2024 Retrospective

It's the end of the year, and time to look back on 2024.

Roadmap Goals

Earlier this year, I posted my 2024 Roadmap - let's see how I did!

7DRL 2024

I kept my 7DRL streak going with The Razing of Plum Parish. This makes five years in a row!

I think it's a pretty strong entry. In many ways it's a step above Catacombs (my previous "best" entry, from 2020) which was a sub-goal for this year.

There's a nice lighting/LOS feature, better procedural dungeon generation, and character skills.

I wrote about my plans for the jam, but sadly I did not write a recap afterwards. Something to improve for next year!

Travel to Norway

Iris and vacationed in Norway in September and it was amazing! I posted a summary of each day we were there, which you can read starting on the first day (or browse all posts tagged #norway).

Post once per month

While I didn't make a post once each month, I did end up averaging at least a post per month, which counts for something. The Norway blog made up a bulk of my posting so next year I'll need to diversify a bit more and try to post during each month.

I do have a few drafts sitting unpublished that should have gone out. The upside is that I will have some content ready-ish in the beginning of 2025.

Snowboard in Colorado

I didn't snowboard in Colorado, or anywhere else. Bummer.

There's still time this season (in 2025) as Colorado gets snow into April regularly, and sometimes May.

We'll call this a roll-over goal for 2025.

Release a game for $1

Another miss! I was worried about this goal when I wrote the roadmap, and for good reason. Completing a game worth selling is a large amount of effort.

While I did do a bunch of hobby game development in 2024 (more on that in bit), it just wasn't a consolidated and product-focused effort.

I've still got my eye on this goal, and 2025 might be the year!

Maintain diet and exercise

I did well on diet and exercise through the first half of the year, but I slipped a bit in the latter half.

I'm "only" up about 10 pounds - not terrible, but not the direction I was hoping to go.

All in all, I'm still in better shape than 2023 and ready to get back on the horse for 2025.

Post a 2024 Retrospective

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What else happened in 2024?

Plato

I was fairly busy with Plato work and travel. We've got some cool games and platform features cooking for early next year.

In April, I traveled with the CEO and CTO to Bilbao, Spain where we met and hung out with several folks from the Plato games team. We all had a blast and ate great food. Iris came along and we got a couple days of sight-seeing in Barcelona as well. (This trip would have made a great post! Maybe I'll still do it.)

In November, we had the annual Plato Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fun was again had by all, and it was great to see everyone on the team in person.

Odin

Early in the year, I started learning a new (to me) programming language, Odin. I have a half-done post with more details, and I really enjoyed it.

Watt-Wise Game Jam

I participated in the first ever Watt-Wise Game Jam, hosted by my friend and co-worker Chris Waldon and friends.

My entry was an old school first-person dungeon crawler, Green RPG. It's fairly slight since the timing of the jam came between 7DRL and my Plato Spain trip, and I got distracted halfway through by Odin.

Wrap-up

All in all, 2024 was a good year.

I think I did well on my goals and I have some clear goals going into my roadmap for next year. I left some opportunities for posting on the table and I mean to correct that in 2025.

Happy new year!