2024 is a year of Firsthand, period.
We outgrew the windowless “8-person” office and moved into a 24 seater, and by the end of year we even added another extension. We built the product from scratch and launched it! Midnight launch zoom parties were pretty exciting! lol
While building the company and a new team, I’m also glad I get to hire half of Flux’s team back. The layoff at B was a blessing in disguise. It’s really nice to work with the people I knew and trusted, especially the one(s) I haven’t talked for a long time.
2024 was mostly a busy year for work. Did I travel? Lol I almost cannot remember… Iceland is the highlight trip for sure. That was a magical trip of 7 days. But it’s far less hiking than I needed… The Congaree NP trip was a nice little one, without hiking but the firefly encounter was amazing. The February Portugal trip was ok, the September Portugal wedding trip was kinda meaningless and expensive (missed the return flight due to the unbelievably slow custom…). The Mexico City trip was more of an errand trip, too, with nice hotel and food. And two business trips at the end of year to CA and Vancouver were actually better than they sounded.
About gaming, it was a pretty light year:
- Baldur’s Gate 3. Probably my personal choice of game of the year, except it was released in 2023.
- Black Myth: Wukong. Must play for a Chinese gamer who can play some action game, lol
- Astro Bot: the opposite of Baldur’s Gate 3 but equally excellent. Since it’s actually released in 2024 so it’s my GOTY choice.
- Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred. So much better than the original version, mindless slashing and optimizing once in a while. Not bad.
- Unicorn Overlord: fighting feels like a slow-motion RTS, and story feels like a slow-motion anime. I stopped half way as it’s too slow..
- Balatro: a rare mobile game I played. I noticed it when reading articles summarizing 2024 games. It’s a fun idea. Good for some hours.
For board games I’ve been mostly playing Ark Nova online. I started doing arena mode and participated a few seasons as I find it’s much easier to find similar-level players this way. My top rank so far is 80!
Other than online Ark Nova, Gaia Project’s new expansion Lost Fleet is pretty amazing too. Gaia Project was an already perfect game, the expansion somehow made it a tad better! Darwin’s Journey has a beautiful theme but feels like a scavenger game… worker placement but no economic engine. BRASS is a solid game, good for a play once in a while.
Bye 2024. I’ll miss you.