Here’s 20 works I first tried in 2023 that have have surprised and delighted me.

Games

  • The Last Spell (2023) - Hopeless defense roguelike tactical RPG par excellence. I’ll be playing this for years.
  • Pentiment (2022) - Lovingly crafted role-playing murder mystery set in 1518 Germany. The historical accuracy and empathy is icing, but what amazing icing.
  • Fire Emblem Engage (2023) - Ridiculously underrated, probably because it immediately follows the excellent in a very different way Three Houses. I thought it had the best Fire Emblem maps and gameplay of any game this decade.
  • Theatrhythm Final Bar Line (2023) - I grew up alongside Final Fantasy games, so playing through 30+ years of my life’s soundtrack to the beat felt designed specifically for me.
  • Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) - The most daring, risky AAA game in years. The closest any video game has ever felt to D&D.
  • Please, Touch The Artwork (2022) - I intuitively learned what makes a Mondrian a Mondrian by playing with some. Well worth my tiny time and money price of admission.
  • Cobalt Core (2023) - Adorable idiot space kobolds pilot ramshackle rocketships through a time loop. Spirelike cards and space combat are like chocolate and peanut butter.
  • Super Mario Wonder (2023) - I grew up alongside Mario games, including Mario 3, so it’s saying a lot that this now is my favorite of the lot.

Books

  • Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories (2022) - A short story collection of Oops! All Outside Context Problems!
  • Legends & Lattes (2022) - A very cozy story about an orcish woman retiring from adventuring to open a coffee shop in a fantasy society that has no concept of coffee shops.
  • The Anthropocene Reviewed (2021) - Observations about the way the world is and used to be that are charmingly both deadpan absurd and earnest.
  • Use of Weapons (1990) - Chronologically complicated SF that repeatedly drops you into a new world to figure out in medias res. Includes unbelievably forward-thinking ideas about AI and postmodernism that has me learning things about our current era.

Music

  • Keygen Church — Hareklavit (2021) - Dark electronic organ? Yes please.
  • Systemabsturz — Verdächtig (2021) - Catchy, incisive German EDM.
  • Guilhem Desq — Break Your Crank (2015) - Quite possibly the best hurdy-gurdy music I’ve ever heard.
  • Bo Burnham — Welcome to The Internet (2021) - CW: Internet. Super catchy.
  • Ayria — Horrible Dream (2003) - Dark and lovely. It’s been stuck in my head quite a lot since first hearing it.
  • Daisy the Great x AJR — Record Player (2021) - Light and lovely.

Video

  • Across the Spider-Verse (2023) - The first movie set a new high bar for animation and this one managed to outdo it. Got me tearing up even the second time I saw it in theaters.
  • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) - They figured out what made TNG so appealing and do it again but better! Episodic starship anomaly-researching competence porn.