Before the numbers, the most popular articles, and my favorites, I'd like to thank my dedicated readers. While this isn't a massive site, the readers inspire me to continue the project.
When it began in 2016, I intended to write and release three articles a week, twelve articles a month, or 156 articles a year. The first year I wrote 121, followed by 77, 76, 74, and in 2020, 79. We're on an upswing! Second best year ever! Joking aside, one and a half articles a week seems to be my number. Optimistically I'm aiming for two a week, but realistically four years tells the story.
In 2020, I published forty-one video game articles, fourteen Presidential Event articles, eleven other political articles, eight short stories, and five reflections. Those numbers remain consistent from past years. At a bare minimum I plan to increase the number of short stories to twelve. At best I hope to write two articles a week.
Regular readers know biggest articles over five years are Building the Best Army in Mount and Blade Warband: Archers and Conclusion, Europa Universalis 3 versus 4: Sometimes Simpler, Occasionally More Complex, and Just As Fun, and Building the Best Army in Mount and Blade Warband: Infantry and Cavalry. All of these were published in the first year of Awkward Mixture.
Two articles from 2018, Dark Souls III: Reading Signs and Summoning Phantoms and A 4X-RTS Comparison: Sins of A Solar Empire, Star Ruler 2, and Stellaris also amassed a following.
More importantly, a review of the articles of 2020.
Top 10 Article by Views
Since half the articles on Awkward Mixture review video games, it's unsurprising that video games hold five of the top spots. Four go to political articles, with one remaining for a short story. Over five years, and the fifty most popular articles (including this year), thirty were for video games, thirteen for politics, six for short stories, and one for Star Wars.
The most popular article of Awkward Mixture in 2020 was Neofeud. As the fourth article published in 2020, it has a natural advantage. It was available longer than most. On the other hand, the vast majority of articles aren't read after the first week. Something else must be going on. People seem to prefer articles about bad games to good games. That's not always true, but as I mentioned last year, significantly more people read my articles about Brigador, Sins of A Solar Empire, Star Tactics, and Bomber Crew. Of all these, Neofeud is the best, but need I say it again? I don't recommend these games!
Number two is the first, and only short story. A significant step up from last year, when the single short story placed tenth. What's Left From Here To There, isn't a short story, but more akin to a poem. I wrote it in February, when I realized I hadn't written a story in January. I didn't write another until July. It's short lines, calculating how many more mundane actions I'd take, released shortly before the pandemic struck.
Third place went to Prey, which won 2nd Place in video game awards this year. Actually, it wasn't Prey, per se. The readers got it right! They read about the Prey DLC, Mooncrash, which was better than the base game. Congratulations! Instead of a focusing on the plot, Mooncrash challenged the player to revisit (again and again) a moonbase overrun by aliens. Each time the condition of the base worsened; power outages, radiation leaks, and massive fires. The difficult scaled beautifully, and maintained a frightful tension.
Unlike last year's most popular political articles, which were from the Presidential Events series, the majority in 2020 were about Biden, Bernie, Amesbury, and Massachusetts. In With Biden as the Presumptive Democratic Nominee, Both Parties have Declared a Generational War Against the Young, I analyzed the exit polling data from the NYT for the Democratic primary. Even in states that Biden won by large margins, Sanders soundly defeated him in the under 40 age brackets, including among non-whites and African Americans. I hypothesized why my cohort voted this way (as I did). The issues facing younger voters are climate change, massive economic inequality, and racial injustices. While younger voters saw Sanders as the solution, Biden's older voters didn't even recognize the issues.
Fifth place goes to Amesbury Additional: Black Lives Matter Protest. The first event occurred during the summer, with a packed downtown of masked protesters. Later events didn't garner the same attention, and met at the local Stop and Shop for a few months. That seems like a sound reflection on the difficulty of maintaining momentum for crucial issues. Succinctly, it is difficult.
Particle Fleet: Emergence wins sixth place, making it the 3rd video game on the list. It is another abysmal game that received more attention than better ones. Another iteration of the Creeper World games that first found their audience on old flash sites, gamers should play the free original instead.
Next is Unfinished Games of 2020: Part I. This is literally a list of games I didn't think were worth playing, but more people read it than the articles about the best games. No. No. Go read the earlier article about all the games from this year. Here it is: Awkward Mixture's Video Games of 2020: For the First Time in Five Years, I Review A Game Released This Year. Or maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for. They are trying to avoid the worst games. Yes, that must be it...
Eighth and ninth place are political articles. The first is The Presidential Events of 2019: A Conclusion, which released in late January, 2020. It was the first year long summary of the President. That was a year: the President insulted a 16 year old girl on Twitter, and cut three million people from food stamps.
The second to last article questioned the tactical brilliance of presidential candidates and political pundits attacking voters. Pundits and Politicians: Smearing the Voters details how Clinton, Trump, and Biden insulted voters, slandering them as cultists, bullies, abominations, and traitors. Insulting the other candidate has a long and storied history, but insulting voters is a new tactic that seems unlikely to succeed, except at dividing us.
This game, in tenth position, left me extremely conflicted. Disco Elysium was one of the best games of the year, except for a game breaking flaw. With the proper foreknowledge (find enough money to pay for the second night at the hotel), the horrific design decision can be avoided. Then this becomes a game worth playing. But I can't overlook the error.
The End of The Presidential Events, Sort Of...
Two and a half years of recording the actions of President Trump has been exhausting. At worst, he generated enough newsworthy derangement to fill two weekly columns per month. While the articles were mindless to write, a compilation of headlines, they required a serious effort to collect the data, compile it, and order it into an article. Two years of dredge drained me of the impetus to write deeper political reflections. This year I regained a bit of my footing with articles not about the President. That trend should accelerate after January.
Biden's return to The White House portends something different. Less chaos, certainly. An improvement, sure. But that doesn't mean it is without hazards. An administration like Obama's or Clinton's isn't the leadership, or the policy, Americans need. It will include less verbal assaults on minority politicians, but will it see a humane border policy, or an adequate solution to global warming? We'll be reporting here, at the Presidential Events: Now With More Biden.
Top Short Stories by Author's Choice.
It might seem silly to recommend three short stories, when there were only eight in 2020. I'll stick to two.
In Two Yellow Eyes, Facing Each Other: Not Daisies, one is the Sun (spoilers, not really spoilers), but can you guess the other before the reveal at the finish? There should be enough clues, including a reference to a famous poem, to help discover the answer.
I thought about adding another list of sights in The Light Beyond the Memories, but decided against it. Sometimes I plot out every ~1,000 word short story into three mini acts before writing. Other times, like in Memories, I didn't have a clue what the ending would be. I spent an extra night thinking about it. I didn't want to write something predictable, or too saccharine. Readers don't appreciate a cop out (it was all a dream / illusion), and it needed to be creative without breaking the readers immersion. That doesn't mean it needed to be fully comprehensible on the first read, but to be acceptable enough that the reader goes back to the beginning, reads it again, and comes away satisfied. Hopefully in the short time I had your attention, I was able to do that. If not, maybe next time.
The End of 2020, Almost
That's the The Presidential Events Conclusion, Video Game Awards, and Reflection. For the fifth year, I've added a bonus Video Game Award to highlight the best of the best of five years. On Friday, readers will receive The Presidential Events of December 2020. Then it will be new games, stories, and politics.
Again, Thank You!
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