So I guess it's finally New Years Eve! After all these 12 months, I think (for the first time ever in my life) that I spent this year well! I don't have as many regrets as I do with previous years, and I'm quite sure I achieved most of my many resolutions well enough. There's not exactly much to say when you've done well, but I guess I can spend this blog talking about what I did over the year, sort of as a recap for everything, and also for other extra stuff.
Firstly, what even were my new years resolutions? Well at the beginning of the year I aimed to learn as much and create as much as I could possibly. I wanted to improve as an artist, a programmer, and a writer. How did I achieve with those goals?
Well clearing out of the way, I am at least a decent programmer. I'm also a decent artist, and a decent writer. And I think coming from the guy who developed Delegated: The Cave Adventurer the year before, that I did well enough to call this year a branded Stephen Success!
I did so well in fact, that you could consider my new resolutions for 2025 just a simple continuation of the last year's resolutions. So whilst everybody jokes amongst themselves about how their resolutions failed, I at least feel successful. Even though I forgot about my resolutions in the first month, it was the environment I cultivated for myself that allowed me to follow my goals irrespective of my resolutions, which consequentially expressed the goals I already had in mind.
Without further ado, let's see a list of the things I did over the year and also some things from the previous year.
I'm being really overdramatic here, but in 2023 and earlier I was a child. I didn't make anything really good, because I was just getting introduced to programming and other things like that. I was just sillying around, you know.
But even though all my projects from before 2024 were very bad, I have a soft spot in my heart for them, in all their unfinished-ness, roughness, and just-genuinely-bad-ness. Cringe as they are, they at least allowed me to learn a few things about my favourite hobbies and help me progress onto making something decent for once.
I also archive them here in words because I can't really access them now that I'm on linux. I can't get Delegated's source code, so I can't exactly rework it, and "Crow Kid" I shall never lay an eye on in my LIFE.
I like Delegated a lot more than I do crow kid because at least with delegated the game experience itself doesn't have to be taken as seriously. Crow Kid on the other hand I can barely muster to hear a word of it because its a "book." It demands attention and demands to be considered seriously, as most books do - if you could even call a 26 page rant with no grasp on reality a 'book.'
Despite me hating these projects for being so bad, and feeling as if they taint my list of works, I recognise that at least that these projects allowed me to learn and develop my skills into something better. I urge anybody reading to keep their early and bad projects with them at least to see how much they progressed.
Other projects from later on in the year include:Through all of this, I picked up music composition, improved my skills in digital art, and greatly improved my programming skills.
Most importantly of all of these, I gained significant skill in planning and designing large programming systems, working with the OpenGL API, and also with SFML. I am at least good at C++, but learning ALL of C++ is an impossible task, so I am satisfied with what I learn now. I know how to handle polymorphism, pointers, and class inheritance which are all I think complex topics in C++.
Other things include me finally getting back into writing in my journal. It's been with me since the 16th of January. Now I write in its final page at December 31st. I suppose the next year I won't really have much trouble holding a new journal. Maybe I will have trouble with daily writing, but considering that I allow myself to write shorter entries, and also use my journal for other things (peoples names, ideas, small sketches for when I don't have my sketchbook), that will be a non-issue.
I also did try writing a C++ library for adventure games in SFML, but I long lost the source code. Perhaps I will write a good engine off of the code used to power Wawacraft:Evolved.
And the most pretentious/geeky thing of all, I switched to Linux. I use a Gentoo Linux system that has been with me since September of this year, and I have been using Linux since late July. That's good!
Now for the interesting part: My New Years resolutions. Copied off my journal, here they are:
Well, this is just for some sections I don't think fit anywhere else. Most of my presence online is thanks to Wawacraft:Evolved so even reading this you might be thinking: Where's the Wawa? Don't worry, I've been working really hard on Wawacraft:Evolved, and making a rewrite. Exam season came in the way, but I think before Jan 19th I will at least have the same 3d environment demo that I did before I started the rewrite. This blog is more general and expansive than Wawacraft, which is why I kept it here instead of on the Wawacraft blog.
But even though New Years doesn't mean much for Wawacraft, I decided to at least upload some of the archives of Wawacraft:Evolved development to my half-dead youtube channel. 2 Speedpaints, and a few archives. Beware though, I dont exactly think they're presentable, as they are pretty old and not structured. In fact, my whole youtube channel is cringey, but I post there so that's about all I care for.
https://www.youtube.com/@steffy1727I've also made some art for Wawacraft:Evolved. If I don't upload the videos, at least take this as a gift.
How will I celebrate the new year? Well, that's mostly: none of your business. But if my hunch is correct, I'll just be playing Wawacraft Classic and developing Wawacraft:Evolved. Maybe when I am done with the world, I'll upload the .WAC here for people to play.