Yo, here’s a summary of my year, in no particular order:

• I ported Epic Battle Fantasy 4 to Android, but the Play Store algorithm did not bless me this time. I didn’t even bother to port it to iOS, which wouldn’t have been much extra work. Mobile development in general is such a chore with the technical and legal requirements changing every year – I just can’t feel any enthusiasm for it. The only reason I stuck with it is because EBF5 did surprisingly well on Google Play, but the numbers are gradually declining.

• Otherwise I spent the year mainly working on Matt’s Hidden Cats at a casual pace. The gameplay content is almost finished, but I’ve gotta wrap it all up nicely with some nice menus, flavour text, and general embellishments. Would be nice to have the game finished in 2025, but the scope keeps increasing.

• I went to Morocco in April with my brother. He found incredibly cheap Ryanair flights, so we had no choice. We spent half of our time in Marrakesh, mostly in the old town center. It’s a really beautiful city with plenty of historical buildings – mosques, religious schools, palaces, ruins, and also a LOT of markets aimed at tourists. It’s also incredibly hot, dense and busy, with lots of motorbikes, stray dogs and donkey carts squeezed into tight, labyrinth-like pedestrian paths. And merchants will harass you constantly! Due to my beard, everyone called me Ali Baba. It’s not an atmosphere that everyone will enjoy, but we’ve been to Cairo in Egypt as kids, so we were ready. And despite all that, accommodation was cool and quiet inside.

• We also spent some time in Agadir, but it’s a much more modern city as it was completely destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt, so it didn’t have as much culture and history. We went to Crocoparc to see some crocodiles!

• The highlight of our trip was our time in the desert. We visited the Berber fortress at Aït Benhaddou, which is known for having many big films set there. We rode camels and quadbikes in the sand dunes at the edge of the Sahara. And we spent many hours in buses and taxis, making brief stops at restaurants, farms, valleys and viewpoints. I survived the trip without getting any sunburn, mostly by keeping covered or staying in the shade!

• My favourite games this year were Returnal (a lot like new Doom), Super Mario Wonder (great party game), and Astro Bot (a lot like 3D Mario). If you haven’t played ’em, you should consider it.

• Some memorable indie games I played this year are: Tunic, UFO 50, Cocoon, Cat Quest 2 & 3, Crypt Custodian, Islets, Minishoot Adventures, Angel at Dusk, Leap Year, Animal Well, Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils, Momodora: Moonlit Farewell, BZZZT, and A Little to the Left. In addition to those, I can see in my Steam purchase history that I bought a LOT of indie games this year that I didn’t finish…

• I also continued playing a lot of hidden object and puzzle games for market research, but Hidden Through Time is still my favourite. I’m looking forward to one that’s currently in development, called Lost and Found Co., as it looks like a lot of effort is going into it. But overall I’m pretty confident that Matt’s Hidden Cats is going to be top tier relative to the competition.

• Lego was the major hobby taking up my time this year. My dad is worried about getting dementia, so I gave him some Lego, and he’s had no trouble with it. We quickly built our way through a lot of Technic stuff, up to the massive Rough Terrain Crane set. My other family members are getting interested too, so I’ve amassed quite a collection of new sets this year.

• I’ve also been restoring a lot of old sets from my childhood – ordering missing parts, restoring their colors with chemicals, and cleaning them up – and also buying more vintage stuff. I’ve revisited Technic, Bionicle, Slizers (Throwbots), AquaZone, Pirates, Ninjas, and many more. I’ve figured that as long as the sets are complete and stored properly, they’ll keep their value and will be easy to sell/gift on if I ever tire of them.

• Rebrickable.com is a website where users can share their alternative instructions for existing sets, and I’ve been getting great value from it. For example, I’ve built like 5 different machines from set 42081.

• I read a bunch of manga this year, mostly short horror stories, but the one that stayed with me was Goodnight Punpun. Most depressing thing I’ve ever read – I felt like someone close to me had died.

• I continued to watch a lot of horror films this year, with my favourites being The Substance, The House That Jack Built, When Evil Lurks and Strange Darling. Other noteworthy ones included VHS Beyond, Green Room, Oddities, and Exte: Hair Extensions. Also watched a few NSFL films that showed me what mental illness feels like, such as Human Centipede 3 and Tumbling Doll of Flesh.

• Me and my friends watched all the Fast and Furious films. They were really dumb in an entertaining way, and the whacky stunts were hilarious.

• Had my first psychedelic trip. Flowers danced. My dog thought I was dying. Felt deeply connected to my ancestors and to conspiracy-brained people. Very cool.

• I flew to Dublin on short notice to attend a Newgrounds meetup. People shared sketches and stickers, and we watched some cartoons at a gaming pub. I reckon most people there were 10 years younger than me, but everyone was super friendly and open to chat. Hotels were expensive, so I didn’t bother and just slept in the airport. It all went very smoothly considering how rushed my plans were – I should try to do more little trips like this if I get the opportunity.

• It was time to finally sort out some old video games. I cleaned up some consoles, and sorted through my collection to see what had no sentimental value to me. I sold about half of my games to CeX, but they wouldn’t accept a lot of my consoles due to some minor issues – so maybe I’ll just donate those to charity or something. Either way, I’ve decided that if I’m gonna horde stuff, it better be in good condition and of some importance to me.

• I took up running with my dog as a hobby and quickly built my way up to running a 10k, and then got bored of it immediately after that because I injured my foot. Gone back to getting my exercise from VR games and some simple weight exercises. My Strava friends were sad to see me exit the running cult.

• Me, Ronja and Ethel, and my brother and his partner, rented a gatekeeper’s lodge in the countryside for a few days to chill. Survived 110c in the sauna!

• Some of Ronja’s friends from Finland visited us in Glasgow, but besides going out for food a couple of times, I was mostly bed bound due to some mighty cold.

• I made a BlueSky account and got a decent amount of followers there. This was an attempt to get away from Twitter – but now I have two Twitters! I really need to learn how to just post without browsing. So much time and energy wasted there – it’s my worst habit by far.

• I drove down to Blackburn to pick up the perfect car for my brother – a fully upgraded Skoda Yeti. Very cool. His old VW Polo could barely start. Also found a fantastic Moroccan restaurant nearby, and will try to stop by there every time I’m driving through England.

• Some of my childhood friends from Poland were visiting Scotland, so we rented a house near the Isle of Skye and explored the area. Saw the abandoned ship at Corpach, walked around Portree, climbed up to the Old Man of Storr, trespassed around Eilean Donan Castle, and more. We also played a lot of Smash Bros Remix on the Nintendo 64.

• Me and Ronja celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a log cabin stay near Ludlow. It’s a very cosy part of England with a lot of beautiful medieval buildings and large antique shops. Stokesay Castle was unfortunately closed, but we got a good view from outside. We got lucky with the weather – it was snowing, which is very rare in the UK! The cabin we stayed in was high up on stilts, and had a DVD player and a hot-tub. Very nice.

• My brother got a new rescue dog who is super cool. He’s 30kg and still a dumb puppy – so kinda scary – but he’s quickly learning to behave.

• This year’s outlook for the world has been pretty poor. War continues in Ukraine and in the Middle East. AI is flooding the internet with garbage. Governments are losing elections everywhere – people are pissed off and our leaders don’t seem to have any productive solutions, which could lead to even more disastrous outcomes in the coming years. I’m trying to do my part by donating to causes I care about without getting too emotionally invested. It’s hard to find any optimism when no one seem to agree on anything – but life is good when I keep to myself and forget about it for a while.

Happy New Year, ya’ll.

Here’s a collection of my favourite photos from the year…

(click here for a bigger version)