2015 review

2015 was a great year. I moved to a new apartment, got a sweet job as an illustrator and celebrated being together for two years with my girlfriend.

Professionally it was also a great year, and I hit nearly all of the goals I had set for 2015.

[X] Earn more revenue than in 2014

I more than doubled my income from freelance activities last year compared to the year before, and had a good spread of work throughout the year.

[x] Diversify client base

I also succeeded in doing business with more new clients, some of which have become friends, and I had a great time working with them. I’m sad to see my main squeeze of 2015 Hubbub going into hibernation, but there is something poetic about it coinciding with me scaling back my own operation too now that I work for Yoast as an illustrator.

[x] Draw daily comics

I didn’t last all year, but I wanted to start doing dailies again in 2015 and I did. They were a fun extention of my weekly blog posts (which have now evolved into a newsletter).

I also intended to start up Off-Stage again and draw a page a week there, but I just couldn’t fit it into my schedule.

[x] Make a small (adventure) game and publish it on Itch.io

Reconquista was a small game idea I got from a dream, and it was my first 3D game and my first commercial game. I’ve always given away my games for free, but it’s a great feeling to earn money from one. It wasn’t much but it was a nice shot in the arm. I made another small (free) game too for the Idle Thumbs Wizard Jam, so technically this was a two-hit combo!

Itch.io is fast becoming my favorite indie game marketplace, and I contributed to the dutch translation of the desktop client that was just released.

And one of my definite highlights that I could not have foreseen at the start of 2015 was spending a week in the Torenkamer for a dutch radio show, making a game.

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More exciting things happened in 2015 that will also carry over into 2016, so sign up for my newsletter to hear about that.

And 2016 is starting off well – I’m enjoying my new job, there’s a cool freelance gamedev project starting this month and lasting all throughout the year (more on that once the embargo is lifted) and it was just announced that Adriaan de Jongh is in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list of game designers. I’m proud to have worked with him on Fingle and Bounden, the innovative games that kicked off our careers.

So a happy new year to you all!