Ondrej Markus

Entrepreneur in ed-tech, building the future of education as a founder and CEO at Playful.

I write about the future of education, designing learning games, and running a startup.

I'm a generalist, introvert, gamer, and optimizing to be useful.

stickman sitting at a desk

What the work happened: Q2 2022

A very personal reflection on my work-life from April to June 2022.

Q2 2022 Reflection

Hey there,

it’s time for a quarterly reflection.

First, I wrote a super-long piece about everything that happened. It was helpful for my introspection, but it was not interesting. Believe me.

So I scratched it.

And now I’m sharing this relatively short n’ sweet version.

Let’s do it.

What’s the story of Q2?

It began by me priming my decision-making muscles and then taking a 3-week break from writing to figure out what do I want to do next in life.

And, to my surprise, I realized I want to:

  1. Pursue game design,
  2. and try living in an English-speaking country.

The catch being: I was broke.

No money, no party.

No money, no party.

So the plan was to get a job to make solid money doing something I enjoy. I was lucky because the studio where I worked a year ago was just looking for a lead designer for a 2-month project.

I took the job.

And that’s what I was doing for the last 2-and-something months: I led an innovation project researching and prototyping a new product for an unnamed client.

The biggest surprise was that what I expected to be a 3-4 days week job easily swallowed my full-time attention.

I wanted to keep writing and start exploring games months ago, but the amount of responsibility and endless pipeline of work waiting to be done with a fast-approaching deadline freaked out my brain, so it shut down all my attempts to focus on other things.

Access denied. Ask again later.

Access denied. Ask again later.

I realized that if I want to do a great job on the project, I have to give it my whole attention for those 2 months. So I did.

That’s why I’ve been so silent on the writing front.

Anyway.

Now I’m back. With enough money saved. Running wild and free again.

Wild and free, again.

Wild and free, again.

So let’s talk about what I’ll do next.

What’s up in Q3?

The first thing my body decided to do was shut itself down after the 2-month design sprint. So once I finished the project on 3rd July, I was exhausted for the next 5 days.

I needed rest, apparently.

God bless safety protocols…

God bless safety protocols…

So I played new games a lot, read a book, and procrastinated writing this reflection until after I’m feeling better.

Which is now.

So let’s look at plans for Q3.

Make games, a lot

In short: I will make games and talk about it.

Because the best way to learn anything is to do it a lot. No matter how much you suck at it at first. I can take some of my own advice here (which I got from others and they got it from others, etc., etc.).

Chew on!

Chew on!

The 17th time is the charm!

The 17th time is the charm!

I will do it anyways.

I will do it anyways.

My goal for Q3 is to figure out if designing games can work for me as a way to make a living (while enjoying the hell out of it). Maybe I’ll do it for the rest of my life. Maybe I’ll bounce off it and try something else with games. I don’t know yet. I have to try to know.

Move to [somewhere else]

Oh. I almost forgot about this.

Last time, I mentioned me and my girlfriend would like to try living in an English-speaking city. And I specifically mentioned Vancouver because there is a rich game design industry.

Things have changed a little bit here. It looks like we might go first to Amsterdam in September for at least 6 months. Lin wants to do a costume design course there. And I need to work on my game design skills before I can infiltrate myself into some cool game design studio, like Klei. And, until then, I can make games anywhere.

I think my need to move somewhere can be summarized as: I want a change of environment.

I really like Prague, but I’ve been here for almost 9 years. And it’s easier to start new things in new environments because there are no ghosts of my past selves.

Bye, my ghosts.

Bye, my ghosts.


Alright.

I have just a couple more admin stuff to mention:

Aaand that’s it, I think.

As always, it would be a pleasure to get an email from you, even if we never talked online before. Making online friends is fun, and if you read my stuff for a while, you know me quite well. So I’d be glad to get to know you as well.

Hit me with an email.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Cheers.