A Happy 2022 from SciFiEmpire.net

I wanted to wish every reader a Happy 2022.

Looking back on 2021

2021 really went by quickly. A lot of people have said that to me. And I agree, for the first 5 months of the year I was in lockdown and afterwards a summer which was harder than last year. Hell, at least I got vaccinated. Anyway, I think 2021 was mostly a personal disappointment. I had hoped to pull up stakes and move to either London or Berlin to pursue a new career but my own laziness got in the way. I hate to think about such missed opportunities. If there is one nasty habit I have it is procrastination. But there is nothing like a new year’s reflection to consider what I could do different. Lets see if this year I can make my dreams come true. and I hope you make your dreams come true as well.

My plans for the new year

As of July 2021 I have started a YouTube channel for SciFiEmpire.net. It had been a long time coming. For years posting on this blog has seen diminishing returns. Blogging is pretty much dead. I myself read less articles and instead watch hours of YouTube every day. Making the shift to creating video content is both hard and easy. It was easy because I once again find my inspiration. So far I have created videos on Tenet, TRON and a number on Dune. The number of viewers and subscribers are about what I expected. As of this morning I have 142 subscribers while my goal was a hundred. At the same it is hard, I have to overcome my incessant stammering, but I think I am getting better. Practice makes perfect. Looking back it is an immense shame I did not start creating videos in 2014 when I actually opened the YouTube channel. By the way, 2014 was the best year for this blog.

For 2022 I want to increase my YouTube effort. So far I am planning to do two videos per week. That is tough to do with work and my new project that I want to undertake. But I think I can manage it. For next week I have planned a video on The Book of Boba Fett as well as lore video, this one on the character TRON (alter ego Alan Bradley) from the movie TRON. I have yet to decide on the frequency of the lore videos, maybe every two weeks or every week if i can manage it. I want to do videos on Dune, Star Wars, The Witcher, Blade Runner and The Matrix. Enough for a whole year I should think.

A new project

Finally, I also have a new project that I hope will keep me busy if the lockdown continues any longer. Or, if my professional work does not satisfy me enough. I have decided to create my own computer game, a professional one, call it an Indie game. Now this decision does not come out of the blue. It follows on a similar project I started some time ago but which has kind of ground to a hold. Basically I have wanted to create hacking game. A number already exist, recently there is one that is called Hacker Simulator, but my idea was more in the vein of games such as Shenzhen I/O and Exapunks, both from Zachtronics. The latter I have featured on this website.

My first attempt kind of ground to a halt because the visuals became too complicated. I programmed using Java mainly because of a dislike for Unity. However, I came across an interesting YouTube channel, ThinMatrix, who created his own game engine using Java and a OpenGL library called LWJGL. So for the last months I have been studying it and tentatively started my own implementation. It is tough going but I think I can manage. I have scoped it so the project should be a lot simpler than that of ThinMatrix.

Meanwhile I am updating my game design document and trying my hand at some simple drawings. That is probably the most difficult part. I have to use Blender to create assets from drawings in order to load them into the game engine. For this project I have planned a nominal timeline of about a year, with the idea that I will publish a monthly devlog video. The first one, video #0, is due tomorrow in which I will describe my plan in detail and show a little bit of the progression thus far. I hope readers and viewers will support me in this endeavor. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Happy 2022

That was it for my new year’s greeting. Once again a Happy 2022 and I do hope this year we can put the pandemic ‘largely’ behind us.