I decided a week ago that I wanted to spend some time every day doing game dev and also book writing. I told myself that it doesn't have to be any specific book, or any specific game, just that I had to do it. I committed to 45 minutes of each, each day, though there were still a couple of days where I didn't end up with time and had to skip it.
I had initially thought that I should make a small game and get it on the market as quickly as possible. While I like that idea very much (the fact that after all these years, I still haven't actually published a game is a source of great frustration to me) none of the small games I could come up with excited me very much. After spending a day working on a game like this, I decided that, at the level of programmer I am, where learning is no longer my problem, it makes more sense to just work on whatever game I'm most interested in. So that's what I did for the rest of the week.
I also promised myself that if I ever grew bored with the game, I'd just move onward (or backward) to a different game that does excite me. I can revisit an old game or just move on to another one. The important thing is that I'm working on something that excites me, rather than something I feel simply obligated to do. That's a decision that may mean I'll never publish a game. To publish, you sometimes have to stick with the game even when it becomes less exciting to you.
But for the moment, the important thing to me is that I'm working on somethinganythingevery day. And the easiest way to make that happen is to allow myself to work on whatever game I want at the moment.
On top of that, I decided to post a (maybe) weekly update here, in the Personal Projects category, about my progress. This is kind of on a whim, so I make no promises about actually doing it again next week or the week after. I'd like to, but this is, unfortunately, one of those ways that I can be fairly unreliable.
So here's a screenshot of what I did last week on "Mystery Game…" I submit it with but one comment: you guys know how much I like space strategy games….