2025 what a year huh?

2025!

This has been, for the lack of a better expression, a stressful year. I still remember around end of 2024 many people saying “things will change next year”. And change they did.

For me personally, professionally and overall worldwide events turned this year into a constant state of alert that made almost every week in sync with my weekly “Cloud it’s Wednesday” post.

Intraconnected-world 🕸️

Even if someone’s work doesn’t depend on using the internet, we can’t escape it these days. The problem for me really is that “The Internet” as I’ve grown to know it, is for the most part gone.

It used to be like a library with a few rooms for leisure and games, but now it looks like a night-club with music blasting where everyone is shouting, trying to be louder than the rest, and relegated to the backrooms are a few of the places you might still like/identify with, the knowledge sections, non-fake-content and positive collaboration vibes, finding them is the problem. The majority of people are in the main hall now, if we only enter and stay, we are exposed to all the noise that comes with it, it’s exhausting.

It’s been over a year since I mostly stopped using Twitter (yes I still call it that) as my main social network, for over a decade that was my daily website to post, check on mutuals, cool stuff being made and overall news. That’s why I used it, I enjoyed going there, but that is no longer what I find when I open it, everyone is angry, trying to drive traffic through negativity which algorithms push even higher (although that can be said of most social networks).

Weirdly I thought it would be harder to leave Twitter, but it wasn’t, once in a while I’ll poke around, but I leave quickly.

I’ve been using Mastodon and Bluesky via cross-posting but it’s not the same. Which in a way has been good, it’s not like I felt pressure to post on Twitter, for me was always natural, but maybe I was too addicted to posting regardless. I spend less time on social networks now, which also helps with not feeling the urge to “post that I’m making cool stuff”, and most times I can’t talk about anything.

There is contract work I’ve been doing only for next year and maybe even beyond. In 2024 I was working on stuff that was only launched this year, an example is VideoVerse, which for several months I was in touch daily with Kinmoku so that we could try and get the console versions as polished (and as humanly fast) as possible, and it wasn’t something that none of us was publicly talking about; dopamine of feedback when you are working on neat stuff via social network is cool but learning to live without it is quite liberating. A funny thing actually about this one, and why I mentioned it specifically, is by coincidence I ended up working on the same game as Luis Correia, which I’ve known IRL for years, and for the longest time he didn’t know as well xD.

Gaming Industry 👾

This year was the continuation of a cycle that started a couple years ago now, many layoffs, even in profitable studios, which while baffling is probably fuelled by other external factors like the rise of the “agent era” and keeping stocks rising. This last one was something that I had a friend point out last year, usually layoffs in public companies are accompanied by stocks rising, investors predict a leaner company with less expenses. Ever since I was made aware of this I can’t unsee it, it’s true, it’s a vicious cycle.

The problem with the big companies doing this is that it trickles down to mid and smaller companies and indie developers. Projects get cancelled, funds get pulled out of nowhere.

I was feeling this last year as several teams I was in touch with were having some projects cancelled, but by end of 2024 a bunch of stuff for Q1/Q2 2025 got cancelled; many teams do contact work for bigger studios, and those contracted studios sometimes outsource additional help from smaller external teams or individuals, and I’m one of them, so I was seeing the cascading effect happen in real-time.

A lot of times I am enquired about work time for a potential project (additional programming or port-work) months before, which gives a good idea of my runway of work, it shrank tremendously from “I don’t have time for the next 6 months” to “Oh wait I got next month with nothing”.

This year I was in touch with many other devs I know in similar situations, questions from “hey let me know if you find something that could be a good fit for me”, or just generally enquiring if anyone had found anything, in hopes to get some good news that things could be improving for someone.

Luckily and better than most I guess, I was able to find some short-term things to minimize this and did a few random work tasks to fill that time the best possible. I even used some of it to start learning Unreal Engine. Eventually found other stuff that wasn’t just a couple weeks of work, so at the moment, while not super stable, (but this is a general thing for everyone), I have a couple things for the next months and through 2026 in my hands, fingers crossed nothing caves.

But it is a scary situation for everyone, and it reminds me that time back in 2009, the bank-house-finantial-market-bubble where I found myself out of job, I couldn’t quite understand why back then (ah young and oblivious), but now it makes more sense, it wasn’t just the company, but external stuff too.

But ending on a positive note, and even though according to Steam sheer amount of games launched the competition for “digital shelf space” is increasing at a rapid pace, it seems the % of studios finding success is growing, the problem really is on the other end it’s a trail of destruction for people who can’t make it.

Agents-era 🤖

A lot of digital ink has been used in the last few years, and especially this one, about “AI”, agents, large models, and the for better-or-worse, the digital revolution (?) with real life impact that is causing.

We are all feeling it’s impact, either directly, if someone is using it for work or got layoff due to the perceived reality that “AI will replace everyone”; or indirectly, subscriptions getting more expensive due to addition of AI features, regardless if you use them or not, Power plants being activated (and built) for the sole purpose of keeping up with increasing GPU demands, electricity prices likely increasing due to that, chips are getting more expensive, RAM prices are through the roof, and overall companies are becoming less and less interested in selling stuff at affordable prices to consumer market and instead profit from the increasingly demanding AI-Data-GPU-centres being used and built.

This stuff is happening, in real-time, regardless of what we think about it, my humble opinion here is that it will eventually land in the middle, it won’t be a bubble that pops, but neither will it “full replace everything and everyone and is so much better”. There are benefits (just not the way it’s being used) but it will also leave a trail of tech debt everywhere. Those who can position themselves in cleanup-complete-tasks-ai-is-not-good, might find a new blue ocean. If in the future everyone uses AI, then that’s the new average, regardless if it’s much faster than today or not, and whom ever breaks from that, stands out.

Unreal Engine

While searching for new contract work this year I found myself with a couple weeks of slower, even dead time, and while in insight I should have taken some time off, I decided to use the time to start learning Unreal Engine. I’ve been thinking about it for several years, but never had the time, and the decision was helped by seeing lot of job postings for that, seems to be growing at a steady pace of demand, many studios shifting towards Unreal, even AAA that had built-in-house engines.

I had never even opened it, so this was the perfect opportunity for in 2-3 years I wouldn’t be a complete noob, maybe even applying for such positions, so starting now with no expectations would be nice.

After talking with Steve Streeting a bit, who I look up to when it comes to game engines (I mean he created OGRE 3D after all), I decided to enroll into an online course to get started faster. This was the first time I did this approach, I usually just start working on a new tool with small tests or a prototype and learn as I go, like I did with Godot (and still am working with it). But since my time was a bit more limited, and I did not wanted to start yet another prototype, I went the course route instead.

It’s been a while since I coded so much in C++ and I forgot how both elegant and obnoxious this language can be, but the Unreal way of doing things is quite interesting. In a way there’s a lot of the same things we have in Unity, linking stuff to inspector, a more editor-oriented approach, but I think the interesting part is there it kind of expects you to do things a certain way, instead of Godot/Unity more “sandbox type” approach.

The advantage I guess is that very rapidly we have stuff working, like character movement, collisions etc, which speeds up early development/learning.

I learned that Blueprints vs C++ is not necessarily “one vs the other, but more “there’s a good time for either”, and I’m glad the course is approaching both, pros and cons of either in different situations. I like it so far, even if the dev machine sys requirements are very high, it took SOOO much to install, create and build the first project that I thought “omg my computer sucks”. Luckily it gets faster after that, I’m using Rider which also helps, Visual Studio has become quite a resource hog in last few years on my machine. It will take a bunch of time for me to learn how to be at ease in Unreal, and I would need a real project for this later, but I don’t consider it wasted at the moment even if I’m not using it now professionally (yet).

Personal projects 💻

With all that’s been happening this year, as much as it makes me sad, I had my pet prototypes mostly in “pause”, contract work taking priority, which really feels like the “excuse” these last few years, but “life am I right?”. And this year FINDING work was the main priority of course.

That doesn’t mean I stopped but it’s been harder to find time to work on things, streaming helped and I’ve been happy working on that silly-duckuban-rogue-game (wonder if I can turn it into a real game!), but I’ve slowed down quite a lot since I landed a few new work gigs.

But even if I haven’t launched nothing by myself (in quite a while!), I’ve been working enough on Godot that I feel more comfortable in it, to the point that I’ve started finding a few frustrating things (a conversation for another day), which means I’m on the right track if I started scratching the surface, as nothing is perfect. Also I’ve worked on many projects via contract work in last few years and as I mentioned before, that is very fulfilling on it’s own.

Games 🎮

What a year indeed. After years of speculation, Nintendo finally released the sequel to it’s best selling console, and a numeric version, breaking their pattern. The Nintendo Switch 2, very similar, bigger size, better screen, better specs and backward compatible with Switch 1. Joy-cons can be used as a mouse, on all accounts a very safe and unlike-Nintendo bet.

I grabbed mine on launch with Mario Kart World bundle, unfortunately the digital version as it was cheaper than the €90 the physical version was being sold at launch. The screen is great, obviously playing on a bigger screen is nice. The Joycons are also more comfortable to hold and play, I find myself playing with them instead of the Pro Controller (1st version) now even in TV mode.

But as usual with Nintendo, it’s about the games, not necessarily just the hardware.

Mario Kart World

A launch title, I’ve played tons of hours of every entry (with exception of GBA and Wii version), and it’s always a cool franchise to grab. The tracks are way bigger now, 24-players, and I loved exploring the world for giant creatures.

Unfortunately while fun at start, I bounced off quickly to my surprise. Once I played all the tracks, the online was not as fun to grab me, can’t really put my finger on why. I guess the smaller more handcrafted levels of MK8 especially, were more fun. I do enjoy the new game modes, but the excitement ended quickly. Maybe I’m too spoiled at this moment, or had high expectations.

Donkey Kong 🍌

On the other hand, to my surprise, especially because I’ve never played any Donkey Kong games (a sin I know, hold on, don’t leave yet), and I grabbed this mostly because “might as well try to justify the Switch 2 purchase”, I love this game, and OH DID does it justify the Switch 2 and more. It’s a system seller in my opinion.

I ended up almost doing 100% of it, it’s immensely fun, the dopamine hits of that game is almost perfection, I’m so glad this is a pay only once title, it could be a problem.

Ball x Pitt

I initially purchased Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 because everyone was talking about it, but did not enjoy the combat, the timing thing felt off, and while I enjoyed games like Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for example, which also has that, this one would not click for me.

I was thinking about returning it, but a friend took it off my hands in exchange for a few digital indie games. I picked Ball X Pitt and Crow Country based on a quick search. Ball X Pitt was random chance, but it’s great, arkanoid on steroids, seriously go play.

Dragon Quest I HD-2D Remake

Somehow I never played any Dragon Quest game until now, but when this was announced, I saw this screenshot…

… and bought the game. It comes packed with Dragon Quest II Remake as well. It reminded me a lot of the vibe of Phantasy Star IV. DQ1 is simple, short and not very feature packed compared with modern RPG standards, however that’s exactly why I enjoyed it a ton, it was simple to pick, play a few combats and grab later. The modern Remake features helps a ton, also the fact that we only play as 1 character through the entire game, it needs a lot more grinding with 1 char only but if you are bored you can toggle invincibility on for those tougher fights. If you never picked any of the DQ games, I highly recommend picking this one.

Metroid Prime 4

I haven’t finished this one (~10h in) so it’s hard to judge it, but I decided to talk about it just because it’s been SO DAMN LONG we’ve been waiting for this, this game has been though dev hell for sure. Visually the game is stunning, solid 60FPS gameplay, smooth as butter movement. Sadly I don’t have a 120Hz 4k tv so I can’t experience the full thing but the base version is already stunning. I’m enjoying it so far, let’s hope I don’t end up leaving it pending for years (I still haven’t completed Metroid Prime 1 Remaster).

Taking vacations-time or lack of 🏝️

Something to do better next year, I need to take proper vacation time, once in a while through the year, not just a burst session when I’m near a wall and power through the rest of the year. 2025 was almost work non-stop, I only took a few days of proper “completely off work” during my birthday in March, and it was also partly related to personal-emotional issues I wanted to process. So I ended up spending 4-5 days trekking and climbing mountains in the snow, which I have say is pretty cool and really helps, because it clears your mind, it’s just kind of dangerous at times to do this alone. Also was a neat way to find the Apple Watch trekking app when you go off route really helps backtracking, battery isn’t that great though when that is on, but I’ve had this device for 4 years or so with original battery still.

I took tons of pictures and have a few videos that would be cool to share but it would be beside the point of the post.

Journaling 📝

Here’s a habit I picked up in 2025 that I’m having fun with, I’ve always have a physical notebook in my desk but it’s usually for random misc work-phone-calls quick notes stuff I need to take note of, consider or just brainstorm. But I grabbed a specific notebook just for writing down tasks of todos on a daily basis, and what I managed to get done. It seems silly but it really helps putting things in perspective, also I always like to do my crappy-art-doodles on the sides.

Movies & TV Recommendations 🍿

Had the chance to watch several Movies and TV Shows this year, leaving you with some of the stuff that stood out enough for me to recommend in no particular order.

If you have anything you watched and want to recommend let me know.

Here’s to 2026!

I don’t have a crystal ball so I have no idea what’s going to happen, and usually I’m more of the “plan for the worst, hope for the best” kind of person. Majority of stuff happening in the world we have little to no control whatsoever. We can be optimistic but also realistic. And if I look objectively to the things that most impacted me directly this year, I took action on some, and it helped, and the rest that pending because I have yet to take action on them.

Someone wiser than me once said that most of stress is not taking action when we can, not when things fail.

In case you made it this far, thanks for reading, I do really appreciate it, it took me a couple days of writing in smaller sessions, so glad to know it’s not only posting to the void.

So if you had a stressful year, remember, this too shall pass. Wish you a great 2026!

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