Ask HN: What is one unexpected positive thing that happened to you in 2020?
- So far me and my wife&#x27;s family, friends, and myself have survived the pandemic <i>knock on wood</i>. There&#x27;s some people with risk factors, including myself, so I&#x27;m pretty happy about that. I did have a coworker who died of it, though :(. Hopefully we can avoid it until at least getting the vaccine.<p>- Wrote about 60,000 words in my journal&#x2F;game design diary this year, although that&#x27;s down from 123,000 last year, but at least it&#x27;s better than nothing. Made sure to record observations about the pandemic periodically during it, for reflection on in later years.<p>- One of my game designs was selected as a finalist for a prestigious board game design contest (this is the third year I tried), and then the same game was selected as a finalist for a sellsheet contest later that year, which allowed me to do a virtual pitch of the game to 20+ publishers. One publisher offered to brainstorm ideas with me for ways in which to add more to the game that it might find a publisher.<p>- One of my earliest board game designs had been shelved for the past 3+ years and I suddenly realized how to add an interesting hook and make the game more thematic at the same time, which ended up fixing a major problem with the game. Had a productive playtest with other game designers a few weeks ago as well. Currently trying to get it polished up enough to enter into a game design contest in January.<p>- Finally got over my hesitation to make 3D video games (instead of just 2D) and self-taught myself just enough Blender to make some functional 3D models to include in a game I&#x27;m working on, and started again from scratch in 3D, and I think that was a smart move. Looks about the same but nice 3D animations that are easier to get working than 2D (i.e. I don&#x27;t have to draw them), and handling multiple resolutions is easier.<p>- Got more into puzzle creation and design. Might have come up with a couple novel pen and paper logic puzzles. Still need to dig into it more.<p>- Started using monte carlo simulations to help design board games. In particular I used it for one abstract game design to discover what combination of variables I needed so the game wouldn&#x27;t have a first player advantage and was guaranteed not to have ties, which I wouldn&#x27;t have been able to tell without a ton of manual playtests otherwise. Didn&#x27;t even occur to me how I could use code to help me design until this year.<p>- Came up with about 15 ideas for new game designs, as well as ideas on how to improve or fix the issues with four existing designs.<p>- Wrote a short story I&#x27;m pretty happy with that&#x27;s getting published in an anthology for a local writer&#x27;s group, about a broker who protects and manages secrets from corporations (secrets being things like credit card numbers and maiden names and the like).<p>- We explored a few State Parks we wouldn&#x27;t have known existed in the area if it weren&#x27;t for the pandemic. But we ended up cancelling our planned trip to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks this year, so it&#x27;s a poor substitute.<p>Other than that, just about everything else was shitty this year. And most of this stuff would have probably happened without the pandemic anyway.