A small web July: recap
Taking part in a Small Web July definitely gave me lots to think about.
As a reminder, my goals were:
1. Migrate my creative identities from Instagram to my personal site
2. Focus on publishing every day to at least one of my creative feeds
3. Develop my game development skills by working on a point and click adventure game that i’ve already started.
4. Change how I follow others to RSS where possible.
Migrate my creative identities from Instagram to my personal site
I didn’t quite manage this fully yet, but I did create an Art section of my website where I added all the art from my creative profiles. I’m quite proud of the layout if I do say so myself. There’s more I want to add there so I might need to rethink my index page, maybe make it a double spread.
I also started planning out the other websites I want to build for my different interests. While I’m aware of spreading myself too thin, I’ve owned the domains for ages and this compartmentalisation makes the most sense for my brain.
I also fell down a rabbit hole of falling in love with Micro.blog again. I don’t need another blog, but I really admire the principles behind it. I also like the idea of my microblogging updates living in my blog and being pushed out to a micro.blog feed.
I’m just planning out what feeds I want on my site and investigating how I might want these to show on Micro.blog. I know all feeds are pulled into the timeline but I’ve seen some people experiment with getting excerpts to show. At a minimum I think I need to send emojis with my feeds to take advantage of the emoji tagging Micro.blog uses. I'm excited by the possibility of connecting with the community there, and I think it's one of the ways i'll make up for the lack of a comments feature on this website.
Focus on publishing every day to at least one of my creative feeds
This didn’t happen at all.. but I have been creating art this month. My pen display started acting up again and I can’t afford an iPad yet, but I went back to basics this month. I’ve been sketching with pencil and I got some coloured pencils that I tried out. Results are.. interesting😅 It’s been so nice to still be able to create art without the hardware or software getting in the way.
I’ve also tried to just create art because I enjoy it, not because I want to share it. I do want to be able to create good art, share it, and dare I say even launch an art business next year. But I’ve been trying to take the pressure off myself and just enjoy experimenting. I did also finally start using a course I bought way back in January and started learning Blender again.
Develop my game development skills by working on a point and click adventure game that i’ve already started.
Well that didn’t happen. I drew the first background on my pen display before it decided to start acting up. However, I kind of think I should go back to pixel art. I’ve been inspired by this recent thread on learning pixel art and also it would mean a lower resolution. The story I want to tell is more important than the graphics.
I should just introduce myself to the AGS community again regardless. I always get so obsessed on things happening a certain way. No one is expecting anything from me and I need to remember that. I’m sure someone there will just be happy to hear from me again.
I also planned out two other point and click adventure games I want to make. One is the one I designed at university - my design doc is actually not that bad! - and the other is an idea I had a long time ago, but I couldn’t find my notes for. Ironically it’s the one I’m lost excited about and I want to build it in Godot after I finish the AGS game.
I did make a game this month though! This is actually a big deal for me as i’ve never really finished any game dev projects since graduating with a degree in game design 15 years ago. However, helping out Manatee in this thread about Pico-8 inspired me to try it for myself. I absolutely love it and I’ve been so encouraged by how quickly I was able to produce something playable.
I made a remake of a game I loved playing growing up: Hunchback on the Amstrad CPC. You can play it right now on Itch.io, if you actually want to😅
I’ve already signed up for this month's game jam, and am already planning my next Pico-8 game. I’ve carried so much shame over not using my degree for such a long time. It’s been good to see what I can achieve with intention (and I know stepping away from social media has really helped with that)
Change how I follow others to RSS where possible.
This didn’t happen at all, but I’ve been reading more via RSS. I do want to see where I can follow people outside social media and I’ve been tempted to start emailing friends and sending physical letters again.
I do still want to give James' Artemis web reader a try. I've been happy with NetNewsWire, but I like the sound of Artemis' focus on distraction free reading and minimising features that cause stress.
I do want to try building tools like that of my own. Today I came across this article about creating static websites for personal file browsing that's inspired me to think about what tools I could build to view the things I like.
I've already started building a family archive for my genealogy work. I'm wanting to turn my focus away from the silo'd commercial family tree builders like Ancestry, and instead focus on curating our family photos, documents and sharing stories. There will be a public facing side to it and i'm really inspired by examples like this one by Timothy de Paris.
Closing thoughts
This initiative has been such a good balm for the soul. I’ve felt more energised, more creative and generally more fulfilled without social media this past month. I’ve decided I do want to step away from social media where I can. Of course, as soon as I decided this, I also decided to get serious about my aims to launch an art business next year.. I’m undecided yet if social media needs to play a part in that.
I’ve exported my main IG profile and I’m currently writing a parser to convert it to Markdown for my website. My plan, once I’ve migrated my posts to my website, is to set my account to private. If I don’t feel compelled to use it again by the end of the year, I’ll take the leap and delete it. I’ll probably do similar for my other IG accounts.
I’m undecided on Facebook as I don’t use it very often, but when I get bitten by the genealogy bug, I find it a good way to stalk my extended family members to work out who’s gotten married and what new additions to the family there are.
That said, I want to try and replace those loose connections with a more personal one. Maybe the family newsletter I always plaanned to write. Maybe even snail mail. I’m excited by the possibilities to bring more personal connection into my life. I’ve also really enjoyed being a member of the 32-bit cafe. I’ve also spent more time with friends and connected more with my colleagues, beyond work. I do think it’s time to get off the hamster wheel of social media, if I can.
More broadly, I think I benefited from having some areas of focus this month. I'd like to continue that into August. Art and game development are the two main areas I want to continue with, but I also really want to focus on building my family archive.
How was July for you? What are your plans for the rest of the year?