This year I’ve probably produced a similar amount of video tutorials (over on YouTube) as I did last year – starting off with the month long ‘build along’ project (featuring 5 videos), then 12 regular episodes (10 fantasy and 2 sci-fi), and one ‘tips’ video.
And, the most popular of these turned out to be the 2D dungeon tiles (with around 9.5K views):
I also experimented with a few more YouTube ‘shorts’ ...and the most popular of these was the magnetic dungeon tiles (with around 12.5K views):
And, generally speaking, it seems that ‘shorts’ seem to bring in more views (on average) than my regular videos – but they also get a lot more ‘dislikes’ (which, I suppose, is to be expected).
As a slight aside, I think it's also worth mentioning that I attempted the Dungeon23 challenge at the beginning of the year as well - but I only kept at it for one month (it was a challenge to write/map a dungeon room per day throughout the whole year - to make a megadungeon... but also as a writing exercise). As I say, I only managed one month/level - but this is what it looked like...
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Over on Patreon I’ve still not crossed the 100 patrons milestone yet (not that it really matters I suppose – but I’ve been close a couple of times)… and I think it’s actually lower now than it was this time last year. But money is tight for a lot of folks at the moment... so, that too, isn’t too surprising.
On a more positive note, the YouTube channel passed 15K subscribers this year :) …and it’s almost at 17.3K right now :D ...and it’s my hope that I’ll get to 20K sometime next year (by the end of the year would be cool… by my birthday in July would be even cooler).
And, that really is a lot of people when you think about it… and if I ever get to the lofty heights of 25K (the next big milestone) – I think I’ll have to do another giveaway or something like that (though I probably don’t have to worry about that for quite some time yet).
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Gaming wise I’ve managed to squeeze in quite a bit this year.
There’s the online group which formed mainly due to Covid… and that’s kept on going ever since (on a near weekly basis no less :) ). And I have to admit that I love playing with these guys, and it’s kinda annoying that (due to the distances involved) it’s highly unlikely that we’ll all get together in person :(
However, I also managed to get into a new(ish) IRL group at the local games store (I say ‘ish’ as I’ve been friends with one of the guys for years – so it’s not totally new) – and we’ve managed to keep that going at one of the guys’ homes after the store was forced to close a few months back (which was a bit of a blow to be sure).
And, on top of that, I’ve managed to squeeze in a few co-op games (mostly of Rangers of Shadow Deep) with my brother on a few weekends too.
However, the downside to all of that is that I’ve not run many drop-in games with folks over on the discord server of late – which is a bit of a shame… but it can’t really be helped (because even though I’m a bit of a sad git, gaming isn’t my whole life… just most of it lol :) ).
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But looking forward, starting tomorrow I’ll begin the new year with another season of the dungeon build along project… and this time we’ll be delving level three.
And, if you’re not familiar with the project, then I basically provide a pdf file of textures (some new, some old), and over the course of a single month, I use those textures to build a small dungeon level from scratch (along with a few encounters to fill most of the rooms).
Note that if you’ve not seen the previous two seasons (where I build level 1 and level 2) then you can find the playlist HERE.
Other than that I don’t really have many plans going forward. I mean sure, I’ve got a to-do list as long as my arm, and a sketchbook full of ideas – but there’s no real method to my madness – I generally just make whatever I think I’ll need, or what seems like it might be fun to build.
I suppose the one thing I really want to make sure I do next year is get to the UK Games Expo.
I’ve only been once before (back in 2019) – and only for half a day… and I’d love to go again.
But yeah… I think I’ve rambled on for long enough – so here’s hoping you all had a good 2023… and I hope we all have a better 2024!
Game on!
