Cheers to 2024: a Year In Review

Hi there! It's the holiday season and we're wrapping up this endless year to rest for a few weeks, before returning at full speed in 2025

Year in Review - 2024

Here's a short year in review, to share what we have learned and keep track of the past 12 months.

What went wrong

I mean... the entire industry is a mess right now, and everyone I've talked to says it will not improve until at least a few other years (and some say it might never get better, like, at all).

My biggest lesson in 2024 is that I tried to listen to literally everyone and resulted in getting stuck between opposite directions, often wondering what to do and slowing things down.
Too many different opinions from too many different people, including those who found their success decades ago (meaning that their situation/context probably doesn't apply Today) to the ones who don't share my values or wear similar shoes (too different roles, company size or goals).

It's okay to ask for feedback; but this year I have (re)learned to listen to myself first.

I also need to appreciate living a bit more in the moment, given that "worrying if we'll ever make it" is distracting me from realizing that "we're already doing it" in a sense... by working together, with a team we like and on things we love, for another 365 days.

About the "unexpected events" we can't control (like publishers/companies closing down, game engines making the most unpopular choices ever etc.) - I mean... we can only try to have a better foundation below us (e.g. by not putting everything in one basket) but that's it, we have no control over them.

What went right

We're alive. That's it. Extremely grateful about it and the team. Other than that:

• Hired 2 wonderful and talented programmers (March and October), full team here.
• Attended 5 industry events (between Italy, Croatia and Germany), sometimes also bringing with me the team (we're remote, so we finally saw each other in person).
• Gave my first talk about tools development (this May, in Italy)
• Signed a few projects, still to be announced.
• Resumed my own tutorials, now in collaboration with the entire team.
• Expanded to Godot (while also using Unity) and found a welcoming community.
• Developed our game(s) further, ready to show more soon.
• Reworked our entire website(s) and brand (read more here)
• Got back releasing new Text Animator for Unity updates (changelog), fixing all our bottlenecks.
• Started creating new tools (!!!), first one shipping early next year.
• We also moved to Bluesky (1400 followers at the time of writing - let's see next year!), given that Twitter/X is too different now.

There are so many lessons here, from working remote (with a team of 6) to onboarding new people and communicate the same direction to everyone - so I'm looking forward to resume this blog after the holidays to tell a bit more.

In conclusion

The year 2023 was where I wanted to find new people for my projects, since I couldn't do everything by myself (I tried for 8 years) - and so the company was created.

In 2024 (this one) we understood how to work together (also adding 2 extra members), what is our common direction as a team and what could be our strengths (and weak points) navigating the industry in this particular moment.

The next year, 2025, is the year where we have nothing left to do other than actually developing the things we want to create. *italian gestures.*
So we need a little rest.

I'm looking forward to turn my mind off for a moment - without any call to answer or email to reply - and just focus on playing games and discovering new things.

Thanks for stopping by and for all the support throughout these years! We wish you Happy Holidays, a wonderful New Year and see you soon in January!