It’s time to start looking ahead again. With the new year, I’ve got some new resolutions (as well as some old ones making an appearance). Sometimes I wonder why I still do this, but, at the end of the day, I do it because it’s useful to me – not as a way to give me goals, nor to motivate me to better myself, but to track what I’ve been up to. Looking forward to the new year, and looking back to the past year, helps me remember what it is I’ve done, what I’ve sidelined, and what I thought I might do a year ago.
So, it’s with that that, once again, I set some goals, and here they are:
Assembly Backlog
This year is a weird year for my assembly backlog, mostly because, were it not for near-end-of-the-year spending on Warmahordes that were going out of print, it would very nearly be empty. I think this is largely due to Privateer Press’s new release cycle (and a resulting lack of releases); there just haven’t been any new models to buy in a while. That being said, the big thing this year is painting and assembling the Aquan Tsunami Heavy Cruiser – this is something I’ve been looking for for a long time, and I happened upon it on Ebay, so getting that matching the rest of my aquan fleet is definitely a priority.
Games Inventory
A couple of things converged for me this year – Brooke did a clothes inventory and I saw a youtube video doing a game purge. As I looked at my own overflowing games collection, I decided that I wanted to do an inventory of my board games. There are a few things here: First I want to actually make a list of all my board games. While I have a good understanding of all the things that I have, this will really get it nailed down, which is exciting. In addition, I plan to log my plays for this year, and rate those individual plays to see if there is a game that I objectively enjoy more. That being said, the big thing is to actually rank my games this year – I do get asked what my favorite game of all time is, and that’s a hard one, so I’m going to try to think about that this year (and it may show up in a blog). Lastly, I do need to decide which games I want to keep by the end of the year. That’s not to say that I’ll definitely be getting rid of others, but really knowing which ones that I want to keep will make me think about which ones I really do want to keep (and why).
Game Design
This one is a bit of a catchall for a handful of different game design goals this year. I started a course on game design, but got sidetracked on some other game design media, so I want to get back to that. Additionally, I do want to get a good well-rounded game design education, so I want to read some essays or books on the topic (though one will suffice).
In addition to the education half, I also want to put some game design in practice. This isn’t really new, but I want to do three things: Design a game mod, design a full game, and build a game. These will not likely be the same game, but I have some ideas, so we’ll see how the year goes.
Upgrade the Curtis Mathes
A few years back, I got a really awesome piece of antique furniture from my mom – my grandfather’s Curtis Mathes. I’ve tried hooking up the speakers and components in it, but I think the electronics need to be replaced. So, this resolution is to replace the speakers in it, so that I can hook it up to my existing receiver. I’d also like to optionally replace the cabinet doors with glass – I’m not committing to this one because I may need to replace some other parts of the cabinetry, which might be more than I can take on this time around – we’ll see.
Multi-Year Goals
WarmaHordes
I made the goal last year to play every WarmaHordes Warcaster/Warlock in the coming years… …and then proceeded to not play a single game last year. Also, Privateer Press announced Mark IV of Warmachine last year, which made this even trickier – I haven’t been able to get any of the new rules/models yet, so do I play Mark III or Mark IV? I’m going to leave this on my multi-year goals list this year, but I’m not sure how it’s going to go down. I’d say it’s very likely to either be dropped or evolve depending on how the new edition evolves – still, there’s a chance that I’ll keep it as is if we end up continuing to play Mark III.