The Results of My 2016 Gaming New Year Resolutions Success or Failure

The Results of My 2016 Gaming New Year Resolutions Success or Failure

Theres a special feeling that comes with making New Years Resolutions. The main reason I like them is because its promising yourself youll be better next year, which cant be anything but positive even if the resolution isnt always kept. The Gaming Resolutions I made at the beginning of this year were in the back of my mind all year and somewhat guided my gaming choices in 2016. But with only so much gaming time in my life thanks to working full time, my successes and failures with these Resolutions mostly came down to what I was most excited to play. While my overall success with these resolutions may be questionable, the ones I did the best with did had a positive effect on my gaming life and thats all I can really ask for. Here are the results, successes and failures of my 2016 Gaming Resolutions, hope you enjoy!

1. Play (and finish) a Pokemon game

Result: Played a bit of Diamond and the Sun and Moon demo. Didnt finish one.

Having just gotten a 3DS when I wrote my gaming resolutions last year, I definitely had some 3DS fever influencing my Resolutions and forgot about the fact that Im invested in so many PlayStation series having almost exclusively played PlayStation games since I was a kid. I did however try my best to play Pokemon Diamond in Japanese without a dictionary and while it was pretty fun, I kept getting lost in a town and not playing for a bit and well, I haven�t touched it in months.

I played the Pokemon Sun and Moon demo in English and enjoyed it quite a bit, but with World of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy XV out around the same time as Sun and Moon, there wasn�t much chance of me committing to buying the game. So while I did play some Pokemon games this year, I�d say I didn�t play as much as I intended to when I bought my 3DS. I�d like to play more Pokemon sometime, but perhaps when there are less exciting games that Im invested in just released.

2. Branch out to some different series

Result: Successful!

While I didn�t play Atelier or a main series Hyperdimension Neptunia game like I intended to, I can happily say I did try a bunch more series this year. I tried Indie JRPGs for the first time, such as the very fun X-Tactics and the intriguing Legrand Legacy and Light Fairytale, and I also tried other notable JRPG series such as Fire Emblem, Lost Dimension and Sorcery Saga that all left good impressions on me. I still have a big list of JRPGs I�d like to play still, such as the Disgaea series and Atelier, so I look forward to getting to them eventually.

3. Play some 3DS-only titles

Result: Played Fire Emblem Awakening and not much else

I had really good intentions with this goal. Ive been really excited for some 3DS titles that I thought Id never play such as Fire Emblem and Bravely Default and when I finally got my 3DS, I thought Id play them all immediately. I got really good at diving into my backlog in 2015 and I kept getting into my backlog this year, which counter-productively is mostly PlayStation games. I did however finally play Fire Emblem: Awakening and it was one of the most fun games I played this year. I hope to play more next year but I dont know if Ill make any promises this time.

4. Play the Tomba! series

Result: Itch not scratched

Ill keep this brief since Tomba is pretty much not a JRPG - I didnt play Tomba and I dont know when I will. I would love to sit down and replay games such as Tomba, Spyro and Sonic from my childhood sometime, but Im so focused on catching up on the JRPGs I havent played that I dont know when I will. Maybe Ill play them in Japanese for study sometime, but its unfortunately not high on my priority list at this point.

5. Play another classic Final Fantasy game

Result: Should�ve done this...didnt though

I played every new mobile Final Fantasy game, saw Kingsglaive twice in cinemas and am currently playing two console Final Fantasy games. Playing a classic Final Fantasy game crossed my mind multiple times but when it did, it was at a point where I felt like something different and since I consumed so many new Final Fantasy things in 2016, I dont think its strange that I didnt finish this one. I would still like to play my way through the old Final Fantasy games so Ill be keeping Final Fantasy VIII in mind the next time Im out of new games to play.

I spent most of my gaming year focusing on balancing my favourite franchises with new experiences. Although I only truly completed one out of five of my resolutions, it was a nice change to my gaming life. Im really certain JRPG series but its nice to remember there are other great franchises that I may love just as much, if not more than ones Im familiar with. Im also very thankful to everyone who recommended games to me in 2016 and in my new (potentially smaller) list of resolutions I hope I can be recommended more great games.

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Did you make any gaming resolutions for this year? How did they go?

Leave a comment below, send me a tweet at @JRPGJungle, hit me up on Facebook or Instagram and lets talk!

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The Unexpected Success of Ubuntu Brainstorm

The Unexpected Success of Ubuntu Brainstorm

Once upon a time, there was a busy, vibrant community...with some communication issues. Yes, Im talking about the Ubuntu community. Back in 2007.

So Ubuntu created a website to foster community discussion about ideas to improve Ubuntu. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com

Conventional Wisdom from the old-timers who remember those heady days is that it didnt work out. The site was quickly overwhelmed with bugs (not ideas), complaints (not ideas), and unrealistic expectations. It didnt work.

And Conventional Wisdom had those facts right...but reached entirely the wrong conclusion! Brainstorm has been successful in ways that were unexpected at the time.

1) Brainstorm is indeed lousy at directly turning submissions into code.

Well, we knew this already, didnt we? There is no roomful of monkeys poised over their keyboards eagerly awaiting the next idea to begin cranking out Shakesperian code. There never was. There never will be. Implementation was never really expected to be a metric of success...community action was supposed to be the metric.

2) Brainstorm is a great early-warning system for controversy.

What? You can avoid getting blindsided? Brainstorm is awesome at reflecting the communitys (lack of) consensus on a wide range of issues. For example, when close window window button changed sides, the ideas on the topic were plentiful. Similarly, today most ideas are about Unity. Brainstorm is also a pretty good barometer of whether an issue is temporary or chronic, and our moderators are excellent at separating valid issues from mere whining (so you dont have to).

3) Brainstorm is a great place to recruit enthusiastic new members.

The website is a portal-of-entry for users who are just starting to get involved, but dont understand the communitys structure yet, or how the various teams and projects interact.

4) Brainstorm keeps project community input manageable.

If you are involved with a project, you know how challenging it is to manage certain types of community feedback. Brainstorm has reviewers and moderators who do nothing but handle those tough cases. Better yet, its set up to let the community itself moderate feedback for you. And its set up so that you only answer an issue once...ever.

5) Brainstorm finds your blind spots.

Maybe its documentation, maybe its a workflow, maybe its a use case, maybe its a legacy, maybe its something else. The trend of feedback across years helps you improve user experience.


So, in the spirit of Ubuntu Community Appreciation day,

- Thanks to nand for writing and maintaining Ideatorrent.

- Thanks to the best moderators and reviewers in the world: Vahan Harutyunyan, DarwinSurvivor, Komputes, DrG, alourie, andruk, and Thonixx

Your valiant efforts to raise the quality of discussions and ideas, and to uphold the Ubuntu Code of Conduct, challenge me to strive. Im very proud to work with people of such high caliber.

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