⌛️ Game development recap: 2024

So 2024 was kind of a bummer for the games industry, huh? There were layoffs, studio closures, and canceled games galore. That all sucks but there were also more new games released on Steam than ever before (!).

There's been news on the game engine front. Godot is on the rise and Unity continues to make questionable business decisions that could hurt developers. Although, they say choosing a game engine is easy, actually, and there's always the case for making your own engine (as I am for Pixel Washer).

It was also a pretty damn good year for game dev content, including these 2 videos from Jonas Tyroller that'll make you feel like you've finally seen the light:

So yeah, there was some good stuff this year, but also lots of bad news. Instead of dwelling on that let's recap Valadria's 2024:

✅ My main accomplishments in 2024

Ugh, it feels like I got nothing done this year. That's why this list is helpful, because it shows that ya know, yeah, I did some stuff:

1. Sold over 3,000 copies of How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself
2. Published the How to Make a Video Game All By Yourself audiobook
3. Published over 20 articles on valadria.com
4. Grew this, the Valadria Newsletter, to over 1,000 subscribers. Thanks!
5. Made over 1,000 git commits towards shipping Pixel Washer
6. Earned over 1,300 wishlists for Pixel Washer (hey it's a start)

🔥 My Game Dev Highlights From 2024

I was fairly active online in 2024. So what worked, and what didn't? Let's highlight some things:

🎉 Surprise "Hit" YouTube Video

When your videos get just a few hundred views like mine, one "taking off" with a few thousand views is pretty cool! No Stacking isn't my most-viewed video (this one is), but it's up there, which I find quite surprising (because it's long and extremely rambly). Anyway I really sold it, huh? Give it a watch:

🦋 My Best Bluesky Skeet

(Yeah I can't believe Bluesky posts are called skeets either.)

So it's no surprise that the Steam Dev Cheat Sheet gets shared a lot when I post it. Let's be honest – it's a great game dev resource!! Are you kidding me?? Just look at all that valuable data, in a fun little sheet! How can you go wrong? (You can't.)

So naturally Bluesky enjoyed it too. I love to see it!

Anyway Twitter sucks, ugh, and it really sucks that it sucks because I was finally gaining momentum there. But noooooooo we can't have nice things anymore, so I'm essentially starting over on Bluesky.

It's nice over there. The people are genuinely more chill and it's almost got feature parity with its main competitors. If you don't care about social media then you don't care, I get it, but if you're interested, consider this your nudge to check it out. Gimme a follow and reply to my best post so far:

😭 My Biggest Losers

As you may remember from My 2-year indie postmortem, I tend to spend too much time on social media. Especially YouTube! I really like recording and editing videos, and in 2024 I allowed myself (again!) to over-indulge in long, overly-edited videos that very few people want to watch. Here they are!

For How to do GDC, I recorded loads of footage at Game Developers Conference 2024 and then edited it all together (instead of working on my game, you see). It's got very few views, but, now I can post it around GDC time every year, so I hope it'll help out fellow devs for years to come.

OK, Steam Game Promo Art - Photography and Fire took months to piece together ... and as of this writing has not even 300 views. I mean what was I doing?!

Anyway this is unnecessary self-indulgence manifested as a YouTube video. It was super fun to make, and I think a really nicely edited, kind of entertaining and informative video ... anyone? ... hellooo o o o o o (echoes into the cosmos) ...

You can bet you won't see any more videos like this from me. I think I got it out of my system ... I still want to make videos, but they'll have to be quick 'n dirty so they don't take time away from Pixel Washer development. Wish me luck! (I am a weak, weak-willed man. And I love making stupid videos.)

📈 My goals for 2025

1. Ship Pixel Washer on Steam (I WILL SHIP IT!)
2. Ship <exciting unannounced project> on Amazon (STAY TUNED!)
3. Keep this, the Valadria Newsletter, going with a healthy dose of helpful game dev advice, stories, and tools published every 2 weeks
4. Consistently post comics, drawings, and memes (on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever) every week

Naturally, there's even more I want to accomplish, but if I only accomplish those goals, I'll be happy. That's it for now! New podcast soon. Got your own goals for 2025? Talk them out in the Valadria Discord.