Board Games
May 3: It was my birthday and we drove past my FLGS on the way to dinner. The whole time I was there I was thinking about Evergreen and decided to stop and get myself a present on the way home. We got back and set it up. Reading the rules was really helpful because I learned a few things strategy wise that I didn’t pick up on because the BGA version handles some of the bookkeeping. So knowing the changes to the rules I adapted my strategy. However it wasn’t enough to win as I lost by 2 points.
May 4: I finished a couple of games on BGA this day. The first was boop. An adorable game of kittens and cats trying to push each other off a bed. It’s a very simple abstract, but one that I really enjoyed the strategy to. Definitely one that I plan to come back to. I also finished up my first game of Next Station: Tokyo, the follow up to NS: London that I’ve been playing. This one is much harder. The map changes and the bonuses shift and I lost terribly. I had so many turns I could do nothing but pass and that was pretty disappointing. I am happy to say I’m currently winning our rematch having a better sense of how the game works, so at least I’m improving.
May 5: We finished a game of Tucano on BGA which was my first time playing. This is a very light card drafting, set collection game that also has a bit of take that. It’s super quick and has some fun strategy to it. I liked it a lot and was excited to play it again.
May 6: So much so that because of Free Comic Book Day, I stopped by another game store that was giving away comics and picked up Tucano. As much as the comics are free to me, they are not free to the store, so I try to always buy something that day when I get my comics as a thanks. We played this one together that night and my wife really enjoyed it too. It’s going to likely come out at our next friend gaming night when we don’t have the whole group of 6. I also finally got my copy of Dorfromantik in. I’ve been waiting for months since I first heard this was coming out. I love the video game of it and was excited for a board game version. The wait was worth it. I played it twice, once on my own and once with my wife. We’re planning to run two separate campaigns of it. She wants to see how it works and I want to just solo it a ton as a fun puzzle. The trick is going to be sorting the different components out, but that’s a problem for future me.
Movies
I forgot to mention last week I watched the Power Rangers: Now and Forever reunion movie. It was one of the most accurate remake things because the dialogue is pretty corny, the action is basic, and the plot is super straight forward. But it was also really fun and gave me a big smile as these characters got to come back to be the heroes they used to be. If you grew up with the original series it’s worth a watch.
I also got to the theater to see Sisu. I was really excited for this one but I have to say, I’m not a huge fan of it. There’s some fun moments and any of the scenes with the women are awesome. But they take the “He simple refuses to die” premise to an absurd length. There were a lot of them that I was willing to look past for the sake of the premise, but they went I think one step too far on that one. It was also a bit too gory for me in a few spot. I don’t regret my ticket, but it’s not one I’m likely to return to.
Video Games
I’m continuing through Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot. Tears of the Kingdom comes out next Friday so I think I need to really turn on the gas to get through some more of AW before that comes out and consumes my video gaming. Which requires a bit of work as I hit mission 10 and that was my first one where I had to restart because I just lost out on enough units to be able to win.
Game Design
I’ve had two ideas for game design lately and I’m interested in both of them. I just need to find the motivation to do something about them. Part of me thinks I need a design partner who is willing to put in the technical work to make the prototype while I can do the testing and the planning. But the idea of just making a big deck of cards is more than I have the will to do at the moment. One of them admittedly seems an easier thing to dump out a prototype so I’ll probably start with that. I have about a month and a half until Origins so if I want some time to get some playtesting there I need to get something on the table and proof of concepted soon.