News You Can Bruise for 2024 January 20

While making a list of books I read in 2023 I realized there was one book that I wanted to give its own post: Happy Snak by Nicole Kimberling, published in 2018. I was recommended this book by, I believe, Liz Henry, who said that she recommends Happy Snak and Constellation Games as a package deal, since anyone who likes one will like the other. As the author of Constellation Games, I had to test this hypothesis.

Well, I can tell you that Happy Snak is a lot of fun, and definitely has a similar feeling to Constellation Games. It's got weird aliens, cultural exchange focused on low culture, and a snarky main character whose reaction to first contact is to start a business—all things I love reading and writing. It gave me a fun "You're probably wondering how I got into this situation" feeling, so check it out!

OK, I've finished looking over my records and I'm ready to do book and game recommendations. As often happens, the Crummy.com Review of Things will proceed in fits and starts this year, but I'll eventually get it all done. I've discovered that this is now how I keep track of the passage of my life, rather than blogging the things I do right as I do them like a normal person.

The Crummy.com Book of the Year 2023 is Happy Snak, because it's the only book I wanted to do its own blog post about. Other good books I read in 2023 include Rescuing Prometheus: Four Monumental Projects That Changed the Modern World by Thomas P. Hughes, and the conceptually very similar The Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin, by Francis Spufford.

The Crummy.com Game of the Year is Mr. Sun's Hatbox by solo developer Kenny Sun, which sets roguelike combinatorics in a platforming environment with a slapstick style to create a comedic, customizable Spelunky-style experience. Other games I really enjoyed include: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mosa Lina, Factorio and Void Scrappers.

Finally, Sumana and I added a few new games to our irregular daily rotation:

• Diffle, a Wordlelike that, apparently, fits with the way we think about words.
• Connections from the NYT.
• Metazooa, Metaflora, and Birdle, games of cladistics.

Next up: something else!