I left it a few minutes late so it’s 2025 in Ireland, but that’s a minor thing.
Darr’s 2024 Retrospective:
Did a bit of work on War of Lovers after the 2023 FEE3.
Announced CELICA: this did quite well.
Made the annual 1st of April release: this time it was Champion’s Revolt, aka Roy vs. Al.
Judged the many CELICA entries - this took about six weeks.
Went trainspotting during a holiday - the weather held until the return flight.
Slowly got back to working on War of Lovers for FEE3.
Took a break to create a menu patch for Itadaki (Fortune or Boom) Street DS - I like the Wii game, nobody else made a patch for the DS version, so I did what I could.
Submitted War of Lovers to FEE3: the first time I got a repeat showing instead of doing something new.
Played several old RPGs on my backlog - this feeds into my Super Hit Post entry.
Released War of Lovers v0.3 for FEE3! This was a mistake - it was horribly buggy.
After about a month of polishing, released v0.31, which wasn’t buggy.
And of course, I’m leaving my contest entry until the last minute as usual: will I ever stop procrastinating?
I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I know I can’t keep them. The 2025 plan is relax a bunch because I’ve crunched myself for too many contest deadlines recently. After that, War of Lovers Act 3! Or something completely different. Who knows? Me this time next year, probably.
Can’t say 2024 was particularly eventful for me. Started a project, hope to finish it in this coming year. I’ll be kicking off 2025 with a new contest post, so for people into that sort of thing, look forward to that I suppose.
Submitted said sequel to FEE3 for its first public reveal.
Participated in CELICA with a second place finish.
Joined and subsequently finished the new FE3 translation, Heroes of Light. This was certainly my favorite accomplishment of the year. Hopefully FE3 gets some more respect in the new year.
Do5 done. Realised I needed to spend more time baking DoR instead of making DoR yet. Came up with HC. HC half-done. Got a short story published. Got another professional writing gig. Mostly, though, glued myself back together after a difficult 2022/23 and finally got started on, like, a ‘career’, so that I have the money to spend on iced coffee that sustains the hackrom.
Well shit. It’s insane to think that all of this has been one year, but… here I go.
Came out as trans.
Emphasis. I came out as a trans woman.
Seriously, this entire year has had so much happen, and yet it all kinda pales in comparison in the face of just, like… I’m a girl now. Literally everything is different. It’s difficult to impart exactly how transformative an experience it is, sometimes even to other trans people, but it felt like flicking a switch. For a long time, including much of the time I spent here in FEU, I was downright miserable, all the time. I was cranky, grouchy, cynical to a fault, pretentious and egoistic, and profoundly tired. Nowadays, I’m… not that. I like who I am, instead of disliking who I am. And that kind of overshadows everything else. I’m Olivia now!!! ^.^
Became briefly homeless and moved into a totally new part of town.
Made a ton of new friends. Among them are some of the most important people to have ever graced my life.
Finished (almost!) two commercial scripts for two different indie SRPGs, finally starting my career at the age of 25.
Fell in love, and out of love, for the first time in close to a decade, then found new love again.
Fell below 100kg for the first time in my life.
Played some of my new favourite games of all time.
Rediscovered my love of TTRPGs in a big way.
Most important of all, though, is that for all the struggling along the way, this was one of the best years I’ve ever had. I’ve never been happier. Ever. And next year is looking even brighter, with both of the games I’ve worked on being slated for a release soon, and a future as my proper self, with all my new and amazing friends, awaiting me in the new year.
Some people in this community have borne witness to just how rough things got for me at times in 2024. They know who they are, so I’m just gonna tell them here: Thank you. So, so, so fucking much, thank you all a million times, thank you. Even if it was just staying up late and shooting the shit, or listening to me vent about life’s many frustrations and heartbreaks, or anything else, it all helped more than you know. I’m not sure how I would’ve stayed sane without that support in my life. And for those of you who played a more direct role in my life… I’ll never, ever, be able to thank you enough. I can’t shake the feeling that you guys saved my life. To all of you: I love you all so dearly, and I don’t say it enough. So I’m saying it now, and hoping it makes up for lost time. And uh… I guess that’s everything.
I also used THUMBLIB3 to rewrite some of Hextator’s old animation hacks.
I’d probably have more to say if I wasn’t extremely tired, but 2025 is like… 20 minutes away, so: thanks for 2024, goodnight. I’ll catch you all in 2025.
I came back to the rom-hacking and FE community this year, which wasn’t something I really ever expected to happen. I fell out of love with Fire Emblem for a good while. My romhack was something I had put to rest for about a year or so and I felt like…defeated by the amount of hurdles I knew I would need to overcome in making a hackrom.
Not from a defeatist attitude but from the idea that I, as a person, have a lot of difficulty with committing to ideas and projects and seeing things to completion. I also know in the past that I used to be known as a self-deprecative person especially in regards to my own perceived lack of talent at pixel art (turns out a lot of people use my assets but my self worth shouldn’t come from that), so to come into the tail-end of 2024 relatively happy with where I am in terms of my mental-health is good. It didn’t hurt that I managed to find a job I actually enjoyed this year after spending at least 8 months of 2023 desperately looking for a job.
I made a ton of new friends and acquaintances in another Fire Emblem server and got extremely invested in a Fire Emblem TTRPG that is still going strong to this day after a good 10 months or so; and I am so thankful I was invited to take part of it.
The fact that I’m committing to Liberty’s Beacon and not starting over, despite the fact that this project originally started as a weird offshoot Sacred Stones thing called “Grado 805”, is huge to me. I like to create things and try to bring my ideas to life, so what started as a challenge for me to create a ten chapter project (I have 6 playable chapters so far!) is quickly turning into a full-length campaign that I am both excited and nervous to keep working on.
Even if Liberty’s Beacon is never [Complete], even if it falls into obscurity…I know working on it was worth it because it taught me how to persevere, how to accept feedback thoughtfully and graciously and how to be patient with myself.
I just want to also thank a good acquaintance (you know who you are) for helping me with my FEE3 trailer one last time, because I honestly would have procrastinated and likely have not had anything done in time for it if it hadn’t been for her help. You’re a boss!
To 2025 and may we all step into countless realms of wonder and whimsy in the romhacking community in the coming year.
It’s easy for me to feel like I spent 2024 doing a whole lot of nothing, but when I go and look back I really had been keeping myself pretty busy.
Lost work around May when the podcast producing I was working for stopped producing podcasts. I began the job search in June, updating my Resume, making a Portfolio Website, reworking my demo reel, and applying for well over 50 listings over the course of the next 6 months or so. To not dwell on it too much, it’s sucked pretty bad. But I had to give it a try, right? It feels bad that nothing has come of it yet, but at least I can say I wasn’t doing nothing.
Published 29 videos by my count! Started in March, and I’ve managed to put up at least one video every month. Some are FE/SRPG related, a couple of them are an hour long! I even got early access to a demo thanks to it, to. I know a number of people here have been watching and share and I really appreciate all of y’all! It’s also thanks to these videos that I’ve ended up spending more time with folks in this community, and it’s been very fun. Despite the fact that I’m making so little income off of it, I am still beyond thrilled that I’ve gotten anything off the ground at all.
On a related note, helped a few people with their FE-E3 trailers! I always feel like I uhhhh don’t do a whole lot of tangible actions to help people, so on top of being fun to work on, it also felt really emotionally rewarding.
I released the first playable demo of Liberation Blade! I’ve been very on and off about this project for the past 2 years, and I’ve learned a lot about what makes a good game and a good story in that time, and I’m really excited that I’m finally able to share something I’m really proud of, even if it’s only the first third. It’s already changed so much in that time that I don’t even remember what it was like a year ago. I’m really excited to get the next act out there, because my best writing by far is certainly still to come. When it’s ready, that’s when I’m actually going to force my friends to play it lol.
Played a bunch of hacks! Not as many as I’d like, but more than I did the year before. So hey, it’s something.
All this while also managing my physical and mental health, which I’ve luckily gotten into a routine to accommodate for it, but even with medicine for my chronic pain, ADHD, and depression, it’s still a challenge that I have to work around daily. I’ve made a few other bits of progress also in my personal life that I’d prefer not to air out on a forum post, but I have a lot of people in my life that I care very much about that make me extremely happy .
I have very little idea where this next year will take me. What I’ll play, what I’ll make, what work I’ll find, and so much more. But despite all the challenges I’ve faced, I’m feeling extremely optimistic about the future, because I get to spend time with a lot of cool people and I’ve been getting to do stuff that I love. Thanks to all the folks I’ve been spending time around recently, and to all the people that have been supporting my projects. Here’s to another year of making the best of what we got! Cheers, everybody.
Got far, far less done this year than I was hoping to. Can’t say I’m the most enthusiastic about my year overall, but to recap:
Trickle of progress on Spectrum, most of the progress was in story planning and rewriting lategame chapters.
Did a chapter in another project.
Played less Fire Emblem in general this year, mood just hasn’t really been there.
My computer broke. Then I got a new one.
Made some more online friends. Starting to open up and be a bit more social so that’s a plus.
Realized I was probably nonbinary this year. It’s why I went by YeahNice during the FEE3 showcase and why I plan to keep going by that screen name going forward. Also thank you to Olivia for reminding me how to change my FEU username, now that’s fixed too.
Here’s to hoping my 2025 is a bit more productive.
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