Life update

Hello everyone, it's been almost a year since my last blog entry and I decided it was time to come back to continue with this hobby. Many things have happened in my life since my last blog post and I became very busy which is one of the reasons I stopped posting new entries. I'm happy to share that one of the main reasons I’ve been so busy is because I started my masters in computer science in Canada. Studying my masters in another country has always been a dream of mine and I’m so excited to be able to have this opportunity.

As I reflect back on the year, I realize that with so many changes in my life it was inevitable to become so busy. With the beginning of the new year, I’m looking forward to reorganizing and retake the flow I had when I started this blog back in 2023 (you can check out how everything started here). This blog started out as a hobby for sharing progress in my personal projects. Somehow as time passed, I started feeling like it was just another task that I had to complete which led me to delay writing for longer until I just stopped. The start of the year is just the perfect time to set some goals for myself to avoid this from happening and filling more fulfilled with the use of my free time (which as a masters student can sometimes be very limited).

Goals

Here are some of the goals that I have for 2025, maybe by the end of the year I’ll do a “year in review” and see how much progress I made towards them.

More Blogs

First of all, I really look forward to writing more blogs this year. I won’t put a timeframe as I did last year since that takes the fun out of it. Besides, I might not have something to write about every x amount of time. However, I don’t want to just stop writing like I did last year.

More Game Dev

Releasing more games, even if just small ones or “demo” versions is one of my main goals of the year. This will allow me to continue to build my experience in this while working in my masters at the same time. To help me be more motivated to actually do more game dev, I spent more money than I would care to admit in last year’s Unity Black Friday sale (Although if you ask my family, they’ll tell you that I just like to spend money for the sake of it). I’m aiming to publish between 3-4 demos on itch.io and maybe even start a more complete version on one of these games.

More Reading

I’m a very avid reader and retaking this hobby a couple years ago has really given me a lot of joy. Last year, I surpassed my Goodreads yearly challenge by reading 61/40 books. I do have to admit that this is a combination of books and comics/manga, which explains the high numbers but I still think that they all count. This year, I’ll start my goal at 52 books, one per week. I look forward to surpassing it again but I’m setting it lower to give me some leeway.

Last year I just read the books and called it a day. However, I came upon a habit I started in 2023 which involves writing a small review about each book I read with the goal of being able to quickly look it up and remember key takeaways or recommend it to friends. Retaking this habit is another goal that I have for this year.

More Language Learning

Another goal I have for this year is to dedicate more time to learning and practicing other languages. It will probably involve spending more time each week in Duolingo to practice my German and learn French. However, it would also be great to learn French formally at some point.

More Gaming

I think this is a goal I have for myself every year and I’m not sure I’ll ever complete it but giving myself time to work towards my gaming backlog is also something that I want to accomplish. Having all these goals for being more productive with my free time is always great but I also think it’s essential to give myself some time for entertainment to avoid feeling burned out from everything else in my life. As always, the winter sale did its best at expanding my backlog but I look forward to playing Baldur’s Gate 3, Hades, and the Remedy connected universe games (Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control) for the next couple of months.

More Sports

This is another yearly goal I set for myself which I can never manage to follow for the whole year. I start strongly at some point and that same determination vanishes as quickly as it arrives. Hopefully having the university facilities very close to where I live will change that this year. I look forward to going to the gym, swimming and playing soccer between other things. If any of my friends from Canada are reading this and see me do nothing throughout the year please refer me back here to remind me of this goal.

Follow your dreams

It is no secret that my life dream is to somehow work in the video game industry. It can be a very harsh industry and it currently is not at its best point but this has always been a dream of mine since I was in middle school. Last year I wrote my thoughts on the state of the industry (which you can read here) and unfortunately it hasn’t really improved. However, I remain hopeful that it will improve with time which I’ll use in the meantime to prepare. I think it’s just perfect timing that I’m currently doing my masters and who knows, maybe I’ll forge my own path into the industry through research. These past couple of years I’ve been able to fulfill dreams that I’ve had for many years so this is just a reminder for everyone to keep pursuing your dreams. Before you realize it, they’ll become real if you keep working towards them.

See you soon!

I’m not going to put unnecessary pressure on myself by telling you when to expect the next blog since that’s one of the main reasons I started feeling as if this was just another chore that I had to complete. Having said that, here are some things I might write about throughout the year:

• More about my master’s topic and progress.

• News about my game dev projects, starting with a demo of a game I made last term that I hope to release before the end of the month.

• My experience as an international student arriving to a new country.

• Book review compilations.

• Productivity tips and my setup.

To be honest, the list you just read is more of a brainstorm of things I would like to write about in the year but I might not end up writing about every single one of them. Hopefully it won’t be too long before you read from me again. I hope you have a wonderful start of the year and I look forward to reading any comments you might have!