Tuesday, December 31, 2024

So Long 2024

 Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

Jane Austen

I dislike the year-end cacophony of click-bait news stories looking back on the old year. A recap of top 10 news stories, cultural fads, and other vapid remembrances. A retrospective on celebrities and notables we lost. How various aspects of our lives have changed (rarely for the good). I also dislike looking back on my own experience of the past year. Sure, it was punctuated with high points, sometimes exceedingly positive events. But these stand out as pinpricks on the vast dark canvas of everyday life. I shouldn’t complain; I have much for which I should be thankful. Still, I can’t help but look back on even Hobby Games Recce and try to find some positive signiificance in it all.

Among my achievements this year — finally publishing Skirmish Kids, running wargames at two conventions and a game day or two, interacting with some amazing scholars about games in learning — I look back on my most consistent accomplishment, my mostly regular blogging here at Hobby Games Recce. Not every essay stands out, not every feature garners the viewer numbers I’d expect. But I’d like to think it stands as a testament to my involvement in the adventure gaming hobby and my enthusiasm for sharing my discoveries and opinions with other gamers (and maybe a few non-gamers).

I look back over my blog work in 2024 with two criteria: number of views and personal satisfaction. I’ve evaluated my work over the past four years in an earlier piece, “HRG’s Notable Posts,” now pinned to the top of the blog sidebar for newcomers to get a better sense of what they’ll find here. Rather than present my top five in each of my two criteria, I chose to spare readers and list only three in each category.

These three blog entries garnered the most views at the time of my writing this (a few weeks before the New Year to bank a few blog entries against the holiday chaos). The internet and society in general seems obsessed with this metric; I look at it as articles that most interested a broad spectrum of readers.

#3: “Exploring Vonnegut’s Lost Game An overview of a wonderful little strategy game hidden away in an author’s archived files, uncovered, and brought to life decades after a company rejected it. Part history, part commentary, and very much a playable game simulating World War II ground combat as Vonnegut knew it.

#2: “Jaquays’ Mos Eisley Map My remembrance of Jennell Jaquays, who passed away on Jan. 10, 2024, focusing on the amazing and inspirational artwork she created for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game...the full-color map of downtown Mos Eisley starport and its infamous cantina.

#1: “Ukraine 2022 Prepares Students for War By a wide margin my most-read article of the year. Part feature on a nation using a hobby wargame to train students for war, part a close look at the game itself, and part examination of the issues of using a play activity to prepare youth for the realities of combat on their very doorstep.

Choosing only three blog posts of which I’m particularly proud proves a bit more difficult. I’m happy with most anything I make public, though some stand out more than others. My favorites touch on moral issues of gaming, usually wargaming, and their applications in learning.

#3. “COTS Games for Learning More often I’m inspired to explore the intersection of games and learning, often in the context of history. This post gave me a chance to share my favorite games one might adapt to educational environments at many levels. It’s by no means comprehensive or deep, but a starting point gamers and newcomers might use to explore how we can better engage students of all ages through gameplay.

#2. “Solo Co-op Games & the ‘Bad Guy’ Dilemma I occasionally explore the moral issues of playing at war. In this article I explored how solitaire and cooperative games that pit the player(s) against a rule-driven “bot” maneuver around the oft-troublesome issue of live players running the historically problematic “bad guys.”

#1. “Wargames for Learning I wrote this as a sort of “response” to a popular video making the rounds of the hobby scene and professional community focusing on governments using wargames as tools to develop policy and explore outcomes to emerging situations. While that’s one important role “serious” wargames play, I noted it’s only half the issue. Wargames also serve — and have served — as educational tools in various capacities, including professional military education and evolving tactics in wartime.

Perhaps the most outstanding piece I wrote this year was Ukraine 2022 Prepares Students for WarReaching out to Tom Jensen, the designer, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science, along with my online research and my striving to cover multiple angles gave me a journalistic thrill I haven’t felt since working on a small-town weekly newspaper more than 30 years ago. At the time it certainly qualified as news in the ever-changing campaign against Russian aggression. The wargame itself harnessed some interesting rules concepts. And it all inspired some reflection on how we use games in learning, especially with younger generations. I consider it among the most important game-related news stories of the year...and one completely overlooked by most news and gaming media.

I’ve been blogging at Hobby Games Recce since 2010. As I’ve noted on my revised resume for a currently frustrating job hunt — for what it’s worth — I’ve published more than 500 articles with a combined word count exceeding half a million words. I frequently doubt how much longer I can continue this given constraints on my time and energy, fewer people reading blogs, and the preponderance of far more popular and interesting online personalities flooding the internet with content about the adventure game hobby. I tell myself I try keeping up posting relevant, thoughtful content here, but I’m not encouraged by what the New Year promises to inflict upon me...or people in general.

The tiger springs in the new year. Us he devours.”

T. S. Eliot


No comments:

Post a Comment

We welcome civil discussion and polite engagement. We reserve the right to remove comments that do not respect others in this regard.