Happy new year! I had a long and restful winter break mostly in Canada with a week in Mexico (I was on a sunny beach Christmas Day and standing in snow Boxing Day). I spent important time and had important conversations with my partners family.

Breaks are a great time to recharge, and my favourite way of doing that is consuming art that I don’t usually meaningfully dedicate the time to, namely movies, TV shows and games. This break I watched:

• Die Hard 2
• Zootopia 2 (in a really cool local cinema in Oakville)
• Season 2 of Culinary Class Wars
• Kill Bill vol. 2
• Challengers (with no sound on a flight)
• The F1 movie with Brad Pitt (this exceeded my expectations and was really good)
• Robocop (1987 version)
• The Running Man (1987 version)

I beat Shovel Knight: Shovel of Hope (an excellent game that’s confident in what it is) and played through more of Tactical Breach Wizards, which I continue to really really love. (I’ve been going through Tom Francis’ blog archive. It goes all the way back to 2005! I’ve been on a big Death Cab for Cutie kick because of a post he wrote. Specifically “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” has been on constant repeat.)

I also watched a couple episdoes of Surely Tomorrow 경도를 (initially captivating but a bizarre ending) - and Made in Korea 메이드 인 코리아 (super fresh cinematography).

I had Unreal Engine installed on my new work laptop too, so I spent some time doing experiments with Blueprints and cameras and the driving template. Just to keep sharp and explore the engine a little more as I knew coming back to work I’d be in the engine a lot. I also watched through all of Sir Wade’s learning material created for the new Agora sample projects. Very useful for the first bits of work I’m doing at Stellar.

Back at work, things are kicking into gear! Moving from the ‘meeting everyone and getting settled in’ phase into the ‘right, let’s actually get some work done’ phase. It’s a little overwhelming - I’m learning a lot, which is what I wanted! Not necessarily game dev too; working with a team of 70 people is new to me. Lots of procedure to navigate, which is expected. Guiding a ship with that many people on it towards the same goal is very hard. Honestly, the fact that any game is completed is a miracle.

I’ll be doing something fun next weekend - I’ll be helping host a game jam for a group of student devs! They’re the newest cohort of the Unity Bootcamp I did last year, and one of the usual teachers can’t make it so I’ll be doing my best to fill his shoes. It’ll be new, but I’m excited! Because of the new job, indie game dev has taken a back seat and I miss it so this’ll be a good chance to spend some time back in that world. Hopefully spread more game jam love around. I’m friends with a couple people in the cohort too, so it’ll be a good chance to catch up with them.

It’ll be a very busy year! Lots of big life changes ahead, for myself and my loved ones.