Cape Punk and blowing up the moon

Earlier this year, I read Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain, a fun romp about a middle schooler who also happens to be a mad scientist in a Cape Punk world.

(Cape Punk is a very loosely defined genre about superhero stuff done ‘realistic’ It seems to get slapped on any work when it’s convenient. Frankly, I can see an argument for the original treatments of Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four counting as Cape Punk :D)

The books definitely falls on the lighter side of Cape Punk. At least in Los Angeles, the super-human community is very self-policing. Murder and mass destruction isn’t tolerated by villains OR heroes. So it’s a pretty safe environment for a junior high metahumans to figure things out.

And I just got around to reading the second book, Please Don’t Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon.  The title gives away a major event and the book is actually a bit of a genre shift. And I don’t think the genre shift really works for the series favor.

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The first book is not just about Penny becoming a super-powered person. It is all about her relationships. With her two best friends who gain powers either influenced by Penny or flat out from her. With her schoolmates. With the adult superhero community. With the adult supervillain community. And, of course, with her parents.

And it was good stuff. And none of it was resolved.

Book 2? Penny and Ray and Claire fly off into space and have steampunk, clockwork punk adventures. Away from basically all the conflict which drove the first book.

It’s actually worse than that. 

The plot was disjointed to the point that I couldn’t figure out what the characters were trying to accomplish. They were constantly shifting to new locations and I kept feeling like I was missing the connecting pieces.

It felt like Richard Roberts had come up with this neat setting with at least three different alien groups and two human factions from the first and second World Wars and was just using Penny and company as a way to show it off.

The best part of the book was Remmy Fawkes. She’s an eleven-year-old mad scientist who is constantly being used as a pawn in other people’s plans. She has a genuine character arc as she takes control of her life, albeit with a lot of conflict with Penny. 

Honestly, a stand-alone book with Remmy as the protagonist would have made a lot more sense.

The next book looks like it’s back to middle school and family. So I’ll read it and hope it catches the magic of the first book.

On the limits and influence of Palm Island

As I’ve mentioned before, I have been playing a lot of In Hand games lately. And that means I’ve been revisiting Palm Island, which is the poster child of In Hand games.

Palm Island definitely didn’t invent In Hand games. But it did give the idea a kick in the pants. I honestly would say that a third of the In Hand games I’ve seen post Palm Island were clearly Influenced by it.

Something I want to do this summer is get the color files printed so I have the ‘full’ games and get the ‘full’ Palm Island experience. I’ve spent years with the low ink demo and I’ve wanted to see how much deeper the game gets.

However, when I actually looked at the files, I realized that most of the cards are for the two-player version of the game. As a solitaire player, the only new element are feats. Which turn the game essentially into a campaign but doesn’t seem like a major mechanical shift.

And I know that the basic framework can be tweaked just a little to get significant changes. In Battle for the Carolinas (which I have started replaying and really enjoying), you need different cards at different points in the game. You need maps and compasses to find the battlefields but then they need to become men and weapons. It creates a different tempo than Palm Island.

While Palm Island has a very solid structure of resource management and infrastructure development, it is ultimately very simple. The individual actions are very simple. This is not a bad thing.

Between the random shuffle of the cards and the limit of only being able to store four cards, Palm Island does has variabily and tough choices. But it’s presented in such an accessible way so that the initial learning curve is just about keeping the deck in your hand the whole time. It’s great for casual gaming.

But now I’ve been seeing that the si one structure is one that can be built on. And, while games like Battle for the Carolinas shows that other folks are doing this, the fact that Portal Dragon will be publishing Palm Laboratory and have mentioned Palm Galaxy shows that this was intended.

And even as I become more and more aware of the limitations of Palm Island, I am playing it more often. I keep on going back to it and having fun. There is a good game there.

Palm Island is not the definitive In Hand game. It didn’t create the genre. But I think it is an important milestone and has helped there he better games ahead.

Another look at Roll and Move

Babhan is a game from the third Roll and Write Contest, one of the three Roll ans Writes contests BGG held that year. (Seriously, for a number of actually legitimate reasons, it’s a contest type that happens a lot)

I’d have tried Babhan ages ago but, for some reason, it’s simple black and white graphics baffled our printer. But I finally made a copy.

Stripped of its theme of going to offer tribute to a king, Babhan is a roll and move game. That’s right, it’s a Roll and Move Roll and Write. (Not the first time I’ve played one either)

I’m not sure there is a game mechanic more reviled than Roll and Move, not even then optional fisticuffs conflict resolution system from Panzer Pranks. (To be fair, Dungeons and Dragons is the only game I can personally verify that has resulted in fist fights. Poker and hockey players have seen more, I’m sure) 

I find it fascinating that one of the oldest examples of Roll and Move, Backgammon, uses several methods to add depth to the mechanic. Multiple pieces, the order you use dice being meaningful, the doubling cube. And while Backgammon took centuries to be codified, Wikipedia indicates many of these elements have been a part of the game since ancient times.

Of course, it is the Candy Land, Denny’s dining mat school of Roll and Move that makes the mechanic so hated. When you have one pawn and the dice/card draw/spinner determines where it goes then you either have minimal choices (in the case of multiple paths) or no choices whatsoever. It is an example of very lazy game design. And, no, the fact that it teaches very little kids how to take turns and count doesn’t help it much.

The earliest example that I am aware offhand is the Royal Game of Goose, although its history clearly indicates it wasn’t the first game that just used one pawn. That said, one the thing makes a difference in the Game of Goose versus Candy Land is that it was a gambling game. That changes why people would play it as a game of chance.

Why we play games is not the same as how we play games.

Yeah, Babhan was just an excuse for me to discuss Roll ans Write.

Babhan effective has just one pawn (if you are using a pencil, you mark off boxes) but has some mechanics to create choices. It uses a dice pool. You need sets of three or more 2s, 3s, 4s and 6s to move while 1s and 5s allow rerolls. There are branching paths, each with special rules. And you only have seven turns to complete the track, which doesn’t add choices but does add tension.

And, to be honest, it’s still not that interesting. I’ll play it some more to try out all the branches but I’m pretty sure luck more than clever play will still determine how I do. It might be better with modifications as a multi-player game.

I do like it as an experiment and an excuse to ruminate about Roll and Move.

Does anyone else remember Mulberry?

Every once in a blue moon, I remember an obscure little British show called Mulberry. It was never finished (and it clearly has an ending built in) and may have been underrated. It did have a beautiful sad, sweet theme song and a killer concept.

Miss Farnaby is a sour, sullen old lady living with her equally elderly maid and gardener. Into their lives comes Mulberry, her new manservant, who is blessed with humor, vibrance and an astonishing area of vests. Mulberry breathes new life into their home.

Ah, but there is a twist! Mulberry is actually the son of the Grim Reaper. He has come to take Miss Farnaby away. However, he has a sweet and tender side from his mother, Spring, and he wants to give Miss Farnaby a chance to enjoy life before she had to give it up.

Damn, but that’s a hook!

It has been probably decades since I last watched Mulberry. And, at best, I watched it intermittently even through there were only thirteen episodes. But if my memories of it are true, it often fell into sitcom shenanigan and didn’t really live up to its high concept.

I think that Mulberry could be rebooted very effectively. Not darker or edgier but with more drama. Lean into the melancholy and sweetness and you’d get an unwritten Peter Beagle masterpiece.

As I mentioned, it was canceled before it could end and I wondered if the plan had been for Mulberry to somehow extend Miss Farnaby’s life. However, I found an interview with Bob Larbey, one of the writers. In it, he said Miss Farnaby would die in her sleep and Mulberry would meet her in the garden to guide her awayZ

Which makes sense since that’s the ending that’s baked into the core concept.

The fluff and flaws of Goblins Guns and Grog

It’s been a while since I have learned a Legends of Dsyx title but I felt like it was time to revisit the series.  I’d been planning on trying Goblins, Guns and Grog for a while so that’s what got picked.

In Goblins, Guns and Grog, you control the destiny of five stranded goblin pirates as they try to float on a raft home, trying not to die and trying to loot as many ships as possible.

The game really revolves around two things:

Making sure you have enough fish to not starve and building up the raft so you have cannons to attack ships and chests to store loot from defeated ships.

I’m of two minds about G to the third power.

On the one hand, I feel comfortable saying that it’s the mechanically weakest of the Legends of Dsyx games I’ve tried (which is ten of the twelve  at this point) The dice control enough that you sometimes have very little decisions. In my first game, my goblins starved to death on the fourth turn. 

If you can build up a big enough raft and outfit it, you do get more options. However it takes some luck to get to that point.

With a little bit of luck, your goblin pirates will survive their sea voyage. With a lot of luck, they will be able to bring home loot and score any points.

On the other hand, Goblins et al may have the strongest narrative structure in the entire series. You might not have much control over the story but a story is getting told. It easily has the most fluff of any of the games. Depending on what you want, that can be something.

The weakest element of the game, particularly from a story-telling element, is that the ships you are firing cannons at don’t fight back. Enemy shops are just boxes of hit points.

The Legends of Dsyx series are a bunch of one-page PnP R&Ws. Some of them, like Hall of the Dwarven King, are quite good. Goblins, Guns and Grog, though, feels more like an experiment that doesn’t quite work. It was interesting to try but, out of the series, it is the one I’m least likely to replay.

Falling off the No-Buying wagon

I’ve been out of the habit of buying physical copies of games that it’s no longer a resolution or anything. I’ve either gotten out of the habit of buying games or gotten into the habit of not buying them.

So I surprised myself by picking up copies of Forbidden Desert and Choose Your Own Adventure: War With the Evil Power Master. Both were on clearance or it wouldn’t have happened.

Two things both games have in common is that that they are cooperatives that can be played solitaire and I have experience with both of them. So I’m still not willing to buy a game unless I already have some investment in it.

(PnP files clearly do not play by those rules for me)

And clearly, these two games are not in the same league. Forbidden Desert is a classic and  considered by many  to be the best of the Forbidden series. I’ve played it at conventions and liked it. Forbidden Island (which I have played a lot) can be compared to Pandemic (same designer as I’m sure you know) but Forbidden Desert is more it’s own beast.

The Choose Your Own Adventure games are really just game books broken down into decks of cards. And the mechanics that weren’t in the Choose Your Own Adventure books can be found in other game book series :D

But I had fun with the demo of House of Danger and I understand this one has more replay value. I think I will enjoy it as a RPG/adventure gaming. It’s not deep but I already know that.

I don’t think this is going to change my not-buying habits but o do think these two games will be well-used additions to our library.

Magical tree houses and child endangerment

For the past several months, The Magic Tree House book series has been my go for reading to our son and occasionally having him read back. I’ve written about the series before but I’ve got some more thoughts.

The series describes the adventures of a brother and sister who discover a treehouse that can travel through time and space (but it is _smaller_ on the inside than on the outside)

The books are formulaic as all get out, down to the dialogue. That said, I have read Stratemeyer Syndicate from the start of the 20th century so I have read much more formulaic and much worse children's literature.

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The series is broken down into four book story arcs. At the end of the first arc, they learn that the treehouse is owned by Morgan Le Fay, the librarian of Camelot.

Morgan or Morgana Le Fay is often portrayed as one of the big bads of King Arthur stories, although she’s apparently okay in the very earliest stories. Still, it’s a little surprising to see her as the benevolent patron of a eight and seven year old.

Except, as we hit the fourth arc, I’m starting to question how benevolent she really is. 

In the third arc, Jack and Annie go through the process of becoming Master Librarians. Which doesn’t involve much in the way of literacy or archival studies or the Dewey Decimal system but does seem to feature a willingness to risk life and limb across time and space. They become Morgan Le Fay’s gofers in the fourth arc.

First thing Morgan Le Fay does? Send them to Pompeii to get a book the day Mount Vesuvius erupts. 

While there are time travel story arguments for why that was the only way (the book had to be taken from the time stream right before it was destroyed,  you can only travel to specific points in history, etc), those aren’t presented. And they don’t excuse the fact that she sends young children into mortal danger and the only warning she gives them is a book about Ancient Rome.

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius is a high point but she keeps sending the kids into serious danger. Yeah, it’s in the name of education and entertainment (readers learn stuff by it happening rather than lecutures) but it’s still hard to swallow as a grown up. 

Kids in danger is a genre staple but there’s usually some attempt at justification. Adults are out of the equation or the kids are trapped or they are the only ones who can pilot the Eva units. After the Jack and Annie get home safely, Morgan just sends them out again.

Of course, what really matters is that our son loves the series and just eats it up like popcorn. He might even be learning some facts from it (but I count on Mystery Science videos more for his random facts) When I first wrote about the Magic Tree House, it was wondering if he’d like them. That question has been definitively answered.

Post Script: I won’t  be surprised if the kids are actually Morgan’s descendants. Annie displays supernatural intuition on a regular basis. That doesn’t make sending them into danger any better, of course.