The End of 2025

Alright, I'm posting this one a little early, but the idea is kind of the same no matter when I post it. So here we go.

2025 was a mixed bag. I started getting focused on the things I want to try and do. A lot of those plans fell apart, sure. But that isn't the point. Trying to make progress is the point. And I'm happy with the steps I was able to make toward that goal.

So what are we taking forward into the new year? The most important thing is that I want to start making games. I want to be creative and use games as my outlet. So I want that to be a theme for me in 2026. Much in line with Cortex and their idea of yearly themes... my theme for 2026 is going to be The Year of Diving In.

So what are some of the things I'm going to look toward to further this theme throughout the year?

I'm going to make an effort to be more of a part of the game development community here in Auckland/New Zealand. Last month I went to a little co-working session someone organized one Friday, and there are more planned for the start of 2026. So my goal is to attend as many of these as possible.

On this front, I'm also going to attempt to attend as many of the monthly(ish?) events put on by Auckland Makes Games - an Auckland based gamedev community. And finally, I'm really going to try to make it to NZGDC later in the year. I think it's normally in September, and possibly normally in Wellington. So it's going to be fun to roll with those punches.

I'm also planning to dive into some form of regular live-streaming of my learning/progressing/whatever. It's probably going to be split between Twitch and YouTube, but we'll see how that goes.

Along with this is going to be an attempt to make some more YouTube videos about what I'm working on and the crazy problems I run into. A little diary/vlog of the whole process and then maybe some other little things from time to time. Let's see how that goes, right?

So since we're planning to dive in to gamedev here this coming year, I figure I can start by kicking myself off of the cliff/diving board and force myself to get start making small things with some fun little constraints. And what's the best way to do that? Game Jams, of course! So I've thrown my name into the proverbial hat of the most interesting game jam I could find starting in January on itch.io...

This is a really cool concept and I figure it will be a really fun and crazy way to force myself to work on small, focused projects. So what the hell is it. This is Round 1, and on January 1st they'll throw out the theme for the round and the specific task for the round. This is a little different than a normal Jam, in that they provide a task. So Round 1 may not be make a game. It could be something like making an interesting character, or something with level design, or who knows what else. But you have until the 15th to submit your thing. And after submissions, they do some judging, and everyone in the top 75% of the scoring will go on to Round 2.

I have no idea how this is going to go. 15 days seems and feels like a really good place to start. That will probably give me the amount of time a normal jam would offer in like 48 hours. Life is a thing and it will find a way to get in the way. I don't expect to make it out of the first round, but who knows! That's half the fun.

So screw it, let's make a thing in January. Now I just need to cram in some crash courses on using Godot so that I can make some fun stuff in it. Time to run around screaming and trying to get myself as ready as I can for the new year. See you soon!