If you’re someone who’s had to deal with depression at any point in your life (and if you’re not, hello, freak) then here’s a piece of advice that’s stood me in good stead: keep a list of the media that makes you happy.
I have a collection of movies (Emperor’s New Groove, Big Lebowski), TV Shows (Frasier, Simpsons) and books (literally anything by PG Wodehouse) that have served me well when the black dog is scratching at the door and whining to be let out so that it can shit on the lawn of my mental health. To these I add Spiritfarer, a cosy management sim by Canadian indie developer Thunder Lotus Games released in 2020 for Windows, Mac, Linux, PS4, XBox One, Switch, Android and Stadia.
Hey! Hey! My interview with Totally Not Illiterate is now up where you can see just how badly I need to clean my laptop camera (I look more gauzy than the female guest star on an episode of sixties Star Trek). Enjoy!
I make fun of Alan Moore sometimes, but rest assured it comes from a place of purest admiration. He’s who I want to be when I grow up.
When I’m in my seventies I want to be a mouthy old beard engaging in magic duals with gender-ambiguous wizards, worshipping a snake god and complaining about everything all the time.
“That’s not true! I stop when I’m asleep, don’t I?”
And today, while hacking my way through this goddamn draft, I will take a break to briefly review what is (I believe) literally the only adaptation of Alan Moore’s work to receive his blessing, Justice League Unlimited’s second episode, For the Man Who Has Everything.
I’ve decided to start a new little mini-series here where I talk about games that I really love and try to explain why they work for me and (maybe) give some attention to titles that I think deserve more love.
One of these is definitely Suzerain which is by no means unknown but, I feel, is probably more niche. So what is this game and why do I love it?
Suzerain is a 2020 political simulator from German publisher Torpor Games, available on Nintendo Switch, Mac, Android, iOS and Windows. You play Anton Rayne, the fourth president of the fictional nation of Sordland in the equally fictional continent of Merkopa. After a choose-your-own-way recounting of your early life which functions as a character creation session you get to choose Anton’s socio-economic and political background. The game takes you from his election to president to the end of his first term, with you facing various political crises and scandals while you try to shape the country to your own political ideology.
Suzerain teaches you very, very quickly that politics is hard, messy and often deeply morally compromised. On my first play through I just tried to rule according to my conscience, funding health and education, avoiding military conflicts, pouring money into welfare, trying to reform the constitution and advancing the rights of women and ethnic minorities.
President Rayne’s first term ended with him strapped into an electric chair and the bastards didn’t even wet the sponge.
My friends, I ask you to consider a simple hypothetical:
Maybe we’re the assholes?
This meme did the rounds last year after Pixar’s Elio crashed and burned and someone at Disney had gotten into the hard liquor and had some feelings they needed to express. And while I do believe that 90% of the time creators blaming the audience for the failure of their project is the mark of a talentless hack so high off their own farts that they genuinely believe that the only way anyone could dislike their output is if there was something morally wrong with them…
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
…you know what? I gotta give them this one. And I can say that, because I am actually one of the two people who saw Elio (Micro-Mouse is the other one). Elio is not a perfect film and I probably won’t watch it again. But it was charming, well animated, sincere and, yes, not a retread or rehash or cynical nostalgia bait cash grab and we all just left it to die on the road like a leper.
It’s one thing for Disney to complain that we didn’t give them a participation trophy for Strange Worldor Wish. When we said “we want original animated films”, the rider “…that aren’t absolute bobbins” should have been taken as read.
But with Elio, they showed up. They gave us what we said we wanted. Aaaaaand it turns out we were a bunch of lying hoors because we instead gave a billions dollars to this:
I’m acknowledging this exists. Enjoy it while it lasts because this is the only time.
Then again, this year saw the hugely succesful release of Hoppers, which was not merely good like Elio but genuinely excellent with a truly original premise, animation that actually innovates and shakes up the old Pixar house style and some great comedy. Well, I say “original”. Clearly they stole wholesale from Don’t Trust Fish.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
“Our lawyers ate your lawyers. And left their bones in a pile outside the entrance to “It’s a Small World””.
But it doesn’t matter! Because the next Hoppers might end up like Elio. We can’t be trusted, and once you’ve proven you can’t be trusted no one will ever deal with you because they know you’ll never negotiate in good faith and now somehow fucking Iran has the world’s economy by the goddamn short-hairs.
Two weeks, 20,000 kilometres, 4 countries. There are trips and there are TRIPS and my contribution to the family collection of fridge magnets has been robust and muscular.
Anyway, horrendous “I’m pretty sure the devil is hiding in the wallpaper” level jet lag not withstanding, this was an absolutely incredible journey.
For starters, I finally got to meet Dan Santat who, despite the fact that we made a bestselling book together, had never actually been in the same room before. It’s always a little risky to meet someone for the first time and then spend almost a fortnight in close proximity but, as we explained to many schoolchildren, it’s really the only way to make friends in your forties. Seriously though, Dan is absolute gem of a human being and it was wonderful to have him as a guide through his amazing, often bewildering country.
We started in Chicago, headed to Austin and then San Antonio, then up to Colorado, over to Seattle, down to San Juan California and then up to Vancouver visiting a total of 16 schools and bookstores.
We actually got to meet the Cat in the Hat. Total prick.
Everywhere we went I was stunned by the generosity and the enthusiasm and the gosh-darned decency of everyone that we met.
I will treasure this 3D printed Jeff for the rest of my days.
This trip taught, or re-taught me that kids are kids the world over. They have the same hunger for knowledge, the same wonderfully mad sense of humour, the same mixture of innocence and great wisdom. Meeting these children, and the librarians and the teachers who work themselves to the bone on their behalf because they love them and understand how important they are has made me more optimistic than I have been for a while.
Naive of me to think, perhaps, but I think y’all are going to be alright.
Heeeeey it’s me, Unshaved Mouse, your favourite writer/blogger who overpromises because he’s terrified of disappointing people and ends up taking on WAAAAY too many writing projects and then spirals and completely burns out!
“You know! THAT fucking idiot! Ha ha!”
So, as you all know I’m currently preparing for my first North American book tour at the end of this month while also facing a huge quivering mass of deadlines so this review is going to be shorter than the queues for Melania.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I do have things to say about this movie.
At the end of the month I’ll be embarking on an epic, two week book tour of North America with my colleague in anti-piscine propaganda Dan Santat! We’ll be doing readings in schools across the US and Canada as well as some public events and I’d love to see you there!
In last year’s wrap-up I noted that 2025 was a big important sounding year for doing big things and I don’t want to brag…
Like, I genuinely don’t want to brag. I’m Irish Catholic, I’m brag intolerant. But fine, yeah, this was a REALLY big year for me. Without a doubt my most successful year since becoming a full time writer.
For starters, my third novel, The Burial Tide was released and was selected by the New York Public Library not only as their second best horror book of the year but one of their 20 best books of 2025.
But let’s not beat about the bush. The real star of the show this year was Don’t Trust Fish, my first picture book illustrated by the incomparable Dan Santat which was…deep breath.
Because the experience of watching Son of the White Mare again could never top the experience of watching it for the first time.
And you know what’s crazy? This is…drumroll please…my final reader’s request. And the reason I left this one to last was because the requester simply asked me to review “something Eastern European” and I just chose this because it looked interesting. I picked this one almost at random.
unshavedmouse 