Time to review how we did on our goals in April. Spoiler alert, it’s not pretty.
Goals
- Write 3 Blog Posts Per Week and Publish 2 – Completely fell on my face on this one for the month of April. Part of this is just not making it a priority and part of it is I spent 4 weekends each doing a 14+ hour drive. A couple of those hours are the ones I usually spend doing my writing. This is not something I will be doing the rest of the year and is something I was hoping to cover by having a buffer of posts built up. So the real let down is the lack of buffer to cover for times like this.
- 1 Game Designed, Created, and Released Per Quarter – Much more fun to talk about this particular area. I did get the first game of 2016 deployed to a server on Digital Ocean, but did not keep it out there as the game itself is not really fun and needs more work. I also began work on game #2 and have been having fun working on movement basics and thinking of ideas. More on this later.
- 1 Book Read Every 2 Months on Game Design – Not much reading has been going on recently. I did get a few more chapters through the Art of Game Design and am will finish it this month. Only 70 pages left at the time of this writing.
- 1 Article Read Or 1 Video Watched About Game Design/Creation Per Week – I spent some time on Lost Garden reading some blog posts but have not taken any notes. I may discuss some of my thoughts on one of the post regarding multiplayer since I hope to make successful multiplayer games in the not too distant future.
- Get 100 People Reading Evolving Developer Per Month – Well I did not tell anyone about Evolving Developer in April, but I plan on telling at least 20 people at OSCON in a couple weeks (maybe more than 20, who knows). Not the best audience but last year I attended a couple sessions on games and game design so I know there are at least a few like minded people attending.
What Went Right
I made a successful deployment to Digital Ocean of game #1. This went much smoother than I expected thanks largely to an awesome tool for doing MeteorJS deploys. Game #2 has started with development already going at a much faster pace than game #1. This is partly due to a higher level of excitement about the overall game design and partly the decision to switch back to Monkey-X which is designed to be used to create games and surprisingly easy to be productive in.
What Is Not Perfect Yet
Too much travel which could not be avoided. So really, no buffer of writing built up for times when I can’t write because of other important life things happen. This was mostly avoidable and could be prevented by a little more effort. Additionally, still no progress after 4 months of getting a readership for this blog. Frankly it is scary to even write these things in a public space where people might stumble across it, let alone point them to it.
Corrective Measures
Better planning. I realized when I had a long list of blog topics I wrote more consistently. The list has shrunk since it only covered W1 (from January to the end of March). I need to make a new list for Q2. Also I need to follow the advice I read and start showing of my writing and games as publicly as possible and have a little tough skin to take any criticism constructively.