2016 in Review
For many reasons, 2016 has been a rollercoaster of a year. While keeping any political and social issues aside, the following some of the good things I have experienced this year, with some closing thoughts on a couple of areas I want to do better with next year.
Favorite Games
2016 was a phenomenal year for games. Here are a few of my favorites.
The original Deus Ex was an amazing game for its time. It opened my eyes to the idea that there could be more to a first-person shooter. Deus Ex: Human Revolution, is as good of a sequel as one could ask for, and is now one of my favorite all-time games, having played through multiple times.
This year's direct sequel to the series, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a great game that barely does not measure up to Human Revolution. Where the game falls down is in the ending and in how the story handles the conspiratorial Illuminati. In the original game, they are mentioned briefly and play a behind-the-scenes role. In this game, they are at the forefront, and the main characters are searching for them specifically. It removes some of the enigma of the group and who they are, which Human Revolution handled better.
Outside of those two minor quips, Mankind Divided is a game that I am happy is more of the same. It does not veer far from what Human Revolution did, with a similar game structure and ability system. The new characters are well-written, and the missions and side-quests are a lot of fun. This is another game which I plan to play through again in the near future.
The last game from id Software that I enjoyed was Quake III: Arena, released 17 years ago. DOOM 3 and Rage were decent games in their own right, but while they continued to show John Carmack's excellence in graphic engine design, they lacked the magic that id's previous games held.
This is why the release of DOOM was surprising. After coming off the lackluster multiplayer beta, my hopes were low for the game.
And then I played it.
Ranking DOOM as my game of the year is an easy decision. While not as revolutionary as the original, this DOOM is every bit as good of a game. Every aspect of this game is near perfect: beautiful graphics that runs smooth, an amazing soundtrack by Mick Gordon, memorable level design, and fun gameplay that kept me coming back for me. It is a game that I look forward to playing again in the future.
There is little that I can say about Overwatch that has not been said elsewhere. Suffice it to say, this game took the FPS world by storm this year. From interesting and well thought out characters to the tight gameplay, it is easy to see why most love this game. It is the one game I have logged in the most hours on, and still continue to love playing 7 months later.
Jonathan Blow's previous game, Braid, did little for me. It was an interesting concept, but platformers in that style are hard for me to get into. Consequently, I did not take a close look at The Witness until it was near release. And I was enthralled by what I saw.
This game got stuck inside my head once I started playing it. I was thinking about it no matter what I was doing. I even started waking up early in the morning just to play it more. Few games are like that for me.
It is a hard game to describe without spoiling the experience. Needless to say, if you enjoy puzzle games and exploration, this is one to get.
Favorite Music
- Cipher, by Ben Prunty
- DOOM, by Mick Gordon
- Far & Off, by AES Dana and Miktek
- Moonbathers, by Delain
Programming
This has been a lackluster year programming-wise for me. Swift did not take off for me, mostly due to my dislike for its current tooling setup. HTML and CSS have had little interesting happening in them, outside of better support for Flex Box and Grid Layout. And JavaScript continues to show little reason for me to desire working with it.
The one area where my interest is rising is with Python. It is not my perfect language, but it does a lot right that Swift does not, particularly in the tooling. I am a big fan of lightweight code editors such as Sublime Text, and having to work in Xcode turned me off of Swift. Whereas with Python, there are a lot of plugins for Sublime to help make Python programming easier, while still remaining lightweight. It also has a huge community following and packages for just about everything, which means I can easier work on projects that I want to work on.
I do plan to stick with Python for some of my work going forward, at least for my own website. While I am happy with the current solution I have, something more powerful that I can add on to would be helpful.
Hopefully I do not get distracted by the allure of Haskell or Rust.
Scheduling
When I was working part time, it was easy to fit everything that I wanted into a day. Most days, I only worked for 6 hours, which left plenty of time for gaming, programming, and my marriage. Now, with 8 hour shifts, lots of overtime, and a lengthier commute, I need to spend time managing my time. Throughout this year, I have worked on exactly that.
There are many ways to try and manage your time, with just as many books written to guide you through that process. GTD is one of the more popular methods, and one that I experimented with for a few months.
This is still something that I am working on, but I have found what works for me and a lot of what does not work. I have focused what I want to keep my skills up with, how I want to have fun, and the best way to balance the two. My daily tasks are split into a few groups, some of which are scheduled at specific times based on GTD, and others that are from a checklist with repeating tasks.
While I still am tweaking the system, it is mostly in place for this. I plan to write about it within the coming months, as each piece is finalized.
The Krueger Report
Figuring out the best way to run this site with minimal upkeep has been a challenge for a few years now. When I first made this site, my intention was to stay away from typical bloated CMS's like WordPress. These applications work well, but I wanted something that put less strain on the server. For a short while in 2015, I ran on top of Ghost, which enticed me with its native Markdown support and ability to run without a database server. It worked well, and out of all CMS's I have used, it is my favorite. But it was still too much.
After converting the site into static HTML, I went about trying to find the best solution for compiling down the site based on Markdown files. I first attempted to create my own solution, but this entailed more work than I was willing to give at the time. I tried maintaining the HTML files myself, but this turned into a long process every time I wanted to post something.
The solution I ended up implementing a few months back was to switch from nginx to Caddy. Caddy has the built-in ability to compile Markdown files to HTML based upon a template system, which appealed to me. Its system was similar to how Ghost themes were made, so it was quick to adapt my site to it. Caddy also has the huge bonus of taking care of SSL certificates for all of my sites, meaning I do not have to manually register and renew them.
I still have visions of a static site compiler that has other functionality(compiling the book portion down to an EPUB for e-book reading), and if that happens, it will most likely be in Python. But we'll see if I get around to it.
What Was Left Behind
Ever since playing the SNES classic Chrono Trigger, I have badly desired a real-world equivalent to the Enertron found in the game. These devices would let the characters experience a full night's worth of rest in only a few seconds.
If I had a device like this, I would be able to work on a lot more projects than I currently have time for. Without that though, I have had to focus on what I want to do, which means putting some hobbies and projects off.
When the year began, I had hoped to get back into playing bass guitar and perhaps look into joining a band. One of the best parts of college was our old band Unabridged, and performing for others. Unfortunately, this is one hobby that I have not been able to fit into my schedule. This mostly stems from the fact that I know I would have to sacrifice other activities to take it to the level I would want to. Writing music can take up a lot of time and mental energy, which I want to direct at other activities. I have thought about joining a cover band or work on a project where I am simply a player and do not need to write, but then I question whether that would be as much fun.
One project that has been bouncing around in my head for nearly a decade now is writing a fiction novel. I used to love writing when I was in college, and would regularly write short stories and work on a novel, but never took it to completion. Since I graduated, the frequency with which I wrote lessened, to the point where I had a number of years where I wrote nothing at all.
One reason that I have been working on this blog the last few years was to get myself back into the habit of writing, and to rebuild my ability to do it. I used to be able to write well-thought out texts with ease, but now it is more of struggle. With the practice of writing these last few years, the process of writing is easier for me. Perhaps it is time to approach that novel again.
Over the next few months, I will make a decision if either of these projects are worth exploring fully. While I can not do everything that I would look to, I want to try to do more than I currently am doing. With focus, I will hopefully be able to.
updated: 2025-06-22