Board Games

March 12: I got started that day with a solo game of Three Sisters. I’ve found I enjoy a Sunday morning solo game while everyone is kind of waking up and my kid is watching TV. Three Sisters is one that I’ve been Ok with the solo. It’s not my favorite, and someone mentioned online that BGG has a variant that more replicates an actual 2 player game rather than limiting your spaces. So I gave that one a try and it’s really good. I lost to it which was a nice change of pace for my solo roll and writing. That night we played Summer Camp. This remains on my list of “Do I want to keep this game?” We played with the water sports, games, and adventure decks and I got off to a quick start and blitzed my way down the tracks. So much so that Rachael had only one of her pawns in the third area when the game ended. It was quite the upset and unfortunately I think I’ve found the strategy. Which is just get to the end as fast as you can. Buying any other cards can be nice, but really unless a card is pushing you toward the end, it’s not doing that much for you. We want to try it with four players and see how it plays, but I’m going to try the same strategy in that one and see if that’s really the only play. If so, it’s going to the sale pile.

March I’m 13: Once again the friend game group didn’t converge so we played the 2 player only Land vs Sea. I was Sea and Rachael was Land. We got off to a start where I was claiming small lakes and getting some points while Rachael was working on a larger land mass. Eventually that one scored and I felt the pressure. I successfully held her from getting the 6 sided land tile, and started setting myself up for using it in the ocean, until I stared at what I did and realized there’s not enough tiles left to close up all the wild gaps I’ve left in the ocean trying to do this. I quickly realized there was very little I could do to catch up and just tried to play as optimally as I could but I lost this one. We tried the extra scoring options like trade routes and coral reefs and I think I don’t like them. The basic level of the game of trying to close off your area is a neat enough puzzle for me and I get too distracted trying to do everything.

March 14: Before work that morning I played a quick game of Bravo. This was more of a chance to check off another game from our collection challenge than it was a desire to play it. I do like this game, and it can be fun in a group, but solo is kind of dull for me. I finished two colors, two rows, and about 2/3 of the columns and got 65 points. Not my best, but above average. I find I’m getting more picky about my roll and writes and the more abstract ones are definitely starting to not hold my attention as much these days.

March 18: I played one published game while at Unpub as that’s kind of not the point of the place. But I was walking by and there was a game of Scout starting. I played this with Matt Riddle, Nat Levan, Chris Kirkman, and Gene Koo. Since I knew how to play I jumped in right before they started. It was a fun game. Lots of verbal jabs at each other of “How could you do that” and “Why would you play that” and “That’s a terrible choice.” We played 5 rounds and the top few scores were all a couple points a part. I didn’t win this one, mostly because of one bad hand where I lost 4 points in the round. Considering that, I think my score was really good.

I played a lot more games, but I’m going to put them all in a separate Unpub recap talking about the show and what I played. That should come out in a couple days once I get the chance to write it all up.

Movies

I saw Shazam 2. I enjoyed it. I think this one had a solid story and I feel the themes of the first one flow nicely into the themes of the second. Every character feels like they have a natural progression from their state in the first movie. I don’t quite like the ending. It feels a bit too deus ex machina and tidy for me. I wonder if they knew about the changes at DC while writing and filming if they would’ve done anything differently. That said, thinking back on it, I think I do like this one a bit more than the first. The villains were more complex and interesting than Silvana was in the first one which led to an interesting dynamic.

YouTube

I was recommended a video by Bloody where she attempted to complete the Pokedex in Pokemon Scarlet without seeing any spoilers or looking up any evolution methods. Which was impressive. I’ve long looked at the last few generations of games and there are some wildly confusing evolution methods that I’d never figure out how to do without looking up a guide, but Bloody managed to do it all which proves it is possible, just really difficult.