Looking Back At The Future

This post is about new years resolutions. And the irony in the title is just to attract attention. And I think pandas are cute. And I love Kung-fu Panda. And no, they’re not all unrelated statements. It is as Master Oogway said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, and that is why it is called present.” That implies that what is bound to happen will happen anyway, so then why bother making any resolutions this time around? Well I believe it is a part of the big, divine plan, and for us as individuals, it is a composition of our past and our future and makes us who we are at the present.

Philosophical gibberish aside, 2015 was an eventful year, a time when lots happened and lots did not. Glad for things that happen, no regrets for the things that didn’t. Here are a few things that make it to the list:

Travel is the primary goal of my life. I did not travel as much as I did last year, though I could have, and I even had the opportunities. I did travel for three conferences this year: Meta Refresh, Bangalore in February with Wingify team, Casual Connect Asia, Singapore and Casual Connect USA, San Francisco. I also transited in Tokyo, Japan for a few days on my way back home from USA.

While in USA, I had the opportunity to visit the Google Campus in Mountain View and Zynga’s studio in San Francisco. I attended a Javascript meet-up hosted at Autodesk gallery, SF where Ariya Hidayat (the maker of Phantom.js and esprima) was speaking. It was good to speak to him, as both of us were admiring the same model of a monster on display in the gallery.

At Singapore, it was my fourth visit, as an indie showcase volunteer at Casual Connect, and the place feels like home (I seem to know it better than Delhi now). I played guide for all the fun (or so to speak) activities our group took part in. Not to toot my own horn, but I could now go around the sidewalks and underpasses around Orchard Road without getting lost!

2015 was also the year of being more social and letting anxiety aside, which used to be a bigger problem earlier than it is now. It was also the year of trying to be carefree, humorous and yet be humble. Long loads to tread in that direction though. I got involved in interviewing candidates for Wingify, organizing small meet-ups and events, going to meet-ups and talking to strangers, which has been a major factor.

I wrote less code than I did last year, but thy output shall not be judged by thy number of lines of code. At Wingify, I, along with others in the team revamped the architecture of the visual editor of VWO, whilst also building features alongside. I open-sourced a project (angular-q-directives) on behalf of Wingify and contributed to the engineering blog.

I rewrote my old game Spellbound in cocos2d-JS, just as an experiment in a matter of a few weeks. I also began working on a new game project, which took the shape of what is now called Constello. Watch the video here.

I also began work on my next mildly ambitious project: Sheeping Around, a cross platform browser-based strategy game. I talked about the game’s idea at a game-dev meet-up (Tokyo Unity Developers) at Akihabara, Tokyo and people found it to be quite appealing. I believe that is quite a feat. More info on it coming soon.

And to be a little poetic, the year waned away like the moon, yet did not lose its shine. December has always been one of my favorite months, and this year’s was even more so. Because this is the time when anticipation built up for the next year, to be more awesome than ever before, in terms of work, travel, happiness and relationships with people.

2016 will be a big year, a year of travel to newer places, newer adventures, facing fears, seeking thrill, and in general, taking the road not taken in more aspects of life than ever before. Plans are already in place for the most part, but they shall evolve as time goes by.

The primary goal for this year and onwards is simple: happiness. And happiness comes best when it is shared. I am lucky enough to have found things that make me happy. In no particular order:

• Travel: A no brainer, this shall be the goal for every year until the end of time. Meeting new people and witnessing new cultures as onwards I go. This plan has already begun execution as an upcoming trip to Amsterdam and Paris in February. However, other than that, I plan to do more indigenous travel this year.

• Games: The goal is to create and release three games this year, all of which are currently in the pipeline. This shall also be a never-ending goal of my life, with the eventual goal of being nominated for an award at Independent Games Festival at GDC, San Francisco.

• Speak: Do more public speaking, this time with a hint of humor. Share and spread the laughter, organise meet-ups and go to more events.

• Exercise: A healthy mind resides in a healthy soul.

• Creativity: Write and draw more. Stories, poetry, blogs, whatever. Maybe learn an instrument (maybe).

All in all, things will fall in place as the year goes by, and it has only just started. For all I know, if you truly believe in something, it shall come true.