F@#$ Iron Man 3

More movie reviews.  And keeping with the pattern I only see movies with hobbits or super heroes.  Apparently the best movie ever made will star a hobbit super hero.

I liked Iron Man 3 lots.  I maybe liked the original more, but IM3 was light years ahead of IM2.

IM2 was the classic example of comic book character multiplication.  We got Ironman, Whiplash, Justin Hammer, Black Widow and War Machine.  You only have so much time, its impossible to give everyone a story in movie-time allotment, so pick a villain and pick a sidekick and move on already!  IM2 also went Michael Bay, substituting effects for story.

IM2 was ok, because Downey remains the perfect choice for Tony Stark.  But overall the movie was totally forgettable.

So compare to IM3.  IM3 followed the Extremis story line.  And if you don't want spoilers don't f@#$ing google Ironman Extremis.

ok harsh, actual spoiler tags coming when I stop speaking in general and/or things comic nerds already now. 

The best thing about IM3 was there's an actual story. Ironman has to piece together a mystery. Crazy sh!t's going down and Tony Stark has to solve it, but its not like the bad guys left directions to their underground lair.

spolier'd.  Set the background to black, select the text to read.

The next best thing about IM3 is they found a way to get him out of the armor for most of the movie. I think this might be a one shot, otherwise they risk a nudge nudge, here we go again, the suit's malfunctioning running joke. It's like knocking out Mr. T on the A-Team so Murdoch can fly them where they need to go. But I digress. Having Tony Stark act heroic or whatnot without the suit was loads of fun.


some more spoilage

The Mandarin might not necessarily be done.  I mean he might be but AIM dude and dudette both referred to him as the master and it didn't really seem ironic.  And Mandarin is the type of villain to act dumb and pass on blame.  The point is, they left a window if they want to recycle him for IM4. AIM Dudette might not be done too. We saw her shot, but she left camera view.

I didn't care for the finale.  But you gotta end it somehow and make it bigger and badder than the last movie.  Or something.   Besides. GP in a sports bra!.

F@#$ making a game part 1 cards and game board.

So those of you who don't know yet I am designing a game.  I'm not going to post specifics here on the blog, because tricksy little hobbitses are always after my precious.

Instead I am going to write about how the hell do you make a prototype game.

I've play tested games before, and the materials weren't very good.   Card stock just doesn't have the feel of playing cards, and your dice collection is a poor substitute for meeples.





The game has run through 3 prototypes now.

Prototype one was a disaster.  The board was hand cut and hand drawn from 22X28 card stock.  (10pt Carolina C1S for any print nerds out there.  no?  just me?)






Now, you may think your hand writing is bad, but I guarantee that mine looks like yours while riding on a bus.  Add to that I created some kind of short hand for game terms in my mind, and put those on the board without suitable explanations.  Whoops.

Next I attempted to make cards real playing cards.  I had catalog referencing what does what, like 2 of diamonds corresponds to such and such actions.  This was also awful.  It slowed the game way way down referencing every which thing.  A conundrum!

Which was solved by doing my taxes this year.  You can deduct crap for a hobby business.  Since I eventually want to sell my game I can spend money on prototype materials.  Huzzah!

I bought some print labels for the next game, and stuck these onto playing cards and that worked much better.  I printed the board on 13X19 Carolina C1S card stock and that was almost adequate.  Here's the problem.  There's no good way to carry  a 13X19 game board.  Sure you can fold it, but you still have a 13X9.5 rectangle which still doesn't fit into most folders.  You can tube it, but then it doesn't lay flat.  I think next try I am doing to print on 8.5X11 plain paper and mount on cardboard with spray adhesive.  Updates to follow.

F@#$ Castles of Burgundy

castles of burgundy

back after 2 months of no posts.  I apologize.  Either for not posting enough or posting again, take your pick.

Plot:

hmm.  That's tough.  Build up your Duchy in Burgundy?  Sure.  Why not.  The theme is very stamped on (in fact, even though the tiles are all named, very few of them are known by the players.  In fact we make up names because it matters that much)

Game Play:

You get a minimum of 50 actions split into 5 rounds, so ~10 actions per round.

At the beginning of the round, roll two dice.  Each die is an action.  Now this is important, the number on the die, limits you on what actions you can take.  

General Actions:

#1:  Take a tile.  There are 6 tile reservoirs numbered 1-6.  A die value of "1" can take from the "1" reservoir and so on.

#2:  Play a tile:  Playing a tile requires to actions, first to get it, the second to play it.  The die roll corresponds to numbers on a map.  Play like colored tiles on corresponding die rolls, and they have to be adjacent to a previously placed tile.

#3:  Trade goods:  Trading earns you VPs and money.  There are 6 trade goods, which strangely correspond to the numbers of a die!

#4:  Take workers:  This is the ONLY generic action available in the game.  Spend a die and get 2 workers. 1 worker allows you to adjust a die roll +/- 1.  There is no limit on workers you can spend and the die wraps around (a 6 becomes a 1 with only a single worker).

#5:  If you have cash, you can buy 'center' tiles.  These still need to be placed, but $$$ = a free tile draft action.

Ok, so dumb game so far.  You may as well roll two dice 50 times and see who gets the highest total.  What makes this game fun is the tiles have powers that activate once you get them on your tableau.

So there are 6 colors.

Beige are buildings.  In general buildings give you extra actions.  They aren't as versatile as dies, but hey, they are free.  Things like after playing a this building, you get to take a blue or light green one.  Or after playing this other one, you get to trade goods for free.

Grey are mines.  At the beginning of a round (not turn), mines give you cash. 

Blue are ships.  Ships help you go earlier and acquire trade goods.

Dark Green are castles.  Castles give you a free die!  Use it for anything!

Yellow are knowledge.  Knowledge may - 1) give you some ability that helps placing, drafting, trading or some other ability, - or 2) give you victory points at end game.

Light Green are pastures.  Pastures hold animals.  And you want to group like animals together to get lots of victory points.  The most boring tile ever.

How do you win?:

It's a game about victory points.  The bulk of your victory points will come from closing sections on the tableau.  The earlier you close them the more victory points, and the harder they are to close, the more victory points. 

When you play a pasture tile, add up connected like animals.  So if you have a 3 chicken tile adjacent to a 4 chicken tile, you get 7 points!  These are big points, when you consider animals plus closure.

When you trade goods, you only get a dollar no matter how many you trade.  (remember a die roll determines what you can trade.)  But you get double VP for trading 2 and triple for trading 3 items.

Yellow tiles may give VP, along the lines of "get 4 VP for each <building type> you have in play."

Finally badges.  Look at the map above.  There are 2 badges for each color and these are awarded to the player who completely fills out the corresponding color's section earliest.

A winning score is around 225.

Review:

The interactions of the tiles is what makes this game.  It's not necessarily getting the most actions, its getting the right ones.  Everyone is going to get plenty of beige building actions, the trick is finding the right combination.  Something I haven't come close to figuring out.

Anyways, I really like this game, and it has stood up for well for a half dozen replays.