The 6 things that got me through lockdown (so far…) (Patreon)

Hello!

2020 has been a bit of a bizarre year, to say the least. As a deadly pandemic rages across the world, we've all ended up spending way more time indoors than anyone really wants to.

I mean: I'm a huge introvert and love being at home more than most (and I get to spend this time with my best friend - my fiancé) but even I've gotten cabin fever this year. I want to travel, go to the cinema, see friends, go to museums! And I'm super excited to see that a vaccine has been made, in record time, and is starting to roll out. If all goes well, 2021 will be the year things get back to normal.

But until then, I wanted to share some things that I found useful this year. The stuff that kept me busy, happy, and occupied for about nine months stuck inside. Leave your own in the comments, if you like!

1 - Exercise

I was definitely worried about the physical and mental toll that so much forced isolation would have on me - so this year I worked really hard to find an exercise regime that worked. Because, look, I know how important it is to stay active, but I just have never found something that sticks - I always give up after a few weeks.

But this year I found it! And no… it wasn't Ring Fit Adventure. Though it was fun for a few weeks and it did help me understand what I was looking for in a regime. You see, the thing I finally understood about myself is that if I don't really want to do something, I'll see any amount of friction as a reason to put it off and eventually drop it. Friction is anything between me and exercise - driving to a gym, setting up the Switch for Ring Fit, even just putting my phone in one of those awkward arm bands. Any amount was enough to put me off.

So I decided to try the most friction-free set-up possible. I wake up and put on my gym clothes (so I don't have to change into them) and then at some point in the morning I just… go. I run out the door. I don't bother with setting up my phone for music. I don't track my stats or steps or heart rate. I just run. And it works! I feel better, I look better, and most importantly - I keep at it. Friction-free exercise. I finally figured it out.

2 - Books

Books! This year I figured out that, actually, I really like a real, physical, tangible book. Kindle doesn't quite do it for me: I like the real deal. And that's lead to an explosion of reading. Some favourites this year, include:

Other Minds is about the absurd intelligence of the octopus. Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is about exactly what it says on the tin. Stephen Fry's Mythos and Heroes books are great, easy-going re-tellings of the Greek myths (perfect for Hades and Immortals). And The Body is an absolutely fact-stuffed book about all our bits and bobs.

Origins is about how the creation of the Earth itself has impacted the humans that evolved on it. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a chunky tome about the way Google and friends are using your data. Creativity Inc is a business management book - but it's from the CEO of Pixar so it's very interesting. And How Democracy Ends is about the ways our political system might topple in uniquely 21st century ways.

3 - LEGO

Patrons, I have a confession to make. You know that money you gave me? I might have spent quite a bit of it on LEGO. Okay, okay, I've only bought three sets - Assembly Square, the bookshop, and the NES - but now I've got the bug and I'm not sure I can stop.

The lovely thing about these three sets is that they were perfect for building with my partner. The bookshop, for example, is two disconnected buildings (with two instruction booklets) - and the NES is split between a console and a TV. So we dumped all the pieces onto the floor (going bag-by-bag is for casuals) and then spent weeks putting these monstrosities together.

The NES, by the way, is incredible. The TV has this internal mechanism where a pixel art Mario level is on some crazy mechanical track that causes the image to scroll across the screen. It is out of this world. And the console itself has a working cartridge mechanism and even a secret Mario Easter egg. I put that one on my business expenses so hopefully I've said enough to justify it to the tax man, now.

4 - Games

Unsurprisingly, I played a bunch of games this year. Though, not quite as many as you might expect. I talked about this before but I broke my own motivation to play games, which made it really hard for me to pick up games that I wasn't playing for work. Still: I did get around to a bunch - $3 Patrons will get the full list in my Game of the Year playlist video, soon.

Let me list some noteworthy titles, then. I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect trilogy - I hadn't played games two or three before I made the Commanding Shepard video, and it was a thrill to finally experience this series. I was also utterly engrossed by The Last of Us Part II and Disco Elysium. And put many, many hours into Spelunky 2. Obviously.

I also played a bunch of games with my partner. We loved Super Mario 3D World and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. We also dug Rivals, which is an Obra Dinn-inspired archeology game about writing the biography for a 90s band. And we played a lot of Fall Guys, seeing who would win first (spoiler: it was me).

5 - Movies and TV

Okay, don't worry. I didn't watch this stuff on my phone - I'm not a maniac. It was just for the photo. Let me start with TV.

Probably the best show I watched this year was the documentary I'll Be Gone in the Dark, which is ostensibly about the Golden State Killer but ends up being about the woman who obsessively hunted him down. It's an extraordinary story. I also really liked Dispatches from Elsewhere, which is a weird and atypical show that will endlessly surprise you.

Other good shows I watched include I Will Destroy You, which is about people dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse. The hilarious and inventive Ghosts. The Third Day, which does a huge flip halfway through the series. Gangs of London, featuring excellent fight scenes from the director of The Raid. There's also Better Call Saul, The Queen's Gambit, and the whole US election coverage. We had to stay up crazy hours, but it sure took our minds off coronavirus for a week.

As for movies, some favourite flicks I saw this year include the twisty whodunnit Knives Out from Brick director Rian Johnson (I think he also directed a Star Trek movie or something?), the shockingly funny The Farewell, and the very Aaron Sorkin (in both good and bad ways) Trial of the Chicago 7. Never Rarely Sometimes Always and The Assistant were both slow, painful, heartbreaking depictions of the crap women have to put up with.

I also went on a couple binges. There was my Japanese binge: From Hirokazu Kore-eda, I watched Like Father, Like Son; Still Walking; and The Truth. And then the Yasujirō Ozu movies Late Autumn and Autumn Afternoon. And my Nixon-era political movies binge: Frost/Nixon, The Post, All the President's Men, and Nixon.

This was also the year of disappointing films from my favourite directors. Tenet was Cristopher Nolan at his loudest, most incoherent, most emotionless. I love Charlie Kaufman but didn't gel with I'm Thinking of Ending Things. And I'm glad Netflix is throwing money at David Fincher, but Mank was pretty dull.

6 - Work

I'm very lucky that not only was I able to keep doing my job during lockdown, but that my industry (both games and YouTube) thrived during the pandemic. So, if nothing else, I was able to really throw myself into work.

Basically I decided: hey, if I'm not going to do anything else, I might as well work like crazy. And it all paid off, as I hit the million subscriber milestone (and received a rather pretty plaque from YouTube to mark the occasion). Sure, I burnt myself out a bit and thought I hated video games for a while. So, that was bad. But all good now!

I'll talk more about work stuff in a big 2020 in review post.

Oh, and one work-adjacent thing that really kept me going through 2020 was... Discord. The GMTK channel is always buzzing with people to talk to, and new stuff to gab about. And I also have various channels where I talk to fellow YouTubers and play online games with them. Certainly made me feel less isolated!

And there we have it. Chat soon!