I can’t imagine what my wife thinks when she hears me watching speed runs.
“I’m Gonk Droid 7, today we’re running the truly awful Casper The Ghost for the NES. Let’s get right into it with the first trick we call the backhand of God. I have my co-host PickleLegs here to tell you how it works.”
It’s my yearly “The Games I Played Last Year” post.
See if I liked the same games as you! Feel justified if I did or perhaps seethe if I did not.
Hurtful information.
“because if gamers are one thing, they are often extremely embarrassed by the games they play”
This is probably one of the most interesting and under explored aspects of game culture these days. A lot of people seem embarrassed and actively angered by the games they supposedly enjoy.
A screenshot of my YouTube recap showing that I am in the top 0.2% of viewers and I watched 516 videos from the channel in 2025.
Another amazing year of work from the great people of Digital Foundry! Absolute best in the business.
Consider giving a follow to: @dark1x.bsky.social @oliemack.bsky.social @dachsjaeger.bsky.social @cataferal.bsky.social
@digitalfoundry.bsky.social
Looks kind of like Jean Jullien to me.
“So Bill was going as the beast of burden, yet he was the only member of the Company that did not seem depressed.”
Bill is carrying this team.
Sure the journey to Mordor seems perilous, but Tolkien’s fondness for detailing the various horses of the journey is the real story so far.
The literal fellowship of the ring was just formed, and instead of an epic speech we get a couple paragraphs about a pony named Bill.
I love it 🐴
The BALL X PIT reveal was a delightful bonus.
Also, Fatty Lumpkin is an incredible name for a pony.
Finally reading The Lord of the Rings. Early impression is that Tom Bombadil is super OP.
I noticed that last night too! The writing is horrible, and even better, nobody from their editorial team even reviews these for an ounce of accuracy.
The protagonist of the game, Nate, stands on a snowy ledge looking towards stairs leading to the top of a cliff.
Finished Baby Steps today. Is it my game of the year? Maybe! What a delight. It’s a hard game to be sure, though to some degree it is only as hard as you want it to be.
You can, for example, climb these stairs or you can take hours climbing around them instead. I did. Now they call me Lord.
The loop was so perfect I thought someone was coming to break a second one.
Looks like the Grand Princess. It’s a great ship! Try the 24k margarita if you’re so inclined.
A piano with teeth jumps at Mario.
Close second was the haunted piano in Mario 64. It got me good.
A low poly man stands why a shotgun and a low poly zombie walks through a door towards him.
Alone In The Dark for the PC terrified me. Some creature bounced through a window and I almost bounced through one to escape the room.
I got it too! Selling out quickly in a lot of places.
Anyhow, all that to say I liked your article! Definitely got me thinking about what happened to the mobile space and how it has changed.
There used to be so many interesting genre pushing titles on mobile and it’s hard to tell if that’s still happening or not because discoverability and writing doesn’t really exist for it anymore.
I’m curious what happened to the traffic that used to exist for mobile games. Touch Arcade (RIP) used to do very well. Did the readership change or did the mobile game space change? Maybe both?
Pauline: You sure love bananas, DK!
DK: Pauline, to call it love is too simple. I need bananas. They are my master, and I am their slave. Do you love air, Pauline? Or does it control you? Its very presence, an unnoticed necessity driving your very life.
Pauline: I’m too nervous to sing!
Oh good to know! I’ll try to exercise some patience and see what happens.
I was able to get back in fairly quickly and buy one. But my account was a wreck after it got locked. Definitely not something I’d do again for a 10% discount.
And the code still hasn’t been delivered, so yeah… not the best experience ever.
I tried to buy one and Amazon locked my account. Wild.
I have a Le Creuset mug, it’s decent. Thicker walls help keep it warm, but it’s not the largest internal volume if you desire a large amount of tea.
If temperature management is something you’re interested in, I got an Ember mug years ago and I use it every day. The price is absurd, but it’s fab.
Definitely worth a try! In the PRs you can save anywhere, and multiply experience gain up to 4x. So if you get to a spot where you know you need to level up, you can boost your XP gain for a little bit to avoid the “joy” of just walking back and forth and doing the same battle over and over again.
As for 13, I’ve been slowly playing it alongside the others. I got pretty far on the PS3 back in the day, but the HDD failed and I lost my progress.
I’m playing it on PC this time and I’m at the open world section, which I assume is near the end of the game.
The game still looks great!
Thanks for the suggestions! I played 15 quite a bit at launch, but my understanding is that there was some significant patches and changes so I’ll definitely be going in from the start!
As for FF4, I agree that the plot did tend to retread a bit (Golbez always getting the crystals, Kain being controlled) but after 1-3 you could definitely feel the huge increase in story, systems, and world building.
If you decide to replay the games I’d be interested to hear your thoughts!
