2024 - Year in Review

I'm trying to do that thing, that thing we do every year where we reflect and make our aspirations known to the universe. While the future still feels very uncertain (and has for a while,) I actually accomplished a lot last year, even if 2024 was kind of shit. It would be very easy to go full doomer given everything that has happened/that is happening, but to wallow in misery would be to cheat myself out of hard won victories that are worth feeling proud about. So without further ado...

2024: A Highlight Reel

We begin with...

RITUAL

I never announced it on the blog, but in April or so I released a new game. Its an expandable, competitive card game that tries to lower the barrier to entry with easy to grasp rules and its print-and-play nature, but still engages with spooky themes, and lenticular depth. RITUAL represents years of research and practice, and I'm tremendously proud of the work Nicolai and I have done to make and share a fun little game about dooming the whole world.

GNOME-MAGEDDON

For my shop's 35th Anniversary, we ran a ton of special events to celebrate with our community and I wanted to contribute something from my department. Thus, I cooked for a few weeks and came up with a casual wargame that could support a ton of players doing disparate things, and then ran two sessions for it over the week of Halloween. While the sessions weren't of interest to many of the more seasoned wargamers, the sessions were a hit with those who had more recently dipped their toes into the hobby or who had never wargamed at all. These players were able to comfortably wrap their heads around concepts and eventually kicked my ass, which was the hope for this dungeoncrawl-esque scenario. I feel good about giving people a positive first experience in the wargaming hobby, and exploring a new kind of event that feels accessible for folks of varied levels of experience.

LOBSTERPOT

Although I haven't worked on Lobsterpot proper for years at this point, I still love the community and the game dearly, and I'm always tempted to pop back in and make another pass over the rules. That said, it came as quite a surprise when I scrolled through my youtube feed and discovered that Ash Barker of Guerilla Miniatures fame had featured Lobsterpot had featured my little game in the new Indie Roundup segment on his channel. It’s super validating to have your work be recognized by such a hero of the hobby, like that time Curtis of Ramshackle Games reached out about casting my pug tank. A lot of the time it feels like I’m toiling in obscurity, what with social media dying and all, but it’s moments like these where I feel like I’m doing alright.

OWAC VII

Last year I participated in the Old World Army Challenge for the very first time and it was super fun just chewing through an entire army in six months. In case I haven’t said it in the last five minutes, I love blogging, so in addition to painting up 2000 points of gnomes, I also got to blab about it to a super supportive Oldhammer community. I’m doing it again this year, and I went to bed early on New Year’s Eve so I could get a head start on OWAC VIII, so I guess you could say I’m OWAC-cited for this year’s challenge.

Oof, that was awful. Pretend it didn’t happen.

SO WHAT’S NEXT?

It's a new year with new horrors, but we're still kicking. Last year I tried to do a bunch of things, and to my credit I managed to accomplish half of them. In 2024 I successfully shared a number of my game-design projects with the world and I painted an entire army of gnomes. While I didn't manage to post any Warmaster or Rune content, I don't consider myself as having overpromised anything, since resolutions are aspirational at best. That said, I have a ton of plans for 2025, and I'm still working on my list/chart/moodboard/dream journal situation, but I feel comfortable and confident in sharing some of the goals I've set my sights on for the new year.

1. OWAC VIII - I'm doing it again this year, but evil! I need some chaos gnomes to fight my undead gnomes, and also my alpine gnomes, so that's what this year's OWAC is gonna be!
2. If You Need a Mini, Sculpt it - I named a previous year challenge "sculpting challenge and then proceeded to sculpt none minis. This year, to spend less money and invest in my learning a skill, I'll try to sculpt any minis I need but don't have. (I'll still do conversions, but I'm trying to be about that scratch built life RN.)
3. Collab More - I want to participate in more community projects, and I'm in a collective or two that I want to make cool things with. I already have some lovely collaborators, and hopefully
4. Get Your Hosting Terrain Correct - Its been years since I've taken care of my home-gaming setup. After two years of moving and crunching, I would really like to have a solid collection of nice-looking and semi-durable terrain pieces for playing games at home, and a surface that can accommodate some of the larger table sizes (looking at you full 6x4 WFB.)
5. Play at Least 1 Game/Quarter - Even if its with myself, I want to make sure I'm enjoying the games that I claim to find joy in.
6. Release 2+ Games - I'm trying to be on a roll here. Last year I squeezed out a few games for the people, and this year I'd like to do that again. Perhaps they'll be brand new games, or fresh components for games that are already out there. Either way, cool things are in the works!
7. Release 1+ Books - Since 2017 I've struggled with making comics, or making any kind of book-thing really. Over those eight years, my confidence in my ability to make and produce prose and comics has been a shadow of its former self, and this year I'm doing the work to heal and maybe put something rad up on my itch.io.
8. Clear Your Desk Once in a While - My room is a dumpsite, and its also my workshop, and given my hobby butterfly-ship, I have a number of projects buried under other projects, tucked behind my projects that I'm currently and feverishly working on. Since I'm down a desk (I gave one away,) horizontal space is now a premium, and so I'd like to finish some of these languishing projects so that I might reclaim my workspace (and enjoy the fruits of those labors in playing games with painted minis.)
9. Is this list too long? - Biting off more than I can chew? Never! Making plans to organize my time and effort in ways that help me complete projects? Hopefully! I straddle the line between hobbyist and professional quite a bit, and forget that I only have so much time and energy to devote to my extra career/time consuming hobby. This goal is really to remind me to treat myself with compassion and kindness if I find myself struggling to hit all of the goals above and below.
   
10. Remember to Use your Blog and Newsletter - I love blogging, and when I do it with regularity, my mental health feels improved. On top of that, with social media rapidly becoming inhospitable, it will be important to keep in touch with community through different avenues. This year I'll be using this blog, my Bubbleup newsletter, and a Bluesky account as my main points of interaction, and hopefully that will be sufficient for keeping in touch with my friends and enemies and all the nerds in between.

 So those are the pins, all set up and waiting for the ball. With any luck, you'll hear more from me soon, and we can start checking boxes and making progress. Happy New Year everyone; stay safe and good luck out there!