2024 flew by! I made a talk about Radial Design and presented it at GDC, the biggest conference for game developers in the world, such an honor! Later I went to Cologne and Hilversum to do a similar talk at Devcom (see picture) and Dutch Game Day. Then my girlfriend and I decided to move in together and found our cosy new home. All these wonderful things happened in one year. And before you know it, kaboom bang, fireworks: 2025 arrived.
But before I talk about the exciting things that the new year has to offer, I fist want to look back and as has become tradition here on my blog, post some top 10 (or top 5, or top 25, or whatever) lists of things that I really enjoyed. So let’s go!
Favorite Board Games of 2024
I picked up around 20 new board games this year to play, but due to the house move and such I haven’t got around to playing a lot. Let alone playing games that got released last year. I guess I played two (although it’s a bit cheating, since they are technically not really from this year)…
The first one is Survive the Island, a brilliant highly competitive backstabbing family game in which you try to get as much adventurers off a sinking island while avoiding sea monsters and sending sharks towards your opponent’s rafts. Very good fun!(Although it’s technically a reboot of the ’80s board game hit “Survive: Escape from Atlantis”)
And the other is TUG! (or “KennisKoord” in Dutch), which is basically a simple trivia game in which you play a game of tug-of-war when answering a question correctly. But it does really well at parties! (And the non-Dutch version was technically already released in 2022)
Finally, a shout-out to the book “The Game Changers” by Tim Clare, which maps the history of board and card games and is very well written.
Favorite Video Games of 2024
I haven’t played a whole bunch of video games this year either, but there’s one that I did play. A lot. It’s one of those games that always brings a big smile on my face when I play it. Of course I’m talking about Astro Bot!
Everything about this is just pure joy: from the cute protagonist to the colorful game worlds and from the snappy platforming action to all it’s references to 30 years of PlayStation history. Well done, team Asobi! I truly hope that you are going to make way more Astro adventures in the future and that this is the proof that we’re living in the 3D platforming renaissance! (Now excuse me while I slam a PSVR1 onto my face to play some more of Astro’s Rescue Mission while I wait for a sequel)
Favorite Music Albums of 2024
One thing that I did do a lot this year is listen to music. And a great year for music it has been! I’ve listened to over 100 new albums last year, and after some careful consideration, I’ve came up with the following top 25. Although I could easily spend a couple of more days swapping positions here and there, and I’ll never feel truly satisfied with the results. But the bottom line here is that these are all really good albums that you should give a spin if you like indie rock and the sorts:
- Everything Everything – Mountainhead
- Elbow – Audio Vertigo
- Father John Misty – Mahasmashana
- Future Islands – People Who Aren’t There Anymore
- Public Service Broadcasting – The Last Flight
- WhoMadeWho – Kiss & Forget
- Marika Hackman – Big Sigh
- Lucy Rose – This Aint the Way You Go Out
- Mr. Gnome – A Sliver of Space
- Real Estate – Daniel
- NewDad – MADRA
- Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor
- The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy
- Caribou – Honey
- Leifur James – Magic Seeds
- Droomboter – Treinvaart EP
- Grandaddy – Blu Wav
- Kings of Leon – Can We Please Have Fun
- Villagers – That Golden Time
- Yannis & The Yaw – Lagos Paris London EP
- Maximo Park – Stream of Life
- The Vaccines – Pick Up Full Pink Carnations
- Mildlife – Chorus
- Trentemøller – Dreamweaver
- Kasabian – Happenings
Favorite Concerts of 2024
I honestly cannot order the 20 concerts that I attended this year. So I’m just going to name some highlights: seeing Soulwax perform new material was so good that I bought tickets for a second show in the same week (hoping to hear a studio version of it soon!), Belle & Sebastian threw one big party in the Amsterdamse Bostheater (see picture), finally getting to see Everything Everything live for the first time for me was a joy (thanks again for the lovely birthday gift, Sanne!) and Public Service Broadcasting is a great experience live, with amazing visuals to accompany their 60s-radio-news-broadcast-style music. Oh and how could I forget Droomboter, who invited my girfriend and me to their studio for an exclusive Christmas concert?
Favorite Movies and TV Series of 2024
My girlfriend did a wonderful job with helping organize a certain fantastic film festival in Amsterdam this year. And I was the lucky one who got to watch quite some horror movies with her there. Heretic must have been the highlight for me. An eerie and suspenseful room horror film in which Hugh Grant plays the usual ideal son-in-law. Until he locks two Mormon girls into his house that is…
When it comes to TV series, the Netflix show 3 Body Problem blew me away. There are so many unique sci-fi concepts in this tense show, it felt really refreshing. And although I’m usually not a big book reader myself, when I learned that it is based on a book series, I just had to order the entire trilogy so I don’t have to wait until 2026(?) to know how the series continues.
And that’s it, my 2024 in review! Now onto more beautiful things and developments for this new year and hopefully a slightly better state of the world (Hey, I said those words last year as well! Well, let’s hope it’s really going to happen for real this time now, shall we?). Cheers!