It absolutely deserves the hype, phenomenal game.

Combining everything into the master #aoty list:

#1 Felbm - winterspring/summerfall
#2 The Acacia Strain - YASFGH
#3 Backbiter - Misery Tapes...
#4 Netherwalker - Odyssey of Respair
#5 Ben Hackett - Songs for Sleeping Dogs

Also want to shout out Vulfpeck's Clarity of Cal, Vulfmon's Deg, and Way Dynamic's Massive Shoe.

My top 5 ambient #aoty list

#1 - Felbm - winterspring/summerfall
#2 Ben Hackett - Songs for Sleeping Dogs
#3 Lynn Avery & Cole Pulice - Phantasy and Reality
#4 Camiidae - Echoes of a Little Natural Journey
#5 Hayden Pedigo - I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away

Anyway, this album is like touching heaven for a little while, and I'm so glad it exists. What a stroke of luck to be listening to the Radio 2 jazz show and catch this while I was working. Thanks Jamie Callum, you diamond.

I also played this album in the birthing suite while my wife and I rested once the epidural kicked in. It was the only real moment of calm in 50 hours of labour chaos, and I was incredibly thirsty for that oasis of peace, just for a while.

I can count the albums I think are 10/10 on two hands, but this sits right near the top, it's that good. A sumptuously delicate album that oozes sincerity and dedication to the theme.

I've spent all year chasing the high of hearing @felbm.bsky.social winterspring/summerfall. Really diving into ancient and modern classical to find more things that stir the emotions similarly. Whilst I have been aurally blessed by plenty, nothing has really come close

That is not to say that You Are Safe From God Here isn't outstanding. In fact, it might actually be their best album? But this spring, I had a fuck kicked in by the most beautiful and enchanting album I've ever heard in my life

Wonderful choices, both amazing albums

You are a worm though time

A game which has the best FPS mechanics of all time, and a story that has more down than up. I desperately need a Remedy x Bungie team up to create the greatest game of all time please. Anyway, Control is a masterpiece and I can’t wait for more media in the setting

I genuinely think I have more fun reading the collectible journals than actually playing the thing! Not as an indictment of the gameplay, but as a celebration of how damn perfect the world is. In a funny way it stands as the magnetic south to another of my favourite games, Destiny

The story and the worldbuilding though - it’s absolutely flawless. Remedy is incredible at letting the details tell you the story, and every little piece of this world feels lived in. I’ve drawn so much inspiration from it for my own creative endeavours

Gameplay wise, it is a solid 7.5/10. For a game I adore, it occasionally is incredibly annoying to play. Most of the RPG and progression systems are actively pointless, and the combat is fun and weighty, but pretty one note