My Year in Programming: 2025

Since I started making my end of the year posts this is the year in which I did the least amount of programming. This was actually slightly done on purpose. When 2024 was ending and 2025 was starting I looked around and realized that I only have a few years until Scarlett is an adult and a handful after that before the twins are adults. I don’t want to get all Cat’s in the Cradle about it, but looking at my own life, I know that even if we maintain the best relationship, the kids will never have as much time to hang as they do now. So I prioritized playing with them - mostly TTRPGs, but also video games and whatever else they wanted to play. Programming is often a solitary pursuit and most of my utilities do what I need them to do anyway. I also spent of a lot of my weekends cooking and baking - again providing for the family.

By EricMesa

Souls of Saraku: Days 01-03

Last year I backed the Kickstarter for the Quest Calendar by Sundial Games. This year is called Souls of Saraku. It’s a Solo TTRPG played as a daily calendar. This year the player chooses to play as a minion for a Dark Overlord (my first year, so I don’t know if it’s always like this). I’ll be blogging about it here as I do with all my TTRPG campaigns. The first 3 weeks of the calendar are a tutorial that allow the player to play with 3 of the minions so that the player is making an informed choice. For week 1 I chose to go with Severin Mortis, a Human Deathweaver.

By EricMesa

My Year in Reading 2025

When 2025 started, I had 2 goals - to get caught up with the October Daye series and to read my Science Fiction and Fantasy magazines more regularly. I was able to finish October Daye, but things fell off a give on the magazine front. I read many, many more October Daye short stories than are listed here. Many of them were not on Goodreads, so I couldn’t track them. As I got to the second half of the year, my reading fell off as I spent a lot of my free time planning for various TTRPG campaigns that I was running. I did just about finish my re-read of my Discworld books. I just have Snuff and Unseen Academicals left, but I wasn’t a huge fan of them so I don’t think I’ll read those.

By EricMesa

Review: Dungeon in a Box Q3 & Q4

I previously reviewed the first half of Dungeon in a Box as two separate blog posts. (Q1 and Q2). Since I fell behind with the other two quarters, I’ll review the rest all at once.

Important highlights from the first two posts:

I get the physical subscription. It also comes with digital assets for each box as well as access to their Wonderous One-Shot digital assets.
The digital assets include a Pathfinder 2e conversion
each box comes with a gridded map for the dungeon portion of the adventure, skinny minis, and 1 or 2 3D printed minis.

This post is intended for dungeon masters. There are story spoilers below.

By EricMesa

The Pits of Peril Trilogy Recap

Gameplay

As Grumpy, Tris, and Sasha were at the local tavern getting some cinnamon rolls, they noticed a goblin nailing something to the notice board. It turns out to be one of the kids of the owners of the Pits of Perild, an amusement park and beginner dungeon. They agree to help him. On the way to the park they fight some vampire bats while camping.

When they arrive they learn from the matriarch that Troglodytes are not honoring their agreement. They were supposed to stay in the lower levels (away from the starter dungeon first level) and only eat any unlucky adventurers that went in deep. Now they have infiltrated the first level and are attacking the guests. The team decides they will help figure out what’s going on. Also, they are to keep an eye out for her husband.

By EricMesa