2025 Retrospective #
Seasons greetings folks, hope you're all staying warm this Christmas Season! I've decided to do a retrospective of a bunch of different things I did in 2025.
Table of Contents #
Gaming #
Here's a list of the highlighted games I've played this 2025 that I've had a lot of fun with!
Garry's Mod
It's been delightful to go back to a more regular cadence of playing GMod with friends. One of my friends joked that when we play TTT it's a sort of recession indicator, that we play it when times are tough and not so much when times are good. GMod TTT is just one of those mainstay games that we've been playing as a group since at least 2021. I don't have much to say about it that I haven't already said.
Dark Souls
I finally took the time to play Dark Souls to completion including the DLC, and not just that, but 100% it in all achievements. I will be honest, going back to Dark Souls after playing Elden Ring... there's just no comparison. I feel like Dark Souls was the superior game. A tighter and much more focused experience. The bosses obviously aren't at the level that Elden Ring had them, but the exploration is a lot more akin to Elden Ring's "Legacy Dungeons". One of the funniest things about my first Dark Souls playthrough, is firstly, I accidentally kept Solaire alive all the way to the end(which apparently is quite a hard thing to do!) and secondly, the routing I took ended up with me completely missing The Depths until a friend told me to go check it out. I don't think I was supposed to be killing the Capra Demon boss with a Demon Great Machete. The route I ended up taking was to Dark Root Garden, then Dark Root Basin, then to Valley of the Drakes, and then into Blighttown via the back entrance. In fact I ended up doing most of blighttown in reverse to how you're intended to approach it, though it was still a painful experience going through it. As a little something, my favourite boss in the game has to be Artorias.
There are some aspects Dark Souls did worse than Elden Ring. The whole blacksmithing system is a confusing mess. Additionally, half of the achievements(getting weapons of different elements to their max level) felt like they were there to pad out the game time for achievement hunters. That said, the achievements that involved.
So thank you Visha for gifting me Dark Souls, it was a pleasure to play through it(even if it did take me quite a long time to finally get around to it... That's on me :) )
PEAK
I was initially very hesitant about getting and playing PEAK. I'm very glad I did in the end, as from a design standpoint, its stamina system is probably one of the most tightly integrated systems I've seen. It was such a surprise to see that I've slightly nicked it for my next game. Anyways, I ended up 100%'ing it(multiple times as they released the Mesa and then the Roots updates). It has been a lot of fun to play through with friends. I have yet to be Ascent 7, though have beaten up to Ascent 6. Maybe next year we'll beat Ascent 7!
ELDEN RING NIGHTREIGN
Another game I was initially very hesitant about getting. I'm also glad to have gotten it. For me, it's not endlessly replayable as you start to develop a routine route for the different characters and the map doesn't have that much variation- most of the variation being in the kind of loot you get which can sometimes make or break a run.
I do think as a multiplayer game it is genuinely a lot of fun, but it's not the kind of game I would want to play singleplayer.
HELLDIVERS 2
A fun multiplayer shooter game that I enjoyed a lot. At some point in the year we went back to play Deep Rock Galactic and found it felt too easy as the pacing, even on the highest difficulty, was slower and more relaxed that HELLDIVERS 2 typically. At the end of the day, it's a lot of fun though interest does seem to have fizzled out a bit.
Games Development #
This year I released my first commercial videogame, Mirrormind. Commercially it was a flop and I have my ideas on why it was a flop. Firstly it was a puzzle game which is already a low demand genre. Secondly the game does not have much in the way of appeal. There's not much of an appealing experience shown. Thirdly the character is a block, which while I think I did a decent job making it look cool, is not relatable at all. The design constraints around it relating to the gameplay meant I was boxed in a corner in what I could realistically do. Finally the level design was rather abstract. Games with an abstract design tend to do pretty poorly too(as a matter of them not really being relatable).
I have taken all these lessons into my next game that I am currently working on, "The Grail Perilous". Firstly the genre is somewhere between a looter shooter, a dungeon delver and a roguelite. Secondly the game is a lot more obvious in what kind of an experience it offers, and is in my opinion a much more appealing sort of experience. Compare "Delving into a dungeon to recover the Grail of Arthurian Legend" with "Switching perspectives of cubes to solve puzzles". One has a naturally higher appeal. Thirdly, the character and enemy design is not constrained as heavily meaning the characters can actually look relatable and more interesting than a cube.
You can see the latest video in developing The Grail Perilous here.
Travel #
I didn't do loads of travelling this year(I don't do much most years), though I did fly over to the Philippines to see Cebu City for a month this year. Cebu City gives a much more positive impression than Manilla did. Both in how the city is and how the airport is- which is part of why it's been sad to hear about Typhoon Tino among other disasters hitting Cebu City towards the end of this year. While travelling to Cebu City I was fortunate to go via Singapore Airlines which was a very positive experience. I am immensely impressed with Singapore, especially with Changi Airport which takes the cake as the best Airport in the world in my opinion(though I haven't been to loads so it shouldn't count for much). Looking into Singapore later on I did find out part of why it was so affluent compared to its neighbours, and it was down in large part to the policies of Lee Kuan Yew, and I personally think most of it is down to the strictness of its politics. Politicians are paid large salaries(larger than in the UK for sure!) that compare to CEOs and running your own company. As a result, there is a strong incentive for people to go into Politics. Counterbalancing this there is very strict punishments for any kind of corruption(even the kind of corruption that David Cameron did, landing himself a very comfy consulting job(with a company that was basically lobbying) with a lot of money after being Prime Minister). In this way, from travelling I now have a reformed view on democracy, as I now think corruption is the simplest poison to any democracy(and you can see this corruption poisoning US Politics plainly, but also UK politics in how ~20% of MPs are landlords producing lots of conflicts of interest).
Anyways, that realisation aside, another thing I realised from being in Cebu City is simply how crap British milkshakes are. I can imagine the Cookie milkshake I had there was unhealthy... but DAMN was it far more delicious than anything I've had in the UK. This is possibly partly down to America being fairly involved in the Philippines(I say this because I hear America does some of the best Milkshakes and Ice creams too)?
The other thing I learnt doing this, is how much better Singapore Airlines is to Kuwait Airlines. I will probably be sticking with Singapore Airlines for most flights to that part of the world. Kuwait Airlines... the toilets were always left in an absolute state.
Locally within the UK the only real bit of travelling I did was in London for like two days(one for going to Heathrow and one for returning). I got lucky too in returning home as a week later, there was the Hayes Substation fire. I suppose something to bear in mind for all trips is how to recover from any disaster like this. Where was I... ah, and I also visited Durham to see the Durham Cathedral(which is delightful), and to see the Durham Lumiere which as I found out was apparently likely the last one they'd be doing. Rather unfortunate news, but anyhow...
Finance #
Earlier this year with Trump's tariff war it was a huge shock to me. My portfolio pretty much plummeted in value, however it recovered pretty much within 2 months. This was a strong lesson in weathering the storm! In fact if I had much liquid cash at the time I would've been buying stocks during this period of time. I also sold my positions in Tesla this year too. As it stands, I see Tesla as far too speculative and way overvalued.
Some small predictions. I do not actually think the AI bubble is going to burst. I think it will deflate for sure, especially towards the end of the year, but all the speculation that it's a bubble and it'll burst has made many investors cautious. I do not think AI has much benefit for complete replacement of creative positions as the Coca Cola and McDonalds Christmas ads have shown, however the benefits can be seen elsewhere. The prevalence of vibe coding has also meant a lot of stuff gets programmed. My opinion there though is a fair amount of it is going to be architected poorly and in a way that is not maintainable so all the companies going hard on AI for programming will suffer badly as they have to hire seniors to fix all this shit in 2027.
As it currently stands in the UK, I still think putting most of your money into a Stocks and Shares ISA is the thing to do if you want to grow your wealth. It is the one free lunch you get in the UK. Pretty much untaxed 7% annual growth(accounting for the 3% that inflation eats into it) in your wealth doing that. Picking individual stocks is a bit stressful and if I was to go back in time I would just put it in a S&P500 ETF- so that is what I'd recommend.
Miscellaneous Lessons from the year #
I've been trying my best to be giving more people the benefit of the doubt. I've also been trying my best to be a little less blunt and harsh to people. Probably the hardest thing for me as I am naturally a fairly disagreeable person(I know who inspired that from my teenage years...), but the way it comes out is far too blunt. I have also been time restricting my social media usage. This has interestingly been kind of successful: completely banning the use of all social media Monday-Friday between 4AM and 6PM. During those hours I tend to get a lot done. I have been thinking about restricting it further a tad more to 1AM to 7pm. Another thing I learnt(the hard way after having my wisdom tooth and it's neighbouring molar extracted), is that I need to take a lot better care of my teeth which means a lot more strict control on my diet. Specifically sodas, so I have pretty much banned my intake of Soda with exception only to special occasions(of which there has only been one so far).
Another diet thing I have done is to take Vitamin D supplements and Omega 3 supplements. This was inspired by Nicky Case's vlog which covered the subject and their a lot more in depth document on the subject which links to a lot of studies on the topic. In other words what she found is that 4 things improve happiness the best: Cardio, Regular Sleep(which incidentally by social media time restricting has actually improved too), Supplements(Vit D and Omega 3) and Therapy that focuses on behaviours. I honestly haven't looked into the therapy bit much. I do have plans to get back into regular(well... regular enough) running next year off the back of this meta analysis too.
Another thing I have taken the opinion of is that politics is mostly a partisan thing that divides people and while I find it interesting, I don't keep too in touch with it nowadays. I definitely think there's some truth to the idea that politics is a poison. I generally find that if something important happens, I'll find out from someone else.
Thanks #
There's a lot of people I'd like to give thanks to for helping me out in various ways over the last year. I'd like to thank all the playtesters and supporters who helped me out with Mirrormind(you guys know who you are :) ). I'd also like to thank nobo because he's a cool guy who's helped kick me into actually fixing some things on this site and also because he's produced a lot of good work. I'd also like to thank punp(https://punp.neocities.org/) who has been endlessly patient, kind and fun to talk with. Also thanks go to IlluminatiPirate for making such a great space to hang out with people(Agora Road) and also for being cool with me making the Agora Zines site and the Travelers of the Agora Road V2 webring. Other folks I want to thank are LostInTheCycle, No56(By the way thanks for recommending me The Prisoner! A most excellent watch!). There's a few more people I'd like to give thanks to: Visha, Kilobytes and Avatar as good friends over the last year, and some old University buddies I hang out with(who for their privacy I want mention much more here).
By the way I am linking their sites here too, go give them some love! <3
Finally thank you reader. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. This will likely be my last blog post of the year.
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Published on 2025/12/14
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