Years In Review

2024

Favorite Games

I never thought a Dragon Age game would make my list of top games, let alone my number one game of the year. The previous entries started out good, but wore out their welcome well before I was at the end. But Veilguard was incredible from beginning to end, with almost every aspect of the game enjoyable. The story might have been a little rushed towards the end, but those final missions were a blast. It also proved to be a great testing ground for expanding on how I saw my character of Korwen, as Rook's default personality fits well with how I imagined her.

Diablo IV was one of my top games last year, and its expansion this year holds it in place. Vessel of Hatred is a great addition to the game, adding a new region to the game that includes the area of Kurast and Travincal last seen in Diablo II. There's something about Diablo IV that keeps me coming back every season, and I do not see that stopping anytime soon.

Dragon's Dogma 2 was another game that I did not expect to love as much as I did. Everything about the game appealed to me. From both your main character and your companion throughout the journey (Aethmal and Seralin made an extraordinary team) to the focus on exploration without quick travel, everything in the game clicked with me. I unfortunately did not get to spend as much time with the post-game adventure as I would like, but it is something I plan to go back and experience all over again soon.

What more is there to say about World of Warcraft that I haven't said previously? The game has been a part of my life for 20 years now, and the latest expansion adds more of what I love to the game. Blizzard has had some ups and downs over the years with the game, but right now, it is at peak enjoyment for me. It is hard to imagine the game not being a part of my life for the foreseeable future.

Favorite Albums

• Deadtime Stories, by Lovelorn Dolls
• Essential Mixtape, by Merely & Malibu
• From Zero, by Linkin Park
• I Am, by Pain
• Spaceport, by Martin Stürtzer
• The Greatest Love, by London Grammar
• Under a Timeless Spell, by Diary of Dreams
• World of Warcraft: The War Within, by Blizzard

A Change Is Gonna Come

2024 has been the calm before the storm that next year will be for my life.

Next year, I will become a parent for the first time. It's hard to describe. I feel both ready for it, but also woefully underprepared at the same time. I already treasure the guidance my friends have provided me so far, and I apologize to them in advance as I inevitably have all those first-time parent worries and freak-outs.

As if that would not be challenging enough, I will be starting graduate school next year, working towards a Master's in computer engineering. These last few years as an undergrad have been incredible, and I know the best is yet to come. I have a year to decide what direction to take my embedded systems focus. My first trek through graduate school was fun. But as I studied a social science, it was all about reading a lot of journal articles and writing papers every week. I look forward to what should be a more hands-on course load.

All of this is to say nothing of all the other changes the world will be going through next year...

2023

Favorite Games

For a game that I have been playing for 3 years in Early Access, even I was caught by surprised with how important Baldur's Gate 3 turned out to be for me. The theme of the last few years has been rediscovering my love of roleplaying and expanding on not only my characters Aethmal and Seralin, but the whole family. Baldur's Gate 3 is the perfect singleplayer game for this, as it is the first CRPG that allows multiple player-made characters to interact with each other, having discussions and making comments to each other as the game is played. This combined with everything else that the game does well turned it into such a grand experience that I had to play it all the way through back-to-back. Very few games make me want to do that, let alone games that can easily last up to 100 hours on a single campaign.

Up until its release, I was worried that Diablo IV would be a disappointment. Diablo II remains one of the more influential games for me, but Diablo III is also one of the most disappointing games I have played. Whlie Diablo IV does not reach the heights of II, it holds its own in a way that made me love it. The campaign is a great return to form for the series, particularly with providing a memorable antagonist in Lilith. The post-campaign gameplay is currently a huge step back from II, but has improved over the year. I am hopeful it will turn into a game that I replay regularly, much as I did with Diablo II every year since its original release.

To put it bluntly, The Talos Principle 2 is the best first-person puzzle game I have played. The first game quickly surpassed other entries in the genre, but the sequel manages to take it even further. The puzzle design has been improved upon from the original, although unfortunately made a little easier. The story builds on the philosophical foundation of the original but takes it in a more forward-looking direction. The voice acting and music adds even more on top to make it an experience unlike any other.

While the fighting genre is one I have always enjoyed, Street Fighter VI has the honor of being only the second game to capture my attention for more than a few months. What separates this game from many others is its willingness to make changes both for a modern audience and one that desires a little more accessibility. The modern control scheme Capcom introduced into this has made the gameplay a lot more enjoyable and easier to grasp. It remains controversial, but for players like me, it is the difference between being able to enjoy the game for longer periods of time and dropping it after only a few matches online.

Favorite Albums

• 1977, by Sirenia
• A Dark Euphony, by Blackbriar
• Baldur's Gate 3, by Borislav Slavov
• Bring Out Your Dead, by Elysion
• Electric Sun, by VNV Nation
• Mr. Robot Volume 8, by Mac Quayle
• Starfield, by Inon Zur
• Stars & Embers, by Ison

Back to Azeroth

In 2022, I began to play World of Warcraft again. At first, it was just playing World of Warcraft Classic, experiencing anew the game I had enjoyed when I was in college. After playing Classic for a significant amount of time, the retail version of the game began to interest me again. It had been 6 years since I last played it for more than a few minutes, but the changes made in that time since piqued my interest. In particular, the new allied race of the Void Elves looked like the type of elf I'd always wanted to play in a fantasy setting like this. As I read their lore, saw that their leader was Alleria Windrunner, I knew I had to at least give it a shot.

As I write this, it has now been 20 months since I reopened my World of Warcraft account. I have not regretted this decision in the slightest. Since 1999, I have always had an MMORPG that was central to my gaming life, but with Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker's disappointing ending, I had been missing that in my life. I jumped around to many different MMOs during the first 6 months of 2022, but nothing stuck past a week of playing. I even went back to old classics like EverQuest and EVE Online, but it never worked out. It wasn't until I created a Blood Elf Paladin on The Burning Crusade Classic that something clicked. I felt like I was at home again. For about 4 months, this was what I played nearly every day, and loved it.

After jumping back into retail, the story has remained the same. World of Warcraft, despite being nearly 20 years old, feels fresh and new again. Blizzard, for all of its troubles elsewhere, has done a lot to revitalize the game with the Dragonflight expansion. In the back of my mind, I know the game can always change directions again and push me out, as it did back during Cataclysm. But for now, I am enjoying the prospect of this being the next game I play for years, maybe even a decade long.

2022

Favorite Games

The past few years, I have dived deep into the FromSoftware games. Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 clicked with me, but neither were games that would be in contention for my favorite game ever. Elden Ring surpassed anything I could have hoped it would be. It takes all the best of the previous Soulsborne games and combines it with a brilliant open world that rewards deep exploration. At nearly 300 hours of playtime and now 11 months after release, I can easily say that Elden Ring is my new favorite game of all time.

The last time I played World of Warcraft was in 2016 with the launch of the Legion expansion. I enjoyed my time then, but fell off relatively quick. At the time, my main thought was that I missed the Azeroth of old, as the game had been streamlined to the point of not requiring thought. Dragonflight corrects a lot of the issues I had with the game. Meaningful talent trees have returned, progression can be accomplished doing whatever activity you want, and daily quests are a thing of the past. I have had a lot of fun playing the game again, thanks to the changes Dragonflight has made. Here's hoping 2023 sees Blizzard continue to keep the high quality of the game going.

The Stanley Parable has always been my favorite walking simulator, and the Ultra Deluxe version makes it even better. The new content plus technical upgrades has improved the game and made it fun to explore the world all over again.

God of War has been a series I have avoided heavily throughout my life. The over-the-top action combined with gratuitous sexism made for a very unappealing set of games. The 2018 game took care of a lot of my issues with the previous entries, and added a deep story on top of it. The game does a lot of things very well, from fun combat to great filmic direction. It overstays its welcome some towards the end, but overall it is was a great experience, and a good way to start out 2022.

Favorite Albums

• Ambient Network IV, by Miktek
• Call to Arms and Angels, by Archive
• Strata, by Remina
• Terrene, by Lauge & Aes Dana
• Transmissions from a Hidden World, by Ben Prunty
• World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, by Blizzard Entertainment
• Year of the Snake, by Softcult
• Zeit, by Rammstein

Going Back To School

The last time I was in a classroom was the fall of 2011. Over a decade ago. So when I walked into the classroom for my engineering programming course, I did not know what to expect.

College has changed in many ways in that interim time. Back then, I still turned in much of my work physically, having to go down to the campus print lab to print out all of the reports and research that was due. Nowadays, all of the work is done digitally and turned in that way. My programming class only required you to show up for tests, as lectures were recorded with zoom for either live watching or catching up later on. And perhaps most importantly to me at the time, I was a decade older than the professor and close to two decades older than any of the other students.

At first, I experienced a bit of culture shock. But once that wore quickly off, I remembered what I loved about going to school and interacting with peers in my field. The last decade of working in the government has made me jaded, which is part of the reason why I decided to go back to school to change careers.

But as fun as it is being back in college, this time around is not the same as before. I am now working full time, with a mortgage to pay. I can not be a full-time student without running out of time in the day. Taking one class, participating in extracurricular activities, and working already takes up much of my day as is. And I am starting 2023 off by taking two classes for the quarter.

I already feel myself being more tired than I would normally be. The goal for 2023 is to manage all of this, while still having at least a little time for myself. It is going to be difficult, so here's hoping I am up for the task.

2021

Favorite Games

There are only a handful of developers that make games that consistently click with me, and Arkane Studios is one of those developers. Deathloop is their latest outing with a new twist on their traditional immersive sim style. Unlike their previous games, the gameplay has no deep RPG systems in it, instead relying on being an FPS with the other qualities of an immersive sim mixed in. Maintaining their core gameplay and level design competence while stepping up their abilities on world-building has led to Arkane once again producing one of my favorite games of the year.

Since I have never owned an Xbox, the initial hype for the Halo series passed me by. Halo Infinite continued to not be on my radar until the release of its free multiplayer. On a whim, I downloaded it and after but a few matches, the hype for the series all made sense. The multiplayer was a lot of fun, and I put many hours into it. The game will not be one that I stick with long term, mostly due to the fact that my gaming schedule does not have a lot of room for a competitive shooter, but I enjoyed my time with it and consider it one of the highlights of the year.

The last Metroid game that I played was Super Metroid on the SNES. It was a great game, but at the same time, not one that gave me a desire to explore other similar titles. Metroid Dread looked interesting, but I was not expecting how engrossed I would get from the game. Every element of the game is well done, and the gameplay is a wonderful progression over the Metroid games of old. The ambient musical style in the game reminded me of other works like Nine Inch Nail's Ghosts albums, furthering my love for the game.

The first Subnautica was not only one of my top 2018 games, but has become one of my top all-time games. Any follow-up to it has a high bar to reach. Subnautica: Below Zero does not quite reach the heights of its predecesor, but it does get close. The game changes focus from being a giant sandbox into a smaller focused sandbox with a heavier emphasis on story. This game has the distinction where I got to experience the game in two forms. When the game launched into early access on Steam, the story was vastly diferent from when the game reached its final version. Being able to experience the game differently twice added to my enjoyment of it. The improved base building elements were the cherry-on-top of the whole experience.

Favorite Albums

• Bodies, by AFI
• Dune, by Hans Zimmer
• Erlösung: The Victory of Light, by BlutEngel
• Final Fantasy XIV: Death Unto Dawn, by Masayoshi Soken
• In Nomine Sanguinis, by Theatres des Vampires
• Judas, by Lord of the Lost
• Love Made Me Do It, by Kat Von D
• Subnautica: Below Zero, by Ben Prunty

Another Pandemical Year

COVID-19 continued as a life-altering issue this year, in no small part thanks to a politicized anti-vaccine movement that will keep the disease in our lives for many years to come. Watching how many of the people in my work environment have continued to do everything wrong with regard to the pandemic led me down the path of rethinking if I want to continue in this line of work at all. Combined with many other issues that have cropped up over the last couple of years, the answer is that it is time for a career change.

To facilitate this, 2022 is the year that I will return to school and work towards a computer engineering degree. Since my original decision to not pursue computer science when I first started university, I have resisted the urge to go into this field. Computers and technology are a fun hobby for me, and the concern has always been that turning a hobby into work might remove the joy I experience with it. At the same time, it is a field where the knowledge comes easy for me. I can pick up new concepts within it without much difficulty, and I have a desire to learn more than I currently know. With that, moving from the software side of things into the realm of hardware design will be enough of a change that it will both challenge me and show me a new side to things that I have less experience with.

This will be a long journey. After the last year spent feeling idle, my hope is this change will help push me not only into a new career, but into other global possibilities.

2020

Favorite Games

Few games can be described as having a unique experience the way that Death Stranding does. The game does a fantastic job of creating the feel of a desolate world that is crumbling, and you the player are fighting against that by rebuilding it and connecting people. I am a sucker for any Hideo Kojima game, and Death Stranding is his best game yet.

When the original Half-Life came out in 1998, it revolutionized both the first-person shooter genre and PC gaming as a whole. Valve managed to repeat this in 2020, with a new Half-Life game that revolutionizes virtual reality gaming. Half-Life: Alyx is the gold standard for immersive games, which is problematic in that it makes any non-virtual reality game pale in comparison.

Kentucky Route Zero is a game that I have known about for almost a decade since its announcement, but I did not play until this year when the final chapter was released. I have a hard time deciding whether waiting was a good decision, but playing all five chapters back-to-back enhanced the experience for me. Even 10 months later, many of the game's scenes are vivid in my mind, and the music is a regular listen for me.

Before playing Half-Life: Alyx, I played Black Mesa, a recreation of the original Half-Life. Similar to how I consider Half-Life: Alyx to be the current gold standard in virtual reality games, Black Mesa is the benchmark that should be followed for recreations of older games. It sticks close to the original design of Half-Life, keeping the elements that worked in the original game intact, but it is willing to change up the parts that didn't work. With 22 years of game development knowledge, this has turned Black Mesa into the true version of Half-Life for me.

Favorite Albums

• Conspiravision: Deus Ex Remixed, by Alexander Brandon & Michiel van den Bos
• Diamonds, by The Birthday Massacre
• Genshin Impact: City of Winds and Idylls, by Yu-Peng Chen
• Ghosts V: Together, by Nine Inch Nails
• Ghosts VI: Locusts, by Nine Inch Nails
• Hereafter, by MikTek
• Project: Regeneration Vol. 1, by Static-X
• Westworld: Season 3, by Ramin Djawadi

A Pandemical Year

Last year, I set a goal of focusing on a few specific projects and not letting myself meander around from topic to topic as I have done previously. This goal was accomplished, but with varying levels of completeness for the projects that I set to focus on.

My most successful project area has been in programming. The goal I set forth was to stay focused on Swift, and not experiment with every language available. My focus has remained on Swift, with the only exception being a small side-dabbling in Objective-C. I don't plan to program direct in Objective-C, but wanted to become more familiar with the specific features and syntax it adds on top of C so that I can interface with it and better understand it, should I be looking to integrate or rewrite a library that is written with it.

I did not complete as many projects as I would have liked. Much of my time was spent delving into Apple's frameworks and creating small experimentations with them. This time I feel was well-spent, as I have a greater understanding not only of the tools available to me, but how many aspects of other apps and the operating system function. That said, I did complete a few projects that allow me to show off what I have learned.

The first project was a rewriting my regularly used terminal commands. A few of my commonly used commands are now pure Swift, and I plan to convert more as time goes on. Since colorized text output is important for me in terminal applications, I created SwiftyTerminalColors, a library that outputs standard ANSI colors when matched with Swift strings. It is a simple library, but is one that gave me a better understanding of shell escape characters and text formatting.

The second project that I completed was Musae, a personal iOS app for music selection. Before writing this, I used a combination of bash scripts, Swift scripts, and iOS shortcuts to select what my daily playlist would be for exercising, meditation, and work. These solutions were convoluted or required regular upkeep. Musae simplifies the process by loading the music synced to my iPhone, organizes the playlists into their respective categories, and selects a playlist. To streamline the music selection process, I can tap a playlist and tell it to either play the playlist (used for my long daily work playlists) or choose a small selection of songs to play next before returning to the work playlist (useful for exercise, meditation, etc.). The app itself is simple and fit to my specific needs, so that there is little reason to put it up on the App Store. But it is the first app that I have created that I use every day.

My writing was not as prolific as I would have liked this year, but I am comfortable with where I am in this regard. Last year, I rekindled my love with reading academic research, and this year has been a continuation of that. I have begun to combine my various notes into a knowledge base that is based on Zettelkasten. My version of it is simplified, but it has given me a good process for note taking and review. At this point, I have ideas for what to write based on the content of the notes, but have yet to go down that path. One of my goals for next year will be to make use of this knowledge base to greater effect, and to expand it with more resources than academic journal articles.

This year has been an odd one. The COVID-19 pandemic has put much of the country into various stages of lockdown, and my job puts me at greater risk of being exposed. This has led to me being a hermit even more than I was before, but has instilled a desire in me to not be cut off from the world. Since I have been unable to socialize in person, I have made an effort to do more socializing online. The result has been that I am now part of a few online groups that I have allowed me to get to know more diverse people that share my interests. These groups are acting as a stepping stone to other groups, which I hope will have the potential to lead into socializing in more domains than the digital. My desire is not to be so much of a shut-in that I have no human contact, and this is a good step to having a social life outside of my day job.

2019

Favorite Games

Describing Shadowbringers as a crowning achievement for Final Fantasy XIV is not an understatement. This expansion has been everything a fan of the game could ask for. Much of this is thanks to main scenario writer Natsuko Ishikawa, who has previously written some of the best quest lines in the game. In particular, the end of Shadowbringer's story is one of the most bittersweet endings in a Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy X.

When I played the original Resident Evil back in high school, I was not a fan of the game due to being heavily invested in MMORPGs at the time. The remake of this game looked interesting, but it was not until the 30-minute demo was released that I became hooked on it. Some of this could be thanks to my increased interest in survival games due to last year's Subnautica, but Resident Evil 2 has a great mix of survival and puzzle-solving that feels great to play. I'm glad I gave the series a second chance, and am now interested in future remakes that Capcom might release.

This game originally came out in 2017, but I did not get to experience it until the Game of the YoRHa Edition this year. While it is unfortunate it took me a couple of years to get it, I am glad to have played it. It is the perfect blend of action with a philosophical story, and a dash of wonderful design. The repeat playthrough idea is not as great in practice as it is in theory, but the initial playthrough of the game will remain memorable for a long time.

The battle royale genre has been overtaking video games since the release of Fornite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in 2017. This genre of game is one I was intrigued by the idea of, but could not get into until Apex Legends. Apex Legends hits all of the right notes for the game, from a stronger and required focus on teamplay, to solid first-person controls, and a great art design. I enjoyed spending time playing the game, and although the constant rolling seasons of the genre do not appeal to me, I now understand why so many people enjoy it so much.

Favorite Albums

• Age of Unreason, by Bad Religion
• Bleak Sword, by Jim Guthrie
• Death Stranding, by Ludvig Forssell
• Eliza, by Matthew Seiji Burns
• Inks, by Aes Dana
• Rammstein, by Rammstein
• Serpentines & Valleys, by Eskostatic
• We Are Not Your Kind, by Slipknot

An Uneventful Year; or Falling Down A Rabbit Hole

I always try to keep my free time occupied with spare projects, but this year, I failed at making any significant progress to them. This website languished, with no major pages being written. I went down a rabbit hole of programming, which led to not creating anything despite goals I had set for myself. This rabbit hole also led to me focusing on programming to the detriment of any other projects. For 2020, I want to try and refocus my side projects to make some meaningful progress in them.

One of the good things to come out of intellectual meandering this year was to again find my love of reading academic journals. I have been again exploring catching up on criminology articles, but I want to expand that out for the new year. I have decided on three specific areas I want to focus on: astronomy, computer science, and criminology. My goal will be to read at least one article per week in each of these areas, plus a fourth article in any area that strikes my fancy for that week. I plan to take extensive notes on the articles too, so that I can use them as sources for future writings.

With regards to programming, I want to focus less on puzzles and experimentations and more on creating something more substantial. I have a few ideas for what I want those to be. But the key thing for them all is to stay focused on Swift. I have experimented with a lot of programming languages the last few years, and while other languages have a lot of interesting ideas, I was becoming one of those people that's in love with the idea of things and not the practicality. For my current computing needs, Swift is the best solution due to its interoperability with C and Apple's APIs that it provides for Swift. I also plan to rewrite some of my command-line tools in Swift, instead of letting them exist in a mish-mash of Bash, Julia, and Rust.

One of the goals I want to accomplish next year is to build a basic computer game. I am still formulating what sort of game I would like to make, but it is something that has been on my agenda for quite some time, and trying to actually complete something basic is a good goal for the year. Waffling between different game engines is something that has slowed down progress in this area, so again sticking with Swift and Apple's gaming APIs (SpiteKit and GameplayKit do look nice) should allow me to create something without worrying about the tech stack behind it. Should I create something that's worthy of wider release, I can explore other options at that time.

I am not one to go all in on New Year's Resolutions, but given how little I have to show for side projects this year, setting out goals for myself is a good first step to being more successful at completing something. Focusing on researching, writing, and very specific programming projects help me in that regard.

2018

Favorite Games

One of the central themes for gaming this year has been games with strong soundtracks. All four of my favorite games have soundtracks that I regularly listen to. They are also games that are very deep, and ones I plan to revisit very soon to invest more time in.

For a game that had such a troubled history, Final Fantasy XV turned out to be one of my favorite Final Fantasy games in the whole series. It is a flawed game, but it hits more high points than low. Yoko Shimomura's soundtrack is the biggest element that kept me reeled in. Her music stands up with the best of Uematsu's, and without it, I don't think I would have enjoyed the game quite as much as I did.

The survival genre is one I have passed on previously. Most survival games look more tedious than fun, and not focused on the action. The only reason I gave Subnautica a chance is that it is made by Unknown Worlds, the creators of one of my favorite multiplayer games, Natural Selection. As great of a game as Natural Selection was, Subnautica was even better. Everything design-wise in the game is perfect, from the story, survival mechanics, base building, and sound and visual design.

The experience moved me so much that while I want to play it again, I am afraid that the second time around will not feel as magical due to the lack of discovery. But I am looking forward to the stand-alone expansion being released next year, and hope it can meet the greatness of this first game.

Zachtronics games have a certain quality that no other "programming game" has matched. Most of their games are based around an artificial programming language or platform that ends up looking like programming on the surface but is really a puzzle game. All of their games are fun, but Exapunks takes things to the next level. The soundtrack and graphics are better than anything Zachtronics has put out before. The game has a distinctive 1980's cyberpunk vibe to it, which fits with the William Gibson and Neal Stephenson novels I have been reading this year. Like Shenzhen I/O before it, I expect to come back to this game again in a few years.

Games from Obsidian Entertainment rarely disappoint, and Pillars of Eternity II is no except to this. The first game was a great return to form for the CRPG genre, and the sequel takes it to all new heights. Everything in the game was done well, from the story to the combat to the music. With Obsidian's buy-out by Microsoft, its unclear whether another Pillars of Eternity game will come out. As it stands, the series stands amongst the best of the CRPG genre.

Favorite Albums

• Exapunks, by Matthew S Burns
• Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, by Masayoshi Soken
• Final Fantasy XV: Volume 2, by Yoko Shimomura
• Gris, by Berlinist
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, by Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata, and Hajime Wakai
• Mid90s, by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
• Octopath Traveler, by Yasunori Nishiki
• 7 Billion Humans, by Kyle Gabler

A Multitude of Interfaces

Up to the release of macOS Mojave, I spent a lot of time experimenting with keeping as much of my work inside of a terminal as possible. I rewrote scripts and workflows to be friendly to a terminal session, and became comfortable enough with neovim to use it as a primary text editor. Having grown up using MS-DOS and being comfortable with a Unix command-line for a couple of decades, doing this was not a painful experiment. But while there are some advantages of working within the terminal, there are a number of disadvantages to it as well.

Upon some deep reflection, I concluded that the reason I kept being drawn to the terminal was not due to any inherent advantage of the terminal itself, but due to my unhappiness with the current macOS GUI setup. macOS has been my operating system of choice since college, but the current trends of desktop UI design were not catching on with me. The macOS desktop design was not stagnating, but it was also not evolving in a way that meshed with what I was looking for.

When I realized what made me unhappy about the GUI and what I enjoyed with the terminal, I set out to try and combine the two in a meaningful way. In practice, this meant taking the keyboard-centric interactions of the terminal and applying them to GUI applications. This required some careful selection of applications, although a lot of what I already used was friendly to this.

At the end of this experimentation, I am much happier with how I use my Mac. I kept drawing a distinction between the terminal and GUI environment, but taking the advantages of both sides and figuring out how they can be applied to each other has been fun and worthwhile. It also makes me more comfortable with the direction Apple currently is on with the operating system as a whole, as my workflow might require a little more effort, but it still works well and should continue to do so into the future.

2017

Favorite Games

When I looked at the upcoming titles of 2017 back in January, I thought this year was going to be a boring year for games. Last year saw some instant classics for myself, and 2017 seemed like it would underperform in comparison. Thankfully, there were some great games this year that I look forward to playing through again in the future.

Earlier this year, I played System Shock 2 from beginning to end for the first time. It is an older game, but considered a classic of the FPS/RPG hybrid genre. The initial reviews for Prey kept saying it was the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, and as close as we'll get to a System Shock 3 anytime in the near future.

These reviews were not exaggerations either. Prey is every bit the same as System Shock 2, including in quality. The gameplay is the perfect blend of FPS and RPG, and it has the same overall game structure as System Shock 2. The open-ended nature of the game is why I love the Deus Ex games so much. Prey is a game that I have already slotted in to play again in the future, and much like with any Deus Ex game, I plan to approach it in a new manner on the second playthrough.

This year saw the release of Stormblood, the second expansion for Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV is one of my top MMORPGs of all time, and Stormblood keeps going with the same formula that has made the original game amazing. The story has been wonderful to follow along with, the dungeons and raids fun, and the new mechanics add some more depth to the already spectacular combat.

My year would not be complete without a new walking simulator to play through. What Remains of Edith Finch is my walking simulator of choice for 2017, and what an amazing game it is. It surpasses every other in the genre, including the perennial Dear Esther.

Life Is Strange: Before the Storm is how prequels should be done. Life Is Strange is a good but flawed game, and Before the Storm improves on it in most categories. The dialogue between the characters runs the emotional gamut, and the art style of the game makes it quite visually pleasing. There are so many memorable scenes in the game, from Episode 1's Dungeons and Dragons session, to the high school play in Episode 2. The first game is one I have no plans to revisit again, but Before The Storm is one I know I'll play again in the future.

Favorite Albums

• Derelict, by Carbon Based Lifeforms
• Deus Ex: Breach, by Ed Harrison
• The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind, by Brad Derrick
• Ligand, by Martin Nonstatic
• Luna, by Austin Wintory
• Prey, by Mick Gordon
• The Vietnam War, by Trent Reznor
• What Remains of Edith Finch, by Jeff Russo

Using Swift to run my life

Every since I first tried it out in high school, programming has been an activity that I have enjoyed immensely. Whether it's working on a bigger project for myself or just solving some simple math puzzles, programming is a great way for me to relax. It has also been a phenomenal tool for organizing my life and experimenting with different work routines.

Last year, I felt that Swift was not in a place where I wanted to use it regularly. I loved the language itself, but the tooling around it did not interest me. It was next to impossible to integrate well with Sublime Text and Xcode was so bloated that I did not enjoy opening it, let alone using it.

This year saw a lot of change in regards to the Swift tooling. With the release of Swift 4, the Swift Package Manager has become more powerful and easy to work with, and Xcode 9 brought speed improvements to the editor, making it so that I could better cope with working in it. A good portion of this year was spent experimenting with different programming tools, and this included the beta versions of Xcode 9. I discovered that Xcode is now in a place where I can combine it with using the Swift Package Manager from the command-line and be happy with the workflow. Consequently, Xcode is now the main editor I use for all Swift work. I do not use many of the additional IDE tools it provides, although it does make a great debugger on the occasions that I need it.

One thing I discovered this year is that as much as I would love to create apps for iOS and macOS, it is just not something I enjoy doing. I am more of a command-line person, so whatever tooling works best there is what I want to learn. Python and Rust are great for this usage, but Swift has also turned into a solid entry as well. When Apple first announced Swift, they partially billed it as a programming language. Despite being sort of garbage-collected, it has great performance and provides all of the tools necessary to great command-line programs. It also works well in a scripting capacity, although it is yet to be as fast as Python in that area.

All of this adds up to Swift having become my primary language for my personal projects. Python is out. Rust is a great language, but not one I feel I can comfortably devote time to while still being productive, as I sometimes have limited hours in the day to work on programming projects. Improved Linux support means that if I switch to Linux, I will be able to take the language with me, which is something that is always at the back of my mind.

Replacing my iPhone with an iPad

I have wanted an iPad ever since they were first announced. iOS is a great operating system, but I have become more disillusioned with smartphones as corporations and app developers use every tool at their disposal to make apps "addictive" and something that you must come back to regularly, instead of a just a tool to use. Sorting through the trash of these apps takes more and more time that would be better spent on other things.

When I bought an iPad during the summer, I decided to run an experiment: allow my phone to be a glorified iPod, and convert all the rest of my mobile computing to the iPad. This might not seem like a huge change, but it has actually changed my life in ways that I did not at first imagine.

The big change came from the fact that I can't simply pull out my iPad everywhere. Everywhere in public, people are always using their smartphones for random tasks. Bored on the train? Pull our your phone. Waiting simply 30 seconds in line at the grocery? Pull out your phone. Bored of the conversation you are having with a co-worker? Pull out your phone. I fell into the same trap of doing this in many of the same situations.

To try and combat this, I removed all apps from my iPhone except for music, podcasting, and basic communication tools(phone calls and texting). E-mail is delayed on there, and outside of texting, no other messaging apps are installed. I even went through the trouble to make Safari inaccessible. What I found is that when I am out of the house, I notice more things around me. Music is still playing in my ears, but I can visually see a lot more. It also gives me more time to just think about things, instead of trying to quickly beat a level on a mobile game designed to suck money out of me.

This has also helped me keep the iPad more of a focused device for reading and researching. Since I no longer am used to doing random stuff on my iPhone, I do not feel the inclination to do it on the iPad. Even mobile gaming has dropped for me, as the money-seeking games on the iPhone are the same on the iPad.

The iPad is great in the roles I have relegated it to. iBooks makes reading a wonderful task, where I prefer it there over paper books. Writing is equally nice, when I have the time to do some writing projects on it. And the focused nature of full-screen apps is one I long ago adopted on my Mac. Even as I write this in Sublime Text, it is set to fullscreen and most UI elements are turned so I can focus on the text.

One financial gain from this is that I no longer desire to spend nearly a thousand dollars on a new phone every couple of years. My 3 year old iPhone 6 Plus is still more than adequate for my needs, and when I do decide to upgrade this again, it will be to a iPhone SE that is both smaller and cheaper. More productive time on my devices, more knowledge of what is going on around me, less money spent. This transition has had many positive changes for me this year.

2016

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.

created: 2017-01-01 | updated: 2025-06-22