Lingering Memories of 2024
It's February, so it's really about time I dig back into my things of 2024 to pick out stuff that will stay with me in one sense or another. Even for things that have a real impact on me... I will usually forget they happened. Or at least forget that it was just last year. So this is a fun dredging through the timeline to piece together influences and reintegrate them for myself.
January
Tehanu by Ursula K. LeGuin
Earthsea is good. Tehanu is great. The character and the book. A very human level fantasy story that follows up what happens after a fantasy book ends.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
I enjoy watching queer media from the past and seeing what the temperature of that point in time was, how things were portrayed and thinking about what the audience's relation to it was.
Also Wesley Snipes in drag is fantastic.
February
Himegoto: Juukyuusai no Seifuku by Ryou Minenami
A disaster love triangle of three people trying to figure out how to balance their public facing personas and their underlying desires, emulating their own assessment of other people and grasping at anything that feels right even for a fleeting moment. It's a lot of messy drama.
March
20 Small Mazes
It's a free game. You have 20 mazes to solve. They have fun novel mechanics. A demonstration of how just doing something solidly can still work really well.
April
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness by Kabi Nagata
A very raw and personal journey. Sometimes this kind of autobiographical story can feel neat, or have to fine a point it hits. Nagata is willing to just struggle through things and keep struggling, but showing a process is better than repressing it.
May
Unjust Depths by Madiha
A queer sci fi web novel about an underwater society undergoing communist struggle between two hostile empires.
It's still ongoing. Both the author has more to write, and it's so many words that I'm not even a third of the way through what's been released thus far. But I've enjoyed picking through it since May. The podcast All Union Radio starting a readalong has been a very fun way to pace myself picking through and hearing others' reactions to it as I go.
June
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
A humble peasant's slow ascent to power is always good but it's so much better when it involves a messy and ambiguous gender exploration and a very fun but grounded magical fate that needs to be grasped to be realised.
July
1000xResist
This is the most Visual Novel a fully 3D exploration game has felt, and I entirely mean that as a compliment. Extremely efficient storytelling that uses framing and blocking characters to tell its story. It also has many layers it unpeels over time while still being grounded with the interpersonal drama.
August
Seabed
A meandering and faintly magical visual novel. It moves at a glacier's pace but uses all that time to reinforce the very grounded life of the characters as you get to grips with the overall themes that undergird everything. It's the kind of thing I don't think I could ever have the patience to write, but that makes me much more appreciative of what it has achieved.
September - October
Dragonball and Dragonball Z
I watched so much Dragonball. It's good! I don't care for the fights much, but really it's about a cast of guys hanging out. Growing up I only ever saw up to Frieza, so I truly didn't realise the Cast of Guys this show has. Looking forward to moving onto Dragonball Super this year.
November
How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull
This baby fits so much messy and human relationship drama. I'm not averse to straight romance, but I find that the best queer stories will scratch at all sorts of normative assumptions, and not just invert a gender with no other change.
HDWR engages in not just exploring queer dating but also the various ways people approach relationships, what they want and need, what they should bring to it and how people can love each other deeply and not necessarily be compatible.
December
Anthology of the Killer by thecatamites
BB is so good. She makes zines while living in a dystopic town filled with people ready to kill, as a nice hobby. It's a beautiful collection of zine-esque games that is covered in the author's fingerprints and is better for every rough edge it displays proudly.
Misericorde Volume 2 - White Wool and Snow by xeecee
Sneaking in a release days before the end of the year, you bet I finished it before 2025 started.
This is the middle chapter of a murder mystery set in an English convent in the past. This is a fun parallel to Anthology of the Killer because it's also driven by a single creator doing the writing, art and music. But Misericorde manages to be an extremely smooth and polished experience.
Everything clicks together so well that I tore through the ongoing mystery, the writing is very good at evoking small character beats and having subtle hints towards the ongoing mystery. Volume 2 blows up a lot of things as it ramps up towards the conclusion and leaves me waiting patiently but ravenously for volume 3.
And that was 2024! I read, watched and played so much more than this. Things I thoroughly enjoyed did not appear here. To the point that every time I do this, the standout parts feel that much more pronounced. Looking forward to what makes me excited when I look back on 2025.
Last note, you should check out this collection of games released under the anonymous collective LITHOBREAKERS on the theme “Unhinged Group Dynamics”:
I have work in this collection, though because of the aliases used I can neither confirm nor deny which. So you’ll just have to play them all and guess (I do welcome people trying to guess at which is mine).
Play com__et!
If you already did, review it on Steam!
If you already did that, thank you.🥺