Just this guy, you know?

As it tradition here, I write about the latest expensive big of Google kit I’ve bought. As we know I bought the Pixel C so fill the gap betwixt phone and computer. At the end of last year I bought the Pixel 2 to replace my One Plus X.

How are the two playing ball? Well it’s not good for the Pixel C. I barely ever use it. The last two times I found it useful we’re at EVE Manchester where it provided the music for the event (but that was just Spotify and it was useful because it meant I could have my phone on me) and when my better half wants to watch TV while I’m podcasting (the flat is small ok).

Superuser on the Discord has requested I participate in this meme/chain letter. Superuser’s is here. The idea is that you pick the Game of the Year for every year you’ve been around.

Mine are as follows:

1993: Probably crying
1994: Same as last year
1995: Sand pit
1996: Drawing things
1997: Still probably drawing things
1998: Pretty sure I was building stuff using Lego
1999: Jane’s USAF (games were discovered in 1999)
2000: The Sims
2001: Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (Dave discovers miniatures)
2002: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2003: Need for Speed: Underground
2004: The Sims 2
2005: Civilization IV
2006: Half Life 2: Episode One
2007: Team Fortress 2
2008: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
2009: Assassin’s Creed II
2010: Civilization V
2011: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
2012: Warhammer 40k 6th Edition
2013: Grand Theft Auto V
2014: Mario Kart 8
2015: Rocket League
2016: Stardew Valley
2017: Warhammer 40k 8th Edition

It’s like Scythe but older and better.

Viticulture came out in 2013 and it was developed by Stonemaier Games. That’s the same company behind the hit diesel punk game Scythe! Viticulture sees you being in charge of a vineyard in Italy as you try to amass 20 abstract victory points.

You’re going to be planting vines, harvesting grapes, and turning them into a variety of wines. You’re going to be upgrading your vineyard too; adding a tasting room to increase the effectiveness of the tours you give to visitors, building a yoke, or irrigating your fields.

I bought a Fire TV Stick. Despite the adverts featuring one Jeremy Clarkson (if Amazon could stop marketing towards centrist dads that’d be amazing).

Why though? Well we’ve been using the Xbox One as the media center/hub/platform for ages now. I bought the Xbone with my first real pay cheque back in 2015 but I’ve not played games on it for months! I don’t have the time to play games on it and any time I do have would be better spent painting Warhammer[0].

I guess I’m being contrarian this year by picking the latest incarnation of 40K to be my Game of the Year. Especially as the only people who seem to take GOTY seriously are video games people.

2017 has been a big year for 40K. The game has changed a lot. 6th edition was probably the upper limit for complexity that I was willing to bother with. By many accounts 7th was more faff that it’s worth. 8th has really simplified things to a point where I think I actually understand the game I’m playing. Even if charging and the fight phase remain a big foggy[0].

Well at least for me[0].

February 2014 to September 2015 was maybe the best time I’ve had with board games. I’d picked up the Netrunner core set in July 2013 but bounced off it. My pals and I just couldn’t grasp the rules like we did with Magic. Over Christmas 2013 I finally grokked it and as a house we got into Netrunner big time.

We played a lot of Netrunner. Netrunner in the kitchen, the game store, and the pub. We forged our own meta as we explored new Datapacks. I read the novels, listened to the podcasts, and wrote words about it here[1]. I posted my decklists on GitHub. We went to tournaments and we taught it to everyone who’d listen.

It’s coming to the end of the year and I’m reflecting on some predictions I made on GNR episode 30. We’ll do a wrap up of it later but I thought I’d write a little bit about my failed experiment 2017x52.

I was aiming to post at least one photo on Flickr every week this year. One photo that I liked and was taken that week (roughly).

I failed monumentally. In fact I only made it a few weeks into 2017.

I post about two things here, games and Google products. I bought a Pixel 2 (non XL 64GB) and it arrived yesterday. My oh my is this a lovely device.

No weird issues with keyboards like the Pixel C. Just a beautiful device with rock solid software (so far).

We’ll see how it goes from here.

x1101 sent a question to the podcast a few weeks back about what we’re listening to these days. At this moment I’ve got 29 feeds in my podcatcher (I still use Pocket Casts, recently it got SONOS support). I wont bore you with the full list but I’ll go through some of the choice cuts.

All Units is Sean McTiernan’s two year project to dissect the Thriller movie. I don’t know anything about films and I learn stuff from this. I also really dig Sean’s humour.

It’s not EVE. It’s not Netrunner.

“You’re not on brand” I hear you scream.

The canonical best game of 2016 is Stardew Valley.