Paper Putt isn’t bad but not nine pages in a sitting

Robin Gibson played an important role in my exploration of PnP. Their Legends of Dsyx definitely pushed what I understood could be done with Roll and Write, particularly Hall of the Dwarven King. And I still regularly pull out their Paper Pinball series.

However, I have to admit that Gibson has fallen off my radar. Their work feels more on the  experimental and unpolished side. More than that, the Covid lockdown breathed life and innovation into the PnP world and Gibson didn’t stand out as much. (I wouldn’t be surprised if Gibson influenced the next generation though)

So Paper Putt had been out for a couple years before I found out It existed.

Paper Putt is a solitaire PnP R&W about playing a nine-hole mini golf course. Each hole has theming, which doesn’t do a thing mechanically but it creates some engagement. Which, I’ll be honest, the game does need.

Each hole is a a network of forking paths with a clear start and end. Each point in the path has a numeric requirement. Less than X or greater than Y or equal or even/odd. 

At the start of each turn, you mark a stroke roll six dice. You need to use two dice to leave each spot. If a spot has a numeric requirement and you get that number exactly, you get a style point. You can spend style points to regain a used die without rerolling it. If you can’t make move, mark a stroke and reroll all the dice.

Each hole has a par two or three. It’s golf so low score is the goal.

I think Paper Putt had a pretty decent decision tree. I think it gives you room to make decisions and plan ahead. Truth to tell, I think it’s more mechanically solid than some of Gibson’s other games.

However, I don’t think it sustains itself for nine holes. I can see playing a hole or two at a time but I think playing the entire course in one sitting would be a slog. Just too much of the same.

I do see it coming out occasionally to play a hole or two but Paper Putt isn’t firing Paper Pinball.

(In case you are curious why Gibson has fallen on the wayside for me but Alexander Shen, who often operates in a similar design space has not, I would say that Shen designs more accessible games. In fact, I think that Shen has an amazing knack at creating accessible games and puzzles)

Janky Blades is… okay

 I might have never noticed Janky Blades if it hadn’t been designed by Robin Gibson. However, their track record on Print-and-Play Roll-and-Write games has been solid for me so Janky Blades got printed out.

The theme of the game is that you are drawing a jagged sword with many different grains, indicating the artisan craft put into its creation. The reality is that you are drawing shapes on a six by eighteen grid.

Gameplay is simple. Each turn, roll three dice. One die will determine the column you are drawing a shape in. One die will determine the grain of the shape. And the last die determines the shape you are drawing.

The game last thirty turns. After you are done, you score the shapes that are contiguously connected to the handle at the bottom of the board. Each shape earns one point for every adjacent shape that has a different grain. And if you completely enclosed an empty space, it counts as a shape with its own grain.

Janky Blades is billed as a solitaire game but I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t play it as a multiplayer game Take It Easy style. There isn’t a dice manipulation mechanic and the decision tree is wide enough that you won’t end up with identical janky swords.

Janky Blades has two touches that I found interesting. First of all, as opposed to the Tetris shapes I’m used to using in a draw-shapes-on-a-grid, it uses more pointy shapes, triangles and rhombuses and the like. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tangram puzzles featured in the development. I also like how negative space can become a part of the blade.

Those two elements made Janky Blades better than I was expecting. Because, quite frankly, I was expecting a completely forgettable game who’s best feature would be drawing a pretty picture . Instead, I found the decisions actually interesting.

Ultimately, though, I have to damn Janky Blades with faint praise. It isn’t bad but there are a lot of Roll-and-Write games I’d rather play, a number of them also by Robin Jarvis.