2015 has been an tumultuous year. I made the decision not to carry on with my Open Uni studies, I've moved to a new city and most of my gaming has been redirected at the PC, although my girlfriend and I have recently purchased a PS4.
The games that have really dominated my year have been Elite: Dangerous and Gauntlet. Not sure you can find too polar opposites in the realm of gaming, but they've both grabbed me in totally different ways.
Gauntlet has such satisfyingly simple arcade hack'n'slack mechanics and the diversity of the procedurally generated dungeons and challenges means it's almost like a daily crossword, just pop on spend 15 - 30 minutes beating it and then come off again. There's something meditative about it, almost.
Elite: Dangerous was released at the end of 2014 and over this year it's grown and grown! Update after update has come out and a few weeks back Horizons came out, which has been a major turning point for me. Even though I've loved popping on, particularly with friends, I've found it hard to stay gripped by Elite. Since Horizons has come out I've felt more and more compelled to play and thoroughly enjoy just running around on my own. I think just having another environment and a few more types of mission has made a significant difference.
In the world of smaller indi-game titles, I was looking forward to Skyshine's Bedlam, but I'm not sure it lived up to what I hoped; they are still changing and updating it though. And I've been a late comer to The Banner Saga. What a phenomenal game! It's been out for a while, but I really didn't expect it to be as gripping and exciting to play as it was.
I haven't played as many boardgames this year as normal. I made a custom deck for Talisman, which was a big hit, and reminded me that games don't have to be played exactly as they are, particularly games like Talisman where there are loads of expansions and stacks of cards. Also, I purchased XCOM: boardgame with birthday money and even though I haven't played it much, it's a really keeper and I've enjoyed every game of it! Over xmas I played a couple of games with my brothers, which highlighted that the game really is best with 4 players, but 3 is just about doable, but it loses a little something.
Probably the most exciting thing about this year though is that I've started brewing beer! My friend and I have recently started a second batch and I'm hoping 2016 will be all about the beer brewing!
So the things I'm looking forward to in 2016 are working on my own recipe for a Best Bitter, getting stuck into Helldivers, which I got for xmas and is insanely fun, maybe getting involved with a gaming group in Carlisle and/or finding some gaming buddies up here.
Oh, and I wrote more on my blog this year than any of the previous years! Hopefully next year I'll be even more active.
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