The month is almost midway and I finally get down to looking at the year gone by, summarizing its ups and downs, and writing a few key milestones that I can recollect…
2008 was not the easiest for me, and I think anyone who decides to move out of a comfortable job to doing something they strongly believe in, would probably feel the same way, atleast in their first year! But one year’s down and I have no regrets, except that I could have pushed myself some more to do better work!
Through the year I worked on games – mostly online for couple of great clients of mine and really enjoyed working on them. I invented and followed my own words – “games on any platform will always be games, and games are always fun to work on!”
But online games was not what my objective when the year began last year, the objective was to continue my passion for doing mobile content which I tried focusing on in between all the other work. Through the year I worked on a catalogue of Flash Lite games, some of which got immensely appreciated by game analysts and talented people in the mobile industry, and some which are still waiting to come out of the shadow of the appreciated ones.
My Flash Lite game Gear Wager was selected as a nominee for the prestigious IMGA Awards in the Casual Game Category. It felt great to be amongst some really big names in the first year of my company – IGameStudio formation! Another game Headers Euro 2008 was also appreciated, infact mentioned in the PocketGamer magazine.
I authored an article on the Adobe Developer Connection – Ten Tips to enable you to develop better Flash Lite Games. With this article, I was amongst the group of firsts to be a part of the ADC Write and Give Program.
I was also interviewed by Playyoo on Flash Lite and Game Development. For the first time, I contributed to an audio interview.
Mid during last year, a program ‘Adobe India Community Champions’ was introduced by John Koch to bring together leaders from the Indian subcontinent to work together to build a RIA cult amongst devs. This program meant working together with other Champions on events, trainings, user groups, sharing of information & presentations… basically doing everything that would help other Indian developers Learn, Grow and Lead. I was extremely lucky to be invited to join this group of very talented people from various parts of the country and contribute to evangelizing Flash on Mobiles in India.
I was also selected as the Forum Nokia Champion by the team at Forum Nokia for the community work I will continue doing with their mobile technologies.
I started working on some new technologies too, like the WRT Widgets and the Google Android.
Events wise, I attended the Forum Nokia Code Camps for Flash Lite and Web Runtime Widgets in Bangalore and the BarCamps and Mobile Mondays in Mumbai.
So what does 2009 have in store…my guess is as good as everyone else’s..No Idea!! (Hoping not to sound too superstitious here 🙂 ) But I’d like to add by saying I’ve invested in a very good diary starting this year, which I hope to keep filled and busy all through the year.
And my New Year Resolutions also stays..well…Nothing again – because I strongly believe in taking challenges each day and resolutions that are meant to be followed can seriously hamper challenges 🙂
Wishing a great 2009 to everyone!
Mariam
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