It’s that time again when I like to review how I got on with my goals for the year and set new goals for next year. Last year I had about a 70% success rate, but this year the success rate wasn’t so good for a variety of reasons that I’ll discuss at the end of this post.

2011 Goals Review

Here’s what happened to my 2011 goals:

1) Have great fun making Indie games for the entire year. (FAILED. Haven’t made a single commercial “indie” game. Made a casual game and 3 free games, did a bunch of ports of my older IP and started work on a big project. I’m OK with how it turned out though.)

2) Do some design consultancy for backend royalties. (PART SUCCESS. Most of this is still in the pipeline and due in 2012.)

3) Make at least $100K (I’ll aim relatively low for my first year back in the driving seat). (FAILED. Earned about $79K. That’s gross revenue so it’s before the cost of making games/running a business and, of course, tax. A small amount of that money is from my last month at Big Fish Games. Plus I lost money on the stock market .)

4) Build up the Vancouver Indie Meetup into something even more awesome. (SUCCESS! At last a success. The group has been awesome this year for sure and continues to amaze me.)

5) Finish my Toastmasters CC manual (4 speeches to go) – I took a break when things got crazy earlier in the year. (FAILED. Didn’t even go back for a variety of reasons. I’d still like to go again but I find myself speaking at game-related events quite often anyway.)

6) Keep fit and beat my Grouse Grind time of 56 mins. (PART SUCCESS. Didn’t do the Grouse Grind at all, but did do lots of walking and stayed fit and ate healthy in the Spring/Summer/Fall. Have rather let myself go this Christmas though, ahem.)

7) Go to Hawaii (FAILED. Just didn’t have the cash plus my wife got really ill for months, which is one reason why many things this year failed. Did go to England for my sister’s wedding though.)

8 ) Have an awesome Spring/Summer with my family in Vancouver and go on some roadtrips. (PART SUCCESS. Hmm. I did enjoy parts the summer because I was indie and on my own schedule so could go outside when it was sunny, but we didn’t go and do many things because my wife was super ill as I mentioned above. I also got depressed/burned out and didn’t do any work for months. This was very weird for me. We did go on an epic 2200km roadtrip in BC at the end of the summer though!)

9) Move back to the UK and have some money in the bank when I arrive. (FAILED. A friend offered to help me get residency here, which I thought I had no chance of getting as an indie. So currently my work permit is extended and the residency thing seems to be progressing well. There is some money in my company bank account, which is nice, but not much. So although I failed to go back to England, I don’t mind at all because there’s lots going on for me right now here in Vancouver.)

So in summary, uh lots of failures. Only a 28% success rate. Really not my best year for a bunch of reasons, although it did start well and has ended well. However things are lining up for a great 2012!

Bonus Points

Some other things I did that I’m proud of include (in no particular order):

- Made 3 mini-games via 48-hour jams (GGJ, Full Indie Jam, Ludum Dare #22) and started another one I aim to finish off at some point.
- Shipped 10 different versions of Holiday Bonus to mobile and web during 1 week!
- Spoke on a panel at PAX Dev and Casual Connect about being indie + at other local events.
- Began work on a great project with Klei Entertainment.
- Reached over 150,000 units sold for all my games.
- Continued to build the Grey Alien Games name via Twitter, Facebook, Blog, speaking and networking.
- Spring Bonus (my 7th casual game) turned out well and has made as much revenue as Holiday Bonus in under a year.
- Got Holiday Bonus and Oz on several new portals, shipped Holiday Bonus in 8 new languages, and did the groundwork for shipping localised versions of Oz in early 2012.
- Got a Provincial Nomination which means that the Canadian Government thinks I’m “worthy” and should help my family get residency here.
- Improved my acoustic guitar playing some more and brought my electric up from the basement so I play it more often.
- Looked after my family and the house whilst my wife was ill during the Spring/Summer.
- Was around much more for my kids this year.
- Deepened my friendships with some great indies.
- I got my photo taken with Shatner, and 3 other Star Trek actors!

2012 Goals

Work goals:

1) Ship Eets Munchies in the Spring(ish). Working on this as Producer/Designer/Script monkey with Klei Entertainment and Alex Vostrov.
2) Make $250K+ and pay off a large chunk of UK mortgage.
3) Make an “indie” game. (might only be a small Flash game, might be something larger)
4) Make a new casual game (working as Producer/Designer whilst someone else does the rest using my existing engine).
5) Ship Spring Bonus and Oz on iOS/Android and maybe more platforms. Ideally BFG will publish both because my own mobile marketing success is poor.
6) Make at least 3 jam games.
7) Do some Game Design consultancy work on great projects (have a couple lined up already)
8 ) Complete secret project in January or February.

Personal goals:

1) Do lots of walking and do the Grouse Grind in under an hour.
2) Continue to improve on guitar and post something on Youtube.
3) Do one or more road trips in Canada/US.
4) Have a great relaxing summer with my family.
5) Play a bunch of the games I have stockpiled on Steam

2011 Mistakes

I like to be honest with myself about how I’ve screwed up each year so that I can learn some lessons and keep on improving. Here’s a few “lowlights”:

- I didn’t buy my Big Fish Games options when I left, then later in the year they paid out a dividend to everyone who had them. I didn’t buy them because I really needed to money to survive and to invest in Spring Bonus (which has yielded a 10x return so far).

- When I was working extremely long hours to finish Spring Bonus on time my wife became really ill. In fact on the day I was supposed to ship it I had stayed up until 9am working on it, slept for only 1 hour, and was just finishing it off when my wife said I had to take her to the hospital urgently. I was sleep-deprived and stressed about the game and then my wife’s health was like the world’s biggest straw on my camel’s back. It was one of the toughest days of my life. We found out my wife was pretty darn ill and she had surgery which failed, and then she had chemotherapy all summer. This meant she couldn’t work, and we ate up our savings at an alarming rate, although a friend was kind enough to help us out a bit financially. Also I couldn’t work much because I had to look after the kids and the house and my wife. The good news is that she has now finished her treatment and has recovered and has been working again; so life has returned to “normal”. This whole thing wasn’t really a “mistake” but it had a major impact on the year and my goals.

- After I finished Spring Bonus I felt totally burned out. I wasn’t just burned out from Spring Bonus, but also from working at Big Fish Games for the previous 2 years. Plus my wife’s ill health, our money worries, and uncertainty about where we were going to be living (UK or Canada) all added up to a huge mindfrak. I got depressed, although I didn’t admit it to myself until later on, and did virtually no work all summer. I moped around, played the guitar a lot, and considered giving up working in games altogether. At first I was worried about not doing any work, then I took some St John’s wort pills (a natural anti-depressant), and then I stopped caring about not doing any work and quite enjoyed parts of the summer. But I knew that I couldn’t carry on like that, so I stopped the pills and starting drinking coke, which somehow motivated me to get going on a bunch of projects, and now I’m pretty much fine (and have given up the coke). Strangely it helps that it’s crappy weather outside because I don’t mind working inside all day. It was a very strange time for me, one that I’m not keen to repeat.

- I haven’t made any games all year “for me” apart from a couple of minigames. When I went indie again I wanted to change tactic and make “indie” games and do stuff I was really into. I haven’t yet done that, although I’m proud of Spring Bonus and think the project I’m working on with Klei is going to turn out great. But I still have that major urge to make something for me that I’m going to have to deal with soon…

- I still haven’t sorted through the photos of my dad, who passed away in 2010, and processed his recordings (he was a musician). I still can’t handle listening to his voice or looking at photos of him. I was planning to do that this year and spend a week or so dealing with it all because I figured it would make me pretty emotional, but I’ve had quite a lot of my own stuff to deal with instead. I can feel that I’ve got some stuff locked up in me that I need to let out at some point, and the sooner the better.

So there you have it. Life certainly is filled with ups and downs! Here’s to hoping that 2012 has a few more ups.

I wish you all the best in 2012. Happy New Year!

photo by indigo_jones

I’ve been doing a lot of research for months into various different platforms so that I can decide which ones to choose to develop for as an Indie. The decision has not been easy and has involved lots of talking to people and reading of post-mortems and sales stats. Finally I think I’ve reached a decision!

Here’s a summary of the platforms I’ve considered and what I think about them:

Facebook

I have been working on a Facebook game for a year at BFG so it’s an area I know pretty well. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that the golden days are over and now you need a lot of money to market your game.

Also you need a team of at least 5 people: Producer/Designer, client programmer, server programmer, artist, metrics/marketing person. Obviously some of those roles could really do with MORE than 1 person. This pretty much rules it out for me unless I get funding and start a Facebook game studio.

Alternatively I could make an MMO, except that it would probably take years and require a similar size team, so that’s not appealing to me.

XBLIG

I was attracted to this platform because XNA is fun and many of the games on XBLIG are, let’s just say, slightly under par (some are really excellent though!). This gave me the confidence that I could make a mark there as a one person team.

However, the sales figures really are dismal and some of the experienced devs are quitting the platform. This is a huge shame because that makes it pretty much non-viable to make XBLIG games full-time. I might still however make a game or two just for fun and so I can say “my game is on XBox”

Having said all that, I am working with someone who has done a great job converting my Holiday Bonus game to XBLIG in a very short time, and who will be converting Easter Bonus soon and maybe more games. So we’ll see how it goes and if it is worth continuing. I realise that casual games don’t do that well on the platform, but still I’m interested to see what happens.

XBLA

To get on XBLA you need to work for a good year or more in C++ with a decent team. This would require funding for me to do. Also there are annoying contracts with Microsoft to wade through and lots of specialist know-how required. Luckily I know several people who are very knowledgeable in these areas who could help me out. However, I don’t think I want to leap into this arena just yet.

PSN/Wiiware

I don’t even have a PS3 and I don’t use my Wii much, so having to write a game in C++ for these platforms, which sell less copies than on XBLA anyway, isn’t appealing.

Handheld e.g. DS, PSP etc.

I have no experience of programming for these devices. I’m sure I could figure it out and get help from some people I know, but I would see these as a secondary platform to launch on after you had hit the main consoles first. I don’t have any decent sales stat info for these platforms. Anyone got some?

Spectrum 48K / Commodore 64

Only kidding.

Kindle

Haven’t investigated this much. Apparently there are tons of units sold, but there aren’t very many games and I don’t know how many of the users are gamers anyway. Plus there’s the fact that the games would have to be in black and white which I find a bit boring. I will keep an eye on this platform in case it takes off and I need to most fast.

Android phone and Windows Phone 7

Android could be interesting but I don’t want to put anything on it until I’ve at least tried iPhone first. Also Windows Phone 7 doesn’t yet have a decent number of units sold, but that may change. Having said that I may have something in the pipeline for WP7…

Other mobile/cellphone

I’m just not interested in supporting the myriad of different form factors and OSes.

Android and Windows 7 tablets

Again, these platforms may take off, but until they do, and until I’ve tried iPad, I’m not interested.

Flash

I’ve been using Action Script 3 for a year at Big Fish and recently I’ve got to know the core components better. I believe I could bang out some Flash games pretty quickly and try out stuff like Flash Game License and ad support etc. However, it doesn’t seem like there’s that much money in them (and I need money to feed my family of four). Again I’m tempted to make one or two just for fun, maybe at a game jam with Flash Punk just so I have an online game that people can play anywhere without a download.

Also Flash could be good to advertise a download game by putting a mini-version out there (including on Facebook). This has been done plenty of times before.

PC/Mac/Linux

PC and Mac are my areas of expertise, at least for Casual Games. I’m that sure getting my games running on Linux wouldn’t be too tough based on what I’ve heard. The real question is should I make Casual Games or switch to something more “Indie” like an Action game, or RPG or strategy? I’m tempted to keep some casual games ticking over in the background, by working with some other partners, whilst I focus my main attention on some non-casual games.

Also I’d have to sell non-casual games differently because the casual portals wouldn’t be interested in them so building up an audience on my own site, using affiliates, and getting on Steam and Direct2Play etc. would be the way to go. Plus I want to see how the new Mac App store performs with my Holiday Bonus and Oz games.

This will probably happen in 2011, but after I do something else first … read on.

iPhone and iPad

The iPhone is super saturated, but also has a ton of units out there. Some games can still do very well on it, but personally I don’t like the form-factor. It’s too small and fiddly and limits the type of games you can make. Mind you if I made a great game on a different platform, it could be a no-brainer to get a mini-conversion done for iPhone.

iPad is a different matter. I love the form factor and I think the device is great. It’s also encouraging that people aren’t all selling games for $0.99. Sure there are less iPads out there than iPhones but good and even mediocre games seem to be doing pretty well.

Therefore I’m going to start with iPad in 2011. I can’t release any new IP until my non-compete with Big Fish expires in mid-April, but I can at least figure out the platform and get something ready to launch. Also I’m working with someone else to convert some of my existing IP to iPad in the near future. That will be a good test of the platform and will help to inform my future decisions.

If the iPad stuff goes well, I can consider going cross platform to PC/Mac/Linux and cellphones. We’ll see what happens…

What Language?

If I do any PC/Mac/Linux stuff I’ll stick with BlitzMax because it’s awesome, easy and fast, and works on all of them seamlessly.

For iPad I have a choice of learning Objective C, or using something like Unity which means that I can port it to other platforms fairly easily. However, there may be a new language called “monkey” about to enter the arena. It’s by the creator of BlitzMax and it will be cross-platform. This interests me very much because I already know Blitz, so if it’s similar I have a head start, and also being cross-platform future-proofs me should I make an awesome game that I need to spread far and wide (which I plan to of course!)

So there you have it, I should end up with several games on XBLIG, several on iPad, a couple in the Mac Store, some casual downloads via partners, possibly an Indie download title, perhaps something on iPhone/Android/WP7, and maybe even something in Flash. Sounds ambitious I know, but I like aiming high! It’s certainly going to be a productive year in terms of products shipped, whatever happens. Of course plans, like wars, are subject to change, but that’s what I’m planning to do for now. Wish me luck!

Have I missed out a platform you think deserves a mention? Or have I missed some important piece of research that will change my mind? Please let me know your thoughts!

About this time of year I like to review the goals I set for myself in the current year and think about my goals for the next year. So here’s a rundown:

2010 Review

Here’s what happened to my 2010 goals:

1) Finish recently started secret BFG project and watch it make tons of money. (This project turned out to be My Tribe on Facebook and I can’t comment on it’s financial performance.)

2) Release a top 10 download title. (Unfortunately this title was cancelled so BFG could use my team and I on My Tribe, it’s unlikely to ever be finished, which is a shame because it was turning out very nicely.)

3) Get married (Yep, did this on July 5th on a beach in Vancouver )

4) Complete 9 more toastmasters speeches so I get the competent communicator award. (I did speech number 6 and then took a break from Toastmasters due to be overwhelmed with stuff. I’m aiming to go back through, see 2011 goals below.)

5) Get a Canadian driving license (Passed with flying colours.)

6) Build up my Aikido club, get some decent mats, and become profitable as a club. (Built up the club to 5 regular members and the venue got some decent mats, still not profitable though.)

7) Build up my health and fitness more. (Did tons of walking and also the Grouse Grind several times plus a week-long Aikdio seminar. Definitely felt fit this summer.)

8 ) Improve life work balance. (I took 2 weeks unpaid vacation so I could spend it with my family and I didn’t stay late at work much, although I did quite a few after work social/networking events. When I’m Indie again in 2011, my life work balance will improve a ton.)

9) Sort out my looming tax situation. (Did both Canadian and UK tax returns and managed to pay a huge unexpected Canadian tax bill – it wasn’t pleasant, but it’s done now.)

Based on my own calculations I’d say I had about a 70% success rate in meeting my goals, which isn’t bad.

I also did a whole bunch of other stuff I’m proud of including:

- Saved up enough money to go Indie again in 2011, yeah! This is as a result of careful budgeting, getting a $500 discount on my rent, and Helen (my wife) getting a job later in the year.
- Co-created the Vancouver Indie Meetup group and made a ton of amazing friends.
- Learnt a ton about Facebook game instrumentation and metrics. Also learned some interesting new ways of thinking about business.
- Converted some of my existing IP to XBLIG in only two weeks! (it’s due out soon)
- Competed in several game jams to make mini-games.
- Learned XNA and got a test game running on my Xbox
- Gained over 30% net profit in my first 6 months trading on the Stock Market.
- Hosted a week-long Aikido seminar in Vancouver.
- Did the Grouse Grind in under an hour.
- Drove the family to Osoyoos (the only Desert in Canada) for a vacation.
- Had a weekend honeymoon sans children on Bowen Island.
- Improved my acoustic guitar playing a lot and learned the basics of slide guitar.
- Cobbled together the money to pay an unexpected $16,000 tax bill!
- Finished my orthodontic treatment! My braces are off but I have to wear a retainer for a while.
- Had some mercury amalgam fillings removed (3 down, 3 to go)

2011 Goals

So then, here are my 2011 goals:

1) Have great fun making Indie games for the entire year.
2) Do some design consultancy for backend royalties. (contact me if you are interested)
3) Make at least $100K (I’ll aim relatively low for my first year back in the driving seat).
4) Build up the Vancouver Indie Meetup into something even more awesome.
5) Finish my Toastmasters CC manual (4 speeches to go) – I took a break when things got crazy earlier in the year.
6) Keep fit and beat my Grouse Grind time of 56 mins.
7) Go to Hawaii
8 ) Have an awesome Spring/Summer with my family in Vancouver and go on some roadtrips.
9) Move back to the UK and have some money in the bank when I arrive.

2010 Mistakes

It’s also good to review what mistakes I made in 2010 to make sure that I have learned from them. I made some pretty big ones:

- My dad was very ill over Christmas 2009 (he had been in ill health for years). Luckily he recovered and I thought about flying back to the UK to see him to spend some quality time with him in case he got very ill again and didn’t make it. But I didn’t go because we were crunching at Big Fish on a Facebook game and I didn’t have any spare money for flights. In late March he suddenly became seriously ill again and I flew over to see him and managed to speak to him for a minute or so before he passed away on March 27th. Apart from the whole experience being extremely traumatic, I deeply regret not following my instincts and going over to spend time with him earlier in the year. Jobs come and go, and you can pay back credit cards, but you can’t bring back a loved one for one last conversation. That’s the lesson I learned, real hard. Don’t make the same mistake that I did or you’ll regret it forever.

- On a similar note I realised after my dad passed away that I should be spending more time with my boys and guiding them along as they were having troubles with various things. I tried to negotiate working part time at Big Fish during the summer, but they wouldn’t allow it, so in the end I took two weeks of unpaid vacation (the max allowed by my contract) in a single block at the end of the summer. Perhaps I should have fought harder, or even just quit, but it would have really screwed up our finances that had just taken a beating from a massive unexpected tax bill. I just really needed the time off to spend with my family and to process my emotions. As a result I’ve mostly locked my thoughts and emotions in (not healthy) so I can deal with them in January when I’m not at work all day. There may have been a better way I could have dealt with all this, although at least I did lots of acoustic guitar playing which has helped. Also I believe I can spend even more time with my boys being a good influence and teaching them stuff, so I’ll need to really get on the case with that in 2011.

Well, there you go, two very personal mistakes that stand out the most to me. There have been tons of others too I’m sure, but I prefer to focus on all the stuff I did achieve in 2010, especially with my father passing away early on, as that rather “knocked me for six”.

So what about your goals for 2011, and your successes and mistakes in 2010? Please let me know!

Now is a good time to review the goals I set for 2009 and think about my goals for 2010, so here goes…

2009 Review

Here’s what happened to my 2009 goals:

1) Release my next game mid-late Jan. (Almost. Unwell Mel was released mid-Feb and got to no.2 on BFG.)

2) Develop 2 hit games for BFG that will hit no.1 and gross at least $1,000,000 each. One of these may be a new genre… (Didn’t happen (yet). Unwell Mel took a while to localize into 4 languages inc. Japanese. Current game is taking quite a while but is looking damn good.)

3) Start an Indie/Casual Game scene in Vancouver. (Had a few small meetups and one big one but have not started a scene.)

4) Meet some really interesting people. (For sure. Developers, new agers, fun friends.)

5) Play more games at home. (Did this mainly on the XBox 360.)

6) Start an Aikido club in Vancouver. (Succeeded in September.)

7) Get married. (Had an engagement party in the UK when we went back there for a holiday but the wedding will most likely be in the spring now.)

Generally most goals were met, so I’m pretty happy with that.

Other achievements include:

- Joined Toastmasters and did my Icebreaker speech.
- Did several professional speeches and a workshop.
- Learned Actionscript 3
- Bought a car (Subaru Impreza Wagon)
- Bought a bike and did lots of cycling to work.
- Gave up alcohol all year.
- Had an awesome summer.

2010 Goals

So then, here are my 2010 goals:

1) Finish recently started secret BFG project and watch it make tons of money.
2) Release a top 10 download title (in progress).
3) Get married (in Spring or Summer)
4) Complete 9 more toastmasters speeches so I get the competent communicator award.
5) Get a Canadian driving license (my partner drives the car because my UK license is not valid here!)
6) Build up my Aikido club, get some decent mats, and become profitable as a club.
7) Build up my health and fitness more.
8 ) Improve life work balance.
9) Sort out my looming tax situation. (It’s complicated having to do tax returns in two countries.)

That’ll do for now. In reality I have tons of goals (some are more like outstanding tasks), almost too many, but it’s probably best just to focus on a few so as not to get overwhelmed. As I complete some goals I can choose new ones, and I’m sure that new ones will crop up anyway as the year progresses.

2009 Mistakes

And now the time for honesty; what mistakes did I make in 2009?

- I crunched really hard to finish Unwell Mel and didn’t see my family for about 6 weeks at a time when they really needed me (we had just moved continent). I wish I could have gone about this differently somehow but I had just started a new job and my boss set a tight launch date for the game…Really I should have got more of the game done in England before I moved, but moving continent takes a lot of time to organise.

- I had some trouble adjusting to being an employee in a company with a tight (but normal) anti-compete clause (I was an independent developer used to running my own company before). This lead me to to feel frustrated and have some probably not very “tactical” conversations with my boss.

- I lost a $1000 a month income stream (which I really needed) and fighting over it probably caused problems in the long run too. Can’t really talk about this one much…

- I got off to a slow start with my new game. Partly this was due to the learning curve of making sure that my team had enough stuff to do each day and, because they were new to making games, they needed a lot of guidance. This meant that I spent too little time doing what I was supposed to be doing (designing and making prototypes). Also because I tried to do things the “proper” old-fashioned way and made a giant design doc before starting coding in earnest, there wasn’t much visible progress to show. In future I don’t want to have a team until I have made prototypes and thrashed out the design so that I can focus and be productive.

- I waited too long to set up an Aikido club. I was searching for the perfect venue when in reality it didn’t exist. When I finally realised this, I found something that would work and just started the club. Now I need to refine things, but at least I’ve been teaching since September.

- I’ve hardly played the guitar, or made any music. Also haven’t done many hobbies except play games. Need to fix that, but need more of that illusive “free time”.

- Haven’t explored Canada much or gone skiing or snowboarding. We didn’t have a car until fairly recently due to our tight financial situation (it costs a lot of money for a family of 4 to live in a nice location in Vancouver). We now have a car and our finances are a bit better and, in the words of the Beatles, “getting better all the time”, and so we should be able to explore more and do cool stuff now.

- Haven’t eaten that healthily and I’m less fit than in 2008. I’m doing less Aikido (and the Aikido I’m doing is less intense) so I’ve lost fitness although cycling in the summer helped. Now the winter has set in, and I recently had swine flu, I’ve lost some fitness which I have started to reclaim. Also it’s very easy to eat unhealthily here, and the office has lots of “candy” and “soda” in it, which is nice, but oh too tempting. These things can, and will be, easily improved in 2010.

- We rented a house that was too expensive for 10 months, and although our current house costs less, it’s still too expensive really. They are both great houses in a great location but our finances have felt very tight all year, lots of juggling going on, and not much of a feeling of financial freedom. One good thing is that since attending the Millionaire Mind seminar in the spring we set up a “jars” system that is working very well for us and we now have some savings and contingency money and money in other jars (bank accounts), and I even have a pension, gasp!

There are probably tons more, but those are the biggies.

So what about your goals for 2010, and your successes and mistakes in 2009? Please let me know!

Ah it’s this time of year again. OK so here’s what 2008 went like (you can read my 2007 review and 2008 goals here:

2008 Professional Goals Review

1) Develop 2-3 hit games for Big Fish Games (Uh, I actually released 0, but the next one is due out in like 2 weeks, and then we are gonna work like crazed developers on the next games. I’m gonna move this goal to 2009!)

2) My games will reach No. 1 in the BFG Top 10 and on other sites too (See no.1)

3) One or more of my games will gross $1,000,000. (based on past performance, this is a realistic and achievable target – just need around 100,000 sales (See no.1)

4) Start the next big “genre”! (gotta think big ) (See no.1. Hmm, I’m seeing a lot of deferring here!)

5) Meet lots of you at Casuality (Ah yes, it was cool in Amsterdam. Didn’t make it to the one on Seattle. Also met more of you at UK and Vancouver Indie meet ups, which was nice.)

6) Work on an “action” game as a hobby. (Totally failed. I’m not gonna move this to 2009, if it happens it happens.)

7) Continue improving my skills and my game framework. (Yeah, this happened. In fact I sold my framework to BFG for a tidy sum )

8 ) Continue having great fun doing a job that I love! (Absolutely this happened!)

9) Ramp up affiliate sales from my sites and blogs, via more newsletter subscriptions, more blog posts, more marketing etc. (Didn’t do this anywhere as much as I’d have liked to, but I did make some half decent cash at it, so that’s OK. Now that I’m an employee I won’t be doing this any more.)

The main big thing not on that list was getting hired by BFG to work in their new Vancouver studio. That was a surprise!

Personal Goals Review

It’s worth mentioning a few personal goals I achieved such as:
- Got my 2nd Dan in Aikido
- Stopped drinking alcohol (although I started after moving to Vancouver in November, pretty sure I’ll stop again now though).
- Been going to bed and getting up on time more or less (I used to stay up too late programming and playing games).
- Got pretty fit when training for my 2nd Dan, but unfortunately had a hernia! Didn’t stop me though

2009 Goals

If you are still with me then here’s the 2009 goals:

1) Release my next game mid-late Jan
2) Develop 2 hit games for BFG that will hit no.1 and gross at least $1,000,000 each. One of these may be a new genre…
3) Start an Indie/Casual Game scene in Vancouver.
4) Meet some really interesting people.
5) Play more games at home.
6) Start an Aikido club in Vancouver.
7) Get married (I’ve already proposed and been accepted, so the rest is just admin ;-p)

There’ that’ll do…Oh I also want to learn to Ski and Snowboard seeing as I’m now living so close to Whistler mountain. My Ice Skating is already coming on nicely.

2008 Mistakes
Reviewing your mistakes is a good idea as long as you don’t beat yourself up about them. Here’s some of mine:

- Spent way too long making my current game. There are various reasons why it’s taken so long; some to do with team members, some external, and some internal (I admit). This happened with my last game too! However, now that I work in a studio with other team members sitting near to me I’m sure that this won’t happen again.
- Didn’t spend enough time with my family AGAIN. I say this every year. I’m finding it hard to build my career and find quality family time. Now that I’m an employee and not self-employed I’ll be at home even less so I’ll need to carefully manage my hours.
- Didn’t do hardly any hobbies (except for Aikido) such as playing guitar, making trance music, playing games, art etc. However, now I’m no longer self-employed I plan to do this stuff in the evenings and weekends (when I used to find myself working instead). I’ve brought my guitars to Vancouver to make sure I play them!
- Didn’t eat as healthily as I could have. This is because I LOVE food. Also I got some “healthy bowel medicine” called Lepicol that has given me such “bowel confidence” that I’ve been eating lots of dodgy food because now I can handle it You probably didn’t want to know that haha.

OK, now let me hear your reviews and goals!

Well 2007 is gone and 2008 has already started and it’s about this time that I like to take stock of what I achieved in the last year and what mistakes I made and then set some goals for the new year. I highly recommend this process for everyone. Read on…

Here’s what I said at the start of 2007 and how well I actually did:

1) Continued improvement in my self-realisation studies. I probably didn’t do as much in this area as I’d have liked just because I was so busy making Fairway Solitaire, but that’s just an excuse really. However, I did make great strides with myself, my relationship and my finances.

2) Turn my self-realisation co-venture into a huge success. This was a flop (although I learnt plenty of things). It started very well but I found I was doing all the work and my partners weren’t contributing as much as I’d have liked. So we agreed that they’d manage it for a while whilst I took a back seat. Unfortunately, they didn’t do very much at all (mainly due to their own activities taking off, which is great for them) and it has since fallen dormant. Very soon I’ll have a meeting with them and either a) quit or b) take it over completely

3) Spend more time relaxing, doing my hobbies (reading/music/games) and with my family. hmm, I always seem to feel I haven’t quite succeeded with this one. Towards the end of the year I played a few games (which was great), haven’t done much music at all, been reading a bit all year. Have had some great family times but I know I could do more. I guess I’m a bit of a workaholic because I enjoy my job so much and there’s always more to do…

4) Make some top 10 portal games that make lots of money so that I can continue in the same career. Well I only made one game, Fairway Solitaire, but what a game! It reached #3 in the BFG top 10 and I’m sure it’ll do well on the other portals when it is released on them.

5) Make some games that I *really* want to make (platformers/shooters etc), even if it’s just for fun. Didn’t do this but it’s a goal for 2008.

6) Become Rich (I’m already happy so I don’t need to worry about that one). Of course this depends on your definition of rich! Helen and I have both done well this year financially and I’ve cleared off some personal debts and we are stable, which is great – but there’s still plenty of room for improvement

Here’s some other ways in which 2007 was great:

- Re-released Easter Bonus and got tons more sales in.
- Improved my game framework considerably ready for the next game.
- Bought a Macbook Pro and converted Holiday Bonus to Mac (more games will be converted soon).
- Went on two special Aikido training courses in Austria and the Ukraine to supplement my normal training/teaching.

Here’s some 2007 mistakes (I made many more than are listed here!):

- Spent too long making Fairway Solitaire which limited what else I could do, but it was all good experience and necessary – so not really a mistake.
- Entered into a business venture with two friends who, as it turned out, left me to do most of the (boring) work. When I stopped working on it and left them to it, it went nowhere fast. I may buy them out and run it myself (with my partner). Check back next year to see if it was also a mistake
- Let my site slip in terms of affiliate game sales, advertising etc.
- Didn’t do as much blogging or game news/reviews as I wanted to.
- Didn’t spend enough time with my family or playing games/music etc. This seems to happen every year and I keep saying I’ll sort it out … hmm…

OK, now the goals for 2008 – First the Game Development ones:

1) Develop 2-3 hit games for Big Fish Games. (Depends on the size of projects we end up choosing)
2) My games will reach No. 1 in the BFG Top 10 and on other sites too.
3) One or more of my games will gross $1,000,000. (based on past performance, this is a realistic and achievable target – just need around 100,000 sales)
4) Start the next big “genre”! (gotta think big )
5) Meet lots of you at Casuality.
6) Work on an “action” game as a hobby.
7) Continue improving my skills and my game framework.
8 ) Continue having great fun doing a job that I love!
9) Ramp up affiliate sales from my sites and blogs, via more newsletter subscriptions, more blog posts, more marketing etc.

Personal Goals for 2008 include (my full list is huge so I’ve just put a few here):

1) More family time + go on some great holidays!
2) Play games, make music and persue other hobbies. (Basically need to get the work/life balance sorted)
3) Get 2nd Dan in Aikido (my Sensei has asked me to go for it after 5+ years of being a black belt, so I need to train hard in 2008)
4) Go to bed on time and get up on time! (This is a big one for me as I love to stay up all night programming or playing games but I have to get up in the morning for the school run and then my day suffers)
5) Diet: reduce alcohol to an absolute minimum, reduce treats/junk food, eat more fruit and healthy food, drink more water. I’m already vegetarian and my weight is fine but I know I can do more.
6) Exercise: breathing exercises every day, more exercises (pull ups, press ups, sit ups, dancing, running, swimming, walking, clycling etc)
7) Keep my positive attitude strong and keep working on self-improvement.

I’m pretty sure that diet, exercise and good sleep are VITAL to pretty much EVERYTHING else. You get the balance right and your brain will work better, you’ll have more energy, be more positive etc.

Anyway, I’m keen to hear about your goals for 2008 (post links to your own blog entires if you like) and I wish you luck for 2008.

Remember that a goal means NOTHING unless you work hard to achieve it and don’t give in!

Probably, like some of you, I’m a bit in the dark with Windows Vista regarding its special requirements that affect casual game developers. Also I don’t have a spare PC and a copy of Vista knocking around to do some testing on – although I can probably find someone with a Vista PC who’ll let me use it.

Well actually, I’m not totally in the dark; I do have a basic understanding of the issues having been sent some development advice by a couple of portals and having read some forum threads on the topic – but until I implement and test the required changes myself, I’m not 100% clear on what I need to do to make my BlitzMax games properly Vista compatible. When I know more, I’ll post again so that you can all benefit from my mental strain In reality it’ll probably be quite easy.

I think that the main issue is making sure that you don’t have any files that are written to in the game’s folder, everthing needs to be in the user’s “special folder” (e.g. save games). Also, for global data, such as an ini file and global high scores, you need to write to a different special folder. It’s all to do with permissions you see; Vista has clamped down on what you can write where on the user’s system. There are threads on BlitzBasic.com and the Indiegamer forums that talk about how to get the names of these folders, so I’ll be researching those. Of course the changes have to be backward compatible i.e. they still work on XP at least, and possibly other Windows OSes like 2000, ME, 98SE etc.

So basically, I’m going to HAVE to convert my BlitzMax Game Framework to Vista and test it for the current game that I’m working on and I’ve got about 2.5 months before the deadline. Also, I’ve got to convert my framework to Mac (Intel and PPC). Both these tasks are BORING but they need to be done to ensure uptake by portals and, of course, sales! At least once it’s done, I probably don’t need to worry about supporting another OS for quite some time unless I decide to make games for Linux or mobiles…who knows what the future hold?

Well lots has been going on recently and I’ll be making a big post about it soon.

I’ve been having lots of thoughts about what to do in 2007.  It’s an exciting time right now because Oz is done and is out there and so is Holiday Bonus, and I’m not working on any projects at the moment (except for “me”, the biggest project of all ).  So I’m able to relax and let inspiration come to me and also think about my options.  I’m weighing up how I can a) immediately  make money to pay my bills, b) do the fun creative things that I *really* want to do and c) become very rich quickly.  More on all this soon…

The Holiday Bonus musician emailed me recently asking what next and I replied and he said “How much work is it to make a new match-3 game, now that most or all of the vital components are ready?” and he also said “While you could just output a new match-3 for the cash (‘only’ need to insert gfx/music), meanwhile you could make a new engine instead. By the way, what about those Simcity-clones or <insert>-Tycoon? Are these a casual buyer’s choice?”, and I wrote him this reply:

Oz took well over 200 hours (of my time only) to convert into Holiday Bonus (there wasn’t really much new code, most of the time was directing the artist and plugging in the new art). Oh also it cost > £1000 too (and future ones will cost more), plus lots of extra time to market.  So any new Match-3 will take maybe 1 month full-time minimum (assuming that my skills have increased now).  However, to stand out I need to some new elements, which I listed in my last email (to the musician).  If I made a 5th match-3 I believe I could make it my best one yet and also a market leader – should I do it?

Meanwhile, converting the Blitz Max Game Framework to Mac is an unknown quantity, it should be possible but I know nothing about Macs and will need to do a lot of research – perhaps it will be easy.  Once it’s done though, it’s can be reused for many games.  There are less competitors in the Mac market (by a long way) so a good game will do well – and I believe that I can supply that game.

As for sim games, well the Diner Dash-type games are big (not really Sim games as such, but the nearest thing in the casual market).  In March I made a plan for a game called Flower Shop but never got time to do it due to developing the game framework and my other games (Oz/HB etc) - this is my own fault though.  Now take a look at this game, which is the no. 2 game on BFG!  I hate missing the boat – but my boat will come again, and perhaps it will be bigger…

Right now another match-3 is easier as the engine is there and I can improve it each time thus making the game more saleable (it won’t gain me much respect amongst forum programmers, but who cares if I’m the one making money and contacts).  As for a new engine, I imagine that I’ll have to make a first game that will be OK and then my second game with that engine will be the really good one (I’m pretty up to date with particles effects and smooth programming now, although there is still more that I could do looking at some current top notch games).  A new engine needs lots of new code/thought and testing even if it’s copying a tried and tested formula.  Of course a brand new idea needs *even more* thought and testing….risky but with potential huge payouts.  To be honest I need secure income first, then maybe I’ll aim for that – however, I’m not sure that’s how millionaires think…