If you has told me that I would be hung up on a roguelike poker crossover game that would suck me into a dopamine rush, I never would have believed you. Yet, here we are.

The console edition of the Ubisoft attempt to take on the city builder genre, building mid-industrial empires on islands is my new jam.

As cornball as it might seem for some suburban dad to spend his time pretending to drive a tractor around a virtual farm, there is a real zen-like business management strategy woven into the Farming Simulator series that makes it easy to listen to a podcast or audiobook while you harvest a virtual crop.

A kind of surrealist-slash-parallel realism story of a world without the internet but inhabited by a society fascinated by little robot pets called “cures” which stand in as kind of a metaphor for social media, technology and addiction, the story is told through the eyes of the mentally ill Belt who owns the worlds oldest cure.

The vibe of SimCity from the old days, except slam it into some VR2 motion sickness inducing fun and you have Little Cities: Bigger.

As far as hard science fiction goes, the story of Bob Johansson’s journey from twenty-first century tech bro to sentient and sarcastic Von Neumann probe populating and defending the known universe through his technical prowess and Trekkie knowledge leans into the lighter side of fictional fare.

Based on the short run graphic novel, this was a four season Netflix show that debuted in 2019 and concluded with some finality in 2024.

In 2024 the latest tweaks to the current edition of the manuals and rulebooks for the classic tabletop role playing game were published, and I took this as my cue to finally jump into this universe. May as well get the freshest rules hot off the presses, huh?

I don’t recall where I heard about this exploration adventure climbing game, but it was in my wishlist in Steam and so when it went on sale I added it to my library. Climb, climb, and climb some more in this puzzle up the side of a tower to tall to see the top.

Laying down hexagonal tiles to build a pastoral landscape and score points is the key point of this cooperative board-ish game. Ish, because there is no board per se but certainly a lot of table real estate to be claimed.

The game is a perpetual game, too, in that as you play successive times you keep track of your wins and this unlocks new pieces that enhance the complexity of future play throughs. In effect, you’re leveling up the game itself by playing it, which is a nifty premise just in itself and probably means we’ll be cracking it open more often if only to grind through an unlocking campaign.

Coping with the delusions of a stalker is amplified into proportions of raw insanity in this based-on-a-true-story limited series.

May the force be with you? Luke, Leia, Han and Garth. Or was it Darth? I jest. I have watched a helena lotta of the saga at this point so I may as well have a place to sort through any rewatches, huh?