It’s something I’ve not kept up with as well in the last couple of years. I have the occasional project and I enjoy learning new things. But I’m aware that it’s become more sporadic than intentional, if that’s a bad thing? I don’t know.
This is one of the downsides to working from home I think. Sitting at the desk in my house all day doesn’t really inspire me to then do the same in my free time. At one point I did find it helped to pick an entirely different toolset to what I’d been using at work.
One instance was Godot, not massively long after Unity’s pricing controversy I picked it up and for a little while built a character controller for a 3D platformer. This was quite fun, trying to recreate things I’d seen in Mario was a great way to learn the engine and doing a little bit each night worked really well for me.
But when I’d completed the character controller (or at least I was happy with it), what next? I felt like I had gotten my head around the engine structure and programming well, which was my initial goal, but I didn’t really know what to do with it.
I don’t really have answer for personal projects. I know smaller things are often better, and maybe doing these little experiments is a perfectly fine way to go. But sometimes you want something a little more “meaty” to show for it.
Either way, right now I’m enjoying small electronics projects and playing around with a Raspberry Pi Pico!