Progress on goals
At the start of this year, I set myself some goals for the first half of 2016. Today marks the half-way point of that period, so it’s a good time to check on how I’m doing on each of them. I’ll grade each goal on a scale of 0 to 1, which should ideally average out to 0.5 at this stage.
Finish and publish 5 products: 0.2
Count so far: 1, being Rocket Mail. That’s not nearly half of 5, but the good news is that Mystery Game No. 1, which has been pretty much my full-time job lately, is close to launchable. Because I’m not the only one working on that game, I can’t cut features or make design tradeoffs as easily as I would on my own games. And I don’t need to do press or marketing for that game, so after launch (barring horrible bugs) it should be largely hands-off for me.
Launch a web game across at least 5 portals: 0.0
Count so far: 0. But once I have a suitable game (Dragon Attack), this should be achievable without much effort.
Spend at least €100 on one or more paid advertising campaigns. 0.0
Nothing launched so far that’s worth advertising for. Rocket Mail isn’t replayable enough to make it worth the expense.
Hire at least one freelancer: 0.0
I might do this for Dragon Attack sound effects and/or music.
Blog at least once a week: 0.39
Doing well in this department! I missed the Friday schedule twice, both because of holidays. With the “Mystery” part of Mystery Game No. 1 though, it’s becoming increasingly hard to find suitable topics to write about. But I have a series queued up about the AI of said game.
Attend each of the monthly local gamedev meetups: 0.5
I missed the one in March, but went to two in February, so I guess that makes up for it. Met some interesting people, most notably sound experts who might be able to help me out with future games.
Have at least three people play one of my games at each of these meetups: 0.5
Average: 3, so this is on target. I’m not sure how useful this goal is, though. And again, Mystery Game No. 1 made this hard. I can have people try one of my other games, but if I haven’t changed anything lately, I’m not likely to get any new feedback. Lesson learned: if I ever engage in such a collaboration again, I want to do it on less secretive terms!
Give a gamedev tech talk for the local community: 0.0
This will also be about the AI of Mystery Game No. 1, so it’ll have to wait until after launch.
Average (unweighted): 0.2. So… all taken together, halfway through the half-year, I’m not nearly through half of the goals. There are good reasons for this, but it does mean I’m going to have to increase the pace for subsequent games. That should be possible though!