Top 24 of 2024

For this post, a $30 USD donation was made to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. You can learn more about them and their essential work here.

Happy new year, everyone. Can I be real with you? Ever since Cohost’s shutdown, I’ve been hesitant to be active on other public social media platforms. For one, it’s hard for me to put my trust in them, that they’ll look out for what’s best for their users and not their advertisers or funders. I’m also trying to focus on things that matter, whether that’s my family, the friends I’ve already made, or my own mental health. So my blog here is now the only place I’ll be using to toss my thoughts out into the void, which will bring two big changes:

So, to keep to this site’s ethos (“that this (arguably) selfish endeavour can simultaneously provide material benefit to others, too”) I’ve decided that when I can’t line up a commission in time, I’ll be donating money to a charity or fundraiser to accompany each new post. Donation info will be added at the top of each post (as you can see, above!) if other folks want to contribute too.

With all that cleared up, this was a year, huh? In my own life, it marked my first full year working on Beastieball (which launched in early access in November and is, at this moment, overwhelmingly positive with 711 (!!!) reviews), I got to meet all of my coworkers, and my Sonic Adventure 2 animatic finally went up! (Which I'd love to talk about on here and share some BTS work too) There were also two deaths in the family and too many health scares, even up to the final hours of 2024. Thankfully things feel relatively stable now. Mortality is a weird thing to grapple with in the first few hours of the new year, let me tell ya.

And with every year, I also get to reflect on everything I watched, read, and played. I keep the full list accessible here on my site if you’re curious to see all 124 movies, 72 books, 53 board games, 38 video games, and 2 TV series! More importantly, I want to highlight these 24 works from these last 12 months that have stuck with me the most. So here we go!

🎮 Case of the Golden Idol (2022)

I played this at the start of the year after listening to Eggplant Show talk to one of the developers about it, and I’m glad I finally got around to playing it (even if the big twist was spoiled). It’s an incredible system they’ve built here, and this first game does a great job of easing you in. I’m glad they moved away from pixel art for the sequel, and where the overall structure has been changed to allow for more multi-case arcs, but this first game still hits all the right notes for me. And those faces are so nasty (complimentary), I love it.

📖 The Video Game Industry Does Not Exist by Brendan Keogh (2023)

I was posting all about this on Cohost while it was still around (the site may be gone but eggbug lives on) and it was exactly what I needed to read at the time. A critical reminder that professional video game production isn’t the end-all-be-all of video games: that the medium grows out of many different fields and scenes, much like music. It also does a fantastic job of centering the stories of workers, teachers, and students, and the challenges they face within an industry that sees them more as inputs instead of individuals. Here’s a choice excerpt from the opening:

As the videogame field has become intensely in/formalized, with distinctions between professionals and amateurs blurring and overlapping on digital platforms and in local communities, simple questions of how gamemakers identify themselves and their position—as professional or not, as videogame developers or not, as in the videogame industry or not—highlight all sorts of struggles and ambivalences between commercial workplaces and creative communities, between artistic practice and employed profession. These struggles exist and have long existed in all fields of cultural production. Musicians and writers similarly muse as to when they become professional and whether they are part of a music or writing industry. Until recently, however, the fact that these struggles are struggles has been largely hidden from view in the videogame field due to the aggressive formalization of the dominant positions obscuring the rest of the field. The intense in/formalization brought about by the rise of digital platforms but no concurrent rise in stable employment opportunities exposes the struggles that continuously define and redefine the field of videogame production. We need to expand how we consider the videogame field, who we consider to be a part of it, which works and markers of success we measure it by, and, consequentially, what this means for our attempts to conceptualize the experiences of videogame makers in terms of labor, culture, politics, identity, and practice.

(Chapter 1, pages 44-45)

Bang on. Lots to grapple with after reading the book (which is available to read for free online).

🎬 The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

I was expecting camp and ended up with something more profound and affecting with this one. Once the dread of the situation kicks in, the magic really happens and the movie just keeps going until it reaches its poetic conclusion. The visual effects work really holds up, too. What a delight to watch.

🎮 Live A Live (2022)

WOO YEAH this is video games, baby. I’ve rambled before about how much I love the idea of game anthologies, so I’ll just link that here. Live A Live is brilliantly executed and a testament to its quality that the remake is functionally still pretty close to its original. For a game made in 1994, it still felt fresh as hell in 2024. Also, that boss battle theme rips and it got me fired up every time it kicked in.

🎮 Cobalt Core (2023)

Working on Beastieball introduced me to Cobalt Core, since the devs were helping out on our game too. Since Cobalt Core launched at the back half of 2023, around the time I started, I got curious and gave it a shot. Let's see... Roguelike deckbuilder? Set in space? Splash art by Justin Chan? Worth a try. And I’m so glad I did. This game sings, in terms of gameplay, music, and character. What a beaut.

📖 Falling Back In Love With Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom (2023)

I went to a screening of Tower once, the animated documentary film about the 1966 school shooting in Texas, where they had survivors of the Dawson (a local CEGEP) shooting up on stage afterwards for a discussion. There, they talked about how they felt about the attacker and the incident after some time had passed. About how they no longer saw him as a monster, but more like someone in need of healing. That stuck with me. Falling Back In Love With Being Human is on that same wavelength, speaking directly to those who wish to do harm, but also to those who bear their burdens quietly, thanklessly, and who deserve to be acknowledged, too.

🎬 Le Bleu du caftan ('أزرق القفطان', The Blue Caftan) (2022)

A quiet, luxurious, and sensual film. So much of this film continues to live on as sense memories, so vivid and clear. A touch of someone’s back, the slow caress of fabric, the peeling of fruit… Its tactility is really incredible, second only to its gentleness and love for its three central characters.

📖 La Concierge du grand magasin (The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store, Volumes 1-2) by Tsuchika Nishimura (2022)

This book absolutely floored me. The concept, the drawings, the story… This is truly incredible comic work. The kind that makes you stand up and holler. I’d also read Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality earlier in the year, and it was immensely satisfying to see so many ideas from that crystallize in these stunningly-realized cartoon mall animals. The bibliography at the end was a nice touch, too. Clearly there was research put into this and it shows. I put the French version here because: a) I read that first, since it was available before the books were translated into English, b) it’s 2 volumes bound into one, which makes sense, and c) I kind of prefer the French translation better, tsé?

🎬 Cyrano de Bergerac (1990)

More movies and games should be told entirely in rhyme. There, I said it.

📖 Kosher Nation: Why More and More of America’s Food Answers to a Higher Authority by Sue Fishkoff

In 2024 I tried to make my own home-made matzah and was shocked to discover that the recipes I found (which only used flour, water, and maybe a little salt and olive oil) had footnotes to say that homemade matzah isn’t kosher for Passover. What?! So I did the thing I was trained for as a Jew: questioned and challenged established authority. This book is informative, entertaining, shocking, and a very accessible read, even to non-Jews (who might be curious what those Kosher symbols actually mean). It also helped me better deepen and center my own Jewish identity and values. 10/10, would do again.

🎲 Evacuation (2023)

Every time I’ve finished a game of Evacuation this past year, I always thought, “Hey, I could go for another game of this.” That’s fascinating to me. I think Underwater Cities is a better game, but Evacuation is a more rewarding play experience, if that makes sense. It’s incredibly tight as a dual-engine dismantler and builder, with only a handful of rounds before it wraps, and yet you always feel like you’re one more turn and two resources shy of making it. Can you save everyone this time? Who gets left behind? And will you really learn your lesson, or are you fated to tread the same path? I like to think that Evacuation is the only board game my player character brings with them as they continuously consume and colonize an endless chain of planets. Maybe they’ll get it right with this planet. Maybe they’ll stop looking for a means of escape and focus on repairing their relationship to what’s in front of them. Maybe, one day, they’ll finally leave this game behind.

📖 Against Flow: Video Games and the Flowing Subject by Braxton Soderman (2021)

Flow as a concept is one that’s often used unquestioningly, or set as an ultimate goal, by game workers. It’s an idea that one fears any wavering from would be objectively detrimental to player experience. But what does it actually mean to be in flow? Where did this idea come from, conceptually? Why would anyone willingly choose to disrupt flow and what happens to players in those moments? This was an excellent and illuminating book to read. I caught it off a mention from the Game Studies Study Buddies podcast (which I finally caught up on this year) and I recommend you listen to their episode about Flow, too. Essential stuff.

🎬 Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002)

This movie whips. So many good gags, and it feels like it all comes from a place of deep respect and love for the genre. And it’s a gender-bender too! The whole cast play it perfectly, honestly.

📖 The Husbands by Holly Gramazio (2024)

At first it felt to me like the concept couldn’t hold up an entire book, but at about the halfway point when I was itching for more, those fears were assuaged. Handily. Excellent read.

🎮 Small Saga (2023)

Maybe it’s because I’m a parent now, but I love when a game respects its players enough to do what it intends to do in a reasonable amount of time and then move on. Small Saga is crammed with heart and take-no-shit attitude and it never overstays its welcome. Perfect.

🎬 Adrianne and the Castle (2024)

This is my favourite film of the year. A friend picked this from this past Fantasia Film Festival and I went in fairly blind (outside of the description in the programming guide). And wow. Learning who Adrianne was, the depth of Alan’s love for her, and the care that the filmmakers took to tell their story. It’s a beautiful portrayal, complicated by the fact that Alan is both present and involved in the film itself while also being its primary subject (outside of Adrianne, whose presence is always felt in every scene of that house, seriously what a house). Truly captivating work on display, all around.

🎬 A Question of Silence (1982)

A real Aren’t You Tired of Being Nice? Don’t You Just Want To Go Apeshit? kind of movie. One that dispels the power of those in positions of authority, and helps you see those around you as comrades-in-arms. As powder kegs of change, ready to go at a moment’s notice. The idea that one day, we might all decide we Won’t Give A Shit Anymore. Powerful.

🎮 You Are Peter Shorts (2024)

I just need to say the words “metroidvania with Smash Bros style combat in an 8-bit-era-reminiscent pixel-art rendered world,” and you’ll know right away if this is your jam or not. Also, I love how this game is in 4:3 with a decorative border to fill the rest of the screen. That’s the way to go.

🎬 Drive My Car (2021)

Not my first Ryusuke Hamaguchi film, but it’s certainly the one that solidified him as one of my favourite working directors, period. I think this is also his finest work, but Happy Hour is still a close second for me.

🎮 Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 (2002)

I wrote about this already. You know what’s up. In short, I had the pleasure of playing this one throughout the month of August, one day at a time, alongside the main character, and it’s an experience I'll always treasure.

📖 Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (2019)

I appreciate books like these, because they do an excellent job of naming and poking at something on a social or cultural level that’s been so widely accepted that we no longer notice it. In this case, it’s about cynicism. The idea that, when up against a wall, human beings turn into the ugliest versions of themselves, monsters even, to perpetuate cycles of harm onto others. Now I’m done with that shit. You hear me? If your story falls into another Lord of the Flies or Stanford Prison Experiment situation, I just don’t buy it anymore. Which probably also explains why I really didn’t like Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem soon after reading this...

📖 The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman (2021)

This is a stellar dark-ish fantasy/comedy by the writer of Between Two Fires and The Lesser Dead. This author really does an incredible job of making the voice and worlds of each of those books feel distinct, almost to the point of feeling that they could’ve been written by different people altogether. Real command of the written word, you know? Anyways, Blacktongue Thief was a fantastic first entry in (what I hope will be) a longer series.

🎮 Caves of Qud (2024)

The best way to experience this game is to have someone talk you through a stream of it, and then to learn enough about it that you can then talk to someone else through their stream. An endless chain of sickos sharing their excitement about succumbing to fungal infections, reputations with insects, and dying over and over again. It started picking up for me near the end of December and now I’m fully immersed and loving it in the new year. Live and drink, friends.

🎮 Proverbs (2024)

This game is a great example of an idea executed to near-perfection. There’s a buzzy kind of excitement that comes when someone’s creative vision reads so clearly in its final configuration. Proverbs offers that in a deceptively tiny package. I’ll have a blog post about this soon to talk about it more in depth, I promise.

And that’s a wrap! I hope all of you have a year ahead full of strength, good health, and opportunities to better the world for yourself and others.