Year Four
1397 words, 7 mins
Ok, I don't really know how to excuse myself. Usually my annual recap is supposed to span a year. That means it should be released on the ninth of september.
You might realize it isn't september anymore. As a matter of fact we're almost in november. I wanted to write this earlier but I was busy and somehow forgot this, and always when I remembered to write this I pushed it further back.
Enough with the excuses, let's get going.
Small preamble
Before I dive deeper I have to start with something from the real life. My curriculum intends me working for half a year with a company. So I started working in september. This software company isn't small and the work days are definitely a bit exhausting but it's quite fun so far and I have learned quite a bit.
That primarily means working with angular and leaving my beloved react behind. But that's not a bad thing and having now worked with angular I know for a fact that I won't be missing out on anything if I keep using react for personal projects.
The website
Being on the topic of webdev, I did a few things this past year.
In last years post I stated that I started porting this page to Next.js 13, which I completed shortly after. The past days I actually worked on this page again, I improved the parsing of the markdown files, added auto links to the headings and changed everything to a grid layout (which is only partially in use as of now).
This means for example I finally migrated the project page of Embers' Construct to markdown.
In other news I finally fixed my MC Skin Viewer. In summary, it is a small tool that looks up the skins of Minecraft players. I think I might have to add a retrospective to it like I did with the Baconizer, so that it doesn't appear completely random (which it still probably is).
In this context I started implementing OpenGraph preview images, dynamically generating them for the skin viewer, based on the URL. I stopped working on it 4 days before Vercel extended the maximum runtime of endpoints to 60 seconds, so maybe the universe just wanted to laugh at me, I don't know.
More webdev
So there is my Discord bot... it hasn't seen an update in a while, that's why I decided to rewrite the poll part from scratch - as its own website.
Using typescript, drizzle and other funky things I definitely learned quite a bit and I feel way more comfortable now using typescript. I actually would say I prefer using typescript over vanilla javascript. Which would mean I have to port this website to typescript shivers.
(Wait - I actually started doing that, take a look once again on the staging branch)
It's one of those things I might write a post about once it's in a better state.
Gamedev
I didn't do much gamedev wise besides porting an old endless runner from 2018 to Godot 4. Although the source code is not publicly available, I tried implementing a combat system similar to the one used in Sekiro: Shadows die twice, and used that as a playground for a few other things.
But that's sadly pretty much it regarding that side of gamedev.
Modding
And although Minecraft modding is certainly gamedev, I still decide to dedicate it its own section. I did not publish a new mod, sadly, but I definitely worked on stuff.
I ported Ex Nihilo: Thermal to 1.20 as I was experimenting with different combinations of mods, but the primary thing I worked on is Arcane Forces - a mod now containing an amalgamation of every standalone mod I started writing in the past decade.
There is cool content to show so I will probably write a post at some point about it - one can see that's something I say I wanna do but usually don't lol.
The mod targets 1.21 as I wanted to try out the new components, but that also means it is incompatible with every other mod I might want to integrate. That means primarily Create / Mechano and Forestry: Community Edition, which was recently ported to 1.19, which is great :).
Advent of Code
This has been a major letdown again, so lets move on as fast as we can.
Cyberpunk 2077
The last major thing I worked on has been a Cyberpunk 2077 mod. Nothing big, I just started something to look if it is something I might like to do and after I failed fixing the materials for the Renault 11 I added I gave up.
But while working on this I had issues regarding the workflow from Blender to WolvenKit so I extended the plugin - that came unexpected for sure.
Games
So while I said I was finishing up the Yakuza series, I basically stopped around new year and haven't really returned yet. I will return in the future but playing just a single franchise for a whole year gave me slight burnout I think. But it's still amazing I managed to come this far without major breaks.
I started Disco Elysium a few months ago and haven't finished it so far but it still is a pretty amazing game. The artstyle, the story and gameplay are top notch. Hadn't I played Yakuza for a year I don't think I could have enjoyed that much dialogue at once.
The game sunk most of my time into is The Finals. It's an arcady arena shooter set in a virtual gameshow. The cool thing: you can destroy most of the arena howevery you want. It's pretty much my "turn my brain off" game and I am looking forward what comes next.
Soon Warframe 1999 will release and Soulframe is supposed to launch in early access so we will see how I will spend my time then. I haven't really played Warframe that much this year but it's the same with Yakuza, burnout hit somewhere in 2022 I think. Having almost 1000 hours in a game is not something that is common in my library, it still is the record by far (The Finals is now in second place at over 300 hours).
I also completed Sekiro: Shadows die twice this summer and it has been a great experience. The combat is just so satisfying once you start getting the perfect deflects. The story is a bit confusing but all in all it is a game worth playing if you have the nerve to keep going.
Just after finishing Sekiro I played through Ghost of Tsushima, I think we can see a slight pattern appear. Here, the combat wasn't as satifying but the story countered that. The meadows and forests of Tsushima left its mark on me for a long time and I can only say I am happily waiting for Ghost of Yotei.
I also started playing Hunt: Showdown for a while which definitely was a different experience from every other game I had played so far. The honing in on subtle sounds, making out enemies in the night and trying to stay alive is something I will come back to in the future.
The latest game I started is Horizon: Forbidden West. I remember seeing Horizon: Zero Dawn for the first time when it was revealed and being bummed out when realizing it was a PlayStation exclusive at the time. I really love the setting and ingenuity and beautifully crafted world.
Conclusion
I haven't worked on as many things in the previous years, probably meaning university stuff is actually getting more challenging. There are a few posts I still wanna write (for example about the poll page or the mod), and I had many thoughts of writing posts about different topics this year (which I didn't do as I hadn't had the time to dive deeper into these topics).
Seeing that the games section is the longest, I am thinking about why that is - probably because I spent my free time relaxing my brain and not creating intricate software I will never finish. Although this post comes a bit late I still hope you found it interesting.
Goodbye and until next time!