January Salutary 2024
Writing
Indiegames
I did quite a bit of writing last month! Ko-fi supporters can check out the results from INDIE Live Expo in curated-list form here. For everyone (supporters and non-supporters) I also took a look at DreamHack Beyond, with my personal picks and quick opinions on the award winners here. Coming up for this month, I'll be posting a personal ranking of the games I finished on Twitch in 2023 and some soft thoughts about End of Lines, which is a narrative post-apocalyptic game we started on stream but finished offline.
Board Games
We got Silicon Valley to the table and I absolutely loved it. I expect the write up to hit Board Game Quest around end of January, beginning of February. I also got to play Wingspan Oceania Expansion DLC once off stream and a couple times on stream, thankfully beating the hard AI and you'll see my positive review on this around the same time. I'm hoping that the board games industry and designers bring a fresh batch of games this year as honestly 2023 was such a disappointment.
Video
Streaming
We finally finished Final Fantasy IX! I honestly don't think I would have finished the game without the encouragement of the community and people showing up to enjoy the journey with me so I'm really grateful for the experience. If you're curious, yes I'll absolutely bring another FF game to stream and it will likely be FFX later on into 2024.
The new year and new month will start with a quick look at Mini Motorways and Inkulinati. Then, we'll be moving on to Roadwarden around Monday, January 8th, followed by Pikuniku. I'm fairly certain our next long play will be Mass Effect Legendary Edition as I've never played any of the Mass Effect games (only watched friends). That one will definitely take many months to finish but if we could tackle FFIX I'm hopeful we can handle the next big game(s)!
Finally, thank you all for helping me raise over $1k for charity last year. I'm always amazed at the community's ability to pull together and help others, and I look forward to continuing that kindness into 2024.
Long Form
My playthrough of Slay the Princess is now on Youtube here, and turns out I happened to unlock a rare achievement at the end of the game! I tried my best to take approaches that felt far from natural choices but I guess this game is just too good at pulling your true self through.
Short Form
While this won't end up on Tiktok, this segment of FFIX theater made me giggle and as long as you don't mind my terrible Southern accent head here for the highlight.
Personal
Currently Playing
After playing Dredge for the first time, I lost myself in it off stream until I got to a tough quest area that halted my progress. Leading up to that point, I loved all the calm but chilling fishing trips and treasure hunting it offered. I've also casually started my first offline playthrough of 2064: Read Only Memories, which takes me back to the warm point-and-click adventure vibes with cyberpunk as a treat.
IRL
I got some neat presents last month, some of my favorites being my first set of packing cubes to make maximizing space in my carry-on luggage easier and my first cold brew setup. I'm a big coffee drinker and the discovery of a ready-made, smooth coffee beverage at home was perfect.
The subscriber tree was so full of love again this year, look out for photos of it on Twitter, Bluesky, or Instagram. Maybe you'll find your name!
For my foodies out there, I'll be doing a photo wrap up of 2023 over on Ko-fi for supporters so we can drool all over again.
With the support of my Twitch subscribers I've signed up for my second voice acting class, this time learning how to exercise the skill of narration. Thank you for making it possible for me to pursue my passions outside of work!
Godzilla Minus One is leaving theaters soon, so my partner and I will try and catch it this week. I'll report back on my thoughts later, but for now I'm super excited as I love big monsters and big robots on film.
Picture of the Month
We love bringing new batch cocktail drinks to family gatherings and this one was a caramel apple sangria.
Feel free to reply directly to this email to let me know your thoughts, or perhaps any content that you'd like to see or questions you might have. Otherwise, sending you all my optimistic thoughts for the new year and I look forward to writing to you in February!