Blade Edge

I’ve read a number of journals over at GameDev.net from people who have taken a look back at the previous year and assessed their performance in achieving any goals they set for themselves, as well as re-aligning their goals for the coming year. This is a great idea and something I’m going to start doing as well. So let’s take a look back at 2008.

Major Happenings in 2008

• Single again. My second real relationship came to and end this year, however thankfully this one ended way better than the first one. She and I still talk and hang out from time to time, and it’s mainly because I was more in control regarding my reasons for ending the relationship. Right now I’m not interested in starting up another one (well, a serious one anyways), though I always enjoy a female’s company. Back in high school I determined that I never wanted a relationship because I had too many things in life that I wanted first – that still seems to be the case.
• GDNet book project. This was quite the undertaking for myself and co-editor John Hattan, and took the majority of the year (with planning going back into 2007) to get done, but boy was it an experience I’m glad I was able to partake in. Having contributed to a game development book in the past, getting to edit one seemed like an appropriate step up. I’ll be posting a detailed blog entry on the entire epic process sometime next month or March.
• More of a gamer. With the purchase of a PS3 I started to get back into mainstream gaming a bit more. 2007-2008 was a pretty dearth period of time for me in relation to gaming of any type. I barely played games on the computer, N64 or Gamecube besides Guitar Hero. It was both a matter of not having the time and not making then time. In 2008 I made the time to play games other than Guitar Hero.
• GameDev.net. In general, GDNet grew substantially this year. We added new features to reinvigorate the news section, like Tales from Journal Land, the Daily’s and Help Wanted picks. Our Facebook page has over 1,600 fans as of this writing. The community is very matured and we can have all kinds of crazy conversations without having to lock down a thread. The editorial side of things has evolved greatly – I now have a panel of editors to approve technical articles that I don’t have the knowledge to critique myself. It was a great year all told.
• Good health. Both mentally and physically this year I was in great shape. I never got sick to the point where I had to stay in bed, and I was never so stressed to the point where I had to make myself take time off from anything. Sure there was stress, and there were small bouts of sore throats and runny noses, but nothing on any notable scale. No major injuries as well.

Goals for 2009

I have three goals for 2009:

• Get back in shape. I’m currently at the brink of what I would constitute being “out of shape”. I can still do everything I used to be able to do, but a lot of it feels harder and I’m definitely a bit rounder along the midsection. I can go either way at this point so I have to act. My current plan is to start out with workouts at my gym after hours, then once I’m limber enough again to get back in the dojo for martial arts training. I’ll also be indoor rock climbing again. When things are back in full swing, hopefully by April, I’ll be doing karate on Mondays, gymnastics on Wednesdays and rock climbing on Fridays, with basic strength workouts (push ups, weights, etc) at home Tues and Thurs nights.
• Get back into development. At some point this year I’d like to code again. I have no sub-goal like complete one of my old projects or push out a small game – just to sit down and code every now and then and see what happens. I’ll still be using Torque Game Builder. In 2008 I don’t think I wrote a single line of code for anything, which is rather depressing.
• Keep on  making GameDev.net better. GDNet has a lot more work ahead of it, especially with a site redesign and our 10th anniversary happening this year. Plenty of work to keep me busy and heavily involved with the games industry – wouldn’t want it any other way!

Well that was insightful. I’ll be looking back on this post at the start of 2010 and we’ll see how well I did!