What else is there to say?

I just want to take a nap.

I honestly struggle to write about the past year, because I'm at a point where it feels tiring to basically repeat myself each year: Things were rough, but some good things did happen! The political situation sure is bad, but maybe things will improve next year!

And then nothing really substantially changes. My life stays where it has been since I've finished University. I still don't seem to be able to get a job. I keep making games despite a general sense that no one outside of myself really wants me to keep making them and the world spirals further into oblivion.

But it's the end of 2025, so let's talk about it all. Last year I had the foresight to put down some wishes for this year and let's just see how it all went.

I would like for something nice to happen to me.

Let's see:

I've read over 20 books this year, and most of them were really good. I even appreciate the bad books, because it made me realize that writing can be difficult.

I've met a friend who I've previously only known over the internet for the first time!

I released Virtue's Heaven!

I started working on JRPG Game and I don't know when I last had such a good time working on anything.

I've wrote some nice blog posts!

I would like to be done with getting Welfare.

As many nice things have happened, my overall situation hasn't really changed. Things might get more awful soon though, because the German government has decided to really hate the poor now.

I would like to get an appointment with my old Therapist.

I just didn't get around to it. Also given the current political direction everywhere, I'm frankly scared to have myself examined too closely.

Maybe, after all of this is done and the old world lies in ruins before me, I can finally understand what it feels like to be an actual human being.

I would like for Virtue’s Heaven to be done (I’m not that delusional to think it will do well, or be any good).

I'm still very shocked both about the fact that the game is actually done for real and how much I ended up liking it at the end. I'm a bit sad about the general reception towards it, because a lot of it feels very superficial. I talked at length about the struggles I had with this game and how long it took me to figure out what it needed. I've put a lot of time, energy and thought into it and to see it then be described as "A neat Retro game" with some very superficial descriptions of it just hurt. This is not as much aimed at the people who did this, and has so much more to do with a combination of how the game is designed, how I look at it and how I assume others would and just the simple fact that (in absolute terms) not a lot of people have played the game and thus the amount of reactions I'm seeing at all is miniscule.

Seeing these very superficial readings of my work frustrates me, not because I want to receive praise for it. Most of the things people are saying are very nice! The frustration comes from a perceived lack of interest.

A few weeks ago I shared a negative curator comment for Virtue's Heaven and honestly, it was a delight to read, because it gave me the impression that the person in question at least tried to understand what the game was doing. That it didn't land with them is unfortunate, but at least they thought about the game as something that was intentionally built.

I've been doing this stuff for over 10 years now, and most of the reactions towards any of my games is either silence, or superficial positivity. Part of the reason why I put Virtue's Heaven at a higher price, was because I thought that having it be more expensive, might force more people to honestly engage with it, instead of playing it for ten minutes and moving on. In a way, I wanted to have some kind of negative reaction to it, because that would show me that at least I forced people to think about it. Alas, the same thing happened, and again: I'm grateful for the nice comments and everyone who has bought the game and shown interest in my work. So much of what's bothering me has to do with myself and the structures we exist in, and it would be ridiculous to demand of others to accommodate this to such a large degree.

However, this makes it all hard to talk about the game and my interest in videogames in general, because every time I try to do this, I have to work myself through these frustrations.

I submitted Virtue's Heaven to the IGF and I put this statement into the notes for the judges, which I feel summarizes where I'm currently at with me relationship to videogames at large:

It's been ten years since I made the decision to try to turn "making videogames" into a career. For various reasons these attempts of mine never went anywhere and I'm currently looking at the real possibility that this is it for me with games.

Virtue's Heaven took me a very long time to finish and it's a deeply personal project of mine. Videogames hasn't given me much over the last decade, aside from worsening my mental health, so for anyone who picks this game up to judge it, I have a request:

Please give this game your time and consider what it's attempting to do before moving on. I'm not asking for praise, or nominations and awards. I don't care. I just want for someone in this wretched industry to notice what I've been doing.

Thank you for your time and interest.

None of this makes sense, but what else am I supposed to do, on this final day?

I would like to work with other people on a videogame project.

The big problem with this part is that this would either require me to have money to pay people directly, or know folks who want to work with me. I am collaborating with a composer for my JRPG project, and it is very cool to see how much their work adds and recontextualizes the game, but I'm not very optimistic about my chances to pay for an entire soundtrack. It is nice though and I still very much want this to happen at some point.

In a way this connects to what I said in regards to the reception towards Virtue's Heaven. I desperately want to connect to other people, but I do not know how and I'm scared of messing things up.

I would like for good things to happen to my family and friends.

I'm scared of what's on the horizon.

I would like for me and the next German chancellor to NOT share the same last name.

From 2005 onwards, every few years I thought "wow, I hate Angela Merkel, but at least she pushed Friedrich Merz out of the picture!" Not only is that wimp now Germany's current chancellor, I'm pretty sure he's also the reincarnation of Franz von Papen. Around the election date early this year, I kept wondering if the simple fact that I share the same last name as the guy who will usher in Germany's next openly fascist government is some kind of message to me.

I still don't really know what to do about this. Right now, all I do is ignore any national news, because while the general state of the world is already bleak enough, I cannot deal with particular casual cruelty that is currently being enacted over here.

I would like for the German left to get its shit together.

I quit the German Left party at the end of 2024, because they kept fumbling anything related to the Genocide in Gaza and I was just done with wasting my energy in a party that keeps dropping the ball every time there's a chance to push for something better.

I'm glad that they got a good result in the federal elections, especially considering that a lot of people here predicted them to crumble, after a bunch of fairly prominent (but pretty reactionary) party members left to form their own party.

However, I've also not really seen or heard anything from them since the election, which is a bit concerning considering how the current government is currently in the process of obliterating what little of a welfare state we still had.

I would like for the genocide in Gaza to end and for its perpetrators to face justice.

I'm still waiting for this to happen.

Never forget that those who rule this world are people, not gods.

I would like for Capitalism to crumble.

Same here, though some more notes:

When shit started to hit the fan in the US at the beginning of 2025, I kept reading "oh this will not last long!" and for some reason we're now entering 2026 and things are still going. It reminded me a bit how people kept saying that twitter will fall apart within months of Elon Musk having bought it. Now you could say that this did happen, but for all intents and purposes, it's still around and the guy is richer than ever. We're now also entering year 2, or 3 of the AI Bubble being about to burst and that also has yet to happen.

Believe me, I would like for all these things to fall apart and be replaced with a society that isn't dedicated to worshipping Entropy. However, I don't think that this system will do us the courtesy of dismantling itself and if it does, it will do so in a way where those hurt by the collapse are those who are the least deserving to be hit.

Now, for next year:

See you all in 2026!

Your life is precious, who and what you love is precious, even when the entire world insists on the opposite.