My 2023 Retrospective
Thank you all for reading Indie Notebook last year!
Hallå my pals!
Jonas here with another issue of Indie Notebook to get some ideas out of my noggin, and to inspire you to do the same.
I took a short hiatus from the newsletter to chill out with my family and to focus better on game development. I don’t think there’s any better way to kick off a new year than by looking back at how the last one went.
So here comes a quick look at what I accomplished creatively last year.
2023, summarized as a list
Written in no particular order, just as they occurred to me.
As Long As The Red House Puffs: I finished writing and printed this story with Héloïse (thank you to those of you who bought a copy!).
Plock: I proved to myself that I can conjure up and finish a simple game quite fast.
18 new blog posts on my website!
A Profound Waste of Time: I got to illustrate an article for one of my favorite magazines.
Space Deer: I resurrected and found my way back to comics, I drew 10+ strips and prepared many more.
Surmount: we didn’t finish it this year either, but we got SO close.
My Famicase Exhibition 2023: my second time entering this!
Never Finish Anything: I made my first devlog type of Youtube video.
Freelance illustration: I did key art for other people’s games and some other small drawing gigs too.
80 Doodles: I compiled a sketchpad into a mini art book (let me know if you didn’t get it).
Indie Notebook: on top of all that I wrote and published 49 issues of this newsletter! I didn’t realize it had been that many.
Back in July I was very concerned with my tendency to not finish anything. Now it looks like there wasn’t much reason to be worried about that. It’s motivating to get a birds-eye view like this!
I didn’t feel like including some things in the list because they’re a bit fuzzier. But I also prototyped some new game ideas, even on Playdate which forced me to start learning Lua (another programming language), and I’ve got some stories forming that could turn into novels or maybe books. Earlier this year I might have been ashamed to admit that I started stuff without finishing, but with where I’m now, looking at this list, I feel like I do put most of my creative energy into making stuff that actually materialize. So having experiments and other stuff in progress feels more like a natural and healthy part of the process.
I spent a few seconds wondering “what could I have done better?” And to be honest I can’t think of anything on the creative side. I just want to be more present and a better collaborator, friend and partner in 2024. And play more ping pong.
When I wrote last year’s retrospective I had quite a few regrets. So I’m glad I feel this way now!
❓ Question Time
Writing this all out felt great. I recommend you try to do the same!
If you’re unhappy with your output then you’ve got something to ponder about, if you’re happy with it then you’ll get a kick out of it. I’d love to hear about your year, but you obviously don’t have to share it with me. It could just be a fun exercise!
Next year…
WILL BE the year we release Surmount!
I have 99% certainty that I will start publishing Space Deer comic strips.
And I will make more new tiny games.
Mini Notes
✉️ Newsletter - DADA issues
This newsletter is very Indie Notebook adjacent but way more focused on cartooning and comics. It captures a lot about what I want to do here, it feels personal and it’s very textured thanks to all the drawings, which feel like they were made just to be in a newsletter (in an exclusive, secret kind of way).
🌏 Game - GeoGuessr
This is a mobile game, there are a few different modes to choose from but my favorite so far is Country Streaks. In it you’re plopped down on an unknown place somewhere on earth and you have to wander around and try to figure out in which country you are, if you get a guess wrong your streak ends. I projected my phone’s screen to the TV during Christmas and we all played/deduced together. Our high score was 18 countries in a row. We met our demise when we ran out of patience and guessed one haphazardly.
Comic
Thank you for reading Indie Notebook in 2023! One of the most meaningful and satisfying parts about this last year has been all the comments and emails from you. I never expected people to reach out to chat with me because of this newsletter (I even got on calls with some of you which was amazing). This means a lot to me, so seriously thank you for paying attention!
I hope you’ll stick around through 2024 as well!
I hope you had a creative one. Happy new year!
// jonas
You did kind of kick ass this year, productivity-wise, it seems :)
I finished As Long As The Red House Puffs yesterday, after reading a chapter a day (usually while having my daily pot of tea). This is how I've come to enjoy reading - usually comic books - as a way to kind of maximize my enjoyment and to really digest and contemplate what I'm reading. It's also just nice to have good rituals.
It's a nice little book. A colleague who may be in her 50's asked me what I was reading at the moment. I then started laughing a little in my attempt of trying to describe the concept of House to her - usually when we talk books it's about solving murders and things like that. I half anticipated her to find the concept overwhelmingly ridiculous (she is not a fan of fantasy). Instead I could see that it had clearly struck a chord. Turns out that a house that cleans up after itself didn't take much explaining to her, hehe.
I thought that was a beautiful real life example of an idea that works. Besides that, it works symbolically in the way it is set up and presented in the story. One of my personal favorite ways that it works though, is that (to anyone that hasn't read it: beware, spoilers ahead) plot-wise, it allows for a justified way to revert all the mess that's happened back to normal (more or less) once the lesson has been learned - so House is not just its own sort of magic trick in the story, it also serves as a sort of magic trick in the story-telling. Cool B)
I could write more but I'll just leave it at this for now. Happy new year to you and your readers!
I love the melting space deer face. Who knew one could be so cute while melting?
-
It's nice to hear that you had a great year.
You hold many exciting things - much passion and skill.
It has been a joy talking to you,
And I wish you well in your journey.
-
I'm very thankful to be given the gift of life, with its lows and highs. This year has been wild for me, with plenty of good lessons and interesting memories that I will be carrying for the rest of my life (tragic lessons I wanted not, but in hindsight it is only a good thing that will help my storytelling, decision making, and empathy); hopefully to be a better person and also help others, as a result of such a varied experience.
Now has already begun my "returning to comfortable normalcy" arc, and I've been doing well in the past month :)