I used to suffer from a lack of motivation and sometimes just a complete lack of direction. It’s one of the reasons I started this blog. Just the act of writing out my thoughts seems to get things straight in my head, allowing me to actually be productive and learn new things.
I began 2012 by setting myself some goals and it seemed to work out quite well. Sure I didn’t achieve everything on my list but I did come pretty damn close. So I thought I’d do the same for 2013. You never know, maybe I’ll bag them all this year.
More Mobile Work
Last year saw the release of Match Mee, which was WeeWorld’s first iOS game written entirely in Adobe AIR. I’m no stranger to Flash mobile development (I’ve been doing it since the Flash Lite days) but most of my work has traditionally been prototyping, so it was good to actually work on a product that saw the light of day. There are a few updates planned for Match Mee this year and I’m hopeful that an Android version will make it onto the roadmap. We’ve already had Android builds running in-house – we just need the green light to push them out to users.
There’s also a very strong chance we’ll work on another brand new AIR mobile project this year, which is something I’m looking forward to. Of course, whether we use AIR or not really depends on the type of application/game that gets the go ahead. Hopefully whatever we chose to run with will align well with AIR’s strengths making it a candidate technology.
Outside of the office I’ve committed to producing a few working prototypes of a game concept that I’ve been working on with my buddy Alex. If you haven’t been following my posts, Alex is a kick-ass animator who has worked for the likes of DreamWorks and Pixar. Getting to team-up with him on a mobile project is actually pretty exciting and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it. Of course, I know how much time and effort these things take and I’m acutely aware of how little time both myself and Alex have. So I’ve decided to try and be realistic about what we can achieve and start small. We’ll see how the initial prototypes go before even considering doing the game for real.
3D Games Programming
Okay I admit it, my attempt at learning 3D games programming last year was a big fat fail. With the exception of a few weeks tinkering with Unreal Engine I didn’t really manage to find the time at all. So I’m adding this to the top of my 2013 resolutions list.
With so many great technologies and 3D engines/frameworks out there I’m not entirely sure where to start though. Should I continue with UDK or just jump straight into Unity? After all, I’ve been looking for a good excuse to do some C# coding so Unity would provide me with that opportunity. Of course I could just take the lazy option and look into Flare3D or Away3D but maybe I should try and move out of my usual Flash comfort zone.
HTML5 and Other Gubbins
I managed a few HTML5 demos last year and I’m going to make the time for a few more again this year. CreateJS continues to interest me and I’m also eager to play around with Turbulenz. We’re starting to see some increasingly impressive HTML5 games out there. In fact I was blown away by two of Denki’s offerings last year. Both Save the Day, and Word Quest were excellent.
Outside of HTML5, I’m hoping to find the time to do a little more C/C++ this year. However, given the fact I tend to bite off more than I can chew, I’ll make that an optional resolution.
More Tutorials
I was only going to support my Flash iOS Apps Cookbook for a year but there are probably a few things that I’d still like to address. The Adobe AIR SDK marches on at a relentless pace, and some things I cover in my book are now a little out of date. So I might update a few of the book’s recipes and make them available on this blog.
I wrote a few tutorials last year for various magazines. It was fun but in hindsight I’d rather just have provided that material on my blog. So unless an offer to write comes up that’s too good to refuse I’ll be focusing all my tutorial energy on this blog.
More of the Same Really
If you take a look at my plans for last year you’ll notice that my plans for this year aren’t really that different. I guess it’s all fairly familiar stuff and perhaps a little predictable but to be honest I learned a heck of a lot last year and I don’t think doing more of the same is necessarily a bad thing. Fingers crossed I actually stick to the 3D stuff this year though.