A Backwards Glance

So last Saturday I totally forgot to blog, until later that evening I caught my miss and then decided to just take a week off from posting. It ended up a nostalgic and somewhat emotional day of capturing a bunch of old VHS tapes, mostly cringey (but also amazing) movie projects and raw footage my friends and I made in high school, bringing back a flood of memories, generally happy ones, but also unearthing plenty of other regrettable things sometimes completely unrelated from whatever was on the tapes. Not to mention seeing footage of friends and family that have since passed away, always a reminder of how precious our time is.

It’s good to look back sometimes, but I also try not to dwell on the past too much, or at least in an unproductive way. I’m sure part of it is avoiding the uncomfortable emotional processing. But I also try my hardest to be as present as possible, which feels especially critical right now in this point in my life. Rather than get wrapped up in what could’ve gone differently, the best I can do is wrap up all of my life experience and use it to my advantage now. Leverage my mistakes and improve.

Which I guess that brings me to the fresh start of a new month, and time to review the goals from August! Let’s see how I fared…

• Weekly Video Uploads - at least 1 per week (not counting Shorts) - SUCCESS

  • I actually ended up going over this goal and uploaded six videos! Channel analytics all have those nice green upwards arrows too, and the most recent video is already seeming to go over really well. I stopped making shorts as well, which also freed up more time. Something about them was not satisfying to make and post like the longer videos were. I may randomly make one if I have a cool idea or something but I’m not making efforts to grow the channel with them currently.

• Make another small game - ABORTED

  • I decided to cancel this one fairly early on in the month in order to focus more on video work. Which kind of explains the over achievement in the previous goal. I’m not giving up on game dev yet but needed a break and felt like the YouTube channel is a higher priority to maintain momentum with at the moment. The creative constraints on the game jam I had joined were also a lot more challenging and stress inducing than I expected, and was feeling a bit out of my league. Surely some self doubt issues there too but it was causing procrastination in other areas, and I think abandoning was the right call.

• 200 eBay listings (6-7 new posts per day) - FAILED

  • I ended up making about 150 listings, which is totally fine actually. 200 was probably a bit lofty, especially since I didn’t really consider the extra time needed to clean and test cartridges. Regardless I did make enough game sales revenue to cover my bills for the month and still had some leftover to save, so that’s definitely a win.

• More Live Streams - at least 3 per week - SUCCESS

  • Just barely got this, exactly three streams for every week this month. Some fun streams too, the cart cleaning sessions especially have been great for just relaxing and chatting with people while still getting some necessary work done at the same time. And the epicly long streamaversary was a real highlight of my month.

So 2 out of 4 is good, I can’t deny some lingering disappointment in myself about giving up the game jam though. I’m starting to get a little nervous about falling out of the habit of working on games as well, since coding is still such a foreign language to me, it could be all too easy to actually lose progress and have to start from scratch again later.

September, I have some more aspirations. Probably overshooting on some stuff again, but you gotta go for it, right!?

• Video uploads for the month: 7 or more

  • So I quietly joined a creative challenge headed up by Struthless called the Alphabet Superset. (not too late to join if anyone is interested!) You may already know I’m a sucker for A-Z gimmicks anyway so I joined in to boost my video output quantity a bit, and will be uploading a weekly vgm mix with a certain theme for each (the first installment was Ambient, linked at beginning of post). Beyond that I have a couple of individual game review ideas, but the monster on my plate at the moment is a massive project that I’m still in the midst of researching/writing, and it’s looking like it could be the most work-intensive video I have ever put together: a comprehensive guide looking at every horror single game on the NES/Famicom. It’s daunting but exciting to be making something this big, hopefully that will be out sometime in the next couple of weeks. I think it has a lot of potential to pop off and be a kind of flagpole to help the channel grow, but even if it doesn’t it will be a great learning experience.

• Daily game dev practice: 10 minutes per day

  • As previously mentioned, I don’t want to forget how to code. I figure at least 10 minutes/day will keep me making incremental progress, and if I actually start my own open ended game project, I’m sure the momentum will lead to more than 10 minutes if it feels right. I’ve also found that setting a low bar makes a habit like this easier to start, 10 minutes is nothing compared to a daunting 2 hour requirement like I had set for myself previously.

• 150 eBay listings

  • I’m ok with the same number as last month, just maintaining the same quantity here is good since I’m upping the workload in other areas.

• Live Streams - 3/week

  • I think I’m good with the same number here too. Could possibly go for more than 3 once the big horror video is finished up, but not going to pressure myself, especially considering I usually stream for at least 3 hours or more and that adds up pretty quickly.

• Submit some speedruns to AGDQ

  • In other surprising news, the Awesome Games Done Quick marathon is taking place in my town, so I figured I might as well finally submit a couple of my speedruns. I have low expectations of acceptance since my strongest times are in somewhat obscure games, but I at least want to just send in something and see what happens. And regardless it would be cool to see the event in person next January, and hopefully some Twitch friends come through to visit!

A decent little list of goals I think, also keeping up with healthy habits and housework stuff on the side, and generally trying to stay focused and positive. I’m excited to see how these go and keep pushing onward. How about you guys? How was August and what are you looking to do even better on next month?

Until next time, have a wonderful weekend!