Here’s some stuff I did this year.
First of all, I visited Japan again in May-June. This led to interesting game-related experiences and purchases, which I wrote about after I got back.
Comic Scanlations: I managed to finish a few of these, namely the official Sonic webcomic, a Super Mario-kun bonus chapter based on the DKC cartoon, a short Diddy Kong Racing choose-your-own-adventure/puzzle comic, and the manga tie-in to Dreamworks’ Shrek. All of them were great fun, and hopefully there’ll be more to come in the new year.
Streams: my weekly streams conitnued apace (Wednesdays 1pm Australian Eastern time), with many new heroines met. I enjoyed doing some theme months: sports platformers, robot month, witch month, no platformers allowed. I also did four whole follow-up dolphin showcases (lots of prep work but it paid off), and participated in a DKVine relay event playing DKC2. A particular delight was playing through Slam Dunk Kong, a ripoff of both DKC and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City. I fell in love with this game and even forced the game club to play it.
Game Club: Speaking of, my monthly game club on Discord had its typical eclectic playlist. My own childhood fav Beetle Adventure Racing got picked, but I also discovered new joys such as Ristar and The Divide.
Pixel Art: I continued my other hobby of my low-res pixel art collages, but recently set up a Deviantart page for them to go in. My back catalogue will slowly be migrated there. Subjects this year included Doctor Who spinoffs, other sci-fi favourites (Star Trek, Mystery Science Theatre, and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), and several covering some of my favourite game series, leading up to a big one covering heroines of my entire gaming life. A particular other favourite was the Roll concept piece, which built a cast for a Rockman game using only female characters from the series.
Podcasts: my good friend Gibbon and I recorded five whole episodes of our podcast The Arcade Era Power Hour for the Arcade Donkey Kong & friends fansite DK Girder. I also managed ten Eurovision commentaries for my other regular audio project, Nul Points, not that it has anything to do with video games.
Game reviews: Speaking of video games, I played at least 75 of them outside of streams, and wrote reviews for each one on this very blog. In particular, my PS4 and 3DS got a real workout this year, and I made some efforts towards clearing my backlog on iOS. I started the year by finishing my Spyro retrospective (Spyro 2 is the best, even more so in Reignited form) and finished by starting a WayForward one (Bloodrayne Betrayal and Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse are favourites there so far). In between I had some co-op fun with my spouse (Lego and Pokemon) and brother (Guacamelee, Risk of Rain, Overcooked, etc.), played some disappointing Nintendo games (Mario & Luigi Paper Jam Bros., Zelda Tri Force Heroes) and some excellent indie ones, found a few more dolphin games to try out (Shamu’s Deep Sea Adventures, Jupiter & Mars), and even played our Switch a bit.
My favourite game I played this year (aside from so-bad-it’s-good Slam Dunk Kong, of course) is Hover, the Jet Set Radio Future-inspired sci-fi parkour game. Honourable Mentions to Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Yoku’s Island Express, Steamworld Dig 2, and Cadence of Hyrule. The “Not As Bad As People Say” award goes to Hey! Pikmin, which I found quite nice. The award for “Least Offensive Gacha Mechanic” goes to Another Eden, which thrashed Mario Kart Tour in that department. “The Quiet Achiever” was Sega Heroes, which was a consistent time-waster for me nearly all year. And finally, “Game I Most Want to Pick Back Up And Actually Finish” is Chrono Cross. Maybe next year, bud!