Thank you for another awesome year! (Blog) (Patreon)

Well we've reached the end once again ladies and gentlemen, what a whopper year!

I'd like to just start off by thanking all of you for supporting the channel this year, including Patreon. It's grown to become such an integral ingredient to the channel, that has led us down some WILD roads! SO sincerely, I love all of you for making this possible!

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2018 Recap) To be perfectly honest, I started the year is such a bad place mentally. Towards the end of 2017, a lot of revelations were made and along with this dark cloud looming over me, I thought my little fantasy world was over. There was no way I can even come close to matching what was produced last year, what with Sly, Bad Wrestling Games, N. Sane Trilogy and the introduction of Tony Hawktober. It's something that really messed me up and greatly affected my content, my personal and public decision making. In no way am I looking for sympathy with any of this by the way, I'm just trying to be transparent with all this. It just wasn't good at all during that time... until Croc!

Something about that project just reignited the passion and reminded me why I love to do this! I was able to flex my creative muscles to their fullest extent and deliver something I feel, please both camps: those who want normal game reviews... and those who want something more! And while I'd be lying if I said the year was all fine and dandy after that, it was still a rough time to get everything done, but for the first time in a while, I was actually REALLY enjoying all that was going on!

A Milestone Year) One of the things that made this year just so special for me was the amount of major events in the latter part of 2018. 100 EPISODES OF THE SHOW holy shit guys! Getting people to submit videos for the outro of that episode, the overwhelming response to that is easily one of my biggest highlights of not just this year, but all my years doing this! That was such amazing time (hectic as fuck because I was trying to get Hawktober done) and it just makes me so proud of everything we've accomplished as a community, everything that I've personally accomplished so far... it gives me chills just typing this up. I'm still just blown away by how awesome that ended up, despite the entire world working against that milestone! So again, thank you to everyone for contributing and making that just so much more special.

And of course, following that up almost immediately was the second year of Tony Hawktober... that blew all my expectations out of the water. Before the week was EVEN FINISHED, it was already the... BIGGEST SUCCESS in the channel's history!

Bigger than Crash, Spyro, Jak and Daxter, Futurama 'The Only Fucking Game' which did really well for some reason, EVERYTHING came in second place to Hawktober... across the board! It was such a roaring success that I honestly didn't see coming given the amount of hardships that production was worked through. And for me, it means so much that something I actually poured my heart into, outperformed the "easy, no effort, cash-grab" type content I do my best to avoid. Like the type of content I could make with zero energy that would be expected to perform well, Crash reviews for example. The previous record holder was in fact the N. Sane Trilogy review in 2017 so it means so much more for myself as a creator, that something meaningful. A project that comes from the heart, sits on the top!

The Most Important Victory) What started my downward spiral in late 2017 was poor mental health. Like I couldn't begin to list off the amount of things I was being diagnosed with, stuff I'd always wondered myself. It was an incredibly stressful time where symptoms... I guess, that I had managed to escape for years were starting to come back in full force. Dealing with those things has been a process over the course of this year, while also having all of this officially diagnosed. That's a headache in it's own right and still going into next year.

Point is, after ALL of this hard work and finally having a win, and such a huge win with Hawktober. The great success that was Episode 100 and getting to go back to PAX Australia and escape for a bit... those returning symptoms that officially set in motion the downward spiral of poor mental health exactly one year prior... started to dissipate. November and December of 2018 is easily the best I have felt in about 3 years and as a result, even though very briefly, I was completely removed from some of my worst symptoms and that is just insane to me. 

2019 and the Future) Even though I've kinda reset back to normal quite recently, it's given me such a positive, optimistic outlook towards 2019 and what's to come! I'm once again focused and excited to work on large scale projects, I'm keen for some more wins and to try at least, to keep the schedule a lot more consistent. I'll be looking to update the brand a little and start to focus on growing it and delivering the highest quality content possible. And... I'm even keen to do a little bit of travelling in the process!

We're starting 2019 off with 21,000 SUBSCRIBERS which is just fucking awesome, cheers guys! And the main goal for next year is to continue growing the channel, as well as growing the Patreon with some new rewards for bigger and better projects. So keep your eyes peeled in the first quarter of next year for further updates on all of this!

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Closing Thoughts) We've got quite the year ahead of us, let me assure you of that. it's only just dawned on me in the past week, since finishing the Christmas Special just HOW MUCH there is to get done. And to think I'm already A MONTH BEHIND SCHEDULE on getting that all done! So that's fucking GREAT! But oh well, I like a good challenge!

STAY TUNED through the New Year for more frequent Live Stream content and some other stuff, while I begin work on a massive 6 Part Review series and some other big projects. There will most likely also be some updates and such, explaining what will be going on. NO BLOG NEXT WEEK because it's fucking Christmas, having a short break. But as always, thank you all so much for reading...

supporting...

pledging...

and helping to make this such a fulfilling experience! I'm Square Eyed Jak and I hope you have a great fucking day. Thank you all for such a whopper year and I'll see you for THE NEXT ONE! :D

Artwork by @PieLordCollin on Twitter!