Last year I made and posted some gaming resolutions.

I wasn't successful with all of them but they acted as a useful guide to what I wanted to do with my game time during the year and I think it's an exercise I want to repeat. I'm repeating it. Here. In this post. This is me repeating it.

Resolutions for 2022

1) Continue to control my spending.

I spent less money on gaming last year and it worked out well for me! I mostly avoided spending $60+ on games I didn't play and also avoided buying a bunch of sale bait I don't care about to add to my backlog. Did I miss the dopamine hit from buying new games and getting excited about them? Yes. But I did not miss the high credit card bills or the feeling of obligation to play stuff. Since I already have a PS5 now I want to bring my spending even further down this year. That's not to say I'm committing to not buying anything, but I don't want to buy anything that I don't really want to play, and I want to wait for deep sales on games I do want to play but not necessarily right now.

2) Write more interesting blogs

Blogging these days is pretty much writing for yourself. You might get a few views and if you're lucky a couple responses but the days of robust forum threads and conversations are pretty much gone. I look at the other bloggers on this site and see the incredible effort they put in and how little response they get and I'm both sad and inspired because they keep plugging away for the love of the game. Looking back on my own blogging output this year I put out way too many reviews that nobody really cares about (especially long after release) and didn't dig as deep as I'd like into games and themes and my own gaming. I want to change that this year. I have a tendency to just review stuff because I want the reader to know what the game is like and get a feeling for why I responded to it the way I did, and because I hate spoilers, but if I'm writing for me that's not the best use of my time. I'd rather get deeper into stuff and really express my opinions and thoughts rather than just rehashing what other reviewers wrote better 6 months ago.

All that being said...I, of course, deeply appreciate anyone who has read any of my blogs this year and especially those who have commented, even if they disagreed with me. You all meant a lot to me this year. Special shout out goes to @zombiepie, a terrific blogger in their own right, for putting together the Community Spotlight every week. It can be a thankless task these days with the community on the forums dwindled to such a small size, but it's still meaningful to those of us who remains.

Thanks, @zombiepie, for all you do to keep these forums alive. Thanks to the whole mod team, too, of course, for making sure that they stay one of the few mostly civil places left on the Internet!

3) Play more current year games.

This served me well last year so I'm going to try to do it again. I like old games but too often I find myself going down rabbit holes, especially into past games that just aren't worth actually playing. I mean...did I HAVE to play Blood Knights this year? Technically I did not. Focusing on current games makes me more optimistic about the future of gaming and means my backlog grows less. It's a good policy for me, personally, though of course I have to be careful about the cost. Most current year games drop in price swiftly, though, so a balance can be had here.

4) Continue with the marathons.

I love marathons. Whether it was Schlocktober or my Ratchet & Clankathon or my now years long attempt to assassinate all the creeds I just really enjoy trying to plow through a series or a bunch of thematically connected games. I should do more of this! It helps focus my thoughts, prevents me from having decision paralysis, and lets me clear out big swathes of backlog. Win/win/win.

5) Clear out the cream of my backlog

This is somewhat in conflict with #3, but not really because that's not a commitment to only play current year games, just to try and focus on them. The time I do spend on older games I want to spend to finally finish games that have lingered on my backlog for a long time that I really want to play. There are a bunch of these games, like Puppeteer and Majin And the Forsaken Kingdom and I'd like to polish as many as possible this year. In 2021 I got to long time backlog games like Shadows of the Damned and the Lords of Shadow series, but I also played games like Rocket Knight that I just didn't need to ever get to.

6) Finish the unfinished games in my collection

There are just too many games I have played parts of and intended to get back to but haven't. I need to rectify that. It's fine to drop a game if I don't like it, but all too often I DO like a game and just get distracted or busy and drop it even though I want to get to the end. I finished some games like that this year (I finally got through SteamWorld Dig after dropping it at the last boss) and that felt good. Feeling good is good! Good!

7) Try every Game Pass game released on Xbox in 2022.

This is my big one for this year. I have Game Pass and an Xbox. Some of my best gaming this year has been through Game Pass and in trying stuff I otherwise wouldn't through that service. This year I want to try every game added to Game Pass in 2022, and write something about each of them. I am not committing to finishing all these games (that would probably be impossible) but just giving them like an hour each. If Game Pass adds 10-15 games per month that's a big but not unmanageable commitment given my time constraints. If I've already played a game I can skip it and if there's a game I have a strong moral objection to (like a game created by a hardcore transphobe or whatever) I can skip that too, but otherwise I want to try every game no matter whether it appeals to me or does not. This is going to be my big gaming project for the year and I'm looking forward to it!

Those are my resolutions this year. I look forward to seeing how well I keep them. If you want to add your own resolutions below please do!

And one more round of applause for @zombiepie!