Draknek's Devlog

So, do I have any advice? Not really. What worked for me may not work for you. Honestly, I don't think what worked for me then would work for me now.

That said, I'd attribute my critical success to these things:

I only work on games that I believe I can prototype very quickly. If a proof of concept would take longer than a weekend, I don't make it.

I've spent the last 5 years focusing on one genre and getting better at making that specific type of game. This involved commercial projects but also dozens of small free puzzle games.

I have a tool (PuzzleScript) that lets me prototype ideas very quickly.

I playtest early and often, without which I wouldn’t know what’s good (and can be focused on) and what’s bad (and needs to be reworked or removed).

I was living off of savings and so able to work on these games full time. (With the exception of Sokobond, which had been in development for a year before I left my job.)

I'm fairly well connected, so some semi-influential people know and like me and are predisposed to like my work.

My financial success is modest, partly due to luck, and partly due to timing. I left my previous job with enough savings to live off for 1-2 years, and I intended to make games until I ran out of money - at which point I planned to get another job. I never expected to be self-sufficient from them and still find it hard to believe that I am.

I had these advantages:

I'm an able-bodied cis white man and match people's expectations of what an indie developer looks like.

I live frugally and have no dependants.

I'd been making games as a hobbyist for 5 years before leaving my job.

In that time I'd made good connections within the indie game dev scene.

Those connections gave me the self confidence to believe that I was somewhat competent at game design.

I have a Computer Science degree from a good university which made me confident I could get another job down the line.

I'm from a country which has free healthcare, and which doesn't require me to repay my student loan if I'm not earning anything.

If I ran out of money and failed to find a job, I think my friends/family would have helped me avoid poverty.

January (Melbourne)

Hive (2 players) I really enjoy teaching this game to people. So many satisfying "ah but you didn't realise THIS" moments.

Welcome To The Dungeon (3 players) Good choice to fill a small amount of time.

Splendor (2 players) Close game! Narrowly managed to win despite feeling I was lagging behind the whole game.

Pandemic Legacy session 2 (4 players) Almost failed the second half of January before realising we were missing most of the red cards. February was easily dealt with through A) extremely lucky infection locations & B) rules lawyering.

The Resistance (6 players) Playing with Shang Lun is interesting because he plays well but I've started to recognise his spy behaviours.

Codenames (7-10 players) Last time I played, teams seemed to stay ahead once they had a lead. This didn't happen this time, we had two very close matches.

Witness (4 players) Different to what I was expecting: it was a surprise to not have any context for the whispered information. Pretty satisfying to remember everything and then understand its relevance.

Murder of Crows (4-5 players) One or two clever pieces of design here, but ultimately inelegant and not very fun.

Jenga (7 players) Definitely improved by having badly written challenges on the blocks.

Wordslap (beta) (6 players) I was very bad at this game.

Pandemic Legacy session 3 (4 players) March & April weren't too challenging. May was a hard-fought slog but we won in the end.

Hanabi (4 players) Playing with someone forgetful is very amusing. Scored 19.

The Resistance (9, 7, 6 players) I'm reminded that this is generally more interesting for the spies than for everyone else. Merlin is a really tough role, and I think maybe on balance his presence makes it easier for the spies?

Turtle Wushu (4-5,2 players) Possibly the best entertainment/bag space ratio of any game I own.

Pandemic Legacy session 4 (4 players) June didn't add any awful new rules, but we still lost the first game before winning in the second half of the month. I feel like our world is in a better state than you'd expect.

Hanabi (2 players) First time I've tried this with two players, but it holds up pretty well. Scored 20.

Mafia de Cuba (10, 12, 6 players) Every single game (of around six) ended with a cop getting accused, which seems kinda broken. It's surprisingly slow to play, also.

Greater Good (beta) (6 players) Hard to get a feel for it from just one game. We all got killed.

Slap 45 (6 players) This was okay, but I think I've played better reaction games.

Telling a story one syllable at a time (9 players) A nice twist on telling a story one word at a time, which results in something totally incomprehensible. I wonder if restricting it to only 2+ syllable words would work.

Anecdote game (8 players) This was really entertaining.

Nomic (7 players) We made it to Planet V several days late, but at least we could pay back our Vollar loan and still bribe them to overlook our tardiness. Rhyming was good, numbers and questions were bad.

Pandemic Legacy session 5 (4 players) July was close, August was pretty manageable. I kinda wish we were losing more often, it's balanced so it gets easier when you lose but it doesn't get much harder when you win.

February (Melbourne)

Ummageddon (beta) (6, 5 players) Apparently it works much better with 3/4 players, so I can't really judge it from this experience.

Stop (5-7 players) More fun to watch than to play, but still pretty fun to watch. Think it could be improved with rule tweaks.

Listelanser (2 players) It's funny how easy it is to completely lose your opponent. Video footage

Temple of elemental evil (3 players) This felt really empty compared to regular D&D. (I've not played anything like D&D in over 15 years, but I still feel confident in that assertion.)

Pandemic Legacy session 6 (4 players) Okay, September kicked our asses. This month's twist really hurt!

Pandemic Legacy session 7 (4 players) An unsatisfying victory in October. We won with no outbreaks, but despite being on top of the situation we failed to find patient zero.

Hive (2 players) Got overconfident because I was teaching the game, then annoyingly it got dragged out into a draw.

Pandemic Legacy session 8 (4 players) Misread the rules, but I'm kinda happy we did because it meant we got to find patient zero for ourselves. More and more cities are collapsing, but we've got a strong vaccination program going so I'm optimistic about our chances in December.

Pandemic Legacy session 9 (4 players) Not as many curveballs as I was hoping for! Some bad luck meant we got close to losing at the end, but it wasn't really tense since it was clear that if we'd lost we would easily have won in the second half of the month.

Poison and Wine (beta) (5 players) Fun concept, went down well.

T.I.M.E Stories (Asylum scenario) (4 players) I'm really glad I got to play this, it's fascinating and pretty unique. A shame only one scenario is included.

Project Dreamscape (3 players) Fairly light and accessible, but still has some strategy. I won with a pretty devastating final turn (which led to my score of 17 vs 7 & 4), but I think it's pretty plausible other great combos were possible previously and just went unnoticed.

Escape: The Curse of the Temple (5 players) I'd been hearing good things about this game for ages, and it lives up to the promised amount of hecticness. I got left in the temple, I'd just made it to the exit tile when time ran out.

Panic on Wall Street (11 players) Played as an investor this time: my main success was keeping a tiny bid on losing stocks hoping they'd go up, which no one wanted to outbid me on. I thought I was winning by a large margin but actually I barely scraped the victory by only $5000 (the smallest unit of money).

Codenames (5 players) It feels really satisfying to pull off a comeback (and this is kinda encouraged because the more clues you fail, the more you have queued up to try again later.

Funemployed (8 players)

Cogz (6 players) Some really ugly graphic design, the gameplay was okay but not great. We decided afterwards that this is probably better with fewer players: with 6, the board has changed massively by the time it gets back to you.

School of Fish (10 players) Everyone has to mimic the person in front, but "person in front" is defined by which way you're currently facing. Maybe not best played on the way to get food, but entertaining for a short while.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (7-8 players) I like this game a lot, it's quick and reliably tense.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (making up five new roles to accompany Wolf & Seer) (4 players) About as broken as you'd expect, but did lead to...

One Night Ultimate Werewolf (with Satanist: turns the player on your right into a wolf) (4-5 players) Really fun variant! Possibly not totally balanced, but not obviously one-sided either.

Epic Card Game (4 players) Horrible name aside, this feels like a simplified version of Magic: The Gathering. 4 players probably isn't the best introduction to it though.

Once Upon A Time (5 players) It isn't great how some players can spend a really long time without getting a turn. Possibly the best way to fix that is by adding more triggers for ending someone's go.

The Witches (3 players) Accessible and easy to pick up, but very light on strategy. If you're really into Discworld you'll probably appreciate all the references a lot.

March (San Francisco)

Liars dice (5 players) Solid bluffing game.

Patchwork (2 players) Played this several times and still didn't have a handle on strategy

Tribune (3 players) Lots of different rules and things that [thought left unfinished]

Liars poker (2 players)

Cuttle (2 players)

Hive (2 players) Played an experienced player and still won 3 out of 3 games! And taught a newbie who picked it up quickly.

Castles of burghundy (4 players)

Pandemic (3 players) Not as good as Pandemic: Legacy, but still pretty good.

April (New York)

RPG stand-in (Dungeon Crawl Classics) (4 players) Fell through a roof, seduced a dude, got skewered with arrows and almost died. A successful couple of days in this thief's life.

Bananagrams (4 players) I rememeber not particularly having fun last time I played this a long time ago, but this time it worked well. I won, which maybe has something to do with that.

Mr Game (4 players) Best played with people who like to break systems and explore edge cases.

Ticket to Ride: Europe (5 players) This is inoffensive and suitable for almost any group, but still manages to be a solid game and interestingly competitive.

Lost Cities (2 players) This plays really fast

Tzolk'in (2 players) I got utterly schooled.

RPG stand-in (Dungeon Crawl Classics) (5 players) Made a character become a wizard and spent a lot of time trying to solve problems by growing spider legs. Eventually magicked my hair into a massive prehensile limb which I sent into the dungeon to collapse a vital support column while safely standing outside the entrance.

May (Toronto)

Patchwork (2 players)

Lanterns (4 players)

Lost legacy (4 players) Similar to Love Letter (and by same designer) but slightly more interesting.

Isle of trains (4 players) pretty awkward how you get more options midturn

The grizzled (4 players) It's interesting how this is not really trying to be fun.

7 wonders (4 players)

Splendor (3 players)

June (Toronto, Montreal)

Myre (2 players)

Spit (2 players)

Scrabble (2 players)

Puzzled Pint (theme: breweries)

One night werewolf (10 players)

The hat game (12 players)

Montgolfiere (6 players)

Incan gold (7, 5 players)

Libertalia (5 players)

July (Montreal)

Puzzled Pint (theme: secret societies)

Haru Ichiban (2 players)

Hive (2 players)

August (London)

Chairs (2-3 players)

Pandemic (3 players)

The Other Hat Trick (3 players)

Shape Up (3 players) Seemed broken in a few ways, one of which being that the last player seems to always have an advantage

Dancing Eggs (3 players) Utterly ridiculous.

Qwordie

Galaxy trucker (3 players)

September (Coventry, London)

Time stories under the mask (5 players)

Cyclades (2 players)

Skull (4 players)

Codenames (5 players)

Tash kalar (2 players)

Zombie fluxx

Splendor

Roll for the galaxy (3 players)

October (London, Oxford, Nottingham)

Geschenk (6,7 players)

For sale (6 players)

Codenames (7 players)

Hanabi (5 players)

Junk Art (6 players, towns played: hometown, Philadelphia, Paris, Montreal)

Catacombs (6 players)

Improv D&D (5 players)

November (London)

Sticheln (6 players)

Dead last (8,12 players)

Mascarade (6 players)

Broom service (3 players)

Double (7 players)

December (Coventry, London, Bristol, Dublin)

Ora & Labora (3 players)

Conan (5 players)

Taboo (5 players)

Libertalia (5 players)

Codenames (3,4 players)

Rights (4 players)

Escape room in a box (5 players)

Turtle wushu flip contest (2 players)

Arboretum (4 players)

Codenames (6 players)

Concept (4 players)

January

Imbroglio (beta) Ushered in the new year by playing this until 4am.

Patchmania Cute presentation but I'm never going to sit through hundreds of easy levels to get to the interesting ones.

Kaodoku Just as mind-numbing as normal Sodoku, and that's not a compliment.

Streamline (beta) Initially seems samey but there's a nice combination of mechanics here.

Land Sliders Nice UI, but unexciting game.

Divide By Sheep Seems like a puzzle game that doesn't take forever to get interesting?! Shame about the linear level structure and inability to queue moves up, but overall this was really enjoyable.

Go To Gold 2 The puzzles themselves seem like decent Sokoban-with-pressure-plates levels. But the controls are really bad, which exacerbates the tediousness of Sokoban.

Inch By Inch Nice idea, but the controls give no feedback for when you can move, which feels awful. Also a very ungenerous F2P lives system.

Does Not Commute Fun and full of flavour.

Luminare Surprisingly interesting for a short while, but quickly becomes samey.

Churchill Solitaire It's solitaire.

The Witness It's a shame that the most impressive part of this game is not also the most interesting. Overall I had a good time with this game, but towards the end my feelings soured somewhat.

February

CLARC [first three levels] Nice graphics but terrible writing and I don't have confidence that the puzzles will get interesting.

These Robotic Hearts of Mine [my own game] The damning problem with this is that finding optimal solutions is so encouraged, but largely uninteresting and a waste of time. If you ignore that part it might be okay as a storygame though?

At Dawn, Pistols Now that I think about it, I realise that the turnips/pumpkin controller doesn't fit the framing of this game at all.

Worlds Fastest Pizza Did a good job of making me not sure how much stuff there is to do.

The Greatest Voice of All A well-scoped jam game. Has some niggles, but overall it's fun.

DANCE DOOM Without strafing, this is really awkward. Entertaining to watch though.

Snow Cones Ridiculously cute.

Killing Time at Lightspeed Great concept! Not much resolution at the end though.

Skorpulac Ugh, it has a lives system :(

Swing Copters 2 I played for 15 minutes and didn't score higher than 1.

Arrowance Fairly standard play-indefinitely-to-score-higher game. Doesn't seem to get any harder over time.

Induction (beta) Smart time travel puzzle game! Sometimes hard to reason about, but worth playing.

Tomb of the Mask This would be great if it didn't have a permanent global points multiplier that makes scores meaningless.

PUSER TOH Nice idea.

March

Rust Bucket New levels introduce some interesting enemy types but could do with more checkpoints. Roguelike mode seems mostly unchanged in the early stages, which is maybe a shame.

Blackbox: think outside the box Seemed like an okay implementation of the "every puzzle is a different system to work out" thing, but I never felt compelled to go back to it after a very brief play.

Tacoma (beta) Main takeaway: it's cool to watch conversations split/rejoin. I've not played either, but it felt very much in the vein of Gone Home/Firewatch.

20something Hard to tell how close the fiction is to being autobiography, but it doesn't really matter. The end result is something that feels very real.

Unnamed Pokemon-like game from unnamed team (preview) Lotsa numbers, not really my thing.

Discharge Looks great for a jam game. Level design wasn't great at teaching what you're trying to do a lot of the time though.

BBTAN I played this for about 10 seconds before putting it down in disgust.

Semispheres (preview)

Metareal (preview)

PSHNGGG! This is really great but I uncontrollably grip the controller so hard that it's physically painful to play more than a few games in a row. This is the only game that has caused this problem, and I think is a sign of how engaging it is.

Knittens

Armed and gelatinous

Lazy Village

Planetary capacity

It's spring again

Wibble wobble

Orchids to dust

Lumini Very pleasant.

Please stand by So dumb and so entertaining.

Hello, operator!

Linelight

Octobo

Rotator

Planet licker

Palimseste

Threadsteading A strategy game played on an embroidery machine, in theory about claiming tiles but in practice more about denying them to your opponent. One of my best GDC anecdotes was the cliffhanger when the machine ran out of thread in the middle of sewing the scores.

Disc jockey jockey

Wiz

Dobotone

Von Neumann personality test

Mr Heart Loves You Very Much Nice mechanic.

Redder Good level design, a solid exploration of toggle switches and one-way systems.

Decodoku

West of Loathing (beta)

Journey of 1000 stars

Dungeon of the Endless Seemed to be easing me into it gently, up until I tried to move on to level 2 and got massacred on the journey there. Not my kind of thing.

Abzorb I want it to control like Helix, and the fact that it doesn't apparently makes this kinda unplayable for me.

Two Interviewees Not very subtle, but that helps get its message across I guess.

April

Mario Kart 64 I haven't really enjoyed dipping into any of the more recent Mario Karts, but this was enjoyable enough. One big difference is that less focus on drifting makes for a much more accessible game.

forget-me-not I gather from hearsay that playing well is all about grinding, but I found that kinda awkward with touch controls.

No Pineapple Left Behind

Say When

DivCircle

Dolfin Trash

Four Horsemen

Get Lost!

Telefrag

Niña Nueve Some "wait around for something to move slowly to the right place" tedium, but otherwise fairly stylish.

Pretender to the Crown Lots of puzzles! And nice graphical touches

Clickmazes BoxUp Nice idea, but maybe a bit too prone to "just do the only thing that doesn't make things unsolvable" syndrome.

Net I wouldn't want to do a larger size, but with edge-wrap even a 5x5 grid is surprisingly challenging.

Isles of Color Nice concept but ends up being more focused on backtracking than hard puzzles. Worth looking at as an example of exploring the intersection of mechanics.

Craequ I guess I can't ever relive the experience of playing it for the first time. Still neat, but short; I can't help but wish for harder puzzles.

Helix This game is crack to me. Everything about it just feels right.

Mammoth Monkey Mole Levels are too big, controls are too awkward.

Slayaway Camp (beta) Lovely theming of an otherwise not particularly novel game, but then it ruins it with "tap the grave for coins". Hopefully that'll be removed for the actual release.

PRISM Feels a bit like a more abstract/geometrical The Room. Satisfying, but not very challenging so far.

PROMESST Would be much more comfortable with a better map. When the midpoint hits, it hits hard and intimidatingly; I don't think I got much past that point the first time I played either.

Wobble Yoga Nice QWOP-like, though the shape detection could have been better.

shapeshit Really hard! That shape in the top left really doesn't want to be hit.

Stephen's Sausage Roll Even the tutorial area would be a great game on its own, and then it just keeps asking more and more and more of you.

Hanano Puzzle The less-well-known fiendishly hard game from the creator of Jelly No Puzzle. After a rough first level it's not so bad so far though (up to level 25).

Jelly No Puzzle Also not that bad!

Fish Fillets NG I just bounce straight off this level design: too-big levels, too-fiddly object shuffling. I remember trying it before but I'm not any more likely to stick with it second time round.

Chairs This is based on some chemistry principle but it didn't succeed in teaching me anything.

Tripad

Anamorphine

Sec9

100ft Robot Golf

Loud on Planet X

Ape Out

Bound

Swing Star VR

Not Everything is Flammable

Yesteryear

Marble Madness 2

May

Budget Cuts Only having one checkpoint felt punishing but it probably wouldn't have been that bad if I was playing in a home context. Really nice UI.

Robot Heist Nice ending.

Quick drop

Block swap

Cupkins

Balloon buoyancy

Sky rogue

Uh oh love comes to town

Hue

Windowframe One of the best puzzle platformer twists that's happened for a long while. Shame it has to use fake windows though, and I'm way more into the puzzley side than the action side.

ᗢ Cute! 1.5 years after playing I'll hear from the creator that some of my games inspired it, which is cool.

SHRUBNAUT

Cavern of Flight Some people will go "nope nope nope" because of the enemies, but they're pretty well done. I didn't get far due to the unforgiving time-pressure platforming.

There is no game I've played this before, but it's really well done.

June

A Rose for Icy Heart

The Maître D' This is fantastic themeing, good art and sounds, pretty solid work for a jam. Unfortunately it's let down by level design, there's too many levels and they're all kinda samey.

Size Matters Not sure how far I got, I bounced off an execution challenge level that felt way too finnicky.

Morphblade

Experiment 26 Incredibly disjointed, it gets slightly less so towards the end but probably not enough so for me to recommend. I think it could have done with more application of "yes and".

Time machine VR [first two missions] underwhelming to be promised time travel but then get the second mission be indistinguishable from the first

Lands end [first two chapters] soothing, not hard but I didn't really mind

Audioshield Does what you want it to.

The Lab The robot repair demo was significantly shorter than I was expecting.

pico park

Quasi

Dark Souls I think this caused longterm damage to my hands, and yet I can't entirely regret my time with it.

July

The Temple of No

Leap Day

One Last Cup (preview) Ridiculously ambitious.

39 Days to Mars (preview)

Modulus

August

Duck Roll Decent mechanics, but the difficulty curve is basically flat and it has a move counter :( Touchscreen controls aren't great either, but I still played most of the way through.

Overcooked

Puzzlepops Good thinky puzzle game.

Spaceplan First idle game I've played in ages, probably the last in a while too but it was fun enough. Nice aesthetic design.

Pole riders

Vacuum Really neat interconnected-world puzzle game! Lovely theming and attention to detail.

September

Fathom

4fourths

Multibowl

Super hexagon

Samurai gunn

Wibble wobble

October

Game Title A nice interconnected puzzle.

Life is Strange Lows: some time travel inconsistencies, not being able to rewind to mid-conversation, some really tedious filler content. Highs: overall good pacing and cliffhangers, good characters, I'm glad I got around to playing it.

Circles (beta)

Shadow Bug Rush Not my kind of thing.

Really Bad Chess I wish this didn't take so long to calculate AI moves, it makes it kinda unplayable on my old iPad.

Mallow Drops (beta) Too samey for my tastes

Game Title: Lost Levels Really neat interconnected puzzle about exploiting glitches.

The Trials Short and simple puzzle game.

Disorient on the murder express

Redirection

Four floors of doors (preview)

Snake pass (preview)

Mordheim

Sure footing

November

So Broken

min! Not my kind of thing.

Spider's Hollow Solid PuzzleScript game.

Integer Snake Not my kind of thing.

Knot Fun Nice enough idea, not much there though.

Sara Is Missing

December

Lara Croft GO Prettier than Hitman GO, and thankfully gets rid of "do it in x moves" challenges. Not as hard as I'd like, but enjoyable enough to keep playing.

WitchWay (beta) Cute, neat, wish the secrets were more puzzley though.

Blocky XMAS Decent version of the "Sokoban + things stick together" genre

Rose

Induction (beta)

Klocki Slooooow start which was very tedious, but gets more interesting.

Nest (watched) I can't tell if there's something I'm missing or if it's really just asking you to do what it seems like it's asking you to do.

The Last Guardian (watched)

Blarp!

Xortex

Firewatch (watched) Beautiful world, but plot didn't really come together for me.

Boats Cars & Trains

Noleap

Hanano Puzzle 2 Good set of levels for a game I already liked.

I remember watching these in 2015 but managed to forget them off last year's list

Ant-Man Was expecting it to be okay, and met those expectations.

The Book Thief Mostly the only thing I remember is the ending.

January

Blade Runner The mood/music is great, but the plot itself not so much.

Charlie Brooker's 2015 Wipe Ehh, pretty replaceable "Charlie Brooker talks about something" show.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride I think I would've had more enjoyment from less contrivance.

Black Mirror: White Christmas Clever, dark, good punchline.

Game of Thrones (seasons 3-5) Having read the books and watched the odd episode left the whole thing feeling weirdly familiar. I now have no memory of what the state of the world in the books is, though.

The Lobster Amazingly weird film, I loved it!

Stalker Long and slooow. I think I'm glad I watched it, but I wouldn't do so again any time soon.

Derren Brown: Pushed to the Edge Well made and entertaining, but perhaps questionable morality.

Derren Brown: Trick or Treat [various participants] This format works really well. It's kinder to the participants than Pushed to the Edge (even when it's trick rather than treat), which I think I like more.

Carol Good and well made, but I don't have many thoughts on it.

Jessica Jones (season 1) I enjoyed the first half a lot more than the second. More focus on how creepy Kilgrave is, less superhero logic/plotting.

February

Once Upon a Time in the West Well-regarded for a reason! Some good tension sequences, I just wish the final showdown didn't feel so forced.

Ex Machina Good exploration of the "AI in a box" concept. Also led to a while reading about AI box simulations which was interesting.

March

Aziz Ansari Live at Madison Square Garden Kinda would have liked him to end with the first two persuasive skits instead of opening with them: I suspect having them this way round reduces their influential impact. Entertaining regardless though.

Speed I strongly suspect this is best watched with friends so you can laugh at it together.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) Some entertaining sections but the characterisation was kinda all over the place.

Aliens Pretty much what I was expecting. For some reason though I had problems with the rescuing Newt part - maybe I just don't understand the maternal instinct but the whole endeavour felt just a bit too foolhardy and implausible.

Lee Sedol vs. AlphaGo match 1 Watched from the midgame until the end. I don't have enough Go knowledge to follow anything but what the commentators were saying, but it seemed to be pretty close the whole time I was watching up until almost the end.

April

Footloose [in a bar with no audio just subtitles, not really paying attention the whole time] Holds up pretty well in this context.

May

Redline Some ridiculous animation in here.

Malcolm in the Middle [various episodes] Surprisingly not terrible.

Rick and Morty [various episodes] Entertaining.

June

Game of Thrones (season 6) More Game of Thrones.

Trainspotting Most striking thing is how few likable characters there are.

The Americans (season 1) Convinced by Idle Weekend to watch this. Tense and not entirely predictable.

July

Mr Nobody Contains some nice cinematography and ideas, and also a really frustrating bad science moment.

The Americans (seasons 2-4) Kinda binged this. Continues to be good.

Six Feet Under [first episode] Pretty funny, but I can't not see that actor as Dexter.

August

Stranger Things This was fine, but not as great as Twitter made it out to be.

Big Trouble in Little China I remember liking one of these more than the other, but not which way round.

Drunken Master I remember liking one of these more than the other, but not which way round.

Dazed and Confused I was dazed and confused when I saw Wiley Wiggin's name in the credits at the end.

September

Hackers A film that I figured I should finally get around to seeing. Main takeaway: learning the origin of some phrases.

X-Men: First Class Pretty forgettable.

October

Nothing

November

Black Mirror (season 3) Some really predictable plotlines. I remember enjoying seasons 1 & 2 more.

Fleabag The first episode interested me in ways that it didn't quite follow up on, but it was fun enough.

Arrival I enjoyed this, possibly largely because I didn't see the twist coming.

December

The Crown [three mid-season episodes] Interesting, covers stuff I possibly should know about but don't.

12 Angry Men Powerful, doesn't seem aged.

Uncle Buck Definitely aged.

Stargate Not a very good film, but I'll forgive it since it made Stargate SG-1 exist. Enjoyed noticing tech/plot differences between the film and the shows.

Community [various episodes] Entertaining.

Rogue One I didn't really care about any of the characters.

People talking about games

Crate & Crowbar Some dudes talk about videogames.

Eurogamer podcast Some dudes talk about videogames.

Idle Thumbs Some dudes talk about videogames.

Idle Weekend Not-all-dudes award. Their way of riffing off the ads squicks me out.

Not a Game podcast Not-all-dudes award. I recorded a never-aired podcast with them back in 2015, and I think it was so bad so it killed the podcast - they came back briefly this year but it was never the same.

Shut Up & Sit Down Some dudes talk about boardgames. Yay boardgames!

Unconsoleable All-not-dudes super award! They talk about a lot of games that are not my jam, but I find them really valuable as a different perspective and as a way to keep up with mobile games news.

Video Games Hot Dog Some dudes talk about videogames. I found it cliquey/impenetrable the first time I listened to this podcast a while back (to hear what they thought about Sokobond), but now that I'm friends with them all I enjoy it.

Waypoint Radio Not-all-dudes award.

People interviewing other people about games

Beyond The Filter Sometimes about media or games-adjacent things rather than games.

Bigsushi They didn't actually release many episodes in 2016, but I hope there's more coming.

Checkpoints

Designer Notes

My Favourite Game I like the in-depth discussion of one particular game, I'm less fond of the way the creator seems to put so much personal focus on lists of top 10 games ever.

Playscape: Los Angeles

Polygamer

Script lock

Three Moves Ahead I'll sometimes listen to this if it's about a game I'm interested in, rather than subscribing to the feed and listening to everything.

Tone Control

Relationships/people

Close Encounters

DTR

Here Be Monsters

How To Be a Girl

Love and Radio

Love Me

Still Buffering Some really interesting stuff in an early episode about teens & instagram/snapchat. Stopped listening after a while because I realised I wasn't getting much of what originally interested me, but it was still pleasant listening.

The Heart

This is about (was Radiotonic)

Toku podcast I feel like I don't know Kate & Holly well enough to listen to this podcast (but I guess I do anyway).

Audiodramas

Alice Isn't Dead

Archive 81

Friends at the table (RPG campaign) I listened to season 2 (cyberpunk mech future) and then season 1 (post-post-apocalyptic fantasy) and I'm really looking forward to catching up and following along with season 3. Highly recommended.

Knifepoint Horror (standalone episodes)

Limetown Good framing: it's something apparently well known but it's not inconceivable that you wouldn't have heard of it. I would have preferred something more investigatory (like it suggests it will be) than action-y (like it actually becomes) though.

Lore (standalone episodes) Maybe technically doesn't belong in this category because it's non-fiction, but it has the same vibe.

The Adventure Zone (RPG campaign) Has some good highs but is infuriatingly slow and DnD-y a lot of the time. Friends at the Table is absolutely the better "listen to some friends play a RPG" podcast.

The Message The artificiality of the framing of the show and the severity of the "current-day" events kinda take me out of it, but overall it's entertaining.

The Truth (standalone episodes)

Podcast podcasts

99% Invisible

Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything

Crimetown

Longform

More Perfect

Radiolab

Reply All

Revisionist History

Serial (season 2)

The Memory Palace

This American Life

Eva Luna (Isabel Allende) I came out of this satisfied, but not much affected. The nature of the storytelling makes everything feel inconsequential: terrible things keep happening but they're never dwelled on.

Tender Morsels (Margo Lanagan) Intriguing and surprising, despite the presence of magic these characters feel "real".

Branches on the Tree of Time (Alexander Wales, Terminator x LessWrong fanfic) (The “I can’t believe I’m admitting to reading this” entry in this year’s proceedings) Found while reading about the AI-box experiment, after watching Ex Machina. Not very well written, but the exploration of concepts is decent.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (James Finn Garner) Some nice jokes, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it's more interested in mocking social justice ideas than promoting them.

Kushiel's Dart (Jacqueline Carey) Narrator just drowns you in lore/foreshadowing, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. At the halfway point this seemed to lessen up, but I didn’t come away with an overwhelming desire to read any other books in the series.

The Light Between Oceans (M. L. Stedman) Kinda draining.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery) Not much happens for a very long time except two snooty people looking down on others.

Malafrena (Ursula K. Le Guin) I found this really hard to get into. Interestingly though, when I was 90% through the book I saw this essay she wrote linked on Twitter, and reading that actually made me understand slightly better the reasons why I was finding it unapproachable.

A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build

We launched A Good Snowman for iOS/Android in December, so I didn't do a lot of work on it this year, but it would probably be wrong to omit it completely from this list.

Somehow we were chosen as one of TIME magazine's top 50 apps of 2016, and then their top 10 apps of 2016! I'm still not entirely sure how that happened, but it's a real honour.

Sokobond for mobile

I spent the first six months of this year with this being the main thing I needed to get done. It is still not done, obviously.

Things I have said about when Sokobond will come to iOS/Android:

“2015” - 2014

“2016” - December 2015

“Will 100% definitely-well-probably be out at some point in April.” - March 2016

“Not coming this month” - May 2016

“Hopefully soon, definitely eventually” - June 2016

“It'll still happen eventually” - September 2016

So... cross your fingers for 2017 I guess?

Max Capacitor

For the second year in a row, I took part in Train Jam: a game jam taking part on the 52 hour journey from Chicago to San Francisco with 200 other game developers.

I teamed up with the incredibly talented Andrew Shouldice to make this game about pushing power cells around. He was a delight to work with and this came out really well.

Talk: Putting the "game" in "edi-game-tor"

I was happy to be chosen to talk in the Tech Toolbox panel at GDC 2016. I spoke about PuzzleScript and how we used it as the level editor for A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build.

Skip to 24:00 in the video to watch my part, or watch the whole thing so you can think “too bad none of them are as hilarious as Alan” to yourself.

Super Tiny Mini Golf

This never got released. Maybe that's for the best...

(Collaboration with John Bujalski)

Boxes Love Boxing Gloves

This is a real hard game, apparently. I advise taking frequent breaks and coming back to it later if you're having trouble with it!

As with my favourite free game I made in 2015, this started at a game jam where I wasn’t sure it was going anywhere interesting, but I ended up spending an entire month working on it.

It’s somewhat inspired by Hanano Puzzle, which I was playing for a while in the weeks before starting this game. I blame part of the fiendishness on that.

Cosmic Express

Coming 2017. Definitely.

Okay, a few more words on it than that. At GDC I started talking to Benjamin Davis about potentially making another game together, and we talked to a few people including some of Klondike to see if anyone was interested in doing the art. Tyu said she had two months free, and together the three of us settled on this idea in preference to the painfully out-of-scope ideas Ben and I were talking about.

The game is a remake/expansion of my 2015 Train Jam game Train Braining, but at this point it’s so far beyond the original game that it feels weird to compare the two. You can play that to get a feel for the core gameplay, but obviously Cosmic Express is prettier and will have a slightly more gentle difficulty curve.

January (St Albans, London)

Hanabi Really accessible, most people would enjoy it! Scoring 25 seems ridiculously hard?

Ticket to Ride: Märklin Passenger mechanic didn't feel central. Base game is decent though.

X-COM board game So many things to keep track of! Maybe a bit too focused on repeatedly rolling dice for me to be eager to try again, but I'm glad I experienced it briefly (phone ran out of power before we really got going).

February (New York)

Pretty Pretty Princess I guess if you're five you could have fun with this?

March (San Francisco)

Reef Encounter Didn't click particularly. Maybe better with two players rather than four?

Perudo I've played it a lot, not much to say about it.

Wits and Wagers Surprisingly fun, even if you're not good at trivia.

Black Friday Feedback for mistakes is several turns later, so hard to get a grip on strategy.

Love Letter Played with an alternate set of cards I didn't know existed! "You lose if combined hand value > 12" seems really harsh.

Coup I've played it a lot, not much to say about it.

Lifeboat This was really fun, even when you're losing horribly.

April (Montreal, Poland)

Dead of Winter Nice blend of things going on here but failure was anticlimactic every time.

Red Dragon Inn Great theme. Very accessible, suprisingly balanced.

Sheriff of Nottingham Lovely bluffing. Bonus points for having most of each item feels slightly awkward though.

Suspend Decent physical game about balancing things.

Botswana Really elegant. Though possibly I liked it even more because I won both times.

Star Realms Too many possible cards for my liking, made it hard to plan ahead.

Croquet Not fun enough to not want to mod it.

May (London, Birmingham, Coventry, Inisbofin)

Machi Koro A bit too randomness-focused for my liking, but it worked okay.

Lords of Waterdeep Mandatory quests in the final round are a bit overpowered.

Keyhunter room escape "The Triads" Good but not great, felt pretty soulless. We escaped.

Mysterium Very unique experience. Want to play again not as the spirit.

Sushi Go Simultaneous play makes this go really quickly.

Pickomino An okay push your luck game. Many funny moments.

For sale I liked it, a pretty elegant bidding game.

Chrononauts Not very good. Incredibly random, cardinal sin of drawing at start of turn.

Spyfall Played with 9 players, feels like it would have been better with fewer? Engaging and unique though.

Monikers Co-op version of The Hat Game. I don't think it gains anything over the original folk game though.

Cash 'n' Guns I think it would be better with more knowledge/hints about where people are likely to point their guns. Pointing guns at each other is inherently fun though.

June (Copenhagen, Coventry, Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, London)

Smash Up Not particularly exciting. The most interesting thing was probably the two-part factions.

Sheriff of Nottingham Still fun.

Sushi Go Still quick.

Space Alert Finally got to play with the full set of rules. Hectic and stressful.

Braggart Six months later, I barely remember playing this game.

The Duke Really nice chess-like. The double-sided pieces weren't as intimidating to play with as I'd expected.

Good Cop Bad Cop Interesting hidden-role variant. Don't remember if it was actually fun to play though.

Sushi Dice Hectic, more fun than I was expecting.

Timeline Simple & accessible. I'm really bad at it though, so I don't find it particularly enjoyable.

Snake Oil Playing with young children is not the most enjoyable way to play this game.

Zombicide Only played briefly. The rule for when you run out of one type of zombie figure seems harsh.

Shadow Hunters This felt very random and wasn't that exciting.

Johann Sebastian Joust Great game, shame that it's so expensive to get hold of lots of Move controllers.

Graenaland (3 players) Only five regions makes for a very focused game! The rulebook says it's better with 4 or 5 players.

Trains (2 players) Fun, but the main board was mostly not relevant - seems like it would be more strategic with more players.

Flashpoint (2 players) This was easier than expected. Someone suggested it's harder/better with more players.

July (London)

Innovation (2 players) Really elegant.

Hive (2 players) I almost decided to stop travelling with this, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s a great two player strategy game.

Qwirkle (4 players) More enjoyable than expected!

Top Secret Spies (5 players) Pretty random.

Perudo (5 players) I still don’t have much to say about this game.

Mascarade (5 players) I don’t think this works particularly well with large groups, but five players is about the right size.

Colt Express (5 players) Hard to play competitively, but the theme is so strong that it doesn’t really matter.

August (London)

Hive (2 players) Still good.

Citadels (2 players) I've played this a lot but it's still neat. Tried to play with alt characters but those cards were obviously less worn.

Chairs game (2 players) Good balancing game. Easy to show off.

Kamisado (2 players) Neat but I found it hard to strategize. Felt like I won by luck.

The Duke (2 players) Still like this.

Splendor (2 players) Very elegant, I like it a lot.

Snatch (4 players) Good word game. Felt like I got worse at it over the course of the game though.

Love Letter (4 players) I think I'm going to start house ruling this to play to fewer rounds, otherwise it drags a bit.

Perudo (6 players) There's something inherently great about bluffing games.

Johann Sebastian Joust (6/7 players) I enjoy showing off, even if it doesn't pay off.

September (London, New York)

Dark Moon (5 players) Interesting but not great. It played slowly and it didn't feel like there was enough information to be sure of anything.

Splendor (4 players) Liked it less than with 2, but still good.

Cockroach Poker (4 players) I wish you were meant to play to a winner, not until one person loses.

Skull (4 players) There's still something great about bluffing games.

Super Rhino (4 players) Fun, but the idea of winning by using up all your cards is weird.

Shuffleboard (2 players) More interaction than the dutch version Sjoelen I played in 2014. Very satisfying to deny the other person points.

Skee ball (2 players) I don't want to brag, but I was pretty good at this game.

October (Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Nottingham)

San Juan (2 players) I was completely trounced, didn't have much grasp on good strategy.

Machi Koro (5 players, both expansions) Not necessarily an improvement on base Machi Koro, just different. Note to self: if I play again, try this variant.

Pentago (2 players) Probably not very deep, but a decent variation on Tic Tac Toe.

Citadels (2 players) Made up for San Juan by being unbeatable at Citadels.

Between Two Cities (4 players) Being co-op with two neighbours but also competitive is a really interesting mechanic.

Animal Upon Animal (4 players) The randomness in this is really unpleasant, if you play you should mod it.

Timeline (3 players) Still simple and accessible.

Last mouse lost (2 players) Terrible game, amazingly pleasing toy to interact with

Spark of Resistance (3 players) Some really neat moments and puzzle props; some niggles but they were fairly minor. We escaped.

Restless (~7 players) I liked how it was basically just a set of prompts to help you improvise a story. I've not played any other story-focused RPGs to compare it to though.

The Bloody Inn (4 players) The theme only partially makes sense. As an abstract system it's okay though.

Fabulous Beasts (preview, 4 players) A bit of a shame that the positioning of objects isn't relevant. The game on the tablet was a bit abstract.

Stratego (2 players) We played with lots of rules being wrong, but it was engaging regardless. Both of us were still thinking about it after playing multiple games.

Dixit (5 players) I've played a bit too much Dixit to ever be enthusiastic about playing it again, but it's good & accessible.

Skull (5 players) Always a laugh.

November (Coventry, Oxford, London)

Hanabi (3 players) There was a funny moment very near the end where we realised we were making incorrect deductions because one of the cards had been lost.

Settlers of Catan (3 players) Still fairly enjoyable. Development cards having secret victory points might be too anticlimactic?

Cosmic Encounter (6 players) It's not terrible but I don't seem to enjoy this as much as everyone else. Not really sure why.

Saboteur 2 (6 players) This works as a kinda engaging distraction, but it's very random and not that deep.

Arctic Scavengers (5 players) Interesting twist on Dominion. Maybe would have been better with fewer players.

Skull (5 players) Still always a laugh.

Netrunner (2 players) I really don’t want to do deckbuilding but the game itself is interesting, so playing with someone else's deck is optimal for me.

December (Melbourne)

CopyDraw (8 players) Nico's independent invention of what I know as Chinese Pictionary.

Panic on Wall Street (9 players) Hectic and interesting. Feels hard to pay attention to other players and undermine them, but I would have needed to do that to win.

Go (2 players) Hadn't played in a long while but managed to play pretty well regardless (against a weak player, admittedly).

Jaipur (2 players) Enjoyable/quick/portable two player game, want to play more.

Meteor (4 players) Doesn't feel very balanced, but was interesting/fairly different.

Netrunner (2 players) Still playing with someone else's deck, still fun in that capacity.

Codenames (7 players) Very smart. My only complaint is that one team frequently seemed to get a large lead on the other, which is uninteresting.

The Resistance (6 players) I love this game, but sometimes I'm not very good at it. This time was not one of those times.

Pandemic Legacy session 1 (4 players) Failed first half of January, partially because of not reading both sides of the special cards properly.

Guillotine (4 players) Very random, but not horrible.

Funemployed (4-5 players) Makes me feel smart and funny.

Welcome to the Dungeon (2 players) It's fun to trick someone into staying in too long.

Masques (2 players) Rules took a long time to get through, but after that point it was interesting.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective case 1 (2 players) Quite a dick move to omit a vital location from the directory. We still did well though - scored 75.

Sushi Go (2 players) Very pure with two players, it still works. Next time I'd try the alternate 2P rules though.

Welcome To The Dungeon (3 players) Shame about the player elimination with more than two players, but still good.

The Resistance (5 players) I find it really hard to avoid confirmation bias when playing this game.

What I played most:

Hanabi

Perudo

Skull

Sushi Go

Stratego

The Duke

Hive

Two very clear groups: light games which are easy to teach and quick to play, and competitive games where you'll want to play multiple games against the same person.

What I most want to play again:

Spyfall

The Duke

Codenames

Funemployed

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective 

Pandemic Legacy

January

Ittle Dew Master Cave is great, rest of the game a bit easy/undirected.

868-HACK Really good, but I can't play quickly so it becomes a bit of a timesink for me.

Framed Playing these early levels a second time is really tedious, animations take so long.

Hexcells Lots of rote work, lots of too-big puzzles. Not super-fun but not awful either. Felt bad playing with laptop touchpad.

February

No games, just finishing A Good Snowman

March

Stellar Smooch Like a more trial-and-error-based Castles in the Sky.

Framed Got a bit better after I got out of the bit I'd played before.

Hexcells Plus An improvement over Hexcells. Soothing.

Toki Tori Mechanics weren't terrible but the level design wasn't good enough to hold my attention.

RUSH I feel like I could teach a design course using only this as an example of what not to do.

Toki Tori 2+ An unbelievably massive improvement over Toki Tori & RUSH, so many annoyances removed. Didn’t hold my attention though.

Assault Android Cactus Played the bosses, skipped the rest. I didn't hate it.

Helldivers Very satisfying mech-suit.

Stephen's Sausage Roll (beta) So good!

Aunt Flora's Mansion Some puzzles are kinda awkward but it's neat overall.

Laser Hundo I wish the feedback for the laser charging was more visible.

Nerdy Dwarf Good puzzling. Levels got a bit too big towards the end though.

Tetrobot and Co Great puzzle game.

April

Ernesto (beta) Some good puzzles, some okay puzzles. Will be better with hidden optional tasks.

Inbetween a Land of Grass Less fun working out the mechanics than solving it, but a good puzzle.

Bloodborne It's okay. Couldn't get used to the controls.

The Beginner’s Guide (beta) It didn’t blow me away. At one point I realised that some of my problems with it were actually intentionally there for narrative reasons, which was interesting but weirdly offputting.

Tiltagon Missed opportunity to do that eyetracking thing to make things seem 3D. Possibly the only good use of tilt controls?

Line Wobbler Visually impressive, game works well for what it is.

Else Heart.Break() An event was really not the right setting to dip into an RPG.

Future Unfolding (preview) Initially I thought this was just a tech demo, but then I found much more mystery than I was expecting to.

Codex Bash Does exactly what it aims to. Hectic and funny.

Infinite Viking Quest 2 Not really playable, but a great idea.

Code 7 Incredibly unsubtle. Pretty impressive for a week's work though.

Lucid Trips (preview) Input was incredibly buggy/awkward, hopefully that can be improved. Potential for being a really neat experience.

Mario Kart 8 It's Mario Kart.

New Super Mario Bros Kill the life system. Kill it dead.

Gauntlet Probably fun if you like hitting things with swords and collecting gold.

Rabbids Land Weird that for lots of games someone has to be left out.

Mario Party 10 Arrrrgggghh. Please just give me minigames without the terrible random overworld bit.

May

Snakebird Good puzzles. Mechanics can be slightly awkward, but you get used to it.

Samurai gunn Sometimes I can be good at this game.

June/July/August

No videogames but lots of boardgames.

September

Sage solitaire I'm not sure why I played this as much as I did. Fairly addictive, which is not exactly a recommendation.

Okay? Nice design, good if slow pacing. Not too deep but I played until I hit a particularly inelegant level.

Alien Hive Full of F2P horribleness. Blitz mode was more appealing than main mode.

Memento+ Fairly pretentious. Mechanics were interesting but the levels themselves not so much.

Ms Pacman I played against someone who'd played a lot, and it was very very obvious.

Chesh Played against the AI and nothing clicked, then played against humans and it was great.

Shadowmatic A nice looking but fairly empty experience. Awkward UI in later levels.

Secret legend (preview) Beautiful and enticing.

Her story I had heard a single word spoiler on Twitter and that drastically affected my experience. Still had an engaging time though.

Plug and play I don't think I have anything unique to say about it.

October

Mario maker This reminded me that I don't really enjoy playing Mario.

Fantastic contraption (beta) Really neat! Not sure how much scope there is for more levels than this build had though.

Sage Solitaire Started playing again to try Vegas mode.

Imbroglio (beta) I had to delete this from my iPad because I kept playing "one more game".

Pry Really neat interaction design!

Parallax Puzzles weren't as deep as I was hoping they would be. Nice aesthetic though.

12 Minutes (preview) Really promising! Keen to see where it goes after the introduction.

Unseen Diplomacy Great use of the Vive. The wall indicators were frequently immersion-breaking though.

Imaginal Was surprised to read an anecdote in the game that I'd also heard from the developer in person. Was a weird flashback moment.

November

Cubic Space Adam mentioned on a podcast that it's his favourite game he's made but that no one played it (not true, I played it when it came out too). It's too abstract to be really compelling, but "one more try" enough to grab me for a while until I got a high score of 50.

Road Not Taken It looks great, but I just can't get behind the procedural puzzles and turn-counting.

December

Nethernovel Not as bad as it could have been.

You Die This has been done a lot and I don't need to play another one.

Stachey Bros Tedious on so many levels. Couldn't stand it for more than three levels.

the Sequence Could be an okay programming-type game, but took too long to get interesting so I guess I'll never know.

Upsquid Took me a while to work out the controls. Would be nice if it got harder over time, but still enjoyable for a while.

Rust Bucket It's a better looking version of Ending but that's probably no bad thing. Got more into roguelike mode than I did in Ending, and had 2nd best score worldwide.

Elements Argh so much room escape awfulness.

Ending Went back to this for comparison to Rust Bucket. The lack of text in menus is really alienating, the roguelike mode gets harder faster, and the graphics are readable but soulless.

Imbroglio (beta) Oh no help I reinstalled it. Actually I'm doing better at not getting sucked into it this time though.

Super Smash Bros 4 This feels really bad to play with the sideways wiimote.

Noby Noby Boy I will play this if you thrust the controller into my hands.

In summary

Best puzzle game - released Tetrobot and Co

Best puzzle game - unreleased Stephen’s Sausage Roll

Best multiplayer Chesh

Biggest timesink Imbroglio

January

Unbroken Well made but really dark.

Birdman Cool cinematography.

Guardians of the Galaxy Superheroes again. 7/10.

The Fault In Our Stars Really great, recommended.

February

Boyhood It was interesting seeing games being used as timestamps.

Nightcrawler Wow, what an uncomfortable character.

Lucy Oh no it uses the "we only use 10% of our brains" thing. Nonsense from start to finish.

March

Gameloading: Rise of the Indies I am too close to this film to tell if it's any good.

Noah I'm not sure if it annoyed me more that you saw/heard no animals at all, or if they tried to pass it off with a single filler line.

It Follows Really good monster concept, well executed.

Song of the Sea Nice, friendly, Irish.

Automata First half is great sci-fi and second half is okay.

April

Gone Girl Good film, pretty dark. Seems like her story would have lots of holes but oh well.

Best in Show Fun mockumentary.

Wild Didn't stick with me as much as I'd have expected.

American Sniper [at 8x speed] I am glad this didn't take more than 15 minutes of my life.

Ricky & Ricky Go Somewhere and Do Something This also took about 15 minutes of my life.

May

Fast Five This does exactly what it sets out to do.

Iron Man 3 I still like this film quite a lot.

[First three and last two episodes of] Daredevil (2014 TV series) Was good but I don't feel the need to go back and watch the bits I missed.

Mad Max: Fury Road That was quite the ride.

[Second half of] Ghost in the Shell Lots of exposition, would have liked to have seen the first half.

[Second half of] Dead man Didn't get much out of it.

[Second half of] Only Lovers Left Alive Not sure if that was a bad environment to watch it on, or the perfect environment.

June

The Great Gatsby Amazing cinematography. Hard to empathize with someone so controlling/entitled though.

Snowpiercer I would not have expected me to enjoy that as much as I did.

July/August

Nothing!

September

Trance I was hoping this would be a fun romp with an obvious twist, but unfortunately it wanted to have half a dozen twists instead.

The Darjeeling Limited Maybe I don't need to see any more Wes Anderson films.

The Imitation Game Pretty good, but I did feel the historical inaccuracy of having Turing interact with the spy was unnecessary.

Terminator: Genesys Almost every scene in this is gratuitous or doesn't make sense if you think about it. The ending feels like bad fanfiction.

Too Late Good, but I felt like I was missing some context needed to make it great. Not sure I got the point of all the anachronisms.

The Martian Really enjoyed this, felt like good hard sci-fi. Main jarring thing is that it's weird he has no way to contact the spaceship initially.

October

Bridge of spies Pretty good. Didn't walk out of the cinema with much to say about it though.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows Not much worth experiencing unless you really like convoluted fight scenes

(500) Days of Summer I'd heard this was not as much of a romcom as you'd think. And that's true, but it's still fairly romcom-y.

The Beach Didn't feel like a particularly good adaptation of the book. Some weird changes/omissions.

November

[Second half of] The Internship Pretty much exactly what I would have expected.

[First two episodes of] Spaced Not what I was expecting: less geeky and a much weirder atmosphere.

[Occasional episodes of] Community Entertaining.

Coherence The characters all seem to take as granted some fairly dubious philosophical ideas about identity, but it was gripping nonetheless. I had no idea it was improvised with no script (spoilers)!

December

American Ultra Mostly watched it because earlier in the day I'd coincidentally seen this interview which was probably more memorable than the film itself.

Self/Less Pretty much exactly what you'd expect, but surprisingly well done.

The Wolf Of Wall Street Tricky to remember the whole time that it's based on a true story, because everyone seems so incredibly self-destructive.

Fast & Furious 6 Nothing as good as the final sequence in 5, and a bad case of villainous "you did exactly what I wanted you to do".

Pi Lots to be frustrated with, but it certainly did an excellent job creating an unsettling atmosphere.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Pretty Star-Wars-y! I wasn't expecting to enjoy it much and was pleasantly surprised.

[First 45 minutes of] Godzilla (2014) So far so monster-film.

Ancillary justice (Ann Leckie) Enjoyable, neat worldbuilding. Ending seemed to be setting up a more traditional sci-fi sequel though, which seemed a shame.

Time and again (Jack Finney) Not particularly memorable, but fine otherwise.

The Beach (Alex Garland) I was never entirely sure where it was going, and the ending didn’t really pull it together as much as it could.

Rivers of London (Ben Aaronovitch) I don't think I really cared about any of the characters. Felt kinda generic.

Wild (Cheryl Strayed) Ending was a bit anticlimactic, but that's more of an observation than a frustration.

Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke) A bit slow maybe. The ideas here might have been new and exciting at the time, but these days it's hard to remember that.

Redshirts (John Scalzi) The opposite of hard sci-fi. With that in mind this is maybe an unfair criticism, but a central conceit of the story makes no sense and that really frustrated me.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson) Good page turner, shame it was so trope-heavy though.

The Girl Who Played with Fire (Stieg Larsson) Also an engaging read, but this time the thing that annoyed me most was a heavy reliance on coincidences to push the narrative forwards.