It’s the second day of the year and I just couldn’t resist adding my voice to the thousands of blog posts promising just how much they are going to do with their life this year.
I had a bit of a crazy start into 2017. In Spain we have a tradition in which we eat twelve grapes during the last few seconds of the year. The New Year will be lucky for you if you succeed. It’s surprisingly difficult to succeed, since you need to eat the grapes following the sound of bells, transmitted all across Spanish television (seriously, they’re on every channel. It’s impossible to watch any other program that night that doesn’t consist of people eating grapes). They also make a big deal out of it, so you end up stressing out and putting way too many grapes into your mouth at the same time.
This year I somehow managed to bite my tongue on the first grape and therefore fell behind very quickly, leaving 4 grapes on my cup after the last bell was over. And so I wound up hugging relatives and dancing around the room while desperately trying not to choke. And shoving even more grapes into my mouth hoping if I eat them quick enough I wouldn’t be cursed in bad luck. Not that I believe in that, but you never know.
I always found it weird that this doesn’t happen outside of Spain, but in retrospective, I can see why you wouldn’t want to do this. Oh well, it’s still fun.
I was ridiculously lucky this year in terms of bullet journaling. After my last weekly pages I had exactly two pages left, perfect for a 2016 review. I still don’t know how I managed to time that so perfectly, but that means I get to start a new bullet journal with the beginning of the year, which I am way too happy about.
I’m using this gorgeous little book that my friend Lara got me for my birthday in May. I’ve been saving it to be my second bullet journal ever since and it’s finally the time to use it.
I’m not going to into detail about my goals, since a lot of them are actually unannounced projects, but other than the general get fit, learn Japanese, read more non-fiction books, improve my art skills, etc, etc, etc, I also have 4 specific projects that I want to start and/or finish during the year.
One of them being Fallen Star. I’ve been designing the first few levels for it lately. We’ve never been so far ahead in a game were I actually get to start doing level design (due to the ridiculous scope of Miku RPG, which we still dream of finishing one day), so this is incredibly exciting.
I’m learning one hell of a lot from it, which is good, since the purpose of Fallen Star was mostly to learn stuff and act as a game making experience for both me and Matt. I’m also discovering that level design is incredibly fun and rewarding to do. So fun I’ve been falling behind on all of the pixel art I’m supposed to be doing… Oops.
I hope that 2017 is going super well for you all so far and that your using the super duper energy and motivation boost to work on your dreams and achieve something great with your life. Or if you’re still hangover I hope you start doing that soon.
So then, I have some goals to work on. See you soon!
-Marta
Dragon Egg Games 