2025

2025 was a big year for me. I almost felt overwhelmed just thinking about what to write in this post, lol. I’m sure I’ll finish it as long as I start somewhere.

First, I had a baby and became a dad. Wesley is 4 months old today. It’s amazing to watch him grow and become visibly different every month. Sometimes even a week can bring quite a change. I still think the current society puts a lot of influence into people’s mind about parenting and family values. It almost feels like everyone is supposed to love their kid with all their heart and time. But in reality… think about great people in history with a lot of kids, I don’t think they spent much time taking care of kids. Childcare is a labor intensive work no matter how you paint it… Don’t take me wrong. I really enjoy holding the little guy in arms and sharing time with him. Would I say “this is the best thing that ever happened to me” according to the “social convention”? I cannot say it wholeheartedly yet, lol.

Before the kid arrived, I did my travels. The month-long trip to Peru was an all-out adventure for me. Machu Picchu was awesome. And climbing a snow mountain felt like a good closure to my outdoorsy life. I did cry a bit at the peak to mourn the presumed ending of my lifestyle. In early August I did a weekend trip to Great Basin NP which was a nice little encore. Then it’s Phoenix for the baby.

At work, the AI coding advancement this year was remarkable. Claude Code completely changed how software development. I feel we are rethinking and relearning our own profession. It’s an exciting and scary moment.

Company grew to almost 50 people. It felt a bit of a grind. Business is growing, we are still looking for that sweet spot. A lot of hard work. Another feeling is the company is getting “large”. We fired people and had to go through PIP stuff, like we had HR breathing down our neck. I didn’t anticipate we needed to be so buttoned up at this stage, but whatever.

I basically gave up board games this year. Wen started playing a mobile game in a very addicted way. So when guests came over she barely came out to play anymore. And I’ve been playing Ark Nova on BGA so much that other games felt less interesting because of the depth difference, and playing Ark Nova with friends just became not that fun for me anymore given the experience difference. I probably played Ark Nova 1200+ games online. Then one day in Phoenix I decided this was too much and deleted my BGA account. I haven’t played any board game since.

I did keep video games as a hobby. It’s actually not hard to find time playing video games during the parental leave… or even afterwards. We have some childcare help (nanny and grandparents), and video games I play are on console and can be paired anytime. Here are the games I played this year:

• Metaphors Refantazio (PS5). After two action games I wanted to play a JRPG and found this one. Not bad. An alternative take to Persona games.
• Ghost of Totei (PS5). Nice graphics and actress performance. Very industrial. An ok game.
• Hades 2 (Switch 2). Great game. It’s funny it landed on consoles one year later than PC (early access) but I don’t really care about playing games on day 1 anymore.
• Octopath Travelers 2 (Switch 2). Nice relaxing game. Too relaxing so every time I play it I got really sleepy… didn’t finish.
• Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2). Wonderful game! Actually the first Donkey Kong game I played through. Lots of simple fun of smashing stuff. Almost like a 3D Mario game in a different flavor.
• Expedition 33 (PS5). Obvious choice for the game of the year. Solid on every front, with great innovations. A must-play for RPG funs this year.
• Split Fiction (PS5). A decent successor to the groundbreaking game It Takes Two. Though I feel It Takes Two was overrated,I think Split Fiction did a good job to inherit the core mechanism while making some extensions.
• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (PS5). Disappointed. Way worse than the previous one (Reborn). I think the creators stretched this trilogy way too long and lost steam.
• Balatro (iOS). Great mobile game. Worth a play.
• Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5). I really liked this generation of Monster Hunter. A comeback of MH World with a brave system change. My only problem is this gen was too short and had zero endgame content when it was released. Releasing remaining contents in several updates throughout a year just doesn’t give players the right experiences.