Finally, after several months of searching (again), I got a new job. I'm being hired as a software engineer as part of the founding team (ooooh, aaah). On the real though I'm really excited to be working with a small team again, and I'm looking forward to the challenges. I'm looking forward to more social interaction, and some more enterprise grade infrastructure at scale.
More to come soon about that.
Aside from that, I feel like lately I've been in the middle of a huge shift with video games. This could probably be a whole post in its own, but the gist is that I'm starting to realize that even though you could be playing with millions of people, getting social satisfaction from video games just feels impossible.
I think it's a combination of a "skewing of perspective" of social satisfaction, because you're playing with people every day but not really talking to many. As well as just being on the computer too much.
In that vein, I'm deciding to go back to basics with video games. Return to more single player games, and games that are more about the experience than the grind. I'm sick of these live service, FOMO-heavy games that are just designed to keep you playing.
I'm going back to old games that I bought in some humble bundle for $0.01 and never played. Also, returning to some old retro classics. I pre-ordered an Analogue Pocket last year, and I'm hopeful it will ship soon. That's going to be a blast. Pokémon Emerald version here I come.
I also still want to make some games, but I ended up getting biffed on the Cozy Spring Jam, sadly. Still, I'm going to try to make something for the next one. I've got some ideas for a game that I think would be fun to make, and I'm hoping to get some friends involved too.
I hope with some of these changes my mental health and feelings of social isolation will improve. I'm also hoping to get back into some more creative hobbies, like writing and music. So maybe that means more posts here? We'll see. I've got some ideas for experimenting with other media, like writing posts in an audio format and stuff like that.