TIG User Photon here, and here's a little bit of my story...
Brief History
I got "serious" about game development about three years ago. By serious, I don't mean in terms of commercial endeavors but rather that I would just start MAKING GAMES. College made me realize life wasn't slowing down and if I ever wanted to pull the trigger on something like this, I'd better do it sooner than later. I chose sooner.
I started out in Python and made some pretty simple stuff with
Pygame. Probably the best thing I made there was a three-level platformer where a robot was trying to escape a trash compactor (rising floor.) I then ended up discovering
Stencyl as the result of playing an
LD entry by AdventureIslands (to his shock, as he told me he considers it one of his worst entries.) Despite coming from a coder's background, I found the ability to focus on the logical meat of design, if you will, to be a huge boost. Plus, observing Stencyl's way of doing things spurred me to think about how I'd implement similar core features in my own personal codebase/engine. Over about two years, I ended up with four games publicly released, three of which were
Ludum Dare entries of my own.
Somewhere within the last six months, I moved back to hard-coding and picked up the foundation of Stencyl,
Haxe and
OpenFL. I've been plunking away slowly but surely on designing an entity-component system (read more about those
here) of my own doing.
Why 1GAM?
(NOTE: for those who don't know,
1GAM stands for "One Game a Month."
Three years later, I've hit a couple of significant milestones in my opinion. That being said, I have a long way to go. As I try to balance real life and game development, it just seems to be getting clearer and clearer that I know so little about it despite the leaps and bounds I've already taken. Perhaps I'm in, as one might call it, the sophomore slump. I can make a "game", but seeing it through to a non-jam style, polished finish is another thing altogether.
I'd considered joining 1GAM before, but never really threw down the gauntlet. But I've been making changes to my daily routine in an attempt to establish a more disciplined routine for game development. One main change is that I have started "dedicating" small chunks of time to programming and then logging time spent, so that I can keep a more tangible record of my work ethic. This has been, in part, to keep myself from having sporadic ten-fifteen minute sessions here and there that don't accomplish much.
I feel like I'm getting in a better position to effectively accomplish 1GAM as a result. Besides, another thing I want to strike is "analysis-paralysis." If I set a discrete, short-term goal, the "premature optimization" disease is (hopefully) less likely to hit me.
Not to mention all the little things that quiet, non-public games can get away with not having. General polish, distribution mediums... these are the kinds of things 1GAM will hopefully help whip me in shape for.
And so here it is:
I'm taking the challenge to complete 12 games in 12 months. I am now throwing down the gauntlet for 1GAM. Hold me to it!
Devlog Focus
So why a TIGSource Devlog?
Well, part of it is accountability. I don't necessarily expect anyone to come storming through my door if I fail, but it typically helps when you know other people are aware of your intents and watching.

Plus, I want to share the journey with the people here. The hope is that over time, we can help each other.
My plan is to focus strongly on the programming aspects of my games. Desirably, this will help other aspiring game developers as well as letting more veteran developers come along and give advice on what they think could be done better. Again, I know so little... but one of the best teachers out there is experience. I do hope that throughout the year I can hone some of my artistic and musical abilities as well, but the primary focus at least for this devlog is to discuss programming and design strategies and methodologies. I very much enjoy giving back knowledge I've acquired over the years; don't be afraid to make this devlog work both ways in that regard. By the end of the year, who knows where we'll end up?
So consider it begun. Stay tuned fellow TIGSource goers; first update on my 1GAM quest is coming soon!

Game ShowcaseJanuary (Resolution) :
RoidsFebruary (Maps) : Pending
March (??) : Pending
April (??) : Pending
May (??) : Pending
June (??) : Pending
July (??) : Pending
August (??) : Pending
September (??) : Pending
October (??) : Pending
November (??) : Pending
December (??) : Pending