Rindis.com

Every year, I express a hope that things will be better next year, but it’s really hard to see that happening right now.

That said, I am in temporary good financial shape thanks to my vacation time being cashed out a few months ago. I need to be a bit better about preserving the surplus.

Fox Den is still on schedule, with another twelve issues of Campaign out. I did get two mid-month releases out this year, Panzerfaust #52 and Guidon #6 Income is down slightly again, at ~$580. I have about a year and a half to go, and am nearly done with all the scanning.

The blog has been on schedule, but nothing more. I ran into a couple places where I was scrambling for a post for the 4-day schedule, as well as the usual race to finish the bigger ones on time. I did get another eight Paradox reviews out this year (I thought it had been less) which takes me through eleven months of releases (I need to speed this up somehow), and am down to four more in the can (I like to keep two spares, so that’s fine). I did have a greater number of RPG articles this year, with three GURPS Dungeons & Sorcery collections (that has nearly run me out of content, I need to get more written up), two miscellaneous reviews, and three Forgotten Realms reviews (I have stopped short of my goal of reviewing FRE3 Waterdeep; hopefully I’ll get back to it soon).

General board gaming has continued as before. Patch and I have a regular schedule we rotate through, and Mark and I are regularly gaming on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Sadly, there was a gap in FtF play from May to December, so there’s been less of that. New (to me) games this year were Granada, A Most Dangerous Time, Wing Leader, Tiny Epic Vikings, Demonlord, and Too Many Kobolds. I think Granada needed a little more restraint on new wrinkles for the base Sekigahara system, but is very good, and easily top of the pile.

Steam says I didn’t play as many different games as last year, and since I didn’t experiment with a bunch of new space 4X games, that makes sense. In fact, my only new computer game this year would be Endless Legend, which I found a bit disappointing. It is good, but is also built around limiting how far you can grow, which runs counter to what you expect in a fantasy conquest game, and limits your ability to bring about a decisive end, so I think it hinders more than it can help the design. My dad’s computer broke around October, and he’s on a refurbish that’s generally good, and doing better now that I’ve talked him through a video card upgrade. Dawntrail was a worthy new expansion for FF XIV; not as good as the previous two, but that would be nearly impossible to do. The real question is where does the story go from here to the next expansion? I have thoughts, but I’m usually wrong. Also, I hosted Smudge’s weekday gaming streams for a little bit, and went through the existing three chapters of FoxTail.

There are three Kickstarters that I’m waiting for to deliver the goods: The remastered/dubbed Dirty Pair TV series probably should have delivered already (me and Smudge have the shirts), but is close to done, and the Sony/Crunchyroll acquisition is to blame. Free Stars: Children of Infinity (AKA the real Star Control III) is continuing to look good in periodic updates (due May, but I expect it to slip a little, as most things do). I’m less certain of when Empire Builder: Europe is due, but it too is done by people with experience, and I’ll be happy to finally have my own crayon rail game.

I hit my reading goal fairly easily this year, getting 47 books in (this does include some relatively short RPG supplements). On the best side, the final volume of Jonathan Sumption’s history of the Hundred Years War did not disappoint at all. I wouldn’t call Peter Wilson’s Thirty Years War great, but I do think it is a solid improvement over Wedgewood’s book. On the fiction side, all the further parts of good series held up to the quality expected; Mistress of the Empire and Unbound Empire (no relation) were very good conclusions along with the final two Queen’s Thief books. In fact, I don’t think anything has been truly disappointing this year, except the fact that early ST:TNG novels still have yet to have a book with a plot that stays cohesive all the way through.

I am trying to be semi-active on Bluesky and posting links to most of my blog posts over there. I’ve also been posting occasional pics of my RPG collection over there, and need to get back to it. I also started a thread for cataloging all my various gaming projects, and need to update that again.