2021 Year in Review

I love making things. I feel I am my best self when I am creating something. Do you feel the same way? How interesting.

But if you used this blog to keep up with all the things I make, you would get the impression that I never make anything (and may in fact be dead). Let’s correct that. Let us, in the middle of 2024, do my 2021 Year in Review.

My 2020 Year in Review is here.

January

Zach and I launched another podcast, The Hero’s Path, sort of in the vein of our previous podcast, The Complete Guide to Koholint. For The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, we had systematically drilled down into every single map tile, but for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Zach really just replayed the game and we did some analysis based on that. The Hero’s Path podcast feed has since become a repository for podcast materials on general Zelda and Nintendo topics, including “analysis” of Nintendo Directs that always amuses me personally very much.

February

On the occasion of my birthday I made this little puzzle set for some friends of mine. The puzzles rely on specific knowledge (and also specific books) I could rely on these friends to possess, so you probably won’t be able to solve all of it yourself. But what if you could? Gosh.

I also finished sewing this plush oarfish.

March

In March I was working on a bunch of stuff that nobody would see until later. Possibly the most interesting thing I “released” this month was this fake announcement of all the games I was supposedly planning on making over the next decade:

Since we’re writing this Year in Review from the distant future, we can pull back the curtain a bit and reveal the secret truths of these jokes:

  • In March 2021 I really was already working on a Castle Balderstone game, and I really did manage to enter it in EctoComp, although the title was not “Again with the Tales from Castle Balderstone”
  • The idea of a followup called “Snow Warriors” had been bouncing around in my brain since shortly after I released “Mud Warriors” in spring of 2020, but I’ve never managed to put together any solid design for it
  • My first design documents for “Ryan Veeder’s Bram Stoker’s the Dracula Files” do in fact date to March of 2021. I may in fact have intended to release it in February of 2022. But it turned into a very ambitious project and never got finished. A partial build is available to members of my Patreon. Man, I would like to go back to this project…
  • “Secrets of the Horrible Pyramid” is something I’ve wanted to make since 2014. I have worked on it a lot, but it was not released in summer of 2023. A partial build is available to members of my Patreon.
  • “A Self Called Nowhere” would be a followup to my They Might Be Giants-inspired games “The Statue Got Me High” and “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair,” but this was not a serious suggestion. I don’t think I have it in me to write another one of those.
  • “Fro-yo Eyes Only” would be a followup to “Taco Fiction” and “Dial C for Cupcakes” and I would love to work on such a game if I had any good ideas for it.
  • I will port “Crocodracula: The Green Eyes” for modern interpreters if I ever find a copy.
  • “Speak Without a Mouth: Transmissions of Identity in Early Anglo-Saxon Poetry” would have been a third “Chambers Familiy Entertainment” to go along with “The Horrible Pyramid” and “An Evening at the Ransom Woodingdean Museum House,” but I never had enough good ideas for this one either.

April

In April I was still working on stuff that nobody would see until later.

May

In May I launched “club wooby,” my own little version of Club Nintendo. You can earn points (“buttons”) by completing missions in my games—and by sending me transcripts of my games, for my dad to read. You could redeem these buttons for a set of Veeder-inspired stickers/magnets, but I can’t send those to people anymore since I live in Australia. You can still redeem your buttons for the files for a printable board game…

club wooby was never very popular, but we can’t really say that it wasn’t “successful,” because I had fun putting it together—and the few people who participated had fun participating. It never gave me a headache, which is more than I can say for certain other, much more popular projects!

June

In June I was STILL working on stuff that nobody would see until later.

July

In July I noticed something interesting about some names in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and wrote this blog post where I hope I made a good case against kneejerk fun-hating skepticism and for considered, fun-accepting skepticism.

I also wrote this blog post about the catacombs of Castle Ravenloft and how they’ve changed across the many versions of the Ravenloft adventure.

I also was in Washington, DC for a little while and visited a bunch of Smithsonian museums! I got to see Dali’s Sacrament of the Last Supper! Fantastic.

August

In August I inaugurated the “FUN ACTIVITY” feature on my Twitter, where I came up with a random word or phrase and challenged people to come up with cryptic crossword clues for it. (It turns out other people have done this sort of thing, but I came up with it too and I felt so clever about it.) I think I turned it into a daily challenge right away, and I kept it up until March of 2023.

I also designed a treasure hunt for a bunch of neighbor kids. I have a lot to say about designing treasure hunts and hopefully I’ll get around to finishing a blog post about it eventually.

September

In September, Polyducks and Lance Campbell and I released “Ryan Veeder’s Mud Warriors,” a Gameboy adaptation of my game “Mud Warriors.” I didn’t do as much work on the Gameboy version as Lance and Polyducks did. I composed the soundtrack, and I suggested stealing the combat system from Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru. Polyducks did all the art, and Lance wrote some new material, and I think Lance did most of the programming.

I got around to diachronic analyses of the rest of Ravenloft and I’m sure you will find that as fascinating as I did.

October

In October they got around to doing the XYZZY Awards for 2020; “A Rope of Chalk” won Best Story and “Crocodracula: The Beginning” won Best Use of Multimedia (because Harrison did such a good job scanning all those old feelies).

And on the final day of October it was finally HALLOWEEN, and finally the entries in ECTOCOMP were made public, which means finally was released my game EVEN SOME MORE TALES FROM CASTLE BALDERSTONE. It is the biggest game I’ve ever made, because it is four games stitched together and then some. It is probably the best game I’ve ever made, because it combines the legit creepiness of “Letavermilia” with the unhinged prose of “Nyvo the Dolphin” with the brilliant design of “Singing for Me” with the ridiculously cool magic system of “Visit Skuga Lake.” Even Some More etc. took first place in the Grand Guignol division of EctoComp, and it was nominated for several XYZZYs, but I still contend that this game is woefully unappreciated, because if it were properly appreciated then everyone would still be talking about it all the time. Why are you still reading this paragraph. Go click on that link and play this game.

November

I was asleep this month or I had jury duty or whatever. PLAY EVEN SOME MORE TALES FROM CASTLE BALDERSTONE

December

On December 31st, I publicly released my game “The Little Match Girl,” which had been a Patreon exclusive since I wrote it in December 2019. Since then I have written a bunch of other Little Match Girl games and I am very proud of them.