Harder Reset

Just a quick little update post here to let you know what I've been up to and what I'm planning for the newsletter this year. 2024 was a crazy year, wasn't it? It was kind of a crap year. But it was also kind of a good year too in many ways. I'm starting to think that every year is like this, honestly. So I guess what I meant to say was that 2024 was a year. And 2025 is going to be a year too. Actually, come to think of it, so will 2026, 2027, and 2028. They're all going to be years. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I'm writing it while sick, so this whole thing might be an incoherent mess and I should probably apologize in advance.

Anyway, updates!

Obvious Update is Obvious

I'm sure you've noticed by now that I've decided to change the name of Hard Reset to Tiers in Rain and move it to my tiersinrain.com domain! And I actually took the time to set up the newsletter properly in terms of mail settings this time. So if I've done that correctly, you will have received this newsletter in your inbox and not your spam folder. It takes a considerable amount of effort if you're self-hosting Ghost. So fingers crossed!

"Why?!" I hear you asking. In my imagination. "Why would you do this, Daniel? I liked Hard Reset, it sounded cool and had a cool logo!" Well, I strongly believe I have good reasons! Aside from confusing you, and myself, it's mostly because trying to manage three websites was giving me a bit of anxiety. Even though I was only using tiersinrain.com as a simple link page for my social media accounts, it was based on WordPress and it was kind of annoying having to keep it updated all the time.

I've also felt the need to simplify my life some.

A few of you who have kept in touch with me since the early days might remember that tiersinrain.com actually started out as a personal blog before I decided to spin my cyberpunk writing off into Cyberpunkery. My intention was always to keep Tiers in Rain as a sister site to it. Lately I've been feeling like I want my personal writing to be on it again. Especially since the name has been associated with my identity online for many years now.

Meanwhile, Twitter, Facebook, Threads, Instagram, etc. had decided to become extreme right wing propaganda sites, leading me to delete my accounts on them all. And the CEO of WordPress has been on some sort of unhinged warpath against its users and threatening to destroy an established and trusted brand that has stood for two decades.

And so, since I didn't really need that link page anymore and felt like it was time to move on from WordPress, I was left wondering what to do with my tiersinrain.com domain. The most logical thing seemed to be to just move my newsletter to it. And I feel really good about it. It all kind of fell into place naturally, and all thanks to the stupidity of tech CEOs.

You can always count on rich white men being fucking idiots!

The one problem is that for whatever reason, when you migrate from one Ghost install to another, it can't transfer comments. So I lost all the comments that were on the previous newsletter posts. And I regret that. But I'm looking forward to everyone's comments and discussion on my silly newsletters in the future. I also don't plan on doing this again, ever.

Stuff I've Played, Watched, Listened To

2024 was kind of a crap year for me in terms of media consumption. I didn't play many games, read many books, watch many movies, etc.. The whole year is kind of a blur now honestly, I don't remember now why I was so busy and tired all year. I just remember that I was and it was hard to consume much. But here are some things I've been into lately that I plan on writing about individually here at some point.

Game: Neva

Neva is an indie platformer game by Nomada Studio, the dev studio that also made GRIS. It is similar to GRIS in some ways, especially in its mood and atmosphere, something that the people at Nomada seem to have a knack for. Neva is a beautiful game that tells a touching story of life, death, rebirth, and fighting back against corruption and decay. And it does it with nearly zero dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the entire game is one word. And it's perfect. The changing of seasons plays a big role in the story, which is told mainly through the environments it takes place in. You follow the two main characters as they grow and mature through the seasons. I loved this game and it had me in tears by the end of it.

Album: Songs of a Lost World by The Cure

I've been listening to The Cure's new album Songs of a Lost World pretty much nonstop since it came out back in November. It's hard to explain just how much this album means to me. Song-wise it's the best thing that The Cure have released since the early 90s and in my opinion ranks as one of the best albums they've ever recorded. Every song is a long, sweeping, beautiful journey full of emotions about love, death, grief, aging, anxiety, and joy. This album has been my close friend during some pretty difficult moments in the last few months.

Film: Alien Romulus

I originally wanted to watch Alien: Romulus in theaters when it first came out. Unfortunately I couldn't get the timing right to make it work. However, I did finally get to see it about two weeks ago with my oldest daughter who has become a pretty big fan of the franchise. Romulus takes inspiration from some of the most important entries in the franchise, namely the first and second films, the Alien: Isolation game, and the prequel film Prometheus. The film is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. It's one of those films that as soon as I was done watching it, I wanted to watch it again immediately. And, yeah, I've watched it twice more since my first viewing. I kind of want to watch it again right now, in fact. As a long time fan of the franchise, I can honestly say this ranks as one of its best.

And that about wraps up this newsletter. I'm sorry that these have been so sparse. I plan on changing that for 2025. My goal is to get at least one out per week going forward. I have plenty of things I want to write about that I can't wait to share with you. I'm also hard at work on my relaunch of Cyberpunkery under its new name. I was sidetracked by illness, constant issues with my hot water heater which broke like three times in the course of two weeks, amazingly. And my usual busy life stuff on top of it all. I am close though and I can't wait to get that going. And to write more frequently on Tiers in Rain.

See you soon!