I've spent the past few weeks reflecting on the sort of content that tends to get posted this time of year: retrospectives. Opportunities to review the events of the year, look at what went well, what didn't, what we'll do in the future to be better. Even though companies and other bullshit are joining in the spirit, it's still important to give yourself moments to look back and self-assess your life. A new year is a new opportunity to improve. You don't need a new year to justify it, but it feels right for some people. I kicked a nicotine habit cold-turkey with a New Year's resolution, back in 2005. It can be done.

So, what was 2022 like? Let's try to exclude the grim politics and general state of the world. Life is rough right now. Some countries are at war. Some are dealing with radical extremists. Some are starving or struggling to stabilize their currencies. Others are fighting for basic rights of expression with clothing, or to keep their culture alive in the face of re-education camps. Let's try to find the good stuff.

How was it for others?

Let's start with what happened in general, that stands out to me. That generally means new developments in GNU/Linux or the video gaming world.

Libre Software

Sadly, I can't think of much that happened this year in libre software that was notable. Maybe I'll come back and edit this before the end of the year.

Video Games

Elden Ring was released. I thought I'd be much more hyped about it. I ended up not getting it at all. I still have Dark Souls 1 through 3, and Sekiro, to finish. I'm not thirsting for Soulslike content at all, lol.

Pokémon Legends: Arceus also came out this year, I believe? It almost had what it takes to get me to buy. Scarlet and Violet have technical issues and design flaws that prevent me from enjoying 9th gen as much as I'd like to, so I have avoided buying them as well.

The only games I bought this year were either games that I already owned (Quake for Switch), replacements for the Switch that was stolen from me, or Narita Boy. I haven't played enough to give any solid opinions, but I love the motif of the game so far.

Anime

In the latest season finale of Pokémon, Ash Ketchum becomes the World Coronation Monarch; the most accomplished and dominant trainer in the world! With his dream achieved, The Pokémon Company is bringing Ash's story to a close with 11 episodes set to air in Japan in mid January 2023. The new season has already been teased, featuring two new protagonists. One of them has a hairpin with a design resembling Ash's original hat design. There may be more to what's going on.

As someone who's not been watching the anime, I came back to it when I heard the rumor that Ash might become world champion. To see the twerp I used to make fun of for being a nublet in the 2nd season end up facing off against, and defeating the most accomplished trainer ever in Pokémon is quite impressive. Finally giving Ash a proper send-off is almost like a milestone for the first generation of Pokémon fans. All I could think at the end of the season was, "The kid actually pulled it off!" I am filled with a sort of bittersweet happiness. For the first time in a while, I'm looking forward to anime content!

The Dragon Prince got its next series, which I haven't started yet. Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners has been pretty intense and quite interesting, despite my total lack of knowledge of the series. I hope it's true to the source material.

That about wraps up what hit my radar, outside of whatever real life events were happening.

My Life

Things were challenging for me. Near the end of 2021, I left a profitable job that was sapping my energy and motivation. I ended up going into a part time job for a while until getting back to full time work this year. This job isn't really my cup of tea either, so I'm looking for more computer-oriented work.

My partner was diagnosed as Celiac. The change has been very difficult for her due to her appreciation for baked goods, but also foods from different cultures. She has such a broad palate, and to see her health restrict her food choices has been challenging. She's been strong and diligent at checking ingredients, and I do what I can to help find or make safe food for her.

A good friend of mine had to leave the state due to economic reasons. It sucked to see him leave, but we were lucky enough to be able to spend some quality time together before he had to go. I'll always remember our trip to Ocean Shores.

Projects

As always, it's been difficult to get enough free time to put something together that I can give a shit about. One such thing is an anxiety meter in PICO-8! It took a decent amount of planning and experimentation, but it's a complete feature that looks and acts really well. With any luck, my work on core gameplay elements will come to a pause soon, and I can start churning out assets and get some level design going!

If you're reading this, then the blog was relaunched, after being dormant for three years. Some content was still produced in the time the blog was absent, but not anywhere it would get attention.

Gaming

The 12-in-12 for this year doesn't look too hot, unless I can pull a game or two out of my ass in the next two weeks, haha. I did, however, knock out Box Pusher, another long-standing entry in the backlog. It took nearly 6 months, so it took up a lot of time I could've spent on other games. For one reason or another, my year's been spent playing games I've already beaten. Risk of Rain 2 is almost 100%ed; the gameplay challenges are all finished and all that's left is farming monster logs.

The Future

The future holds many things, depending on what you're looking at. For me, it's primarily the new Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom in May. The new Pokémon episodes are coming in January for subbed, and the Mario movie is coming next year. I'm still on the fence on whether I'll watch it. Hollywood just doesn't do anything my style any more.

Work has begun on VGStash-Tk, and I am experimenting with date-oriented fields for games in one's collection, to cut down on needless note taking within vgstash. As the software's only user (that I know of), I am solely guiding development, haha. Check out VGStash on PyPI if you haven't already. It's cross-platform and should work on a potato.

That wraps up the major thoughts for me on this year. Overall, it was kinda shitty. Would not want to relive, haha. Here's hoping to a better and brighter 2023.

-z