Another year coming to an end... Hopefully 2024 has been treating you guys well enough. In my case, it was definitely quite eventful, even if you might not be able to tell from my activity. So let me walk you through the things that have (or haven’t) happened, and what my plans for 2025 are.

Things actually started off pretty strong, what with me releasing the update to my Sokoban clone in early February! If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’d wholeheartedly recommend that you do so, if only for all the secrets and easter eggs I’ve crammed into it.

Unfortunately, I must have given it 110% for a little too long, since, shortly after releasing the aforementioned update, I started getting sick a lot. At the worst of it, I ended up out of commission for a couple days at a time every other week, usually on or around the weekends. It was quite the problem for my job, too, since I was missing for so many days. I tried a few different things, like changing my diet or exercise regimen, or even taking antihistamines, but what ultimately helped me get back on track again ended up being daily multivitamin supplements, of all things.

Even to this day, though, my health is kind of a tightrope walk. Granted, it seems to be getting more manageable, but I still need to be careful not to overwork myself, which is easier said than done because I can tunnel-vision so hard that I completely lose sight of my physical and mental needs.

Sickness aside, work on the website relaunch began in earnest in late March this year... and is still ongoing, despite my initial prediction that it’d only take me a few months to complete. Turns out it’s so much more complex than I could’ve ever anticipated, and while there’s little that’s left to do before I can get started on reconstructing the blog, I expect that the blog is going to be a major undertaking unto itself. It’ll probably take me at least another few months.

Also doesn’t help that I’ve had a lot of overall downtime (such as from June to early September, and there was hardly any progress made from mid-October to late December, either), without which a go-live within 2024 might just have been in the cards, but oh well. I have recently (as in, roughly a week ago) started to challenge myself to get at least a little bit of progress done each day, though, even if it’s just two minutes. Hopefully that’ll help get things back on track again... and it does look promising so far, so fingers crossed!

A major highlight of the year was — as acknowledged in the previous blog post — the fact that the 500 million bounty for chain of lucidity was claimed at last, and that, in turn, seems to have snowballed into the genesis of a small but devoted Mukai fandom, which I couldn’t be happier about. Shoutouts to Sins, Errhed, ALePH_D, and PressEtoAscend for being effectively the ambassadors of that one game I made six years ago that’s still waiting for its sequel. Once again, thank you so much for your support, as well as your saintlike patience with the glacial pace of my creative output!

Said small fandom also made me realize another aspect of my brand: my coverage of retro games that have strong emotional significance to me. It was brought to my attention that I have a very personal, passionate, informative, and I suppose humorous way of presenting these games, as exhibited by my gaming blog, my Full Playthroughs series on YouTube (for which I’ve managed to make four new videos this year!), or even the occasional streams for longer-form games, in which I could interact with my watchers directly — or, as was more often the case, have them interact with each other while I was deep in concentration with whatever game I was playing at the time.

What I’m trying to say is that this is something I hope to be able to continue doing, going forward, not least of all because I’ve been told it’s comfort material (and, I mean... even I like rewatching these videos from time to time). Time will tell how I’ll be able to get them slotted into my schedule, but I likely won’t be able to put them out on a regular basis anytime soon.

Getting back on track, here’s a quick rundown of the other major happenings this year:

• A trip to Mallorca with the entire company in late May/early June
• Me getting sick with a middle-ear infection in both ears for all of July
• Said prolonged sickness wrecking my mental health to the point where, in September, I finally caved and made use of the services of the therapist employed by my company
• Completing a 30-day sketching challenge without missing a single day (even if I ended up not drawing anything else since then)
• A stream for the 6th anniversary of the Mukai Project (which also had me nursing the first hangover of my life the morning after, and it was nasty), and...
• Rearranging the furniture in my bedroom in November, resulting in me making enough room to set up a gaming corner

Other than that, though... well, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t composed a single track this entire year. I’m hoping that’ll change next year, since I’ve still got an album to finish — it and the website relaunch are the only things still in the way of me starting development on the second Mukai game... which I feel like I really owe to you guys at this point. Unfortunately, perfection can’t be rushed, and neither can “good enough”, especially when you’re suffering from crippling perfectionism the way I am.

That also means that my plans for 2025 haven’t really changed from my plans for this year: Get the website done, then the album, then start development on the game, sprinkling in playthrough videos here and there to maintain at least some semblance of output. My biggest problem is still my lack of efficiency, and this year in particular I’ve felt especially limited by my mental reserves; managing all of this alongside a full-time job still isn’t easy, but this is gonna be my life for at least the next 30-40 years, so I might as well figure out how to make it work for me without constantly burning out in the process.

And with that said, I wish you guys a happy new year. See you back on the road in 2025!

2023 is slowly drawing to a close, and with it the 10th year of Retrograde Road’s existence. A lot has happened in that time — far more than I could feasibly remember off the top of my head. Hell, I’m already struggling to list all the noteworthy things that happened this year.

Relatively speaking, though, not a whole lot actually happened in terms of finished projects. I wasn’t even able to finish my new album before the end of the year, like I was hoping I would. What did happen a lot of, however, was personal growth: Somehow, this was the year where my mental health improved rapidly, and it’s all thanks to the realization that I need to take the initiative in dealing with the things I’m unhappy about. It wouldn’t be appropriate going into too much detail here, but suffice it to say that, had I not given myself that push, I’d still be unemployed and miserable.

Of course, there’s still a lot to work on — my confidence for writing music is still in shambles, and I’ve yet to find the time to hone my drawing skills — but all things considered, I’m a lot more optimistic now than I was around this time last year. I can do all of this, even if it takes time.

So let’s talk about my goals for 2024 instead!

First things first, I definitely still want to get my Sokoban clone done and ready again before all else. I genuinely didn’t think it’d take this long, but it kind of turned into more than just a porting and refactoring project. At this point I’m straight-up adding new content to the game, new features. Christmas festivities may have held me up a bit, but I’m determined to get it all done early next year, preferably within January or February.

After that, it’s time to start doing productivity streams — and with them comes work on other projects, starting with the refactoring/relaunch of this very website. I might even be in a bit of a race against time there, since the blog’s calendar widget bugging out makes me feel like it’s inexplicably falling apart at the seams. (I’ve disabled the widget for the time being, in case you’re wondering.)

Then, once that is done, it’s back to working on my album, full steam ahead. Maybe, with any luck, I can manage a 2024 release, after all, but I don’t want to make any guarantees because never once have I been able to actually stick to a deadline I set for myself.

And then, finally... work on the second Mukai game, after so many years of nothing. It’ll be a true test of everything I’ve learned, and I’m already looking forward to sharing its development with you all. If all goes well, I might get to start working on it in late 2024 or early 2025, but again, nothing to set your watches by.

It’s not much this time around, but that’s all for now. I wish you guys a happy new year, and you’ll be hearing from me no later than late January.

正直、Wordpressから離れて自分のブログを作る気がなかったら、これを書いたのは早かったでしょう。でもこんなに時間を経たせたせいで一月から色々でいいものが起こりました。

去年の年末、僕の行動が起こらせた非常に壊滅的なことがあってしまって、早く気づいたらよかった何かに気づきました。それは、自分自身や自分の人生の不幸は、脳からのメッセージ。何が不満かしっかりと考えて、哀れや学習性無力感に浸らずに、ちゃんとした対策を講じなさい、と。

それを理解して事を成さしめるこつを摑んでから、人生が非常に改善されてきた気がして、絶対出来ないと思ったことさえも出来るようにになったのです。現代、精神衛生は2018年（ひょっとしたら2002年まで）以降で最高だと感じます。やはり、何でも出来る感覚は精神に大助かりですね。

新たな精神的力を手に入れた僕は何が出来ましたかと？　まずは、生産力の助けと邪魔を探るために日記を書いて、ついにいい作戦を練りました。3～5点の項目のある毎日のタスクリストに加えて、重点リストみたいなやつもあることにしました。その二つ目は、中長期や長期のタスクを記したり、「締切あり」「締切なし」のカテゴリに分けたり、ゴールや、問題や、次に何をしようかなどをメモしたりします。タスクを完成させてから、リスト底にある「完成」という部分へ動かして、完成させた日付を付けます。完成したタスクの数がだんだん増えるのを見ていい感じになるんですよ。

その重点主義で、人生さえも大一歩進めました！　もう一度エントリーシートを出し始めて、二年近く無職だった僕がようやく職業訓練にありつけました！　ウェブプログラミング代行機関で三年間働きますが、訓練の後で社員になる可能性は低くなく、訓練生でも賃金もかなりだと思います。仕事の開始は来月、7月3日です。上手くいきますように！

でも他の創作活動についても少し話しましょうか。例えば、アルバムの進捗率は三割弱です。すでに完成した曲が嫌いじゃないですが、現在よりももっと進捗していたいと思っています。バーンアウトも失敗恐怖症もいつでも足手まといになってしまって、来月の週40時間労働も加えたら、今年以内の公開は出来なくなるみたいと思っています。作曲のワークフローがもっと首尾一貫したら話は別なんですが。人生の問題を解けたことがかなりありますから、きっとこれも解けると思います。

また、一月にジェスチャードローイングすることで絵描きを再開しようとする話も覚えていらっしゃるでしょうか。あれから、身体の一部分ずつ、人体解剖学をだんだん学んで腕を磨いてきていると思います。まだ上手さから遠いですが、幸運なことに、モチベーションを維持する方法を知っていて細部まで非常に鋭い目を持ついい指導者に巡り合えました。今年も新イラスト出来るかどうか見てみましょう。

皆様の中に、僕はもう一度外国語を勉強したくなったことに気づいたお方もいらっしゃいるでしょう。例えば去年の九月にスペイン語の勉強を始めて、もちろんまだまだですが、会話が出来る程度まで届けたと思います。ロマンス諸語の何ヶ国語を勉強したいことにもなりました。現在フランス語とポルトガル語を勉強しています。とはいえ、スペイン語の腕はもっと磨きたいし、日本語もここ数年停滞している感じがあるのでその壁も突破したいですね。そしてそれから？　さあな。スウェーデン語やフィンランド語の勉強を再開したり、真新しい言語を勉強し始めたりするかな。とにかくポリグロットの夢は続いています。

それ以外の企画なら・・・夢界Project第二弾の開発は、まだ中断みたいです。画力は足りなく、作曲はアルバムしか暇がなく、材料がなければ開発の意味はないんですね。でも、遠い将来にいつかやってみたいことがあるんですよ。

子供の頃、RPGツクールをよく使っていました。RPGツクールVXの30日間の使用期間以内にクソゲーを完成させたし、それと中途半端で中止した何十のゲーム以外に、真面目に企画した一つのゲームがありました。もちろん、それも完成させなかったですが、時が流れてもストーリーが忘れられなく、いつか復活でリメイクしたいところです。それにGame MakerでRPGの製作を挑んでみたいという思いもあったんです。

さて、これで今年の前半の出来事は以上でしょう。更新の記録を隔週に書いたかったときがあったと覚えていますね・・・二週間以内に出来ることは記事にきっと足りないと思っても、定期的にそんな風の記事を書くことが悪くないでしょう。隔週じゃなくて、毎月の月末に向けてしましょうか？

それでは、ご応援もご支援もどうもありがとうございます。次に音沙汰までにあまりにも時間が掛からなかったらいい。お気を付けて、水を飲んで、今季の温度のためにアイスクリームでも買っておきましょう！