I suppose I should be doing a postmortem of Snowman's Fez, here but since I never finished the game the way I wanted (yes, it's playable, is a game, and has a beginning and an end but it is not the game I wanted to create) I am going to instead take this time to write about my 2015 plans.
I am in the process of upgrading my degree to a bachelor degree through online/correspondence courses offered by a B.C. University. I am not entirely sure this is the best way of learning, but it is the way that most companies who are likely to hire me look for. While I would like the cheaper online alternatives to be viable, they are simply not there yet. This is unfortunate, but unlike the tech industry, change is really slow in the real world. The big disadvantage of going with University online/correspondence type courses is that you don't have the feel for what exactly the teacher is looking for so as a result you must learn much more of the material than would be necessary in the classroom. The ability to work at your own pace (within the time-limits the University puts on the courses) to me is worth the extra work learning.
There are probably many people who think that the extra flexibility means that there should be ample time to finish a game a month. To some extent this is true but knowing how easy it is to procrastinate, one has to take care not to get side-tracked on personal projects. That said, many of the courses I am taking do have some flexibility with the projects that are created. When possible I plan on doing game-related projects. This way I will get to combine my University hours with my One Game A Month hobby. This assumes, of course, that there are no issues with me doing this which I simply don't know yet.
When there are no course projects to use for 1GAM then picking an interesting game jam will be an option. Perhaps a better option would be to take one of the numerous games I want to do more with and do another pass on that game. Implementing the rather neat combat system I came up with for Snowman's Fez, for instance. If anyone reading this has a preference between those two options (original Jam stuff or enhanced existing stuff) feel free to email me with your opinions.
One project I am thinking of doing again is my NES RPG project. I would do a post in the middle of each month focusing on that project, and at the end of each month I would do a rant or a postmortem of whatever game I released for 1GAM. Email me if you are interested in this but I probably won't start doing this until March or April.
So in summary, I am going to be focused on my University work, but do plan on continuing with 1GAM. When/if possible both will be done together.
