2020 Year-In-Review: Books I Read

This year was a weird year for most of my media consumption (along with, y’know, everything else). I only have 28 books read and logged for the year, with 5 of them being graphic novels. So that’s 23 prose books, a poor showing compared to other years. Between the complete upending of routine, being slowed down by eye surgery, and generally having limited ability to focus on long-form prose, this wasn’t a big year for reading books.

By type: 10 Kindle books, 3 other ebooks, 15 physical books.

This year also saw a different mix from some others: There was a fair amount of fantasy and modern horror/fantasy and a lot of memoir-style nonfiction, with only a few sci-fi books. The authors list was pretty varied, as the winner was three Seanan McGuire books, followed by two John Scalzi, two Robin Sloan, and two Avatar graphic novels by Gene Luen Yang.

Recommended standouts of the year included: Seanan McGuire’s Middlegame, both of Robin Sloan’s books (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough), John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire and Mike Carey’s Fellside.

For that matter, Allie Brosh’s Solutions and Other Problems is hilarious and disturbing, and the Avatar graphic novels (The Search and The Promise) are fun though not as good as the original show.

I cleared a bunch of my older backlog of books in a cull, and I do have a bunch of new ones I’m interested in now. I’m hoping 2021 will allow me somewhat more focus.

2020 Year-In-Review: Video Games I Played

This was a huge year for replays, let me tell you!

I officially logged 23 new titles. I replayed 18 games (either the original or a hack of some sort). I removed 24 games from my list in my big Steam cull at the beginning of the year, and played some amount of 40 others that I could either finish in under 3 hours or were cheap enough that I just culled after playing part of. I cleared a couple of Fanatical bundles and a big collection from the giant itch.io bundle this summer.

Unsurprisingly, this year saw a lot of shorter RPGs of various flavors, numerous Zelda-likes, and a lot of platformers. The shorter point-and-click/hidden-object puzzle games remain on the “too short” like last year, though there were only four of them, as I took them completely off the table for six months after getting LASIK. Gems of War once again accounted for the vast, vast majority of my casual game time (though I did play a bunch of Alphabears 2 as well), and also virtually all of the gaming time on my Android tablet.

I only played more than 30 hours of two games Gemcraft: Frostborn Wrath (PC) and Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Switch), both of which I played over 60 hours of. I got 20+ hours out of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (PSP), Kirby Star Allies (Switch), the latest build of Harem Collector (PC), my replay of Saiyuki: Journey West (PS1), my randomized replay of Stardew Valley (PC), and my two replays (combined) of Secret of Mana (SNES/Switch).

The Switch was definitely a champion this year, being the home of our three big family game night titles (Kirby Star Allies, Secret of Mana, Hyrule Warriors) and also ARR’s massive Pokemon Let’s Go playthrough. I finished and culled the last of my 3DS and Android backlog early in the year; and then spent much of my time replaying GBA and SNES titles on emulators and emulator handhelds (particularly the RG350). The rest of my time was spent on PC gaming; I barely used my PS4.

Jethrien and I spent little time gaming just the two of us, but a lot with ARR on family game nights. She also played Untitled Goose Game. ARR played a lot of Minecraft Java edition, both with friends on Realms servers and solo. ARR also completed Pokemon Emerald on GBA emulator and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu on the Switch; played virtually 100% of Lego Batman 3; did multiple play-throughs of Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, and Kirby Squeak Squad; beat the main game of Minecraft Dungeons and has played several dozen hours of Letter Quest over Skype with my dad.

I did correctly predict that I would spend a lot of time on Switch games and that ARR’s tastes will increasingly drive my gaming time.

By genre, the games that I would say, “This is genuinely good, you should try it if you like the genre,” are:
• Beat-Em-Up: Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Switch)
• Tower Defense: Gemcraft: Frostborn Wrath (PC)
• Zelda-like: Lenna's Inception (PC), Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King (PC)
• Metroidvania: Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS)
• Platformer: Kirby Star Allies (Switch)
• Action/Puzzle: Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (PC)

2020 Year-In-Review: TV I Watched

I had a somewhat more even spread of Netflix versus Hulu shows this year, plus a bunch of DC Universe shows. I watched a lot of movies (29 that I logged; almost half of them in December), but saw exactly one in a theater.

Things that stood out included:

Cartoons: I watched the last season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power; one season each of Ducktales, Harley Quinn and Steven Universe; and the first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Superheroes: I watched a season each of: DC's Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, The Flash, Swamp Thing, Titans, Doom Patrol, and Umbrella Academy.

Comedy: I finished out The Good Place and Perfect Harmony. I watched another season of Brooklyn 99. I watched the first seasons of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist and What We Do in the Shadows; and both seasons of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.

Everything else was a bit of a mishmash, including a season each of The New Legends of Monkey (medieval fantasy), Catch-22 (black comedy), I Am Not Okay With This and Euphoria (teen drama), Stranger Things (horror) and Star Trek: Discovery (sci-fi).

I described by watching habits last year as “I want to be entertained because the world sucks.” Wow, did that continue as before! I’m going into 2021 with some new DVD sets and several recommendations; but I suspect I’ll also try to cull off some things on my list that I’ve clearly lost interest in. The fact that all of my usual superhero shows will be delayed much later into the year because of filming restrictions will likely also make next year weird. I haven’t gotten Disney+ or HBOMax yet; I suspect both will depend on when the various superhero shows start hitting them.

(We limited ARR’s allowed time watching Youtube videos of people playing Minecraft; he watched a lot of Captain Underpants, Magic School Bus, Dinotrux and some Pokemon cartoons. We also watched the first season and part of the second of Avatar: The Last Airbender as a family.)

2020 Retrospective and 2021 Goals

Very long, so under a cut.

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