Six years of this craziness, huh? More than 1.5 million words, now. The 2020s continue to be, well… you know. But how did our year go? How am I feeling about it? What’s the future look like?

We published 2 Glimpse into the Vault, 6 Adventure Logs, 11 Crowdfunding Carnivals, 22 Editorials, 6 Indie Frontiers, 15 Level One Wonks, 3 Meet the Campaigns, 7 Solitaire Storytellings, 2 System Splits, 7 Independents, 48 Weekend Updates, and 1 Why You Should Listen. We also released two more episodes of Cannibal Halfling Radio!

Our most-viewed articles published thus year were (from least to most):  The Five Mechanic Game, Apocalypse Keys, System Split Redux: L5R, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, The Trouble with Drama Mechanics, The Trouble with Kickstarer, On Being an RPG Reader, The Trouble with Prices, The One Ring, and Root. Still topped off by reviews, but with a 0 to 50% jump in more about-the-hobby stuff, which is interesting. The tail was even more of a dominating force in our total viewership  than last year – Root and TOR were the top two, but Prices was in 14th place overall, for instance.

Was it a good year for Cannibal Halfling Gaming? Yeah, I’d say so. Firmly our third best year in terms of views and articles published, but more importantly I think we highlighted some really good games and covered some very interesting topics. Mission statement fulfilled.

On the personal level, though, I’ve been very dissatisfied for months now.

I had a good first third of the year! Covering Zine Month was a great success. Solitaire Storytelling stumbled a bit but then got back on track with one heck of an April – including A Requiem For Horizon Prophecy Online: The Final Four, which honestly still sticks with me months later. Then, oof. Work, more than anything else, seemed to burn me from the soul outwards, and my capability and motivation more or less collapsed most days. Only a single article each in May, June, August, and December. Nothing in November. Behind the scenes I chipped in to a decent number of the Weekend Updates, fair enough, but they didn’t help with the overall bad vibe and disappointment.

If there was one of these end-of-the-year articles where I ended with “and that’s all, folks”,  and handed the keys over to someone else, it would be this one.

However.

I played Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage on Silhouette Zero. I published A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase , unleashed a Demon Abominating Gnoll upon the spheres, and left some Calling Cards. I helped run National Game Design Month’s discord server and itch.io game jam. and co-hosted Ind of the Year ’22. I recorded another secret project with a good friend, that you’ll hear elsewhere in ’23. So I got my hits in elsewhere.

As for getting my hits back in here, we’ve got at least three episodes of Cannibal Halfling Radio recorded.  There’s a healthy backlog of material to write about. The Solitaire Storytelling muses are humming in the background again. I’ve got the drive to establish a better work-life balance, and a simple plan: one review and one Solitaire a month, anything else is a bonus.

So bring on 2023. Bring on a seventh year of Cannibal Halflings!

You’re not rid of me yet.

Stay safe out there, play some games, and I’ll see you in the New Year to keep bringing games and gamers together.