GOTY OF THE YOTY 2024
some of my favorite media of 2024
You’ve heard of 2022 and 2023, now get ready for 2024!
🐐 GOTY OF THE YOTY 🐐
Slice & Dice (Tann)
I’ve got a soft spot for turn-based, run-based games, for Dream Quest-likes and Into The Breaches… Whatever you want to call them: Slice & Dice is up there with the best. Super generous with ideas, every turn is a puzzle that lets you plan out your thoughts in extreme comfort.
Balatro (LocalThunk)
This one is a no-brainer, Balatro cleaned out the table in 2024. It takes “against the house” games to a beautiful simple conclusion where your opponent is nothing but an ever-growing number. Is this some sort of metaphor for capitalism?
UFO 50 (Mossmouth)
Releasing 50 games at once is the ultimate flex… You’re almost guaranteed to find something to love, and here’s my personal top 3:
Quibble Race. Illegal sports betting with cute creatures AND leg-breaking sabotage? Yes please.
Night Manor. A spooky point and click adventure that does smart things with the controller-operated cursor. Your only way to interact with the world is also a flashlight and even shakes when your character is scared? Very cool, goosebumps.
Avianos. Religious Dinosaur 4X board-game… with tiny little dino-soldiers that wiggle around in automated combat, incredible! For the sake of putting a top 3 in my top 3 in my top 3:
Brontor
Rexadon
Trilock
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Path of Achra, Chants of Sennaar, RunMan: Race Around the World, Flock, Judero, Dubio, Minishoot’ Adventures, Downpour, Grunn
🎥 FOTY 🎥
Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron (Kaku Arakawa)
This film is not a making of Boy and the Heron, it is more an insight into the mind of an incredibly powerful struggling artist.
Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve)
You need a stillsuit to watch this without a pee break, but it deserves a mention just for the shot of Harkonnen soldiers floating up a gorgeous desert rock. Full of incredible sci-fi “show don’t tell”.
Perfect days (Wim Wenders)
There’s so much beauty in everyday life if you can just slow down to take it in, and Perfect Days manages to capture that for 2 whole hours.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Robot Dreams, Aftersun, Le Cercle Rouge
📚 BOTY 📚
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
This won a Pulitzer prize in 2017, and now a BOTY of the YOTY award in 2025!
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise (Sandy Allen)
CW: mental health. This is a really compassionate story told around the autobiography of the author’s “crazy” uncle Bob, and his diagnosis with schizophrenia. Really heavy and really beautiful.
The Creasy Series (A.J. Quinnell)
Some people watch reality tv (ok I also do that), other people read an extremely bad and dated series of thrillers about a hard man without feelings who loves only breakfast, revenge and his submachine gun…
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
The Husbands, Ammonite, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Godhusk - Rebirth
🎵 MOTY 🎵
Some mixtapes I enjoyed this year:
Looking back
I had a good 2024 where I got to spend lots of quality time with (far) friends and family and barely had a bad meal. Best new things I tried: Via ferrata, haggis, tufting.
Work-wise I struggled a bit with wanting to do more than I could, but looking back there’s a lot to be proud of:
Major progress was made on my main project, hopefully we can show something soon
The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision decided to archive Minit, Minit Fun Racer, Disc Room, Dustbiters, and all the Vlambeer games
I wrote about Minit Fun Racer and Disc Room
Ridiculous Fishing EX got 3 major updates: The Garbage Patch, Back to School, and Billy’s Big Hat Hunt, with another one in development right now 🛸
A physical version of Nuclear Throne for the Nintendo Switch is launching on the 23rd of January
We’re one year closer to the ULTRABUGS release (wishlist please)
In the meantime you’re very welcome in the jwaaaap discord!
Wishing you all a lovely 2025,
JW