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Day 2275. March 25, 2023. Lagos...
When I finally made it to the living room after a morning spent in the office, all I wanted was a quick play with a new/old game that arrived last week. Tired, my mind drifted to easy food instead. Not because the new/old game is difficult to play or needs an elaborate setup. It's just that Princess Dorothy is always on my mind these days, and I can't get enough of building Domino Kingdoms with her. But one of the princesses I live with wouldn't have me playing alone on a Saturday afternoon. Alice pulled up a pillow and sat on the floor next to me to play a game she doesn't particularly like. Perhaps watching her dad play it every afternoon after school made her think twice about how good the game is.
A few years ago, non-stop daily sessions with Terraforming Mars produced the exact result with my wife. Now TM is her favorite game. Maybe soloing children's games around Alice will make her want to play titles that never interested her?:strip_icc()/pic7425951.jpg)
Small kingdoms make for big plays.
We played twice, using all the pieces in the box, and I won both times. But Alice scored a more important victory. In her usual casual way, mind divided between game and butterfly toys passing by her, the half part focused on the game, stared not at the tile's excellent Easter eggs. Or thematic consideration of having stinky swamps and shady mines in her kingdom. She played and picked to score. Even if she didn't like the pieces.
If I needed more proof that my daughter is growing as a gamer, the next game picked by her fizzled any doubts. CV is not the most strategic game for families. It relies heavily on the charming pictures and how our "lifes" develop throughout the game. The story they tell and the fortuitous events caused by dice rolling. It's hard to mitigate randomness in CV. Harder still to build the life you want.:strip_icc()/pic7425952.jpg)
Life of a growing gamer.
But Alice never mentioned the card's images for the longest 40 minutes of flavored Yahtzee. Or pursued the prettiest cars and mansions. She didn't care about the magician or the cuteness of having a baby in her late teens. All she cared about was how the cards could help her to fulfill her life goals. And how many times she could score them. She pressed on the knowledge cards to ramp up her score in that set collection department. And when the time came to add a card to her CV, she pondered very carefully whether or not to put it behind or at the front.
To her immense delight, she won by a mile.
Much later in the evening, the Queen of the house called us for dinner time. Alice and I threw an absent-minded "We're going!" knowing full well that the soup would be cold by the time we got there. We had more kingdoms to build. And this time, we were aiming for much bigger 7x7 realms. The Mighty Duel.:strip_icc()/pic7425953.jpg)
Big kingdoms make for better plays.
Alice couldn't really see how bigger the 7x7 kingdom was when I told her. You're just adding two rows and columns to the usual 5x5, right? The tightness of the game fizzles with 7x7. At least for now, while we're still learning the how-tos of this variant. The lightness of Kingdomino is stress tested by the longer playtime, which is a tad too much for this type of game. And the end game scores, doubling and tripling in both numbers and time needed to calculate them, lose some of their meaning. But for all the caveats of the 7x7 game, it sure feels nice to prolongue the experience of playing Kingdomino with my daughter.
One year ago: ...foxy trades...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard
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Browsing Games
A daily journey around the world of games
Archive for Alexandre Correia
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Day 2274. March 24, 2023. Lagos...Artefact(2019, Jack Harrison, Mousehole Press)No artifact is a work of art if it does not help to humanize us.
Bernard Berenson
The concept of awareness in inanimate objects is as old as man. Indigenous tribes, past and present, incorporate in their cultures the notion that parts of nature are alive and can respond to human actions. Animism, the modern name for self-awareness in all things, is so rooted in some cultures that they didn't have a name for it until western society created one. A rock in the Australian outback can inspire courage in the aborigine touching it. An iron tool in a Yoruba African village strengthens its owner when using it. A smiling hand-size oriental statue grants fortune to those who place it in a particularly privileged place in the house. From the statue's perspective. Animism and inanimate sentience examples dot every known folklore and myth. Tyrfing was a sword forged by dwarves in Norse mythology, demanding blood every time it was unsheathed. The Japanese tsukumogami are tools with a spirit of their own. Sharur, smasher of thousands, was the Sumerian mace that talked.
Books, filled with very human ideas, could also be considered sentient. Words can sometimes have a mind of their own as they seemingly, and often seamlessly, forge new ideas and beliefs in their reader's mind. Western fiction, particularly fantasy fiction, drinks freely from this wellspring of concepts. From Tolkien's sentient One Ring to Moorcock's Stormbringer sword and Salvatore's Crenshinibon. Writers, artists, and game designers give their inanimate objects life as commonly as children imagine consciousness in their toys.
Mr. Rabbit and Dr. Turtle are always hungry for cookies and need a good nap with their owners.:strip_icc()/pic7429471.jpg)
Tsukumogami having fun.
From the objects' point of view, their agency is clear enough as to be impregnable to debate. And yet, Artefact, an RPG game about impersonating a sentient object, threads the precarious line of lack of agency so common to all solo journaling games.
The player, more like a writer in this genre, is free to scribble whatever his imagination can germinate. There is agency in the words chosen, of course. But the prompts guiding all this "writing activity" are as agencyless as bricks. You roll a die, check a table for a word or a question, and then develop a story around it. Roll enough times and write enough times, and the game will eventually end, and all you'll have left to show that you played is a written page. Or an MP3 file with your voice record of the session. Or a drawing, since writing isn't the exclusive medium to transpose prompts into something less ephemeral than memory.:strip_icc()/pic7429473.jpg)
Wordsmith generator?
Artefact is then a mere scaffold. A structure to support a story around a sentient object. During setup, players choose one artefact of the nine available. Each comes with a series of pre-written questions about them, which players may, or may not try to answer during the game. Artefacts arrive with three traits from their respective pool of possibilities to set them apart from their abstract origins. Thus, a pair of boots can become stealthily, vegan, and bickering. A helmet, blessed, knowing, and brash.
Once forged, the game begins with the first of three acts, where players will create the real meat and potatoes of Artefact: the Keepers.
Besides the creator of the artefact - which you'll also need to write about based on a few questions and prompts - the gameplay revolves around the people/creatures that have owned the sentient object. The game offers four possible keepers for each of its three acts. Randomly picked or purposely dignified by the player to yield their conscious creations. For each act, there will be two keepers. The keepers, identified by prompt titles and a simple phrase, are curious enough to spark the imagination, which is what this game is about. Each also comes with two questions you must answer before moving along in the game. But it's immediately clear that both keepers and questions will soon repeat themselves. Such a limited pool is one of the biggest drawbacks of Artefact. After one session, you'll have seen half of all possible keepers!
Fortunately, Jack Harrison later added All Walks of Life. a postcard-size character generator. A godsend not just for this game but for any other fantasy-themed game out there. A fantastic tool I strongly advise you to check if you ever need a fast NPC for an RPG, solo or otherwise.:strip_icc()/pic7429472.jpg)
Bits of inspiration.
Time will pass during the game. Slowly in the first act, with days or weeks between keepers. Much faster in the last act, with ages and epochs. In their long journey, the artefacts will help or hinder their keepers. Maybe shape the very world in which they live. Bring justice, through their keepers, to the small valley they'll inhabit. It's all up to the players'/writer's imagination. But the prompts and questions do help steer the story into a more cohesive whole.
The rules in the second edition zine feel disorganized. Often, they force me to flip back and forth between pages to query how-tos and doubts. Many times I would think about breaking the immersion in the story during a session just so I could scribble a flowchart to guide me through the game's three acts and its various and possible consequences. Must I answer the artefact and keeper's questions during the game, or can I freely ignore them? Can I choose a new trait for the object between keepers and acts, or do I need to consult the pages in the back, for possible consequences? For added confusion, the rules kept calling these last pages tables, but there's not a single grid in the entire zine.
Then, of course, following strict rules in most solo journaling games is not what the genre is about. The act of creating an emergent story is the goal of Artefact. The game sets fences and lays out the premises. But in the end, the player's imagination is free to roam wild and create what they want. These are, after all, role-playing games, where anything can, and usually does, happen.
Review written after 15 hours, 3 artefacts and 14 keepers.One year ago: ...finding closure on welltog island...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard, DaemonTheDemon, ChekydotStudio
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Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:20 am
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Day 2273. March 23, 2023. Lagos...
Yesterday, I picked up yet another of those thrifted Vinted deals that was too good to pass. That site and the games I'm finding there is becoming one of my go-to places on the web to wander and discover games, old and new. They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But what do they know? Some of the boxes I see there lead me down rabbit holes of pure daydreaming bliss. I thought about doing an unboxing post for this latest new/old game I received. Not in shrink, but still unpunched. Instead, I'll try to play a hide-and-seek game with you, dear reader.
Here are ten close photos of the game. By following the sequence, top to bottom, how many did you need before finding what the game is?Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424179.jpg)
Clouds over canyons.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424180.jpg)
Bag fillers.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424181.jpg)
Something to aim for.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424182.jpg)
InclusiveSpoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424183.jpg)
Not the last stop.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424184.jpg)
Bandits.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424185.jpg)
Analog.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424186.jpg)
In French, but universal.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424187.jpg)
Cows...Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7424188.jpg)
...many cows.
Give up? Here's the answer.Spoiler (click to reveal):strip_icc()/pic7428894.jpg)
GTW: Season 1
Drop your guess and #clues/photos needed in the comments below. In spoilers, please. I'll randomly pick a winner from the correct answers with fewer clues/photos and send a free PnP card game via snail mail.
One year ago: ...&familyids%5B0%5D=39912...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard
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Day 2272. March 22, 2023. Lagos...
Part of our Wednesday mornings is spent at the library. The boy discovers what the place is all about and what books really are, while I use the time to half-heartedly read for a bit. It's also the day we meet another stay-at-home parent and son duo. It's a good chance for the boys to fight each other over what book they think is theirs and which adult should give them their full attention.
But once the novelty of the space and people dissipates, the two boys settle with whatever they're doing. And library time becomes a great opportunity for gaming time.:strip_icc()/pic7421916.jpg)
Highway in the outskirts.
I didn't risk anything more complicated than Sprawlopolis with the kids playing around us. Since last week, I've resumed the 816 road challenge, albeit with less of that early enthusiastic devotion.
It feels like the last leg of The Outskirts scoring card #1. And, in a way, a milestone once I'm done with all permutations with the #1 card. If it will actually feel that way, with +600 challenges still to play and after so long since I started... well. I'll just have to keep playing to find out. But it did feel good to know I can still crush the target scores when I play Sprawlopolis.
The mother of the other boy was curious about what I was doing. She already knew I liked to play board games. So next week, I'll either try multiplayer Sprawlopolis for the first time ever. Or, more likely, I'll have to come up with a two-player gateway game that is done in 10 minutes and can withstand random interruptions from two-year-olds.:strip_icc()/pic7421915.jpg)
Low tide in the marina.
Later in the afternoon, smack in the middle of no man's land for my mind and spirit, I forced myself to sit on the floor and play a game on the coffee table. And the one that I most wanted to play was Kingdomino. Princess Dorothy 2.0 solo version, and compete against the dozens of other players in the Solo Challenge #26.:strip_icc()/pic7421917.jpg)
In the middle of a challenge.
Fumbling with the phone to check the pre-determined set of tiles each round and looking for them in an orderly stack takes away some of the briskness I liked in this solo variant. Nonetheless, it is still a fast way to play Kingdomino. And, more importantly, challenging. While I did win against Dorothy with the first set of tiles, she all but obliterated me in the second game. Simply drafting the piece you want the most without considering what she'll take and add to the kingdom is not the way to win here.
Tricky, engaging, and fast. I think I'm hooked on Dorothy. Maybe I should meet her again tomorrow to see if this is true.One year ago: ...flowery space ships...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard
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Day 2271. March 21, 2023. Lagos...
A hundred and five people gathered at a party at itch.io, and they all brought gifts. It's a weird party. They are all there, and yet, they're all alone too.
The Solo But Not Alone 3 bundle is about to end, and I thought now would be a good time to do a quick thresh on the 149 gifts and see what juicy grains caught my eye. 10$ gets you a lot of stuff here. But to be clear, this isn't about making the most of your money - because you are! - but about raising funds for the Jasper's Game Day non-profit and boosting awareness for suicide prevention.
But if you want to talk about value, then I'm sure that even a small sample of the following games would be enough to justify 10$.:strip_icc()/pic7420252.jpg)
Once more into the delve.
Anna Blackwell's Delve and Apothecaria are part of the bundle. If you're into solo journaling, both names will sound familiar. I have yet to play any - only a sip of the excellent Apawthecaria - but from what I've read in the zines on our bookshelves, it doesn't get much better than this in the genre.:strip_icc()/pic7420253.jpg)
The nine lives of the Nostromo.
It's In The Vents!, by biggayuniverse, is a spaceship survival game about finding Holmes, a cat, and bringing it back to the escape pod before the alien gets you. Think Sigourney Weaver. Think Nostromo. Think Jonesy, the cat. You get the idea. It plays with a standard deck of cards and a few counters, and the rules make it sound more like a solo arcade than solo journaling.:strip_icc()/pic7420254.jpg)
Alone. Not wretched.
There are many Wretched & Alone hacks and inspirations in the bundle. From Vast Death Temple, about dealing with guilt, to Primadonna, about using music to soothe the beast. More frightening, from yours truly perspective, is Un-Navigatable. A game about trying to save as many blog posts as possible before the host site crashes. Yikes! Talk about a daily blogger's worst nightmare! But the Wretched game that piqued my interest was Man, F**K This Year, by SmallRedRobin13. The premise reminded me of the card game I played last year, The Rent. But without the 18 cards restrain and unafraid of delving into more serious subjects. Like the designer wrote, Man, F**K This Year is a game about death by a thousand cuts.:strip_icc()/pic7420255.jpg)
A thousand different mediums to experience loneliness.
Thousand Empty Light, by Alfred Valley, brings solo procedures for Mothership RPG. The physical zine looks like something you'd find in an art exhibit, with an accompanying soundtrack to further heighten the senses.:strip_icc()/pic7420256.jpg)
I'm going to get feudal on you, boy!
A Single Samurai, by Hypnos, and Ronin, by Tiago Junges, are both set in feudal Japan when samurai roamed the land for redemption, money, or both. The first is loosely based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and sounds short enough to be an entrée to Ronin. The latter feels like a much more developed and intricately detailed solo experiment. Oracles, urban and road encounters, combat rules. There's a lot to dig your teeth in Ronin.:strip_icc()/pic7420257.jpg)
Among friends.
Takuma Okada's game-changing Alone Among the Stars is represented here by hacks and variations. From Voyage, by Brendan McLeod, set in a pirate fantasy land, almost like a reskin of the original sci-fi game. While Alone in a Role Playing Game, by TheGiftOfGabes, offers tools to create scenes and backdrops for characters with only a Tarot deck and a D6. As a big fan of the This is Your Life section in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, this game sounds like a perfect match for me.:strip_icc()/pic7420258.jpg)
A stroll with old friends.
The Immortal, by apri, is about going out for a midnight walk, recalling the memories of your long life. A Walk in the Sunshine, by SmallRedRobin13, is about taking your old pet on a hex crawl wander. The first sounds as straightforward as solo journaling games can be. Randomizer -> Prompt -> Write. The latter is probably just as simple but with the map layer for an extra game feel.:strip_icc()/pic7420259.jpg)
Wonderlust.
For great production values, look no further than Wonderfall by Catscratcher Studio. As a post-apocalyptic anthropomorphic wanderer - mouthful! - you'll explore the hex lands around you, rebuilding what is no more. Wonderfall was one of last year's #1PRPGJAM's most popular games. Pamphlet-style presentation, with great art and layout, it feels like a big storytelling game in an envelope of good vibes.:strip_icc()/pic7420260.jpg)
I don't want to escape.
Escape! by squidhead-games is also a one-pager. But if Wonderfall is best played on a long flight across an ocean, Escape might play best between metro stations. In fact, you can even use a subway map of any metropolitan area to play it! Sci-fi setting about escaping some "alien" through a tunnel system.
And that's it. I barely scratched the surface. But maybe you can dig deeper? Let's play together, but alone. Ok?One year ago: ...zen pills...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard, Anna Blackwell, Rory Lucey, Liz Gist, Alfred Valley, Shannon Kao, Pollux, Catscratcher Studio, squidhead-games, Rafael Sinnot
Thank you dear reader. Like what you see here? Subscribe, tip, like... be bold, invite me for a coffee, and we'll plant a tree. Together.
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything
- DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game
- Apothecaria - A Solo Journalling RPG
- It's In The Vents!
- Ronin
- Thousand Empty Light
- Tiago Junges
- Anna Blackwell
- Travis Brightfield
- Alfred Valley
- Brendan McLeod
- Catscratcher Studio
- Mothership
- Alone Among the Stars
- Wretched & Alone
- Wonderfall
Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:15 am
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Day 2270. March 20, 2023. Lagos...
I've had this itch for Kingdomino since the last session with my daughter. Neither she nor my wife are enamored by it, and I'm still to introduce it to my mother. She'll like it, but it will not replace Carcassonne for her, so it will never get to the table. In theory, I should have sold it already and moved on. Something I've been meaning to do for a while. It's not like Kingdomino will ever run out of print or ridiculously cheap thrifted copies. So I could always pick it up later. Rarely does a Spiel des Jahres becomes an OOP grail game. But I liked our single play of the modern take on Dominoes to pull it from the brink of the sale pile for a few more months, at least.
And yet, the itch still needs to be scratched.:strip_icc()/pic7417823.jpg)
A kingdom to explore... alone?
Fortunately, when designers neglect official solo variants for their popular games, the fans are all too happy to come up with them.
The forums list a prolific 64 variants for Kingdomino. Everyone - yours truly included - has posted their tweaked versions of the rules. At least nine variants were designed for solitaire and one stands out as the favorite. Princess Dorothy, by Aleksandar Saranac. And Dorothy was popular enough for Kirk Roberts to improve on it with a 2.0 version, which is still used in the monthly solo challenges after three years and twenty-five contests.
So this morning, after the beach and bike rides all over town, I sat on the floor next to the coffee table to try it. The two-year-old played with the castles and two sets of meeples - he also tried to read the rules - and I said hi to Dorothy.:strip_icc()/pic7417824.jpg)
Dorothy's double trouble.
The first time I read the rules, they sounded too cumbersome to implement. Picking tiles for Dorothy, based on exclusion rules, is fine. But adding them to a column of tiles that were to be Dorothy's kingdom, based on yet another set of rules, bordered on making decisions for a bot. Never a good way to play solitaire.
But after a few rounds of drafting, I saw how wrong I was on this. When it was time to add tiles to her kingdom, it was so obvious that it looked like something that could be included in the official rulebook. The first game ended in less than ten minutes, including scoring. It was unexpectedly fast, but so was my crushing victory. It never bodes well for a game if I can beat it on my first try. But with 24 leftover domino pieces still on the stack, I went at it again.:strip_icc()/pic7417825.jpg)
Too good to be true?
I lost the second game in less than ten minutes, but I could swear it only lasted half that. I reshuffled everything, divided the pieces into two 24 stacks, and played two more times. By the end of it, we were two for two. This was good, but the best thing was that playing against Dorohty scratched my Kingdomino itch in all the right ways. Heck, it was good enough that I would have kept playing if it wasn't for the boy king around me clamoring for food on the table.
I replaced the crown for dad's pro apron and returned to real life. But I'm definitely coming back for more speedy kingdoms against Dorothy.One year ago: ...friendly birds...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard, Cyril Bouquet
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Day 2269. March 19, 2023. Tavira & Lagos...
Both tables were occupied on the train between Tavira and Faro, where we would have to wait for the next train to take us home to Lagos. Frowning at the packed train, Alice resigned with a seat next to the window. She was expecting a seat in a tavern of assassins.
When we reached Faro, I suggested playing a small game, like Harvest Dice, at the café while waiting for the next train. Again, planting cabbages did not meet her expectations for this trip. She dragged me to the train on the next track, patiently idling until its departure hour. Both tables were empty, of course. So we let loose the band of misfits and mercs. The assassination operation began, blessing the lifeless train table with as much analog fun as it ever saw.:strip_icc()/pic7416605.jpg)
Another train, another assassination attempt.
She was so excited to play after yesterday's near victory that we didn't even survived the Jacks in the first game. That quickly stopped her enthusiasm, setting her up just right for the second game. The real game. The one where cool heads must prevail, humble and restrained plays are needed, and quick glances between cards and teammate create a psychic connection between the would-be killers.
Like yesterday, we did no wrong on our way to the Kings. Only once did we fail to rally a Queen to our cause with exact damage. But she joined the rowdy gang later on. While we brawled with the King of Clubs and when we needed her most. The burly man went down. And the king, the Spades executioner, put out yet another memorable fight. We killed him, managing to rally him to our cause in the process with exact damage.:strip_icc()/pic7416606.jpg)
Dork of Hearts.
Thus when the wimpiest of the bunch showed up at last, King Hearty the Party Killer, we allowed ourselves the premature grin of victory. Hearts' royalty are always the easiest to kill. The grin didn't last very long. Not after realizing that nobody was left at the tavern and that we couldn't offer free drinks under Hearty's reign. Our leftover small animals and dwarves were barely sufficient to bring him down.
Yet another near victory. Next time. We'll nail it next time. Especially now that we've seen that it's very much possible to win Regicide without the help of Goblins.
For the next game, a solo affair while Alice practiced a new form of entertainment, i.e., reading, I knew next to nothing. It was like playing a new game for all intents and purposes. Almost...:strip_icc()/pic7416607.jpg)
Pirates, jungle, deck-building... why am I not playing this more often?
Nearly six years have passed since my last visit to Robinson's not-so-deserted island. The lessons from thirty-two plays and scant six victories lost after ten thousand other games and analog experiences. Like a newbie, I followed the setup for Level 1 and read the rules for fifteen minutes. It was not like riding a bike. But the process did shake some dormant neurons. Watching and touching the elongated cards and comic-looking art helped a lot.
It didn't help me to win.
Like the chicken in the wild animals event, I picked only the easy fights during the green phase. Toward the end, I felt I should have taken my chances with cannibals and jaguars once or thrice. Amazingly, just walking around the island was enough to strip Robinson of his valuable life points. Lots of naked toes banging against jagged rocks, I guess.:strip_icc()/pic7416608.jpg)
Now I remember. I'm a weak Friday.
When the yellow phase came up, the deck was hopelessly insufficient to deal with the corresponding steep numbers. A jaguar ate Robinson. And all he could think of while being eaten alive was that this was better than being eaten by cannibals and how fun it was to revisit the island after all this time.One year ago: ...xanathar's guide to soloing...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard
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Day 2268. March 18, 2023. Lagos & Tavira...
The train waited in the station for its departure hour. But Alice and I couldn't wait to release the band of murderous mercenaries for an assassination attempt at the royal court. That's how much we both wanted to play a game on a train, the sun barely up over the horizon. The carriage, nearly empty. The best seats and table, reserved for us. Best of all, no mingling two-year-old vortex of chaos and unbridled curiosity to prevent us from playing a game.:strip_icc()/pic7414169.jpg)
Good morning. Time for a kill?
We played quietly, almost contained in our enthusiasm. We already know we're good enough to dispatch Jacks and Queens, rallying most of them to our cause. Not a single jack touched the discard pile. And only half of the ladies visited the outside of the tavern before realizing that the real fun was indoors.
We know when to hold on to the Diamond cards just before a new reveal, while the suit's royal counterpart has yet to come out. We know when to use the attack-draining magic of Spades - against Diamonds! - and when it's best to use Diamonds - against Spades! Clubs work wonders with Aces. And a few good dwarves and children (2's and 3's) can create havoc on a court when played together.
Knowing all this, and with all the time in the world, we faced the first king, the King of Hearts, with a calm and calculated demeanor. Alice threw a ladie at him, and I finished him off with a big club, followed by an angry wild animal. Just like that, we topped our previous murderous record. The King of Clubs came next, and he was a hardy one. But I stabbed with a Jack of Spades, relinquishing the rest of the hand in exchange. Alice slit his throat with a Queen of Diamonds, and a few random killers did the rest.:strip_icc()/pic7414170.jpg)
Bully no more.
Next was the big boy, the dude on the box cover, the all-time star bully: The King of Spades.
I can't remember the details on this one other than there was a lot of blood involved. We were utterly mesmerized by the gameplay and how close we were to victory. Alice and I trusted and parried, sidestepped and kicked at the guy, like two angry kids paying back after fifteen plays during school recess of nothing but embarrassing defeats. The tavern was only four cards high. Our band of mercenaries, tired and broken. But we killed him. We actually knocked out the big guy and convinced him to go for a drink at a tavern! It felt like an early victory.
The real mastermind showed up next. The King of Diamonds. The real boss in Regicide. How to sustain his deadly blows while doubling ours is beyond us. Alice hit him once and emptied her hand in response to his counterattack. I hit him again, and he sapped my life away.:strip_icc()/pic7414171.jpg)
12 Points short of our first two-player victory.
Tomorrow... All we need is a good night's rest, and tomorrow we'll try again.
After the hearty homemade lunch at mom's house, we settled our stomachs with tea mugs for some, expressos for others, and a few good tiles of the medieval kind.
The aggressiveness was toned down this time. We all shared castles and roads, fought for fields, and completed each other's cloisters without a grudge or a mean bone behind our intentions. It's just the nature of the game. To race for field control and steal/compromise castles and roads when three people play Carcassonne after doing it for years.:strip_icc()/pic7414172.jpg)
Family favorite... but no match against my daughter's love for Calvin.
Mom, who wisely stayed out of her sons' field war - she knows fields to be her main weakness - pressed on castles and roads, sharing them whenever she could. It also helped that she made the field war that much hard by connecting them and constantly balancing my brother's and mine farmers' numbers.
Without surprise, she won today's Carcassonne.One year ago: ...this is your life, amaya...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard
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Day 2267. March 17, 2023. Lagos...The Oregon Trail(1971, Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger. MECC)You died of dysentery.
Sitting on the stone porch steps of an empty Spanish house was the day's highlight. We've been walking the trail since dawn, putting a solid 10k before a pit stop for a cold jam sandwich with a rock-hard piece of bread.
It was the first piece of dryness we touched since stepping out of the pilgrim's hostel. Storm clouds had "blessed" the past five days and would continue to do so for the rest of the week. We held on to that moment of rest and stale snack with the same strength we'd held on to the driving motivation on the trail to Santiago de Compostela. We were moving forward. No matter what happened, as long as you kept going, you knew that an end to the misery would finally come.
We were luckier than most pioneers of the original Oregon Trail video game back in the 70s:strip_icc()/pic7412890.jpg)
The original.
One of the most successful educational games of all time, The Oregon Trail, practically created the edutainment genre. You play a game and learn some fact-based history in the process. It spawned many similar titles and went through as many editions and iterations as needed to stay current with modern times.
After more than half a century, The Oregon Trail continues to kill students with stomach cramps, intense vomiting, high fever, and abhorrent discharges of blood and mucus. You're blissfully unaware of what's about to happen to you when the game starts. A board game-like setup - the original idea from the designers was to make it a board game, not a video game - where you assign the one resource available to you, cash, to the various dwindling categories, like food, clothing, and supplies. If you read the instructions, you might get a clue of what is needed the most. Can you make it with 50 bullets, or do you need to stock up on medicines? More oxen to speed up the journey?
As the leader of a wagon trail traveling down the famous route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, you must grit your way to the northwestern United States. Trying to survive the inhuman ordeal with only a teletype computer terminal back in the 70s. Players would write their choices and wait for the nosy machine to spit out the result, followed by another multiple-choice question.
If they were lucky enough to get a choice.:strip_icc()/pic6260887.jpg)
The simulation.
Hostile Indians, wild bandits, and strayed oxen. Rugged mountains that stress-test the structure of the wagon wheels. Icy river crossings or snowstorms are just a few things the trail can throw at you. Fail to have enough resources to survive the events, and you can die of gunshot wounds, snake bites, hypothermia, starvation, pneumonia, or the famous death by dysentery. A death made synonymous by the popular culture, with The Oregon Trail.
Years before the game Rogue created the concept and the rogue-like genre, The Oregon Trail used permadeath to create tension. There's no save system, and like the ink in the teletype printer, your choices are permanent. Final. At least for the ten to fifteen minutes, the game lasts, depending on how far you make it.
The setup variables, the multiple-choice questions, and the random events make The Oregon Trail feel like an open-ended game. But make no mistake. There is only one path, and you're stuck to it come hell or high water, praying that you made the right choices when you were still in Independence, Missouri. The gameplay is limited by the technological constraints of the 70s. No concept of video games or game design existed then. The Oregon Trail and others of that time were the first real step into transposing analog games into a digital medium.:strip_icc()/pic6246044.jpg)
Maybe one day I'll also arrive at Oregon.
We didn't die of dysentery on the trail to Santiago, and the choices we made along the way didn't really matter much when we finally got there. What mattered was that we made the journey. And the same holds true for The Oregon Trail. In an iPhone or a teletype, the trail will always be there, welcoming new players into the big world of video games.
Review written after 2 hours and 6 journeys to Oregon.One year ago: ...this is your life, cade...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard, Ezra Meeker
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Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:10 am
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Day 2266. March 16, 2023. Lagos...
Fumbling with the backpack on a playground bench, I noticed that I forgot to pack a microgame. Ukiyo, Sprawlopolis, Forage... Somehow, I even forgot to bring a book, which shows just how much my mind was elsewhere today.
Under a Summer-like sun, we had the playground to ourselves, as we usually do during weekdays. Other children tend to arrive when we're already tired of being there. The boy - who turned two today - climbed his heart out on all slides, rope ladders, and climbing walls until he was red from the effort. Often he came to me for refueling - water! apple! - while I half watched him and half dozed under the sun, the barley/cacao cup not far.:strip_icc()/pic7411010.jpg)
One more bridge crossed.
We left the playground, biking towards one of the charity shops. In this second round of stay-at-home dad, I'm no longer a regular of these past sources of great gaming opportunities as I used to be. Unsynced agendas make me feel like I'm missing out when I pass by one and don't enter. We saw only a Spanish copy of Catan when we arrived, lost among ten thousand puzzle sets. We also found a weird-looking cover with one of those Catan spin-offs a few months ago. Some orc-like creatures with a sci-fi background on the cover.
What will they think of next to milk the Catan cow for a few more bucks?:strip_icc()/pic7411011.jpg)
Soccer time!
Much later in the afternoon, after arriving home from school with an older daughter and a monster box from yet another amazing Vinted catch, the two of us settled in the living room. The smell of baking birthday cake escaping from the oven permeated the house with a sweet fragrance. Good smells to pick a game, but they didn't help us decide on which. I offered Kingdomino, but she wasn't up to it. She's not up to repeat plays of games these days unless they're old favorites.
After much back and forth, we played a couple of hands of Uno. A fine filler... as long as we play it once per month.:strip_icc()/pic7411012.jpg)
Ubiquitous.
Only at day's end did a more substantial piece of game come to the front of my mind, and only as a means to close it. That initial rush of one Stardew Valley game day per real day lasted for a few weeks. A few off-scheduled days shut down that plan prematurely.
But I knew that for Stardew Valley to become an integral part of the day-to-day routines for an entire year, I would have to glue it to an already formed habit to stick. Well, the going-to-bed habit is still strong after 43 years, and I'm often reminded of Jane McGonigal's interview. Playing a simple game like Tetris or Centipede can help turn the mind off from worries before the big rest and help sleep come faster and deeper. I don't need this sort of sleep aid. But I'm willing to try anything if it can make our forgettable 1/3 of our lives more restful. Stardew isn't a mindless game as Tetris or old arcade games. But some of its game days are more brainlessly peaceful than any polyomino piece could ever be.:strip_icc()/pic7411013.jpg)
Time to give the sword a rest and break my back with a hoe instead.
Some days, I do nothing but cut down maples and pines to gather enough wood for a community service delivery. Or for the sublimely late chicken coop I've yet to build.
It's Summer in the game now, so rainy days spent inside the mines, hacking, and slashing have become a rarity. Maybe in Autumn. Last week, for instance, I spent several days just fishing before going to bed. I'm not very good at it. And whenever I visit the town to buy seeds or pick up new tools, I make sure to stop by Halley's house to offer her a flower from my garden or a shiny gem from deep inside the mines.
Koka, the dog, runs around me most mornings while I water the hot peppers and melons. I think he's just happy to have his human friend around more often. Instead of coming home late at night, covered in green slime and bits of grubs, exhausted from all the killing.:strip_icc()/pic7411014.jpg)
The simple life.
It's an excellent way to end the day. And a near-perfect way to enjoy a year-long depth play with Stardew Valley.One year ago: ...this is your life, hector...One year later: N/A
Photos & Images: ZombieBoard, Kelli Schmitz, Lukas
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