Where I’ve been:

So far my life has been divided clearly into academic years; the entirety of my memory separates years as from September to August. Each one with a progressively harder level of study and stress.

Despite the hardship of my final years of University my life has generally been better each year than the last and the people around me have been getting more awesome at each stage. For that I’m incredibly thankful.

I’ve been able to pursue the creative ventures I wanted to and many of them have lead to great places. I think that if I told the 7 year old who asked his father for “a CD burner” (Before I understood programming existed, this was how I cryptically vocalised my desire to make my own games) what he’d achieve in his next 12 years he’d probably have a total melt down.

Where I am now:

Now that I’ve graduated the change has been somewhat dramatic. The system I’ve grown accustomed to has completely gone and if I’m honest I haven’t managed the transition well at all.

Living hundreds of miles from all of my friends is hard. I see my family but no matter how close to your family you are; and we’re close; the social hole the fill is completely different to the hole friends fill.

Projects I wanted finished before graduation have slipped and are now stuck in development limbo. Strata is so close to being finished, so close, and yet no progress is being made. And it sucks.

This is the first year my life is worse than the previous year.

Where I am going:

With 2013 and beyond I need to take control of my life and steer it back on the correct direction.

I’ve picked up Unity and think this might be the right thing for me. It’s wonderfully simple and amazingly modular. It caters perfectly to my mix of skills. I’m able to utilise the programming knowledge I have with the artistic ability. I can almost entirely one-man-band this, which is an ironic phrase since the only aspect I am totally unable to do is sound and music design.

I’m down with #OneGameAMonth‘s efforts to get rid of excuses and get 12 games finished in one year. I’m not so sure one a month is reasonable if I want to be making a living from the games that I make, but I’m aiming to have the little game I started in December finished in line with January’s deadline. We’ll see what happens after that.

My two goals are to have finished a full game, and to be selling it.

I know making enough to live off is unlikely, but 2013 is just the start. By the end of next February, or March I ought to be able to call myself a proper indie developer.

So that’s that. Make a game and sell it. Rinse, repeat.