There is a social obligation to do a ‘best of’ post

 Well, it’s not a new year without a best of last year list. Or commentary. Something like that.

The best books I read in 2021 were the first two books in the Locked Tomb Trilogy, Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. The world building is wild, the character are terribly flawed but sympathetic and the plot is interesting. Allegedly, the next book should wrap everything up. That’s a lot to do and I really hope that Tamsyn Muir sticks the landing.

(I see that there’s actually a fourth book announced. Well, actually, a book in between book two and what was going to be book three :D The more the merrier!)

My audio/visual media viewing was kind of all over the place. My list of stuff I wanted watch exceeds what I actually did watch. I’m going to go with Loki. It was like the MCU decided to become Doctor Who. Two great tastes that go great together. (Our family also really enjoyed Encanto. My head cannon is that the house is a damaged TARDIS, since I’ve already mentioned Doctor Who)

While we had a lot of fun with both Animal Crossing New Horizons and Mario Kart, they weren’t new to me in 2021. So the video game that makes the list is Cozy Grove, the peaceful game of helping friendly ghosts. Yes, after we finished the story, we were pretty much done with it but we got months of distraction out of it before then.

Actual board games… 

Well, I learned sixty or so games last year. I looked at what I learned, what I liked and how many plays I actually got in. In no particular order, these are what I’m going to say were the three best games for me:

Clever Cubed - the clever family has been good to me. The first one is still my favorite but Clever Cube simultaneously pushed the system while making me feel like I had some control.

Yard Builder- a simple Roll and Write that I find so relaxing. I don’t know if it is good from a mechanical standpoint but it got me through some stressful times.

Deep Space D6- a late entry but a game that that just really caught my interest. Bad die rolls can destroy you but I really enjoy the narrative it creates. 

While something has to be best on every list, these bests are good.