Archive for the 'Year in Review' Category

January 14th, 2017

Gaming year in review: 2016

I normally have my gaming year in review up earlier, but I had a hard time filling it out this time! 2016 was a weird year for me when it came to gaming. I barely played any single player games, and I didn’t really touch my consoles. Most of the games I played were indie and/or multiplayer ones for the game days that my husband and I have been holding at our house. I really didn’t work on my backlog as much as I would have liked!

As usual, this is my annual review of games I played in 2016. I only count games I haven’t played before, remakes, and ones with large updates. (I don’t count any replays.)

Let’s start with my favorites! These are of the games I played in 2016, which may or may not have been released that year.

Favorite Single Player: Kirby Planet Robobot
Well, this is the first time I didn’t pick a major PC title as my favorite. Planet Robobot really shined as one of the best Kirby games and one of the best 3DS games I’ve played. It keeps an old school Kirby feel as a side scrolling platformer where you steal powers, but it adds a new element with the mech, which can also use enemy powers. The boss fights are better than previous Kirby games, and it uses the 3D in clever ways. I actually wanted to turn on the 3D for this one!

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Favorite Multiplayer: Towerfall Ascension
Towerfall is a combat platformer where you try to kill each other with limited amount of arrows (which you can pick back up), and items will also appear. In most games, someone gets good enough to keep winning, but Towerfall is so well designed, that it feels balanced each time. This has become a definite favorite in our game nights that we’re able to play it over and over.

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Favorite Indie/Download: Unravel
I played so many good indie games last year that this was really hard to choose. In the end, I picked Unravel because it was so memorable for me. It’s is a beautiful platformer with creative uses of yarn. You use the yarn in different ways to get through levels, and as you’re going through the game, you are viewing someone’s story. It’s filled with both happy and sad moments, making this a very bittersweet game.

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December 29th, 2016

Year in Review: 2016

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With 2016 coming to an end, this seems like a good time to look back on the year and how it was for me. Here is my usual year in review!

Life in General

I didn’t have major changes in my personal life, but things did change at work. Last year, I wrote about how I was moving more into a management role, and in January 2016, I was officially promoted to a Development Manager!

Since I’ve been a team lead for years, most of my responsibilities didn’t change. However, now that I’m considered a hiring manager, I have to deal with annual reviews, salary, promotions, and things like that. I also became a manager for a second team, so now I manage both a team of developers and a team of designers. Sadly, that means I have less time to program, but I’m still very active in code reviewing and mentoring developers, and I check in code whenever I can.

Hobbies

In 2016, I tried to do a “hybrid” of cosplay and photography at Anime conventions. Instead of filling my schedule with photoshoots, I only did a few and spent the rest of the time in cosplay. This meant I did less photoshoots than normal, but I did get to spend time making new cosplays at least!

I still have a couple shoots coming up, but so far, I’ve done 7 photoshoots – 6 at conventions and 1 as a private shoot:

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January 3rd, 2016

Gaming year in review: 2015

Happy new year everyone! It’s time for my annual gaming year in review! This where I give a brief review of every game I’ve played in 2015. I only count games that I hadn’t played before, are remakes, or have new content. I don’t count any replays that don’t have anything new to them.

Let’s start with my favorites in 2015! (As usual, these are from the games I’ve played in 2015, which may not have released in 2015.)

Favorite Single Player: Dishonored
I really enjoy stealth games, and the powers that you can get gives you creative and fun options. I also liked that the game offered several ways for achieving your task. There are usually multiple travel paths, and you can choose between lethal and non-lethal solutions. I ended up doing a few play-throughs (stealth & non-lethal, murder everything, and a mix of both) just to try different things out.

yir_dishonored

Favorite Multiplayer: Gigantic
We were part of the alpha, and we really liked the guardians concept and how it felt like a MOBA + shooter. The view was over the shoulder, and you had to aim your shots. Plus, the community was actually nice. (A friendly MOBA community? Mind blown.) Unfortunately, we stopped as it went into beta, but we did have a ton of fun with it and met many cool people.

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Favorite Indie/Download: Binding of Isaac Rebirth
I spent soooo many hours on this game and then played it again for the Afterbirth DLC. This is a roguelike game, where you start over from the beginning every time you die. Every play through is a different experience since you get a random map with random enemies and items. I thought it was very well done and super addicting. The more you play, the better you get, and the further you can go.

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