I can post art and I use it as a way of traffic to my blog. But if my blog has enough traffic, then I'll probably make the move to pull the plug on DeviantArt and de-activate it. I'm not considering quitting Discord anytime soon because it offers a more personalized way of communicating with people rather than Twitter or Facebook. I'm not quitting YouTube either since it allows me to upload trailers and possibly in-depth videos about my games or anything that I think deserves a video - though I would link them via my blogs or website rather than directly promoting them on YouTube itself, although if there is a less centralized alternative, I'd happily jump ship. Maybe in the future I could also blog about digital minimalism too. I've also created something that I would like to use in lieu of any/most social media in the future which I'll show in the next section.
- I've made my own website and hosted it, I want this to be the place that I check the most things and update. I see it as a way to amalgamate things like my projects, my source code, art and my blogs so I can have a convenient platform to share my kind of content on. It was also a great way for me to teach myself HTML and CSS (which are quite easy to learn but hard to master) and web-design in general.
Beyond 2018 and into 2019
- I would like to improve my Japanese skills further and have a more solidified approach to learning it, as in I have one method that is the most efficient I'd have for the present and stick to that. I'd like to know almost every Kanji that appears on Japanese newspapers or media by maybe mid-2019. I plan to put my main focus on sentince-mining since I've been adding sentence flashcards to Anki so I could learn about grammar rules on there. I really hope it will help, I hope it will.
- In terms of maths, I would like to create a better approach to it, perhaps in the form of making a game that contains some form of mathematics (i.e. a game that uses SAT collisions or something like what Sebastian Lague makes). I'm not too sure about art goals but I would like to post at least a few digital or traditional artworks next year, for the most part my art goals have pretty much been on hold this year in exchange for things like making my games which I don't mind too much. But don't worry I'll still keep drawing and won't stop any time soon. I don't count on too much of these things being improved but it would be a bonus to see them improved.
- In terms of making games, I would like to see around 4 or more games being finished next year, because I want to keep improving, pushing myself beyond my limits and creating new projects. One of them includes a project that has stemmed from 'Magnum Foundation' which is a successor to one of the games I have released so far, which I plan to release late in the year. I would also like to reveal the other project which is more ambitious and again is a successor. I also plan on pursuing projects that are not games, like websites or perhaps small little simulations and miscellaneous things (like something on Node.Js or a calculatior) but games are usually the easiest area to come up with ideas for.
- I would like to also get a real job, to get experience of the real world - whenever it's a minimum wage job like working in the Krusty Krab (RIP Stephen Hillenburg) or some weird retail store. I've never had a real job before so I think working at any kind of job I can get my hands on would be a good idea for me to gain some experience of the working world. I could also make a bit of money as well!
- Since I have a website up and running, I would like to improve on its looks and make it look more like a website that one may look up rather than something from 20 years ago. I would like to make it have an art section. I would like to just generally make it a more usable place for me to easily post content and I could possibly give it some traffic.
- I would also like to travel a bit more, yesterday I went on a hike to somewhere outside of London and let me be honest, I have no regrets. It was quite fun socializing with the two people I went with (who were not part of my family) and appreciating the countryside more. In March I'm going to Italy (Venice) on a photography trip so that's something for me to look forward to. As well as that I'd like to go on more hikes/visits outside of London whenever it is by myself or with the two people I went with. I'm strongly considering to go to the land of the rising sun A.K.A Japan in possibly the summer holidays. My dad (who is aware I'm learning Japanese) suggested to me the idea and insists that we do something towards it. I'm quite euphoric of these things. It's nice to go out and travel outside of that little well called "London", sure London is convenient and comfortable (for me at least), but I will get a better appreciation of other cultures and places if I go there. These travels would be far more rewarding than the instant gratification and novel stimuli of social media. Which can lead me into my final point before I end this blog and go outside to wait for the final minutes of 2018.
- I plan to re-hash the way I look at technology, by using it to deeply cultivate the things I truly love, to interact with communities, learn new things and stray away from shallow activities like check-stimming and use it instead to connect with the world at large. The true value of when I meet people on the internet is meeting them in real life and establishing a deeper relationship that is harder to replicate by merely technical means like going out or enjoying a movie. I don't hate technology, on the contrary in fact, but misuse of it like anything else can lead into disaster and as a result, a less pleasant life. In other words, technology should be used as a tool to be controlled to enhance our lives rather than letting them control us (although I'm less sure about AI that uses enhanced machine learning algorithms).
This year has been quite a blast, I learned a lot and thought about things that were subtly popping up in my head throughout the years. It was to a large extent, better than 2017 in my opinion. I feel like I'm taking my life in a more healthy and productive direction, and I would like to continue this in 2019. I am hopeful it will be a good year and hopefully I'll have more wisdom and knowledge than I do now.
By the way, did you know next year is also the final year of the 2010s and when the last of the 90s (let alone anyone born before 2000) babies will be in their 20s. Happy birthday in advance, to anyone born on the 1st January 1999!
With that being said, I hope you all have a lovely happy new year!
That's all from me!
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