Ever since finishing school in 2017, I've always had a hard time feeling like I've "accomplished anything" in a given year. The months all blur together, and it's crazy how quickly I will forget something that happened or something I did.
To help myself with this, I wrote up a post last year of What I Did In 2022, which honestly felt good. So I figured I'd try again.
Sorry if you find these kinds of posts obnoxious. Hidden under the Read More just in case you do!
A few things I accomplished in 2023:
I wrote some stuff
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I wrote Chapters 3 and 4 of Soul Symphony: Abandoned Encore. This is a sequel to a webcomic called Soul Symphony that I made and completed from 2010-2015. Olivia Myers, former music maestro and magical-girl adventurer, lives life as a depressed freelancer after quitting her teaching job. I think literally only like 2 or 3 people are even reading this, but good enough!
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I wrote about JOMO, the Joy of Missing Out, when players have to work with different characters and resources in games.
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I wrote a review of Bittersweet, an album by Jamie Paige.
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My big piece of the year, which I chipped away at for months, reflected on nostalgia in culture and our personal lives.
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I wrote about Cozy Games, which bizarrely was recognized in a Critical Distance weekly roundup.
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I wrote about my fear for the direction of art and social media, a review of the writing in Sea of Stars, and other Cohost/Tumblr posts, which you can find in the #blogofkylelab tag.
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As usual, I've continued my work as a Writer working on Rhythm Doctor, detailed below.
Art and Game Dev
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Another sad year of barely 👏 drawing 👏 anything 👏 which is a huge bummer but I'm coming to terms with it.
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Don't have anything finished to show for it, but doing a lot of messing-around in Twine and RPGMaker, which has been good for practice at least.
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I funded the guest art and music for an upcoming card game, Isle of Swaps. I commissioned around a dozen artists, who I think drew around 50 total cards. Getting paid work as an artist is getting rough out there, so I wanted to help freelance artists the best I could.
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Still working on Rhythm Doctor and A Dance of Fire and Ice at 7th Beat Games
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We released Act 5 of Rhythm Doctor, which was our huge undertaking of the year! I co-wrote this with fizzd, and for the first time we were working with a completely blank slate with no levels made beforehand. I was recently looking through my Google Docs and was reminded how many different drafts and outlines I had come up with for this Act, some of which were long before the "athlete" story was even decided upon at all. I eventually helped come up with the character of Lucky (designed by our pixel artist Winston), and we got it all built out from there. I had a part in almost every sentence you see in the Act, I believe. I think I did an okay job, and players seem to really like the story and characters of Act 5, so that's a big relief.
Other Stuff
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I've been running @IndieGamesOfCohost for more than a full year now! I hope people have been enjoying this. It's been really tough to make the spare time for it, especially getting multiple developer interviews up per month, but I'm gonna keep pushing forward. Maybe "one interview a month" is a better goal to aim for. It's hard to tell how much people enjoy the efforts, but people do keep Liking and Sharing and Following so hopefully that means I'm doing something good with my spare time lol.
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My partner and I moved! Aside from Act 5 of Rhythm Doctor this was probably the biggest thing. It was my first time apartment-hunting, as well as finding and paying for a moving truck and buying big furniture, getting renters insurance and all sorts of annoying stuff. In past apartments, I was lucky enough to be invited in as a roommate after the place was already set up. I also helped my parents pack up to move from the house they lived in for 28 years. Lots of moving. Hopefully no moving in 2024.
I hope your 2023 was bearable! Take pride in the little things you were able to get done. Let's all push through 2024 together.
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