I’m hoping to begin an annual tradition of looking back on 20 works I first discovered and really enjoyed that year. I like the idea that doing something for three years makes it into a tradition, so here’s my second strike:

Games

  • Unicorn Overlord (2024) - Atlus’s take on Ogre Battle continuously surprised me with how thoughtfully it was designed. I ended up leading a 60-person army that did not contain any generic characters.
  • Backpack Hero (2023) - What if inventory tetris was the entire game? This cute roguelike is just that.
  • Animal Well (2024) - Spooky puzzle metroidvania with no combat besides bosses and a remarkably unique toolset. Animals are weird and this game really leans into that.
  • DDR A3 (2022) - Finally appeared at my arcade this summer. I’ve been into DDR for 24 years and this has the consistently highest quality stepcharts I’ve ever played. Even more poignant knowing the 2024 release, DDR World, is awful.
  • Metaphor: ReFantazio (2024) - I was very skeptical of “Persona 5, but it’s in a fantasy world”, but this iteration maintains its best-in-class style while delivering on its promise of an epic fantastical journey.
  • Rise of the Golden Idol (2024) - More satisfying bite-sized mysteries, but being set in the 1970s instead of the 1770s really helps cement the series’s theme of “people with power do grotesque things with it” by making it more relatable.
  • Dragon Age: Veilguard (2024) - Probably Bioware’s last epic. You manage an endearing crew of skilled misfits through a meticulously detailed world where it’s been 10 years, both in real time and in-game time, since the last installment.
  • Caves of Qud (2024) - A traditional roguelike with the premise, “what if instead of more and more powerful magic items, you found more and more powerful technological items?” Wildly trans*. Like nothing else out there.

Books

  • A City on Mars (2023) - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith research offworld settlement in great detail, only to come to the deeply unpopular conclusion that it’s not feasible any time soon. I learned a lot about the actual governance of international regions, like Antarctica and the ocean depths.
  • The Secret to Superhuman Strength (2021) - Alison Bechdel (of the eponymous test) writes a memoir about sixty years of fitness fads intertwined with professional success and concomitant romantic failures.
  • Outlive (2023) - Peter Attia summarizes what we currently know about how to have the best chance of being active and independent when you’re eighty.
  • Dopamine Nation (2021) - Anna Lembke offers advice on navigating a world of things engineered to be addictive and pleasurable, through the lens of a psychiatrist working with many different kinds of addicts.

Music

  • Bella Poarch - Villain (2022) - Poppy and catchy.
  • Wet Leg - Chaise Longue (2021) - Alt-rock and stuffed with innuendo, inspired by the feeling of being extremely horny while on tour.
  • Otyken - Genesis (2023) - An incredible indigenous Siberian-inspired piece.
  • dan paladin - Watermelon (2006) - Endearingly weird chiptunes.
  • Hellzapoppin’ - Ambiguous (2024) - Japanese indie electro swing. I have heard this described as “the most Jesse song imaginable.”

Other

  • Hymn of Breaking Strain (1935) - A Rudyard Kipling poem about engineering tolerances that I found incredibly moving.
  • Make Some Noise (2022) - I enjoyed Whose Line is it Anyway? a lot in the 2000s. This is that but better, half of the comedians are women, and the host isn’t terrible at improv. The points still don’t matter.
  • Pissing Out Cancer with Hank Green (2024) - Hank Green gets cancer and decides to learn how to do standup comedy in order to write a comedy special about it. He nails it. He includes errata at the end.