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