Leo Colovini has been a mixed bag for me. Alexandros spent a long time in one of my groups as the standard for a terrible game. I may never life down bringing it to the table. And Cartagena never clicked for me no matter how hard I tried it. However, Clans still stands out for me as a really solid game.
Monday, November 30, 2020
Clans - this simplicity couldn’t have been easy
Friday, November 27, 2020
Lifeguard is not bad but that might not be enough
I’ll be honest. While I look at every entry in PnP contests and download them, the low ink, low construction games are the ones that get made right off the bat. (Larger games require consideration) Which is why I’ve already tried out Lifeguard: Surf and Rescue. It’s a Roll and Write that consists of one page of play sheet and one page of rules. I duplexed it and laminated and was done in one sheet of paper.
Thursday, November 26, 2020
So Kim Newman really does write fan fiction with his own characters?
I hadn’t planned on blogging about Kim Newman and his Diogenes Club stories again or at least not for a while. And then I read Cold Snap.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Osmo tricks our son into measuring stuff
Like just about everyone else in the quarantine world who has a child under 18, we have been inundated with ads for educational stuff for kids. I remember thinking back in the spring that the problem wasn’t finding stuff but figuring out what would actually help.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Sometimes, a little bit of random is what makes the difference
For a while, Leo Colovini’s Alexandros was considered the epitome of a bad (or at least disappointing game) While it wasn’t really the worst game any if had ever played, it was a very frustrating and disappointing experience and our opinion of Leo Colovini never really recovered.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Bleed in RPGs needs purpose
Every once in a while, I go back to the Indie Megamix Mixtape. It’s a rather large collection of tiny indie RPGs inspired by songs and created to raise money for creators in need. I have intentionally treated every game as a single entity and taken my time to look at them. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve looked at the collection this year.
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
Kim Newman is a strange flavor of brilliant
I decided that I needed to read more of Kim Newman’s Diogenes Club stories. I’m not going to try and read them all since I’m not sure what books and stories by Newman count and which don’t :D (I also have to note that only Moriarty and Irene Adler get pinched from the Holmes cannon more often than the Diogenes Club)
Monday, November 16, 2020
My changing opinion of Handful o Hazards
Handful o’ Hazards is the first (but not the last!) game I’ve tried from the 2020 PnP Solitaire Contest. It’s a set of tiny little scenarios for a tiny little dice system. Each scenario is on a wallet-sized card and I’m a big fan of games that you can take anywhere.
Friday, November 13, 2020
Twice As Clever isn’t bad but it’s not that much more clever
When I learned that I could play Twice As Clever as a solitaire online, I knew that I was going to be doing just that. (http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Other/Clever/) Yes, I had to actually find the rules but that wasn’t too hard.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
The second season of the Hollow justifies the cartoon’s existence
Last year, I watched the first season of the Netflix cartoon The Hollow. I just finished the second season. And it is ridiculously better than the first season.
Monday, November 9, 2020
Lost Cats is terribly clever but not my cup of tea
If you ever wanted to play Three Card Monte as a solitaire game with an ‘robot’ player moving the cards around, Lost Cats is the game that you’ve been looking for.
Friday, November 6, 2020
Wow, that’s a lot of R&W contests
I read in the Boardgame Geek newsletter that the sixth Roll and Write Design Contest has started. It won’t be done until the end of January and will be fun to follow it.
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Bruce Sterling taught me some history
All throughout reading Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling, who found myself constantly thinking ‘What am I reading!!’ and feeling like I was missing something terribly vital to my understanding of this little book.
Monday, November 2, 2020
I go to read more Frederik Pohl
The Tunnel Under the World by Frederik Pohl is a short story that I discovered when I was I was trying to find a book that had The Wall Around the World in it. I didn’t find a copy of that anthology but I did find out that Project Gutenberg had the text for the The Tunnel Under the World.
Sunday, November 1, 2020
My October PnP
Oh, I had plans for October. Our son was going to be going back to school part time with blended learning and I’d have time to get some uninterrupted crafting time in. And then blended learning got pushed back :D Eh, losing print and play time is a small sacrifice to keep everyone as safe as reasonably possible.
My ‘big’ project for October turned out to be Penny Rails. As I mentioned, I had bigger ambitions but that’s not where I needed to focus my time management. And I have been curious about Penny Rails for ages. A train game that actually feels like a train game in 18 cards and nine coins? And if it has that feel, will there be a single dominant strategy?
You know, October was a crazy month in a crazy year. I got in some crafting. That is still a real win.