It’s that time of the year where we wonder where the time went, have finally gotten accustomed to writing ‘2013’ instead of ‘2012’ and plan the resolutions that we’ll ultimately be giving up in a few short weeks.
I have the unique situation of recalling exactly where my time, attention, and money have gone over the last twelve months:
Indie Games: I recently wrote up a round up of my favorite indie games. Before this year, I didn’t go out of my way to seek out good games from non-mainstream studios. By chance and some pretty clever PR, I managed to find quite a few good games made by smaller studios. I expect to see and play more of these types of titles in the year ahead.
Nostalgia: Often I look back at the simpler times of my life and recall those games that really brought joy into my life and took hours from my productivity. Some of those games were lost to history and siblings who insisted on scratching the discs into oblivion and ensuring I’d never get to play them again. Until I found gog.com. I’m learning more about myself from replaying those old favorites than I ever wanted to know. (I have effectively eliminated ‘dictator’ from my list of potential career options. Turns out I’m not above slaughtering villagers to achieve victory.)
Fashion (Stretching it a bit here): The past year has rekindled my zeal for collecting gaming and fan inspired t-shirts. The biggest offender here is teefury.com. They have effectively contributed to 90% of my wardrobe rotation. And spawned an interest in the next item on my list, which is…
Fan Art: So, 2013 was the year of fan art discovery. I like art, I like video games, it was a marriage of convenience. Fortunately for me, there are a slew of talented artists who enjoy games as much as I do. While the project is over a year old, the 31 Days of Zero Suit Samus by Chris Furniss was a hilarious series based on Samus Aran of Metroid fame. A limited run of actual printed books were part of a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign, but you can still score the ebook. He also sells individual prints on his etsy shop.
Since many of my…um, interests, center around Bioware titles, Andrew Ryan‘s (Warning: Some NSFW) Dragon Effect and Mass Age series (as you may expect, are a mash up of Dragon Age and Mass Effect) blend two of my favorite series. Currently his Dragon Effect montage graces my desktop and he’s working through the Mass Age series (I may have spent more than my fair share of time ogling his Mass Effect-inspired Alistair) on DeviantArt.
Last, but certainly not least is the midwest-based artist Megan Lara. For those of you who love Dr. Who, you’ll love that she has completed a series of companion art from the series. For those of you who love other things, you’re in luck! I first fell head over heels for her Art Nouveau-style Firefly prints but she has brilliant pieces across nerddom. Some day I hope her triptych of classic NES characters will grace my office walls.
If you take nothing else away from this list, please take this – let 2014 be your year to spread your geekly wings and check out some new and awesome things on the interwebs!
~The Myrrick
