2025 - My Review
Hello everyone. It’s me, Diego. The guy who barely wrote any posts over the past year.
This 2025 was not a fruitful year, full of activities or major changes in my life. Even so, it is still a year that can have an impact on my present life. So let’s go over the important events from last year.
Return to Lima Game Jam, 2025 version
This year, in January, I participated again in Lima Game Jam, one of the game jams held in Peru and linked to the Global Game Jam. This time, as a participant. At the event, I teamed up with three former students of mine, which made it interesting, and we ended up developing Nonoffice, a game related to the theme of verbal harassment in the workplace. My participation focused on the UI and characters' art, as well as game design, so I didn’t explore new techniques or tools, but the development process was satisfying.
You can play it at this link: https://antortk.itch.io/nonoffice
Taller Game Jam, the sequel
For the second year in a row, I carried out my game jam for students in Peru: Taller Game Jam 2025. This time, I included talks given by me, and the event lasted 7 days. There were more than 60 participants and a total of 9 games were made, making this game jam better than the previous one. All the management and execution of the event were handled by me alone, which you can imagine the amount of work involved, but it was worth the effort.
Here is the event: https://itch.io/jam/taller-game-jam-2025
A needed flow at IGDA Peru
This year, there were changes at IGDA Peru. Some official members stepped down, and new members were incorporated, including me as co-president, with new responsibilities and duties. The Board Game Jam 2025 took place in September, which unfortunately had a smaller reach than expected, and a social meetup was organized at the beginning of the year. So... in simple terms, this year our work pace was very slow, with very few events organized and little internal activity. And well... the image and presence of the organization in the local industry is on the floor.
Currently the plan is to establish a list of events and internal activities for this year, as well as to fill areas with new members. We have quite a bit of work ahead of us in 2026.
Less time at my work, for worse.. or for the better?
In the middle of the year, there was a change that affected several of us teachers at Toulouse Lautrec: teaching hours were significantly reduced. I don’t know the exact reason, but I estimate it was due to the low number of enrolled students. This forced me to move to a lower hourly category and, therefore, receive lower pay. Interestingly, it came with some unexpected benefits: fewer teaching hours mean fewer classes to teach and, consequently, fewer assignments to evaluate and fewer additional activities to plan. This resulted in me having more free time and feeling much more comfortable. While I enjoy teaching classes, doing other unpaid activities is not pleasant.
I used this extra time to redo my web portfolio, review some documents, and relax a bit. Fortunately, I was earning enough to cover my expenses, but I was just barely surviving since I had almost no freelance work to do. I also think I should have made better use of that time by looking for commission work or developing new content.
My thoughts and goals
In my opinion, 2025 was a year with a fairly passive life, without strong or important changes, which is good... but also bad. And that is the point that worries me. Talking with friends and thinking quietly while lying on my bed made me identify something important about myself: my lack of ambition or desire for growth. I am very conformist and I suffer from depression and procrastination from time to time. And seeing how my friends continue to progress in their lives fills me with the desire to want to do the same, but I don’t take the first step. I don’t feel envy toward them, but I can’t stop comparing myself to them and feeling like a failure.
Continuing like this will be the worst outcome, because the day will come when my main life support disappears, and I feel that everything I have achieved will have been worth nothing. For that, I need to be ready.
I have some goals or activities that I have set for myself to accomplish this year. I won’t write the exact goals for private reasons, but you get the idea:
Generate a higher income. Relying on my current job for this will not be possible, and I want my time to be more productive. For this, the creation of new products, activity on my platforms, and freelance work will be essential for now.
Lose weight. I need to do physical activity, which will help my self-esteem in the long run.
Produce Taller Game Jam 2026. I will do it again this year, in March. I am still thinking about what changes I can apply to make it better. Although it will once again be on my own, I am already considering getting support for the future.
Renew my personal space. Changing my room environment can bring freshness into my life, boost my motivation, and it is not something complicated to do. I have already started by getting rid of things I will no longer use, especially clothes.
Improve the image of IGDA Peru. It will be difficult, considering its current state, but it is not impossible. At the very least, I want to leave it organized and on the right path before stepping aside.
Conclusions
I feel that this past year was a year for reflection. To look at myself. To identify my current life and decide what to do with it and with my future. And it gave me a perspective that I can adopt, and I hope to stick with it throughout the year. Let’s see what the future has in store for us.
See you later.
