Best of 2024
It's time to memorialize my "enjoyed in 2024" favorites. Not all of these will have come out in 2024 ... let's go!
Movies
'Dave Arneson was able to build this it in a basement with a box of scraps!'
Secrets of Blackmoor - A documentary and oral history of the D&D hobby from the persepctive of Dave Arneson's twin-cities group. While there were a handful of movies this year that probably belong on this list, this is the film that finally provided the motivation to try get an open table group going.
Runners up:
- Godzilla Minus One
- Dune Part 2
TV
'Tazmanian murder lesbian show'
Deadloch - a delightful surprise. A murder mystery and feminist drama / comedy from down under. While the cast from the show might be familiar to Australian TV audiences, it was a great chance to see a TV show where none of the actors were familiar to me, removing the distraction of fan-favorite casting which is all too common in crime shows.
Runners up:
- Formula1 Drive to Survive - Real house husbands of Formula 1. My intro to the sport.
- X-men 97 - What a treat. Pure nostalgia. A return to some great Chris Claremont X-men stories as well.
- Delicious in Dungeons - A D&D cooking show. The first anime I've ever gotten my spouse to watch with me. 2nd half didn't really hold up.
Books
a quick and fun read
Starter Villain - A pool-side book on tape. I didn't read too many new novels this year, but this was a favorite and easy light-reading recommendation.
Runner up:
- Conan the Cimmerian Chronicles - remarkably well written short stories; racist tropes dampen but didn't kill the read
Tabletop Game
Simple and pleasantly metal
Shadowdark - a distillation of what I like about OSR gaming, Shadowdark proved to be a great game run for the community as an open table. Full review here: link
Runner up:
- Mutant Crawl Classics - a 100% flawed system in an inspirational genre
- Cyberpunk RED - too crunchy for me personally, but a setting and genre with a lot of legs
Video Games
Waiting for that other Chris Roberts space game
Wing Commander - I went back through what I played this year, and there wasn't much. At times I dipped back into Star Citizen, but due to bugs and other things goin on in life, that was more of a waiting game for the game to progress to a playable point. I did however, enjoy a full playthrough of a game from the same director for which I have fond nostalgic memories. I played this game in 5th grade along with TIE fighter and Civilization 1 with a friend on his dad's work laptop.
Runner up:
- ... N/A