Lil Gator Game is a perfect, golden afternoon

Our family loves us some cozy indie video games. In fact, that's almost all of what I’ve personally played video game-wise for the last couple years lol And we really enjoyed Lil Gator Game.

You probably didn't think you needed a violence-free reimaging of Breath of the Wild as a kid running around a park, smacking cardboard monsters and making friends. I certainly didn't think that. But I turned out I was wrong.

I believe that the official description of the game is a 3D platformer but it's really an open sandbox that just happens to be very small. However, since you are playing a child, the park still feels huge.

The game has two parts. Knocking down cardboard monsters while collecting the scraps for arts and crafts and making friends by doing 'quests'. While some of the quests actually involve some work, others are very simple. One of my favorites is a girl who's fallen down and all Lil Gator needs to do is giver her a hug to make her feel better.

The game wears its Breath of the Wild influence very much on its sleeve. In fact, the game all but name checks the Legend of Zelda several times. While they can't use the name, the designers using the hero of legend with their sword and shield and hat and paraglider make it clear what they're talking about.

While running around a lovingly rendered park is charming and fun, the heart of Lil Gator is the relationship between the title character and their older sister.  When they were younger, they played legend of hero games in the park all the time. Unfortunately, with college, grownup responsibilities have made her pull back from that. The entire game is Lil Gator creating a massive version of their game to try and win her back.

One of the things that the game makes very clear is the sister very much loves Lil Gator and that the game was (and is) important to her. The park is full of memories of the two of them. However, grownup responsibilities are pushing down on her. She is fully sympathetic. 

Lil Gator manages to capture a sense of innocence that you usually need Ray Bradbury to find. It also manages to have some real emotional heft. Not as bittersweet as Ray Bradbury's feels though. It is fun to explore the park but it also has a center that reminds you why you're there.

Lil Gator Game is a very short game and it’s not a difficult game. My wife has to watch me play platformers with her eyes shut and preferably in another room but I could handle it. Instead, it has loads of charm. It is the perfect afternoon with the knowledge that it can’t last.

AKA Goldfish is a flawed early work but still delivers devastating gut punches

Humble Bundle recently let me go down a rabbit hole and revisit the past with their Brian Michael Bendis bundle. 

Back in the day, I picked up the collected Goldfish from Caliber. I remember that there had been some buzz about it, that it had led to the well regarded Jynx series. It was also set in Cleveland, a city I was familiar with. I also remember how I wasn’t able to get through the thing.

So Humble Bundle gave me a second chance. I found it much easier going this time. This edition was called AKA Goldfish. Apparently, the title has flip flopped over the years.

AKA Goldfish is a crime story. It’s also very much film noire. And it’s a tragedy. Those three things tend to go well together. It’s far from perfect and I think it’s reputation is partially based on nostalgia and the fame Bendis justifiably earned farther down the road but there’s some heft to it too.

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Conman Dave Gold, AKA Goldfish, comes back to Cleveland after ten years away to take custody of his son. The mother is his estranged lover Lauren Becall, who has become a crime boss during those ten years.

And, yes, it all falls apart and ends horribly. So horribly that it manages to be emotional gut punch to the reader even though you can see it coming a mile away.. And, no, she isn’t the real Lauren Becall. 

Bendis does his own artwork in AKA Goldfish and it is a fascinating mixed bag. It’s black and white but it isn’t line outlines. Instead, it is full of huge slabs of black with lots of negative space. One reviewer compared it to making a comic book out of movie posters and I can’t give a better description than that.

And when it works, it’s good. Striking still images. However, too often it is so dark and muddy, it’s hard to figure out what it going on. In particular, I had problems figuring out what character was on the page at times. Bendis as an artist, particularly in his use of black ink, makes Mike Mignola look like Charles Schulz. And I mean that as a compliment to both Mignola and Schulz. It’s just so murky and unclear.

Bendis’s strength is his writing and that’s the strength of AKA Goldfish. It manages to be compelling even though every single character is a terrible person, even though you know from the start that it will all end in tears. The hook is how broken everyone is. 

One of the through lines in the book (major spoilers) is the gun Becall gave Goldfish when they were younger and he refused to use. In ultimately ends up in their son’s hands and he uses it to kill Becall. Not because he is lashing out or out vengeance of her abusive parenting but just to stop her from killing. And the kid gets killed almost immediately afterwards. It’s so bloody obvious but Bendis manages to make it work. Possibly through sheer audacity.

In many ways, AKA Goldfish is clearly a very early work. But it also feels so world weary. It reminds me of how I always do a double take when I’m reminded that Tom Waits was in his twenties when he recorded albums like Nighthawks at the Diner and Small Change.

AKA Goldfish is not my new favorite Bendis work. Far from it. It is so bleak I can’t recommend it in good faith to a lot of people. It is too often confusing and clunky. However, when it hits, it makes your head spin.

Koala Rescue Club is a series of knife fights in phone booths with just one die

Koala Rescue Club is the second collaboration between Joey Games and Postmark games. It’s a Print and Play, Roll and Write game for as many players as you can cram in. It’s designed by Phil Walker-Harding, the same guy who designed Sushi Go, Imhotep and Barenpark. And part of the proceeds go to real life koala conservation.

Well, that’s a lot to unpack.

Okay. The idea behind the game is that you are planting trees and rehoming koalas in them. The actual boards are collections of irregular grids connected by bridges.

The mechanics are very simple. Roll a die to determine a polynomial (or is it polyhedral?) shape. You then use that shape to either plant trees OR rehome koalas. No

mixing and matching. You can also disregard the roll and fill in one space. The rules say to draw a circle for a tree and an inner circle for a koala. I have ended up marking a slash for a tree and a back slash for a koala so a completed space is an X. 

On each board, you initially only have access to one area. You get bonuses by filling in rows and columns with koalas (meaning you have to fill in trees first) One of these bonuses is bridges to new areas.

The other bonuses include filling in a tree, filling in a koala, gaining a volunteer (which can be used as +/- 1 to a roll) or filing in a circle on a small group of hospitals on the edge of the map. Fully completed hospitals are worth points. And getting to fill in a bonus tree or koala is actually a big deal. You will end up with holes.

The game lasts two rounds of fifteen turns. You score at the end of each round. You get one point for each area completely filled in with trees, one point for each area completely filled in with koalas. Completed hospitals are worth varying points. Each map also has three bonus goals which just get scored at the end of the game.

I went into Koala Rescue Club with mixed impressions. On the one hand, both Walker-Harding and Post Mark Games have solid track records for me, including their previous collaboration Scribbly Gum. On the other hand, drawing shapes on grid is a very heavily used mechanic and only using one die flattens the odds and limits the possibilities.

(And, yes, Waypoints, also from Post Mark Games, also only uses one die. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule)

It took a bit for Koala Rescue Club to grow on me but it did grow on me. The game is all about tight spaces and tight margins. Each space is its own little knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth. And because you have to fill in every area entirely before it scores any points, every single point is tight.

But if that is your jam, and sometimes that’s exactly what I am in the mood for, having your plan come together in Koala Rescue Club is very satisfying. And you definitely have to maximize the use of the bonuses.

However, while I have come to definitely enjoy the game, I also know that it is designed for classroom use. And, having run games in classrooms, I can definitely see a lot of students getting really frustrated with Koala Rescue Club. It is honestly more of a gamer game.

(On the other hand, I can see the other Joey Games game I’ve played, Scribbly Gum, working much better in the classroom. It has a much more open decision tree.)

Koala Rescue Club might not be for everyone but it is a solid, top tier Roll and Write. And it has the bonus of going to a good cause.

Die rollers versus actual dice

 I had already overcome my initial resistance to Roll and Writes when the 2020 lockdown hit but  that really pushed me further into that particular niche of gaming. Not that I am alone in that.

But that did lead to me using die rollers more often instead of physical dice.

Looking back, there were a number of games that were being developed to be played while social distancing (via video conferencing, for instance) like Rolling Realms or Pointree. And those games are designed to be played with little to none dice manipulation. No rerolls or dice flipping or the such.

And one of the ways I often play R&Ws is via clipboard. When playing without a table, die rollers are practically key. My smart phone or my smart watch are my dice when I’m playing on a clipboard.

However, I found also started actively looking for R&Ws that were die roller friendly. While there is a time and place for those games, that was extremely limiting. Even games like Yahtzee or Bunco don’t qualify for crying out loud.

Not including the very valid argument that if you are playing a physical game with paper and pencil, you should go the whole nine yards and play with physical dice, actually having physical dice expands the toolbox that designers have to work with. 

Depending on the sophistication of your die roller (and the one on my smart watch is quite limited), basic mechanics like rerolls or flipping or banking dice can be tricky to impossible. And some games, like Battle Pages, have you place dice on the page. Trying to draw in dice would just be asking for trouble.

Now, I’m not reversing course and condemning die rollers. When a clip board or the equivalent are what you have to work with, die rollers become essential. However, when I have the time and space, I now reach for a dice bag.

Die rollers are very useful tools. They are just not an actual replacement for dice.

Katrielle Layton deserved a better video game

 When my wife, then fiancé, wanted to bring me back to the world of video games, two of the things she did was get me a DS and a copy of Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

Worked like a charm.

The game is a collection of puzzles that are strung together by the story of Professor Hershall Layton (an archeologist, gentleman and the possessor of one devil of a top hat) and his assistant Luke Triton investigating a mysterious town. Unlike many games that have puzzle-like elements, the action stops in the Layton games and you actually solve a puzzle that has little to do with the actual story.

For me, at least, the Layton games were right hot stuff.

Earlier this year, we decided to try out Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, the seventh main game in the series. Professor Layton has mysteriously disappeared and his daughter Katrielle has taken up the mantle of the detective and puzzle solver. It started out on the 3DS but was also released for the Switch.

Critics viewed it as one of the weakest entries in the series. And I have to agree.

From what I read, it is the first game that didn’t have Akiro Tago work on the puzzles, on account of him passing away. And the puzzles are definitely weaker. More than that, instead of one fairly serious story, it’s a collection of fairly light hearted stories. The story elements lack the weight and gravitas of the earlier games.

But…

We did still have fun.

And it comes down to this. Even a weak Layton game is still a Layton game. Better than nothing is a very weak argument but it is an argument. 

But, while the puzzles aren’t the best, I could forgive that. The story is what really drags the game down. While the Professor Layton stories were bizarre to the point of nonsensical, they still had drama in the context of the settings. Not only is this game broken down into individual, only loosely related, stories, some of the cases would fit right into Richard Scarry’s Busy Town Mysteries. While a couple of the cases are more serious, the overall tone feels like the intended audience is small children, not a general, all purpose audience.

The funny thing is that the three main characters all have the potential to carry a much stronger story. The story we were given made both my wife and I rush through the story elements so we could get to the puzzles.

All said and done, I’d recommend the first two Layton trilogies to anyone who likes puzzles without qualification. Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy, on the other hand, gets lots of qualifications. It is okay as our seventh Layton game but it shouldn’t be anyone’s first.

My May Gaming

 While May was a month where I made a lot of Print and Play Projects, it wasn’t a month where I learned a lot of new games. To be fair, I was making fresh copies of games or systems I was already familiar with. 

I learned:

Mysticana - Sorcerer’s Showdown

Advent of the Wyrms

Paper Pinball - Ski ‘93

Super Dice Heroes

99 (traditional card game)

Out of those games, the most interesting one I learned was Advent of the Wyrms, a Decktet solitaire game. And that was still pretty light. But worth playing again.

Ski ‘93 had the biggest impact, though, since it made me take a deep dive into the Paper Pinball system. Each individual game isn’t much but taken as a collective, the system becomes a lot more fun.

Super Dice Heroes checked the box for learning a new Roll and Writes game. Honestly, it was one of the most basic R&W I’ve seen in a long time but I want to look into its sequel in June.

And I learned 99 on BGA just to learn a game. And that’s about all that amounted to. 

Some months are not gaming heavy months. 

My May PnP

May ended up being a month with more PnP crafting than I had expected. A lot of them were small projects, laminating Roll and Writes pages. Still, it added up.

Mysticana - Three Spires

Decktet (minimal art deck)

Paper Pinball - Ski 93

Flip Freighters

Letter Snake

Paper Pinball - Sherwood 2146 (vol 1&2&2.5)

Paper Pinball - Wave Wizard

Paper Pinball - Squishington Goes to Venus

Dungeon of Gems

Judgement: A Nine Card Deck Building Game

Ukiyo

Paper Pinball - Wolf Hackers (vol 1&2&2.5)

Paper Pinball - Laser Sisters (vol 1&2.5) 

Paper Pinball - Goblin Circus (vol 1&2)

Paper Pinball - Championship Boogerball

Paper Pinball - Sorcery School Sleuths

Paper Pinball - Fight Back the Winter

Paper Pinball - Space Marines vs Dragons

Super Dice Heroes

Delve - Starter Adventure

Devil Bunny Needs A Ham

Some Kind of Genius?

One Card Mazes

Shut the Box Cards

Escape of the Dead

Mysticana - The Queen’s Interests

Flipword 

My big project was making a copy of the Decktet since I wanted to mess around with that game system and I’m not sure where any of the other copies I’ve made are. I found a low ink variation, which isn’t as much fun as the proper Decktet but used a lot less toner.

I also did a lot of house cleaning, laminating Roll and Writes sheets that I’d printed out at some point or another and told myself I’d get around to laminating. I also swear that I make fresh copies of Devil Bunny Needs a Ham and Escape of the Dead every few years.

My decision to make the Ski ‘93 board for Paper Pinball ended up having me kicking off making copies of almost all the Paper Pinball boards I’d played before. (A couple survived the last move) Paper Pinball had been a guilty pleasure for a while but each individual board isn’t able to support binge play. But it occurred to me that a stack of them would. I guess twelve boards was the critical mass.

I did not expect to make more than a couple projects in May. And I have no idea what June will bring.