What Did I Love In 2024?
A younger me liked lists and ranking things. A younger me was also a man. So we don’t always stay who we were when we were younger. The me I am these days has less mental energy for converting subjective ontologies into quantitative lists. This is no slight against lists in general, just rankings and so-called Tier Lists™. It’s genuinely a lot of effort trying to narrow down the common denominator of a wide slice of media, even within similar domains or mediums. It does each item a disservice, and wastes my and your time.
If I’m to spend keystrokes bloviating about things I liked, I don’t want to waste them justifying the order of what I present. I choose a different approach.
What follows is a series of sections grouped by medium. The first subsection will be a list of everything I liked from that medium released in 2024. The lists will be as long or short as they need to be, and will occur in no particular order. The second subsection will highlight a release not seen on the prior list which stood out stronger than the others. In essence, m’fav. Hopefully this achieves the balance of wanting to discuss standout pieces without spending too much energy sorting the lists en masse.
So without further ado…
Me
I’d be remiss not to use space to wax on about the year I’ve had as an individual. I had so many interesting experiences and life changes, and new perspectives, and a whole wealth of learning. The year had many important milestones that live in the “I shouldn’t blog about this” region, but two things stood out to me.
XOXO 2024
The first time I heard of XOXO was when I was shown Jenn Schiffer’s brilliant and hysterical talk from 2016. I didn’t personally see myself as someone fit for the conference’s target scene and as such abstained from attending for many years. In hindsight this was an exorbitant mistake. I was drawn to XOXO 2024 by association to Clarity’s history of attendance. The conference had been operating consecutively from 2012 to 2019, with 2020 slated, unbeknownst to most, to be the final event in the series. That didn’t work out for reasons I hope I don’t need to summarize, but 2024 provided a nexus of conditions allowing the conference to run one more time. It was an extremely special event; one I’ve already written about. It was wonderful to be inspired in the way XOXO inspired me. I haven’t had that feeling in a very long time. I’ll be chasing it for quite some time, I imagine.
Tell Me I’m Good; Tell Me I’m Pretty
In 2023, I quit the small upstart band I founded with my friend and swore to stop making music forever. I was defeated; utterly laid to waste and exhausted at the premise of ever attempting to play or make music again. It was a specific low I had fought so hard to avoid, but I found myself sprawled on the floor without even a faint sense of orientation and the only healthy option felt like moving on with my life. I could chase other pursuits.
Fast forward to this year and I front a five piece rock band called Tell Me I’m Good; Tell Me I’m Pretty. The band was inspired by a number of things, but is ultimately a testament to the importance of finding your people when making collaborative art. The path here was arduous and painful and required a lot of self-reflection and support, but a year in and we’ve written several songs, released one, and performed them all live at multiple shows. To the seasoned musician, it may sound quaint, and that’s because it is. We’re five goons in our 30’s. We have very different ambitions than we did when we were younger. Regardless, the ride has been immensely healing and I’m extremely excited for 2025 in TMIG;TMIP.
Music
- Year Of The Banana - Rubblebucket
- What An Enormous Room - TORRES
- SHINBANGUMI - Gingeroot
- Power - illuminati hotties
- Pink Balloons - Ekko Astral
- Lady On The Cusp - of Montreal
- It’s Sorted - Cheekface
- GNX - Kendrick Lamar
- Flight b741 - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
- AG! Calling - Atarashii Gakko
- Terrapath - Plantoid
- EELS - Being Dead
My Favorite
- Eating Me Alive - foamboy
Live Music
- Otoboke Beaver
- foamboy
- of Montreal
- Jeff Rosenstock w/ Chris Farren
- Get Up Kids
- Mass Of The Fermenting Dregs
My Favorite
- Blood Brothers
Video Games
I have read numerous opinions online alluding to an idea that 2024 was a “weak” year for video games. This notion is nothing short of preposterous. 2024 saw the release of UFO50, an anthology of unfettered inspiration assembled by a team so specifically equipped for the task. As an ardent and persistent Spelunky player, I am–to put it lightly–a fan of Derek Yu’s work. It is this devotion to his work that contextualizes the fact I struggled immensely to decide which game would be the proverbial apple of my eye.
I missed a lot of games this year as well, which is another note for the sheer breadth of activity. My great triumph though was actually completing the vast majority of the games I played this year; something which is rarely true for me. I did not complete every game that made my list, but every game on my list has been evaluated enough for my confidence in saying it was noteworthy. Again, nothing here is negative. Every game on my list left its mark. From Mouthwashing’s brilliant aesthetic rendition of PS1 era horror, to Phoenix Spring’s novel and exciting approach to dialogue oriented puzzle solving, to Pepper Grinder’s raucous, but fluid and satisfying sticky friction, there was no end to the exploration of new territory in domains most large studios have abandoned.
RPGs being a genre I can never seem to get enough of, I was well sated in 2024 as well. Remakes of two classic Mario RPGs, and the eighth entry in the yet-to-disappoint Yakuza series (and second to feature new series protagonist Ichiban Kasuga–a man who truly lives up to the “pure of heart, and dumb of ass” idiom) were more than enough to whet my palate, however I feel it’s necessary to give a special shout out to a game from 2023 which I played the overwhelming majority of in 2024, Sea Of Stars which may find itself on some non-existent list of “greatest RPGs I’ve ever played” depending on how it sticks the landing (I have yet to finish it as of this writing).
- Rise Of The Golden Idol
- Phoenix Springs
- Mouthwashing
- UFO50
- Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Remake)
- Super Mario RPG (Remake)
- Pepper Grinder
- Lorelei And The Laser Eyes
- Ultros
- Balatro
- Yakuza 8
My Favorite
- Disco Elysium (2019)
I have but one simple rule: if you want to be my Game Of The Year™, then you need to make a game better than Disco Elysium; the best video game a person can play (as of this writing). I understand the overwhelming standard I’m asking game developers to overcome, but such is the criteria for victory when the bar has been set so high. It does seem some people are working on it, but the efficacy of these efforts is yet to be determined.
Runner-up
- Animal Well
I struggle to endorse the “solo developer makes a truly singular game” archetype. So often this has come to betray the wider interests of fostering a healthy scene for developers who want to build art centered on collaboration. At times, this archetype can often end up elevating some really weird fucking people, obfuscating whatever meaningful takeaways one could get from the games themselves. Animal Well is an extremely singular game, made (for all intents and purposes) by a singular person, but the essence of Animal Well explicitly lives outside the normal bounds of “singular games”; its offering being something far from unique or novel, but nonetheless stunning. The so-called “puzzlevania” genre speaks to something very core within me. Games like Tunic and Fez hearken to a world where secrets are traded in playground whispers and early internet hearsay. They thrive on communal problem solving requiring both deep individual persistence and broader collective collaboration to synchronize harmoniously. This is the essence of social gaming, and it’s something Animal Well prides itself on.
Every beat is tireless in its investment in the mystery; each new symbol, sign, mechanic, utility, technique, and discovery coming primed with an accompanying mystery. The ending of Animal Well itself fails to be an ending explicitly because it isn’t. Every end is chance to explore something new. I wish the mysteries never ended. But alas, one person can only make so much.