Friday, January 31, 2025

I didn’t expect Trap Construction Corp to work

Well, it happened again. I went into an Alexander Shen game with low expectations and my first reaction to playing it was "Let's play that again"

While Trap Construction Corp is themed around building traps for a dungeon, it is really filling a grid with Xs and numbers. While many of Alexander Shen's games have a certain level of whimsy, if only in the artwork, this one is as abstract as Tic Tac Toe.

You have an eight by eight grid. Each turn, and there are only eight turns,  roll a six-sided die. On one to five, you get to fill in a pattern with the number in the middle anywhere on the grid. Ones just take up one space while fours and fives let you fill n lines from edge to edge. Sixes force you to block off a three-by three space whose location is determined by rolling two eight-sided dice. New patterns can cover up numbers already on the grid. And those three by three blocks cancel out any numbers or Xs within them. 

At the end of the game, your score is determined by a value determined by the number of numbers on the grid (This is not adding up the numbers but a chart. More numbers, higher value) plus the number of Xs minus the number of empty areas multiplied by the size of the larges empty area. Trap Value + number of Xs - (number of empty areas x size of largest empty area)

Did I mention Trap Construction Corp was abstract?

Yes, the grid is supposed to be a dungeon you have been contracted to fill with traps. The numbers are the traps, the Xs are the area of effect of the traps. and the 3X3 areas are your client's personal quarters. But does it remotely feel like that? No. Honestly, a theme about urban development would make more sense, although it wouldn't make the game any more thematic.

I have played a lot of abstract strategy games and a lot of Roll and Writes over the years. And you generally get a sense of when a game is going to be functional with no mechanical issues but with no engagement. The equivalent of balancing your checkbook but without the positive outcome of accomplishing something, even if its just your own entertainment. And I really assumed that Trap Construction Corp would be like that.

However, what got me is the empty spaces and trying to make them as small as possible. The actual hook of the game is cutting up the grid. Even a rolling a one and only being able to fill in one space can be crucial it its the right space. And since you have the freedom to place a trap on any open space, you have a lot of actual choices. And the sixes with their 3x3 blocks keep the tension up. 

Yeah, somehow rolling eights ones would lead to a completely broken play. However, that would clearly be an extreme outlier. And the game is eight turns long. That makes a potential unbalanced game like that more forgivable.

Alexander Shen's focus seems to be making tiny games and puzzles that take five minutes or less to play. That's not something everyone needs or wants. However, be it for coffee breaks or brain fog breaks, I have found that I am indeed in the demographic that plays those kind of games. And Shen has proven to have a real gift for creating them. it might seem like a super easy thing to make but I have seen enough bad examples that I have come to appreciate Shen.

That said, Shen has had misses, games and puzzles that didn't interest me or were even broken. I really expected Trap Construction Corp to be a game i checked off the list and forgot. Instead, it looks like it's headed for my clipboard of coffee break Roll and Writes.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Sketchy Ski Lifts is about making lazy skiers happy

It has been many years since I last played On the Underground (although I wouldn't mind playing it again) but the element that has stuck with me is the lazy passenger mechanic. The idea of a passenger who will always take the route that will involve the least walking. And really, who can blame them?

Sketchy Ski Lifts is a free PnP R&W that is pretty much built around that idea. I don't know if On the Underground was any kind of inspiration, but it takes the most memorable element of that game and focuses on only that. And, just in case you don't read any further, it works pretty well.

There are multiple maps of increasing difficulties. Each one has a grid of three pairs of destinations and clumps of trees, along with a fairly simple tech tree/bonus track. Your goal is the create the most efficient routes between each of the paired destinations and you will be scoring the routes twice over the course of the game. 

The game is played on 8 x 10 grid, which does give it the benefit of being bigger than the 6 x 6 grid which sometimes feels like the standard for PnP. Each turn, an eight-sided die and a ten-sided die get rolled. One for the columns and one for the rows. Actions include setting up a ski lift station, adding a ski lift pole and knocking down a tree so that lines can pass through that square. You can also spend a die to make a check mark on that tech tree/bonus track I mentioned.

I quite like a tech tree and I admit that I might be pushing a little heavily to make Sketchy Ski Lift's bonus track count as one. Squares on it can give you a bonus action on any square in the grid or let you get an upgrade, like taking out whole groups of trees in a go or adjusting the die when you place a ski life pole. None of the upgrades have any prerequisites so the tracks in Settlers of the Stone Age have a better claim to be real tech tree. Still, getting those extra little abilities makes a real difference in your play.

You will notice that actually running ski lift lines doesn't actually show up on that list of actions. That's because you draw those in at the halfway point and the end of the game. You create the infrastructure for the lines during the actual turns and then you get to turn them loose twice in the game. With each ski lift route counting as one and each empty square that your poor ski customers have to hoof as one, you figure out how many points it costs to travel between each paired destination. And you are going for the lowest score possible.

As I've already said, Sketchy Ski Lifts clicks for me nicely. While it uses ideas I have seen before, they aren't ones I've seen too often. More than that, it pairs them with a theme that makes them make sense. There is an intuitive quality to the game. You get enough turns to get some things done but not enough to get everything done. Your decisions will matter.

I think that Sketchy Ski Lifts gives you an interesting experience for a very low cost. (As someone who has lived through every edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I assume everyone has d8s and d10s lying around) However, as I explore the different maps, it may turn out to be a hidden gem. 

Monday, January 27, 2025

Being weird doesn’t mean good gameplay but does mean a closer look

Farmers Finances was a game that I discovered shortly after I started seriously looking at Print and Play. It placed first in the 2016 9-Card Design Contest, which was why I found it so easily. I played it occasionally for a couple years and then set it aside.

I will say that, when I was doing a heavy possession purge while preparing for a cross country move, Farmers Finance survived.

It’s a commodity trading game that consists of nine cards. Plus one die and a few tokens. I have seen a lot of minimalistic games over the last several years and Farmers Finances is still impressively minimalist.

In fact, three of the cards are used to track money and the market. There are only actual six cards that you are doing stuff with. Four wheat and two cows. You spend the entire game buying and selling these cards over and over.

The last time I really looked at Farmers Finances, I couldn’t decide what I thought of it. I felt like it was a unique, downright fascinating design. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure the actual gameplay was that strong.

Obviously, you want to buy low and sell high. And you can increase the value of your wheat by turning it into bread. The decisions are pretty obvious and the random market changes have a big effect on how things go.

Having gone back to it after a number of years, I feel like the pros and cons have actually just gone more extreme. On the one hand, I found the choices even more limited. On the other hand, I have played dozens of Print and Play games and I have still played nothing like it.

Ultimately, Farmers Finances is like a dancing bear. It isn’t that it’s a good dancer. It’s just amazing that it dances at all.

And here’s the thing. The game is nine cards. That’s not the minimum amount of construction for a Print and Play but it’s still very low. It’s such an unusual experience that I think it’s worth making and playing.

Friday, January 24, 2025

Take It Easy somehow became a genre

Take It Easy casts a shockingly big shadow. For such an honestly light and quick little game, its core mechanic of Bingo with strategy has been used in what has to be hundreds of designs at this point. And while many of those designs haven't made it to the formal publication stage (I look at a lot of design contests and free PnP files and other prototypes), there is no denying its influence.

While the term multiplayer solitaire gets used as a pejorative for games that have minimal or only indirect interaction, Take It Easy is an example of a true multiplayer solitaire. Nothing anyone else is doing has any effect on you. Everyone has their own board and there is no difference between a solitaire game and an auditorium where the moves are being shouted out to everyone over a loudspeaker. More than that, play is simultaneous, which makes playing with a big group actually viable.

There have a been a couple of waves of Bingo With Strategy games, with the first ones being from creators who clearly grew up with Take It Easy. Reiner Knizia's Take It Higher is a clear example of that. I think Karuba is a particularly creative use of the core mechanic. And the increase in Roll and Writes led to dice-based uses of the mechanic because that seriously cuts back on the amount of components. However, 2020 with the need for games that you could play while social distancing made the mechanic explode.

And, let's be honest. Multiplayer solitaires can be played as flat out solitaires without changing anything. Which is honestly what drew me to them. I could have the actual experience of playing the game without feeling like I was playing a lesser version. And, again, what with the explosion of interest in Bingo With Strategy games, I am sure I am not alone.

And some of these games can be surprisingly complex, using dice pools and economic systems. I am pretty sure there are some war games that use Bingo With Strategy as a core mechanic, even if that's not where my interests really lie. Creators have done a lot with the idea and I'm sure some of them haven't even heard of Take It Easy. Which makes me ask, how does Take it Easy, which just consists of trying to make colored lines cross a hexagon, hold up?

The answer is surprisingly well.

Personally, in addition to being a game I routinely go back to for solitaire play, Take It Easy is one of the most successful games I've found to introduce to non-gamers and I've even had it requested. In fact, while when I first tried to get a copy, it was hard to find, it seems to have been in print and easy to find for many years.

And I think the key to what makes Take It Easy work and what has always made it work is not that it is simple (And to be fair, it is very simple) It is that Take It Easy is unforgiving. Once a line is broken, there is no mitigating factors. That line is done. Since the tiles are a known factor, there is room to make educated guesses. However, its still always a gamble. The 'wrong' tile can bring your plans down like a house of cards in a hurricane. That means that there is tension and getting a good score is actually meaningful.

Take It Easy took a while to become influential. From what I can tell, literally a generation. Some ideas take time to catch on. However, it’s always been a good game.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Zombie apocalypses make me care about Sonic

 I have never actually had much interest in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Most of my knowledge of platforming games comes from my wife and son and they prefer Mario. However, when I saw that Humble Bundle had a Sonic comic book bundle, I was interested enough to pick it up.

You see, one thing that I do know is that Sonic the Hedgehog had the longest running comic book based on a video game. Archie Comics ran their title for twenty-four years. And I had heard about this because the series developed both a big fan base and a lot of legal issues. Quite frankly, I suspect that reading about all the behind-the-scenes events might be more entertaining for me than the actual comic book.

And here's the kicker. The bundle (and I knew this going in) is a completely different series produced by IDW. However, I felt it would be still worth my while because I knew the older series would influence the newer one (I believe it even has some of the same creative staff) and IDW has a pretty good track record with IPs.

One thing that was very clear, albeit not remotely surprising, is that Sonic has a lot more personality than Mario lol I think that was Sonic's selling point from the get-go, that he had more attitude than Mario. My family loves Mario games. As the RPGer, I played though Super Mario RPG partially for my family’s entertainment (I was entertained too) and it was good fun. However, Mario is clearly what Scott McCloud referred to in Understanding Comics as a mask, a blank slate we can project ourselves onto. (Works even better as a concept in video games than comic books) Having character works against the purpose of Mario.

Also, as someone who only knew about Sonic and Tails and Knuckles and Shadow (and some of them only thanks to movie trailers), I had no idea how ridiculously big the Sonic cast was lol

The bundle's graphic novels largely consist of the first two story arcs for IDW's version of the comic book. And, boy, are they the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

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The first arc was about Sonic and his friends thwarting a big bad who was trying to gather the setting's McGuffins, the chaos emeralds so thru can  conquer the world. It was boilerplate action storyline and I would not be surprised if it was an adaptation of a video game and I just didn't know it. Amusing but forgettable.

The second, longer story arc was the Metal Virus Saga, a zombie apocalypse. Now, instead of dying, the cute critters of Sonic's world were getting coated with metal. Apart from that, pure zombie apocalypse. For an all ages comic book, it was surprisingly dark and emotionally mature about the crisis.

Pretty much right off the bat, Sonic gets infected. He can fight it off with his hyper metabolism but it is a gradually losing battle. Issue after issue of Sonic trying to save the world while he can't save himself. Might not be deep but it definitely drives tension and emotional weight.

The MVP for the arc goes to Cream, a bunny rabbit who turns out to actually be from the games and who feels like a replacement for Tails when they wanted to age him up.  (Total guess on my part)  While introduced as a beacon of optimism, she has to watch her family succumb to the plague as she struggles to help the survivors. Good job,IDW, getting me emotionally invested in a character.

The single scene that stayed with me was a nameless infected civilian sneaking into the resistance shelter because they didn't want to be alone when they, for all intents and purposes, died. And, yes, it went horribly wrong. It was a surprsingly emotional scene for an all ages work.

I haven’t become a Sonic fan from this experience. However, I was surprised at how good the Metal Virus Saga was. 

Monday, January 20, 2025

Interesting ideas don’t always lead to satisfying Sudoku

I let Dicember be an excuse to go through my Roll and Write files and look for odds and ends. That’s how I ended up playing Dicedoku.

Yeah, it’s a Sudoku as a dice game. It’s not even the first time I’ve seen that (we will get back to that)

Like other games like it, it uses two by three boxes to form the collection of grids because you are only using six numbers. And it’s a two X three grid of those boxes so it’s a six by six larger grid.

And, yeah, if that doesn’t make sense, it will with one glance at the board.  

Here’s the clever bit. Each turn, five dice get rolled. You use one of them to select a Tetris shape. Then, you make that shape with the other four numbers and put that number-shape into the grid.

I’ve seen similar mechanics. Mosaix, which is from 2009, has a similar idea. But I can’t think of seeing this exact mechanic before. And I do think it is interesting. 

Unfortunately, I found the actual game to be mildly annoying and I kept wishing the mechanic had been put to a more interesting use. It wasn’t the worst game I learned for Dicember 2024 but I can’t say I want to play it more.

A year or so ago, I learned Sudoku Rush, which is speed sudoku. The idea isn’t as clever but the execution is more fun. The fact that I can say that isn’t good for Diceduko.

Diceduko has an interesting core mechanic but applying to Sudoku just makes me want to do regular Sudoku puzzles.

Friday, January 17, 2025

Does Orchard:Recipes do enough?

 Orchard was a game that revised my ideas about what you could do with nine cards. While I had played multiple tile-laying games that had only eighteen cards, I felt nine cards wouldn’t leave enough decisions. But Orchard did it.


And Grove took that formula and elevated it. And a major way that it did it was to add Sprawlopolis-style goals with scoring targets. And while I did still play Orchard, I liked Grove more.

Orchard:Recipes is an expansion that adds those goals to Orchard.

Truth to tell, the biggest effect Orchard:Recipes had me was appreciate other elements of Grove (and later Forage when I learned that game) Mind you, I do like having a clear win-lose condition in solitaire games because it creates a clear goal beyond ‘beat your own score’ or ‘just do this activity’ So Orchard:Recipes does improve the game for me.

Grove has glades, which are effectively blank squares. They add a lot of flexibility to your ability to place tiles. They make the game sort of easier but also more interesting.

In comparison, Orchard is a lot less forgiving. Every square has a type of tree and that makes placement a lot more restrictive. Having a way to get bonus points and a point goal doesn’t change that.

I am glad I made and tried Orchard:Recipes. However, I still prefer Grove (and Forage)

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The Magnus Archives - my choice of horror for housework

The Magnus Archives is a horror podcast that I have been listening to off and on for the last few months. I only listen to podcasts when I'm doing something else. A quote that has stuck with me from My Brother, My Brother and Me is that podcasts are the mustard of life. They add some spice but you don't eat them by themselves.

So, the Magnus Archives are for cooking and cleaning. I add cosmic horror to folding the laundry.

The framework is that we are listening to recorded statements from the archives of the Magnus Institute, a paranormal research center in London. The primary voice actor and creator of the series is a guy called Jonathan Sims, who has a voice like Vincent Price after one too many cups of coffee. He named his character after himself, which had to be creepy at times.

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Initially, the Magnus Archives seems like a monster-of-the-week job. Urban fantasy and modern horror. However, as the podcast goes on, there is a broader story revealed. Not only is there a bigger picture, there aren't any actual monster-of-the-week stories. Everything ties together. Every story is a mythology story, to use a term I'm pretty sure the X-Files coined.

More than that, the Magnus Institute isn't an impregnable fortress. The first season has the institute almost destroyed by a literal supernatural infestation, as the statements start coming from inside the institute itself. There are ongoing characters who are being pulled into the nightmare hellscape that is the true reality of the setting. Oh, that was fun to write.

Okay, full disclosure, I haven't come close to listening to all of the Magnus Archives. However, I have read up on it so I am familiar with the overall setting and story arc. And it's an almost Lovecraftian cosmic horror. The supernatural horror all comes from the Powers, the manifestation or the origin of human fears. (Which is why I feel it isn't full Lovecraftian since it does directly connect to humanity. Cthulhu doesn't care about us. The Powers do) And their influences and actions are disturbing, often visceral and ultimately inescapable. Good stuff.

Jonathan eventually learns that he is becoming the avatar of one of the powers, the Eye, the fear of being watched. An incredibly amusing aspect of this is that people who give him testaments are compelled to be truthful and coherent. Thus, there is an in-story justification to why all the statements are structured to be good stories.

I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, let alone horror ones. So I don't know how the Magnus Archives measures up. However, I am enjoying myself

Monday, January 13, 2025

Very, very early thoughts on 52 Kingdoms

It is human nature to give added weight to something for arbitrary reasons. For example, I try to make the first game I learn in a year one I think will be a good one. For 2025, I taught myself 52 Kingdoms: Adventures.

It is from Postmark Games, a game publisher that I fell in love with last year. And it fits most of the basic parameters of their other games. It only exists as a Print and Play game and doesn't require any construction. Print out a couple of play sheets and you are good. However, instead of using dice as the random element, 52 Kingdoms uses a standard deck of cards.

It is also a dungeon crawl, a genre I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I cut my teeth on Dungeons and Dragons back when dungeons crawls were its basic format. I have played more dungeon crawls than I can remember. On the other hand, I have seen just so many. It's hard for me to get excited by one now.

Each game consists of two sheets of paper. One is of the dungeon map, which honestly bring back memories of old Dungeon magazine, which isn't a bad thing. The other is a choice of two characters to play. You slide the character sheet under the map so you only see one character. The reason I phrase it that way is because there are two maps and two sets of characters... so far. More are yet to come.

I'm not going to go through the rules. Honestly, after I've played a lot more of 52 Kingdoms, I plan on coming back to it and giving a more nuanced review. What I will say is that cards serve as special items, equipment, loot, wounds, monsters, and a randomizer. While far from the most complex dungeon crawl I've ever seen, I do feel like 52 Kingdoms packs a lot into its small space. 

I feel two dangers micro dungeons crawls can fall into are being too simple or too finicky. 52 Kingdoms avoids the latter through graphic design. The play sheets have clear areas for you to place each type of card. There are clear tables for monsters and curses. Good graphic design makes a huge difference between confusion and good game play.

One weakness that 52 Kingdoms has is that, sometimes, the bookkeeping overcomes the theme. I stop feeling like it's about magic and monsters and dungeons and I feel like I'm doing some accounting with a deck of cards rather than a calculator. That said, I think abstraction is inevitable when you're scaling down a concept.

So far, I've found 52 Kingdoms interesting but I haven't really been drawn into it. But here's the thing. I haven't explored even half of the content has been released and I know there will be more maps and characters released. And I am interested to keep on going and see the whole scope of the system.

The potential is there and I feel positive about that.

I also want to note that, when I first saw the name of the game, I was hoping that 52 Kingdoms would have a greater scale than a dungeon. However, its called 52 Kingdoms: Adventures, which gives me hope that this is just the first game in a series that uses this basic system.

Friday, January 10, 2025

Jardin Japones - planning ponds in zen gardens

Jardin Japones/Japanese Gardens is a Roll and Write where you draw a Zen garden on a grid, the garden features and locations determined by dice rolls. Honestly, that is such a very common mechanic in R&Ws. However, Jardin Japones does get some credit for embracing its theme.

Mechanically, you are working with a six by six grid. Each turn, you roll three dice. One die will determine the row or column you will be working with. The other two dice determine what two garden features you add from a table. You also can fill in one of the three branches on your convenient bonsai tree to ignore the dice and place one garden feature of your choice anywhere. After twelve turns, you’re done.

The most novel element of Jardin Japones is ponds. Every fourth turn, you draw in a pond, outlining one or more spaces. The only restriction is ponds can’t be next to each other. (Otherwise, they’d be one big pond) Some elements have to be in ponds, like bridges, but you can draw a bridge in first and draw a pond around it.

As I mentioned earlier, Jardin Japones has some solid theming for so slight a game. Lanterns need to be far from each other. Bridges need to be in ponds. Bamboo has to be in a group. And so on. 

You can violate the placement restrictions but that will affect scoring. At the very least, an item will score no points. A bridge on dry land or a lantern in the water will score you negative points though.

Ultimately, the two things that give the game interest to me are the possibilities that drawing ponds unlock and the fact that you will get a drawing of the Zen garden at the end of it.

There are advanced rules that… actually make the game more interesting. Some of the scoring is made a touch more intricate, forcing you to be a little more specific in your choices. But, more importantly, it adds bonus points. These give more focused goals for your play.

Jardin Japones does remind me of an older roll and write game, Yard Builder, where you create a backyard. I do find Yard Builder to be the stronger game because it has more elements for you to work with and your choices are more flexible.

Jardin Japones is ultimately in the hinterlands for me. It is enjoyable enough that I can see myself adding it to the regular rotation. At the same time, it has enough in common with other games that I play that it doesn’t really stand out.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Waystation is a quiet, perhaps lost, gem of science fiction

Last year, I decided to try reading Clifford D. Simak for the first time since I was a teenager. I enjoyed City enough that I decided that I would keep reading Simak. I don’t plan on doing an exhaustive study of his work but I do want hit what has been decided are his highlights.

Waystation won the Hugo Award for best novel in the 1964. And, having now read it, yeah, I can see why.

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Waystation is about Enoch Wallace, an American Civil War veteran, who serves as operator for an intergalactic teleportation station. In this setting, you can only teleport so far so intergalactic civilization needs junction stations. The waystation is located in rural Wisconsin so it’s off the beaten path. Enoch doesn’t age when he’s in the station so a hundred years pass without much change.

Then everything changes.

Earth is on the verge of a nuclear war that will wipe everything out. Surprisingly sympathetic government agents have accidentally desecrated an alien tomb, starting an intergalactic incident which is fascinatingly openly admitted to being actually political. And we learned that intergalactic civilization is having serious issues as well.

Basically, not only is Enoch about to lose everything, everyone else is in pretty bad shape too.

What might be the biggest knock against Waystation, everything ends up working out. A powerful artifact that is required to help restore civilization(all of them) ends up in Enoch’s station and the mysterious local deaf-mute girl turns out to be the one who can use it. 

Having said that, all of that is methodically set up throughout the book. It’s not a Deux ex Mechina.  I am sure that the next generation of science fiction authors would have written the same idea a lot bleaker. But, even as it stands, Waystation is still ultimately a bittersweet work.

And that bittersweet element is why the book works. Enoch is a sympathetic and decent person, but he is also flawed. His experiences have left him apart from the rest of the human race. And, while things work out, so that, you know, civilizations don’t end, there is a cost to it, and he is part of that cost. 

Waystation is a thoughtful work. There is some fascinating elements of alien culture and technology. Teleportation leaves a dead husk behind, which Enoch has to dissolve in acid tanks below the house (Star Trek never showed us that) He has been given gifts of alien items that he never learns what they’re for.

And the book spends a lot of time on alien in philosophy. Quite frankly, it never really conveys it very well, but I do like that Enoch is convinced that thinking differently is going to be the real game changer, not advanced technology.

At times, Waystation can be meandering and slow. It might be a short book, but it takes its time getting to its point, letting ideas simmer. As a teenager, it would have confused me. However, it works for me now.


Monday, January 6, 2025

Couple of highlights of 2024

 I’ve pondered doing some kind of summary of the last year. You know, it’s the kind of thing that is human nature to do. But that can get pedantic and boring.

So I’ve decided to just mention two high lights for me in my gaming life: discovering Postmark Games and joining ButtonShy’s play testing forum.

Postmark Games has a small but robust library of games. I started playing their games in January and I keep going back to them. I can’t even decide which one is my favorite.

However, what really puts them over the top for me is that they are the perfect publisher to recommend to folks who might be scared of Print and Play. Possibly because they’ve seen how it’s become an obsession for me. Not only are they good games but they are easy to make. Just print out one or two pages and you are good to go. No other construction necessary. Just add dice and pencils.

Later on, folks can learn about ButtonShy and Hammer Dice and PnP Arcade and DicePen and…

While I am not a stranger to play testing but ButtonShy’s playtesting forum was still a big experience for me. It became a major focus for my gaming time for a while and I really enjoyed the community. 

Part of it is the idea of giving back to the hobby. Part of it is seeing part of the process of development. But the community was really rewarding.

I can’t find the time to focus on playtesting all the time but I am sure I will keep doing it.

Friday, January 3, 2025

My December Gaming

December ended up being my big month for learning games. That was entirely because of Dicember. I decided to challenge myself by learning fifteen new dice games.

I learned:

Battle Card - Moro River 

Xmas Sweaters

Road to 300

Pentaquest 

Koala Rescue Club 

Inverted Dice

Roll to the Top

Diceathalon 

Diceduko

Orchard Recipes

Paleontologists 

Vault

Jose Garcia Saves the Alhambra 

Sketchy Ski Lifts

Forage

Tiny Maze Things


Mind you, a couple of those require asterisks. The Moro map of Battle Card can easily be viewed as part of Battle Card as one game and Orchard Recipes is an expansion. But I also had to balance learning games with, you know, actually life stuff so I’m okay with a couple asterisks.

I was also concerned that I would get burned out on learning games, that I wouldn’t really grok new games by grinding them out. And there was a touch of that with some of the little games I learned on Board Game Arena. However, the games I was going to enjoy anyway I did enjoy.

While there are a number of games I learned that I want to revisit but the two I have already continued to play are Forage and Koala Rescue Club. Forage is the third and currently final game in the Orchard series and Koala Rescue Club was (at the time) the latest collaboration from Post Mark Games. Both games have ancestry I appreciate.

I ultimately didn’t do as much gaming on paper but that was because I spent more time learning games. Which isn’t a bad way to end the year.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

My PnP December

December was a quiet month for PnP crafting for me. That was because I focused my gaming time on Dicember, playing a lot of different dice-based games. I still made a couple projects.


I made:

Glass Garden
Orchard Recipes

Glass Garden was my ‘big’ project for the month but my real goal Orchard Recipes was my real goal. I wanted to finally learn Forage (which I did) but I wanted to try out the Orchard expansion first.

My gaming time in December was focused on dice games with Dicemember. However, I made sure to get in some crafting.