2022 was a really weird year
Mostly because of the Russo-Ukrainian War which literally breaks my heart and soul, due to terrible bad things that are happennig there, makes me constantly extra afraid about future and safety of my family (as this is first time in my life when my country's neighbour is at an actual war).
Career wise, it was a good year - I'm still working at Mercedes-Benz.io and getting better and better with TypeScript and internal tooling we're developing and using there.
And I just cannot skip the information, that I've finally managed to release my very first game on Steam !
Lessons learned
As mentioned above, I've released my very first game on Steam platform. I've learned tons of stuff related to management your product inside Steam's developer panel (releasing, preparing promo materials, scheduling sales, introducing updates and bugfixes, you name it!)
Personal growth stats
120 contributions in personal projects on github might not sound that great, but it's no surprise for me, as most of my side gigs was gamedev-related and I did them inside Construct 3 web-based IDE, which doesn't really support git (it can, but I do prefer simple cloud saving) π
Similarly to previous year, my Stackoverflow profile lives on its own (and this year I've noticed that I almost don't visit/use it at all) - but anyhow my stats has grown by 370 points (so I have 5545 reputation points in total).
Somewhere around the beginning of this year I've removed all tracking-related stuff on my website, so I don't even know how many visitors I have here anymore.
I can only assume that my most popular blog entry was probably the one about Publishing Construct 3 (or any NW.js-based game) on Steam as it was the only one that I've shared/promoted across different platforms and forums.
Social media
twitter (@lukaszkups): around +41 new followers (180 in total and I see this number varies every day, as I post very rarely there now)
instagram (@lukasz_kups): +7 new followers (124 in total, which is funny a bit, because I've removed all my photos and added only 1, gamedev-related one)
Entertainment
Books:
This was a pretty decent year in terms of reading: I've managed to read at least 5 (quite large) books:
Still reading Transformers G1 classic comics (9 issues left).
Finished Alien quadrology by reading through remaining 2 parts of the series this year.
Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games - besides being a great history about an iconic persona of the gamedev world it shows quirks and great stories on how that (gamedev) market worked in its early days.
Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry - a Jason Schreier's kind-of-follow-up to his previous title (Blood, sweat and pixels) but this time it shows a slightly different perspective of gamedev - great read.
Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation - best title I've read since first Metro 2033 book, I've planned already a dedicated blog post about it - because it's THAT great.
Currently reading Hel^3 - a post apocalyptic story written by Polish author, JarosΕaw GrzΔdowicz.
This year I've noticed that I'm way less reading tech news on social media/hackernews forum - I almost read those exclusively from newsletters that I've subscribed to (JavaScript / Fron-end / Node.js weeklies). I think that might be also caused by my greater focus towards game development.
Movies:
Parasite - finally managed to watch it! It was a very nice, different (like most Asian movies π) experiences that I've used to see.
Nope! - I was so hyped for that movie, but the resolution of the main mystery was a total failure for me π
Top Gun 2: Maverick - my favourite (full-length) movie of the 2022 - great shots (especially during flights), and an awesome full-of-nostalgia setting/story π
Everything Everywhere All at Once - oh gosh, while I do really understand and really like Asian cinema, this title was soo overhyped in my opinion.
The Ritual - good horror movie (available on Netflix).
Thor: Love and Thunder - while I liked previous Thor movies, this one has gone a little bit too much into comedy.
Stand by me (1986) - good movie, it has raised many nostalgic feelings during the watch.
Lightyear (aka Buzz Astral) - great animation, I see a potential in Pixar of making a kid-rated StarCraft movie here π
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - my absolute show/serie/movie of the year 2022 (and first ever anime that I've gone through with my wife who also enjoyed it π) - loved the story, animation and the soundtrack π (side note: I still doesn't really like the game (and I've tried it after watching the show again))
Cruella - such a great story from 101 dalmatians universe!
Bohemian Rhapsody - Remi Malek was a masterpiece in this one - and I've really found Freddie Mercury's story interesting (as I wasn't that much familiar about it before).
The Witch: A New-England Folktale - great role of Anya Taylor-Joy here - a great, creepy (different/original?) horror movie.
The Matrix Resurrections - meh (both story and general execution) - felt like a jump on the easy money.
Cold Pursuit (2019) - seen it by accident on TV and gosh, what a nice gem it is π Imagine Liam Neeson in a dark comedy that takes inspiration from violent Tarantino movies.
Games:
Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries (with DLCs) - this is the only game that I play on regular basis. I don't really rush campaign but play tons of side missions instead. I just simply love Battletech universe (and this year I've finally asked Santa for Begginer's box board game π).
Cat Quest I - cute little RPGish game I've finished somewhere in the middle of the year - already bought also its sequel but waiting a bit to play it through with my son as it supports local co-op.
Final Fantasy XV - I've finished half of this game on PS4, then bought it for Xbox, just to switch recently to PC π (and yes, playing it over and over from the beginning π ).
Final Fantasy VIII (remastered version, mobile) - I've finally bought my favourite Final Fantasy on mobile - personally I'm not really sure if I like original or remastered version of it, but optional hacks that are included in this release (invulnerability, no random encounters or 3x faster time) makes playing it again a really casual and relaxing experience.
Warrior Dragon - make no mistake and don't confuse this one with Dragon Warrior - I mean here an old MS-DOS game. I remembered playing it as a kid and went searching for it but couldn't find it for a very long time - in the end an Reddit community hepled me out π Finishing it after all these years was a joy!
Honorable mentions:
Loop hero - very nice indie game with a very smart repetitive loop that doesn't get boring at any point.
Vampire Survivors - another (indie) game that I play from time to time mostly because of its very clever designed (also repetitve) gaming loop.
Into the Breach - I've been playing it for years already, but I've learned recently that it's available on mobile so I've switched to that platform π
Horizon: Forbidden West - bought it for PS4, but after finishing Zero Dawn on PC I've found out that I really prefer playing it with keyboard and mouse (so that I'm waiting for its PC release)
Small Wins
I don't think it's that small win, but releasing my first game on Steam is the greatest one from this year π
Small failures
Similar to previous year I'm not really sure - maybe not releasing any other game during the year? And prototyping waaay too many games and not finishing them? I think that's a good point for this section.
Plans for the 2023
Start running on regular manner again
Spent more time with my family and offline in general (it has already begun since some time and I hope continuing that)
If possible, expand idea of Monolith Wars game/universe - either way it will be a turn-based tactical game or top-down shooter.
Summary of the summary
Besides the fact of releasing a game on Steam (yeah, yeah, I'm gonna repeat this one more time here π ) this was just another year - maybe a little more stressful due to war situation in Europe.
I wish you all a wonderful time during this and in the upcoming New Year - let's hope it's gonna be waaay better than ever!
Best,
-- Ε.
Click here to show comments