Sink the Bismarck is a celebration of the inevitability of failure

 Sink the Bismarck is a hit of a historical oddity to me.

I remember seeing it years ago, close to when it originally came out. At that time, I was vaguely aware of Print and Play but it wasn’t any kind of focus for me. I am under the impression that a higher percentage of Print and Plays were war games at the time but I could be totally wrong.

A lot of the ‘early’ print and play war games that I looked at back in the day were hex and chit. Sink the Bismarck is actually more of a push-your-luck game.

The game is about the 1941 sinking of the German battleship Bismarck by the British Royal Navy. If Wikipedia is to be trusted, this was a turning point in the naval part of World War II.

You take on the roll of the Bismarck’s defenders, trying to shoot down the planes and torpedoes that will eventually sink her. There is no winning condition. The battleship is going to sink. You are just trying to see how much at the enemy, you can shoot down before it happens.

The version of the board that I used was simple line art of four tracks leading to the doomed battleship. The last two spaces on each track are where the plane tokens turn into torpedo tokens. Which are harder to hit.

Roll two dice to see if and where two British planes are going to enter the tracks. Place four dice on the track where you think planes or torpedoes are going to move. Roll dice for each plane to see if they go left, right, or straight as they moved down. Any placed die that has a plane or torpedo in the same space to see if you hit it. (Planes get hit on fives and sixes. Torpedos require sixes) Repeat until the Bismarck gets hit five times and sinks.

That’s pretty much the rules. You get 1 point for every plane you shoot down. You get five points for every torpedo you shoot down. Try and beat your best score.

BGG user C Hansen compared Sink the Bismarck to an old school video game and I think they really nailed it. More than anything else, it feels like an adaptation of Space Invaders, despite its historic theme. (I do appreciate it when a game gives you a history lesson though)

The gameplay is very simple and luck-based. In some cases, you can make some very good guesses on dice placement. Planes on the edges are going to go straight down 2/3 of the time and torpedoes just go straight down. But then you have to roll a five or a six or just a six. No way to modify that.

On the positive side, the game delivers the  tension. The planes and torpedos just keep coming and their numbers just keep growing. Failure may be inevitable but trying to stave it off is fun. Honestly, more fun than it has any right to be.

Sink the Bismarck’s strongest selling point it has really minimal construction requirements. One page board with very minimal ink. I just used cubes instead making the airplane/torpedo chits. And I do have plenty of dice around.

Sink the Bismarck has so-so mechanics but remarkably strong tone. The opportunity cost is so low that It doesn’t hurt to try it out.

A. Lee Martinez and Meta

 I’ve been meaning to get around to reading some A. Lee Martinez. They specialize in deconstructive/reconstructive fantastic comedy. You know, where the characters are genre savvy.

I recently read an article where Christopher Nolan said that the problem with amateur critics is that they feel if they can recognize a trope, the work is a failure. I somewhat agree that if people actually use that argument, it’s not a valid argument. However, I don’t actually know how common it is.

The problem isn’t recognizing plot devices and tropes. I’m going to arrogantly argue that it’s a problem when creators let tropes do all the heavy lifting by themselves. You still have to tell a compelling story. (Yes, I am thinking about Rob Liefeld)

I don’t think creating a meta heavy work is a big deal and I think that it’s something that pop culture increasingly leans into. TV Tropes is basically an instruction manual for it. I personally think Buffy the Vampire Slayer really pushed meta heavy into the lime light but it goes back at least as far as Don Qioxote.

(Actually, A True Story by Lucian of Samosota which was written in second century AD is an even earlier example of meta aware fiction. No, I’ve never read it and I have no idea if it’s any good. However, it’s clearly not a new idea.)

While I had read some of Martinez’s short stories, I’d been meaning to read their longer works. I started with Divine Misfortune pretty much at random.

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A world where every myth is true, interactions with the gods has stopped really being about religion and become contractual. Phil and Teri decide to make a contract with Luka, a raccoon-headed god of luck. Unfortunately, Luka fails to mention this will pull them into the bad graces of a couple of gods who are out to get him…

The short version is, I felt that Divine Misfortune works because the characters are sympathetic and engaging. The setting is utterly silly, but we are still drawn in and don’t want unspeakable things to happen to the characters.

Can we see the strings? Is the Man Behind the Curtain pretty obvious? Yes. Martinez treats the setting as a joke but not the characters so I don’t mind. It’s enough for me to buy the ticket and go on the ride.

Honestly, my biggest question was why is Luka a raccoon and not a tanuki?

Now that I’ve convinced that A. Lee Martinez is a fun author, I’m planning on tackling his Constance Verity trilogy, about a heroine who is always the chosen one and really burnt out about it. Clearly trope heavy but being thoughtful with those tropes.

Hey, you can download Flipuzzle again!

 After trying out Chutes and Levers, I decided that I wanted to revisit Flipuzzles. That series was the first set of puzzles I discovered that involved flipping and rotating a card and nothing else. 

The only component is the card itself. As you follow some sort of path on grid, you have to keep a track of where you are in your head. For me, at least, that can be quite tricky.

There are a variety of Flipuzzles. Let me compare and contrast a couple examples. 

The most basic one is Maze. You have a grid of different colored squares. You can move one space at a time. If you move up and down, you flip the card longways. If you move left or right, you flip it sideways. Either way, you are in the same coordinates on the other side of the card. In Maze, you need to find a path of the same colored tiles from the beginning point to the end.

All of the Flipuzzles follow this basic template. You are finding a path by flipping the card in different ways.

The other example I want to show is Chess. In Chess, your movements are controlled by what chess piece you are on and you have have to land on other chess pieces. The reason I picked Chess as an example is because l thought not would be one of the hardest to parse but I actually found it to be the easiest. It also shows how variety can be added to the basic formula.

Flipuzzles started out as a design contest entry called Thin Cube, one card that acted a bit like a Rubiks Cube. (Extra thanks to D. Teuber who sent me a colorblind friendly version so I could actually play it) Then, for a short time, there was a collection of eighteen puzzles in seven different flavors available for download.

That went away because Button Shy licensed the system for the subscribers. I wasn’t one at the time but I hope the puzzles made for Button Shy get released sometime.

Then, after Chutes and Levers reminded me of the series’ existence, I went back to its BGG entry and found a new set of nine puzzles had been released in 2024! So now I can recommend Flipuzzles again.

One Card Mazes remains my favorite form of this sort of puzzle. I find them intuitive to parse but still tough to solve. And I’m apparently not alone since they’ve had four successful Kickstarters.

However, Flipuzzles is still an interesting system with a lot of variety. It’s also the most intricate single card puzzle system I’ve seen. Now that you can check it out, it’s worth checking out.

Is it bad when my first reaction is ‘I’ve seen better’?

 I picked up Chutes and Levers as part of a Kickstart campaign. It’s a set of one-card puzzles where you have to rotate and flip the card as you mentally keep track of where you are.

Which makes it at least the third set of puzzles like that I’ve looked at. Flipuzzles and One-Card Mazes are the other two. And, in case this as far as you read, I honestly consider Chutes and Levers to be a distant third.

Chutes and Levers is themed around platforming video games. Each card is a maze with a distinct beginning and end point. Your goal is to move from the first to the latter.

You can only move left. You can jump over one-space gaps and jump up one space. If you go though an opening on one side of the card, you warp to the other side. If you are in a space with a lever in the lower right corner, you can turn the card 90 degrees clockwise. If you are in a space with a chute, you can flip the card to the other side.

The theming is a strong element, maybe one of the strongest elements. By framing the puzzles as video games, the mechanics become very intuitive. The puzzles are even broken down into worlds, 1-1, 1-2, etc., reminding us that it’s Mario’s world. The rest of us just live here.

However, compared to the other two system, I find Chutes and Levers much more limited. The restrictions are wonderfully thematic but they also make the puzzles feel very similar.

In comparison, Flipuzzles are very inventive and have a lot of rich variety, even if they make my head hurt. And I am amazed at how One-Card mazes reinvent themselves to the point where I always have at least one in my wallet.

Chutes and Levers is charming. And some of the puzzles are stumping me and probably will for a while. If you want a wide variety of card-based puzzles, they are worth adding to the library. But I think there is better stuff out there.

T.A.C.K. - a forgotten childhood gem

 When I was in elementary school (and wooly mammoths roamed the Earth), I stumbled upon a series of books called T.A.C.K. and really enjoyed them and reread them over and over. I recently came across copies and decided to see how they held up.

While quite dated as far as technology  and social norms were concerned (Like so much 80s kids literature, these are serious free range kids), the actual writing held up much better than I had expected.

It's a series of kiddy mysteries in an Encyclopedia Brown format so I guess the spoilers buffer is necessary to discuss any of the stories.

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As I already mentioned, the T.A.C.K. books are anthologies of kids solving mysteries with each one ending with a challenge to the readers to solve the mystery themselves before flipping the page to see the solution. The gold standard of this formula is Encyclopedia Brown and almost all of the strengths of T.A.C.K. come from the ways that it is different from those books.

The stories clearly take place in a New England state (while Mr. Brown clearly lives in Florida) with a group of four kids who solve problems, mostly small but at least one major one per book. The name T.A.C.K. comes from their names. Toria who is the narrator with an interest in journalism and sailing. Abby, the agent in remote, who moved away before the start of the series but comes back to visit once a book. Chuck, a toned down version of the All American Boy. And Will, who is the clever one. Will 'goes by K' by as a reference to the old telegraph short hand for Switch, because his brain can flip a switch and see things in different ways. Except that no one ever calls him K and that's not what K really meant in telegraphs. Hilariously, Toria openly admits all that and says it's just to justify calling themselves T.A.C.K.

What I remembered about T.A.C.K. was that the writing was very character driven, with almost all the characters having well rounded, developed personalities. (Sorry, Chuck) Toria's voice is snarky and observant. Having worked with fifth graders and high schoolers, she sounds more like a high school freshman than a fifth grader but there are occasional moments that remind us of her real age.

I am positive that I still have nostalgia filters on but I still think the books have solid tone and characterization going on. 

What I had forgotten was how different the solutions are from the Encyclopedia Brown books. Encyclopedia Brown's stories are all logic puzzles with usually one distinct clue that readers have to find in order to solve the case. While some of the T.A.C.K. mysteries are like that (In one case, how melted ice cream sandwiches were to establish the passage of time), many of them have more common sense application solutions. Being able to make sure a skunk left a garage by sprinkling flour to check for footprints.  Piling up snow to be able to reach a window ledge.

On the one hand, this means that T.A.C.K. isn't as fair play as Encyclopedia Brown, which are literal puzzles. On the other hand, this method leads to better actual stories. It might also lead to better lessons in lateral thinking but I'm not sure if elementary age kids need any help thinking outside the box.

The T.A.C.K. books are long out of print as far as I can tell but managing to revisit them was fun. I don't know if I can recommend them to an adult audience in good conscious but the hour or so it took for me reread the books was fun.

My July Gaming

 July was my month for learning games this year. Work and life will probably keep me busy for the rest of the year but I knew July would be a little more open. And I took advantage of that.

I learned:

16 lueurs d’hiver

Framework

Boat

Bonsai

Packing Party

66 fluers de printemps

Rome Must Fall

Around South America in 15 Minutes

Boxcars (Roll and Write Design Contest)

Glass Garden

Lunchbox Lair

Trial By Fire

Raft

Chutes and Levers

Sink the Bismarck 

Squeaky Clean

While a number of these games are on the light and fluffy side of the spectrum (and ain’t none of these games Twilight Imperium), I did learn some games that were a little heavier.

I have largely stopped buying physical copies of games but I did pick up a discount copy of Bonsai and took the opportunity to try it out. While it doesn’t do anything new, it ticks a lot of boxes for casual gaming, including being pretty and chill.

I also have been meaning to try out Solo War Games games. Martin Melbardis designs Roll and Write war games that are actual war games. Rome Must Fall looked like the most newbie friendly and I felt it lived up to the mission statement. I plan on looking at more Solo War Games games.

I’ve also been working my way through the season games designed for the Accessijeux charity. I had thought about trying to space them out to one a month, but I’m too eager to try them for that. Instead, I have just tried to get at least 10 plays with the one I’m on before I move to the next. They are another good example of solid casual games.

Beyond that, I learned a number of games that I had been meaning to get around to. Heck, I first looked at Sink the Bismarck over fifteen years ago lol

Near the end of July, I made copies of Chutes and Levers and Squeaky Clean from Emily Fagerstrom’s Kickstarter. I found Chutes and Levers to be weak compared to Flipuzzles or One-Card Mazes but Squeaky Clean really hooked me.

While I know that I won’t be learning nearly as many games in August, I do know I will be replaying many of the games that I learned in July.