Monthly Archives: December 2025

2025 In Review

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May you live in interesting times. Indeed

I think we’ve all had enough of the “world news” to fill our socks for a couple years. I am certainly trying to avoid the insanity as much as possible, with so-so results. For sure I am desensitized to more than I should, which doesn’t really speak too well of me I suppose. I’ve opted instead to just try to live with as much kindness as I can, and give where I can. I would like to think that speaks better of me.

Physically, this has been a tough year. Work stress has been off the charts, and my lower back seems to continually trigger with sciatica. I wake up with a 4/10 of pain, and it fluctuates throughout the day. Treatment does help, but it feels more like tolerance than progress. I need to be more active – a piece I’ll focus on in the new year.

Mentally, well the lack of posts here I think speaks enough about that. Rough year. And I am damn sure that January is going to be the worst month on record.

Games

A decent amount here actually, mostly in the order played.

  • Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle. Way better than I had expected, and certainly better than the last 2 films. I really like the exploration here.
  • Pacific Drive. I’ve had this for a while but the latest patches add way more replayability and less punishment to the game. The mechanics are better than average and the story is excellent.
  • Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. This is a puzzle game that had great reviews. It’s obtuse, has poor controls, and reminds me of puzzlers from the early 90s. Meh.
  • Monster Hunter Wilds. 50 hours here. I enjoyed it.
  • Core Keeper. A sort of exploration/survival game with some minor automation. 85 hours here, and absolutely rocks on a Steam Deck.
  • Blue Prince. I played up until room 46 and lost all interest. I love puzzle. I love roguelites. I very much dislike their combination here. Having to re-do simple puzzles 40 times is dumb. Looking at you dartboard!
  • Outworld Station. A factory builder in space, without belts. I enjoyed the first part of it, up until the 4th zone. Then some serious balance issues popped up. Multiple patches since then though. Interesting mechanics here.
  • Clair Obscur. If you haven’t played this, well, I fell sorry for you. There’s a very good reason it swept so many awards.
  • Avowed. To me, this is what an open world RPG should feel and play. This would have been my GotY if not for Clair Obscur.
  • Warhammer Space Marines 2. I got it really cheap and finished it in a sitting. I’ve followed 40k for a long time and while the setting is interesting, Space Marines are clearly fascists. The story just doubles down on it. Mechanically it’s a solid game, but the through-line is tough to swallow.
  • The Crust. A game that tries to mix factory building with exploration (a la Frostpunk). It’s in open beta and is worth the ticket price.
  • Two Point Museum. It’s ok.
  • The Alters. Hard to describe this game. Exploration, automation, story driven wheel of near-death? It’s a weird game, with failure states you only realize later on. I need to replay this.
  • Tales of the Shire. I am disappoint. Unless you get this on a massive sale, pretty much any other cozy game is better. There is so much promise here, but it revolves into 90% fetch quests.
  • Strange Antiquities. Puzzle games that focus on inference are a fave of mine, and combined with an occult storyline, this game kicks. Amazing.
  • Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ghost of Tsushima did is better in all regards. The minimap is again full of pointless activities, long-tail grinding for materials, and cut&paste environments. I do like the differing playstyles, but the game is rinse & repeat from the moment you unlock the 2nd character. It looks pretty.
  • Hades 2. It improves on Hades in every regard and has amazing replay value. #3 for me for the year.
  • BALL x PIT. Breaker + roguelite = amazing. For the price, you’ll get more than your dollar’s worth. Also works great on Steam Deck.
  • Rise of the Golden Idol. The story is great. The puzzles increase in difficulty, exponentially so in the DLC. Lots of inference required here, and the characters show up multiple times. Excellent game(s).
  • Strange Jigsaws. Remember the Flash era of puzzle games? This is right up there. Very weird. Only $5. I liked it.
  • The Seance of Blake Manor. A mix of Blue Prince and Golden Idol. You’re sent to solve a mystery, learn about 20+ characters, discover the nooks of a manor, and experience some neat hallucinations. It’s just the right type of haunting. With a very minor exception, all the puzzles can be solved with ample time. Very solid pick.
  • Absolum. Beat em up roguelite. Where BALLxPIT allows you to grind your way to victory, Aboslum requires you to gitgud in order to succeed. My only gripe here is that some enemies cannot be stunned, and at random points you get multiple ones show up making it an exercise in frustration. I consider it a sleeper hit, very very good game.

I think the list is less interesting about what’s on it than what’s not on it. I didn’t play Silksong (I will though!) and didn’t give Death Stranding 2 a shot (yet to play the first). I didn’t get a Switch 2 so nothing there. And zero multiplayer games.

Oh, and aside from Indiana Jones, MH Wilds and AC Shadows, none of the games would be considered AAA. I think that speaks volumes about where the industry is headed.

And there’s still some time left to pick up some more games before the year ends.

Physical Stress

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I’m about 5 days away from a major project milestone, the initial delivery. Quick rewind, I onboarded to this project in September, did some homework, and relaunched it at the start of October. So about 10 weeks to get to the first delivery point. Projects of comparative size/complexity usually take 2 years to get through, given the amount of gates & approval stages required. So delivering anything in this timeframe is already a major achievement, getting something useful is practically unheard of.

I remember watching variety shows when I was a kid. Sort of like America’s Got Talent today I guess, but it wasn’t a competition. I always enjoyed the magicians. There were a few acts that were edge-of-your-seat – think of knife throwers, tightropes and whatnot. One particular act involved putting bowls/plates on long poles, and spinning them. It started with 3 or 4 of them, and then they just kept adding more and more. You’d see the plate start to wobble, ready to fall, and they’d magically find a way to get it back on track.

Project management is a lot like this. It shouldn’t be, I’ll readily admit that. Not everything goes perfect in any project, and with adequate planning and time you can manage a few wobbling plates. With less time, a LOT less time, you still have the wobbling plates just not enough time to get between them all. As as result, you need to prioritize which ones need to keep spinning and which need to crash.

The biggest problem here is that while I am talking about spinning plates, the reality is that each one represents actual human beings. They have a vested interest in keeping that plate going. Most of the time, the wobbles are outside their control and they just need a quick hand to get things back on track. Telling a group of people that the work is a lower priority and therefore has to stop, well, that has all sorts of impacts. Sometimes they take it well, sometimes not. In the current work climate… stopping work isn’t usually a good sign that the work is going to exist long-term.

Right, more analogies.

We are all sponges. We can absorb a lot, but we need time to release it in order to absorb more. We each have different reactions to being oversaturated, sometimes mental sometimes physical. I know that my symptoms are primarily physical. The body just doesn’t want to fully cooperate, sleep is hard to come by. Without some relief, the mental part starts to fade with lower engagement and lower patience levels. I can still problem solve relatively well, but I gradually lose the ability to consider the people impacts and focus solely on the end goal in order to get some respite.

So right now, as I’m typing this, my lower back feels like it’s gone through the wringer. Sleep is fitful. Patience is low. The stuff I generally enjoy has lost a lot of shine. I am convinced that this will release next week, and I’ve already set time to take some steps back and breathe.

Looking forward to it.