RETROSPECTIVE ON 2025

January 4, 2026 - Published

2025 was not really what I expected. There's some good in that, and some bad, but I wanted to first go over the new stuff like usual.

I finished writing an article related to media literacy, titled: Do Writers Write Things They Disagree With?

I drew art of Bradley the Badger (also on Itaku) and posted my Art Summary for the year (also on Itaku).

Finally, Debiduba has an English version for sale in case anyone wants to play it without translating. Sorry, need to maintain reasons for people to learn the language!

With that out of the way, let's talk about things. It'll be a little personal, and definitely ramble-y.

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Apparently, I had already mentioned in the past and forgotten, but this year was huge for me because it was the year I moved out.

There's a lot I had to figure out on the spot, from getting a job with more hours, to having to do groceries and cook for myself regularly (which is where my article on lazy, cheap, healthy-ish eating came from).

Despite feeling pretty strapped for time, I accomplished a lot more than expected, looking back on it. I published over a dozen articles, 14 Youtube videos (including the ones on the Dasopya channel), 2 video games (Konakin and Debiduba), 2 mini comic series (kyle14's 2025 event and Ravi in the Frutiger Aero world), and even made major contributions for a game trailer that was shown off at EVO.

I expect a lot of this was possible specifically because I moved out, especially the Youtube videos, where I was allowed to record them much more freely. However, barring the comics, my art was notably absent this year.

Since I began participating, this was the first year I didn't participate in ArtFight, and I had multiple entire months that were essentially just art droughts. Last year, I finished the sprites for 6 separate DracoFighter 2 characters, and this year I only finished 1.

I keep telling myself I don't have enough time to do things like that, but it's obvious that I do. I know a large reason I've been struggling with projects like DracoFighter 2 is due to my neurodivergence, but I also know that excuses aren't what anyone wants to hear, and it's not something that I want to say right now, either. It's not an exaggeration to say that my inability to complete DracoFighter 2's sprites in 2025 was easily my biggest regret of the entire year, and I still feel bad about it.

Instead of adding more excuses, I'll be making a promise. I will be finishing DracoFighter 2's base character sprites in 2026. That will include the projectile sprites, even if they end up being updated later. Ideally, I'll be releasing some type of demo as well, but I can't make any promises about that yet.

Either way, as I mentioned in the last update, I still have to re-examine my relationship with art. It's clear that I have a very strong desire to continue making art, but the type of art that I want to make is something that I need to figure out. It's digital art and gamedev that I've expected to be My Things for a long time, but it's clear that's no longer exactly where my heart is anymore.

Moving on from the serious stuff, though, I don't get to talk about hobbyist achievements much!

This year, I picked up the ocarina! I'm very happy about this because I've essentially never had an instrument click with me. I can play the piano and kalimba, sure, but nothing has really felt so viscerally enjoyable to me as blowing into this potato-shaped flute. I haven't even played Ocarina of Time! A friend just inspired me after I heard how nice it was in-person, and I remembered reading about how easy it was to play.

I also wanted to document where my language learning journey's been, but it's been surprisingly difficult to gather all the information, most likely because it's taken a backseat to everything else. I've already explored most of the languages that have interested me, after all -- gaining fluency is a much bigger commitment that I'm not interested in obtaining for most languages.

I would say that Polish and Filipino were the ones I studied the most this year, having also dipped my toes into Mandarin Chinese, Italian, and Finnish. My most notable achievement this year is literally finishing the Polish course on LingoDeer, something I did not expect! After exploring everything, I expect the languages I would actually pursue to be... well, they're actually all on this list I made of my favorites, who would've guessed.

I've also been loving Tekken 8!!! Yes, I suffered through Season 2 and temporarily quit and went back to Tekken 7 like everyone else, but I came back after it was fixed, and boy was it worth it. Armor King has been one of my mains since Tekken 2, and I played him seriously for much of Tekken 7, so it was extremely gratifying to finally reach Tekken King rank in the newest game. I even made a self-congratulatory video celebrating this, because I think it's totally valid to give myself a pat on the back for it.

Tekken is still easily my favorite fighting game franchise of all time, as my friends can probably attest to after hearing my impassioned rambles about the game. Learning and practicing anything in Tekken goes such a long way in a franchise that's still so rich in things to learn -- doing something as simple as actually being able to react and duck a mid-high string really makes you feel accomplished in a way that I have just not bothered with reaching in most other fighting games.

...

uhhhhhhh

Yeah no I think that's basically everything I had to talk about!

There's a lot of little things I could mention, but those feel more like something to put in a Bluesky post or something. Like, do I really need to say that I enjoyed Deltarune and thought it was awesome?? Cuz of course it was!!

Naw, I'm wrapping this up with the year's goals.

2025 goals:
- release a small game with Dasopya
I actually released 2 of them, nice!

- finish all the base DF2 cast sprites
There is only 1 character left now, but I'm still disappointed I couldn't do this one.

- find a new hobby
I had no idea what to expect for this one, but the ocarina fits this perfectly!

I consider this rather successful, but it's hard to come up with good ones for 2026 since I expect a lot of it will be about self-discovery. Did I mention I'm at the part of my life now where I'm questioning my gender identity? Because we're on that part now (I'm currently identifying as a demiboy!).

2026 goals:
- finish all base DF2 cast sprites including projectiles
- get hired at a new better-paying job
- get at least 5-10 games off my Steam backlog whether by finishing or removing them (this thing is getting huge)

Emotionally, 2025 was rough, and 2026 also appears to be off to a bad start, but I've been very happy and grateful to have amazing friends to help and guide me through it all. I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful 2026, and I wish you the very best luck for everything you pursue. byugwi kobigen telu polukyu!