A bit late to the party, as usual, but here's some nerdier stuff from 2022 that I still remember now that the year is over:
TV Series
The Good:
I didn't watch that many shows this year, besides the many obligatory stream-reruns of Ninjago that our household lives on. What remains memorable is Giri/Haji, a show about a Japanese cop going to London undercover in order to catch his long-lost brother, who is a yakuza killer. I rather enjoyed the humor and the clash of cultures as well as genres. Also: Roy - best character ever, portrayed by the subtly great Tony Way.
Also just about as good ad the hype was (which, as usual, kept me away from it for a while): League of Legends. The only thing I would criticize on this one is the stark tonal shift from the beginning to the end of the show – a friend asked me, after I had seen the thing, if the show would be alright for her daughter to watch. The first episode might give that impression, I said, but after that it gets a bit hefty. Awesome thing as a whole though.
The Bad:
Boy did that Cyberpunk-anime show on Netflix suck. Yeah, it looks cool, but that's about it.
Books
I did get a nice amount of reading done this year – both for my book club and for myself. I re-read a few books, going through our library in order to fill a few evenings in bed. But I also have a new book strongly contending as my favourite book of all time – and it isn't even genre (unless you count the extremely unlikely string of happenstances as fantasy): Grand Tour oder die Nacht der großen Complication by Steffen Kopetzky is an awesome mix of Bildungsroman, comedy, farce, road movie and heist-story. I loved every bit of it – the adventure, the mishaps, the villains, the sex, the weirdo-characters that pepper the road when you're travelling Europe by night-train only, the moments where I feld quite directly singled out with all my personal flaws... I don't think the book was ever translated into any other language, but if you read German, read that book.
I also reread a lot of Dan Simmons because I have his books in my library and he is an awesome writer. The Terror is one of my favourite books of all time and it did hold up on a second read. Of course, since you know most of the end from the very start (it is a book about a doomed arctic expedition that failed in real life after all), the amount of possible spoilers is not that large. Everyone's gonna end up dead/missing. Just how we get there and how nautical the descriptions get is very well executed.
I did read quite a few more books but none stood out like those two. I'm not gonna do a good and bad here as I don't think I read any books that are objectively bad - just ones that didn't fit my taste.
Video Games
There were games I played when I had larger amounts of time and those that had to fill in gaps, comfort-food-style. Sometimes, as the members of
my favourite podcast once said, you gotta eat a 20-box of chicken mcnuggets. So: Comfort-Food-Games were
Streets of Rogue (once again),
FTL and (new in the mix) the awesome and hypermasculine
BroForce. Since we got those out of the way, let's get to games I took more seriously as, you know, Games as an Art Form:
Style as well as substance and quite a lot of room for interpretation of the story (sorry I don't agree with the interpretations I found online and I'm going with my own head-canon here: We're playing in the mind of a heavily traumatized woman) is Othercide (please read that with a whisper!). The art style, the music, the general feeling and the brutality of the action makes this my personal favourite when it comes to squad-based tactical games. I can only play it when I'm feeling good because when I'm down this game will drag me even lower but it's quite the piece of art.
The other game that really got me into its atmosphere was Far: Lone Sails. The genre of Sad Boy Walking was never that much my cup of tea but I like sailing and the locomotive that you're sailing in that game is very nicely realized. I feld really distressed and dismayed when it broke towards the end. A nice gaming experience with a clear beginning and ending and lots of lonely adventuring in between. Loved it.
Once again: No "bad" section here. I don't have time or money for bad games.
Board Games
As often, I mostly played stuff I made myself with my older son (and also, towards the end of the year, involving the younger one who is slowly getting old enough to join us at the table/on the carpet). But when it comes to commercial releases, the older 75% of our family has been playing The Adventures of Robin Hood this year. I really enjoy the design of the thing: Its use of a book to bring multiple different adventures on the same map to life, the flipping of bits of said map and the versatility of its tile-less movement system – all great bits that form a very nice whole. Also: Two difficulty settings are very good for a cooperative game like this. We just want to have a good time with the family so usually take the easy way, as this leaves more room for roleplaying and less temptation for one player (me) to try and take command over everyone else.
Crafting
I did do some crafting this year, like started working on a new Labyrinthmaschine and did a lot of smallish projects for the kids. The coolest thing I made was an adapter to connect my smartphone to a 1960s vintage collapsible camera tripod for
making YouTube-videos with my son. I've been working with more wood this year and am considering getting a laser cutter in order to make plywood-machines instead of cardboard machines as those would be a lot more long-lasting and could possibly even be repicated/sold.
Podcasts
Two things come to mind regarding podcasts this year: First of all I still listen to
The Crate and Crowbar, which by this point is like having old friends in your ear, even though none of the guys (and one gal) are ever going to know I exist, which makes internet-fandom so weird. Deep talk about games by mature people is a genre that I enjoy a lot, I guess.
The other thing that I totally binged was the
Archive 81 podcast. It took a sharp turn from season 1 to season 2 but I enjoyed it and stayed aboard for that shift in story-mode. What I don't like is that the makers went dark about their new project which was supposed to hit early 2022 but didn't materialize. No idea what happened behind the scenes but an update would be welcome.
Music
What a year it was as I discovered Mind.In.A.Box for myself. You gotta admire the dedication to make a retro-synthrock band and then, over the course of two decades, keep telling the same long-running story in the form of concept albums. The Broken Legacies album is my personal favourite as it evokes the end of the world, Bladerunner-style, while being musically on point.
Film
The Good
We finally got to watch Parasite and it was at least thought-provoking. As I've watched about half of the rest of Bong Joon-ho's oevre I must say I like the man's style. Also a good movie and old-school murder-mystery was Knives Out, which shows how funny James Bond can be. Bladerunner 2049 was amazing, even though I feared for our walls when the base really kicked in on the soundtrack. Also amazing was Dune – which means that Denis Villeneuve amazed me twice this year.
The Bad
Netflix seems to be unable to make decent mid-tier action movies. The Old Guard was a few years ago, this year we watched Grey Man, Yaksha: Ruthless Operations and Lou. They are all plagued by the same issues: First of all there is the invincible main character (in The Old Guard quite literally), which makes the stakes pathetic. Then there is the very dubious morality: There is usually a character who initially feels that wanton muder isn't cool but by the end these doubts are forgotten and hey, shooting people is fun! And then there is the ending (every. single. time.): The shows love their mains too much and don't dare to let them die a heroe's death. Each of these four movies would have benefited by a heroic sacrifice at the end but pussied out and pulled back at the last second, preventing the films from becoming a well-rounded story. Hated them all, still waiting for Netflix to make a decent one.
Making things
I released Dungeon Urchins (as a game jam entry) and The Swine Pit this year. The latter is the most complex video game I ever made (and I "coded" it myself!), the former one is the first game I ever made that someone paid money for (two dollars - whoever you are: Thank You!). I'll go even more into print-and-play this year, I feel. That's where the money is. Even if it's just a few bucks. I'm currently working on something in that regard. My playtesters (aged 3 to 42) liked it. Just wait for it.
And that's it for 2022. Let 2023 be a better year for mankind.
