Category: Reviews

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Two Good Board Games

This is just to record two old games that my family very much enjoys. Both are a wonderful mix of strategy and the luck inherent to board and card games. The rules are reasonably basic, and the boards can be beautiful.

They are Cribbage and Backgammon. Cribbage is mainly a card game where you play to 121 points, but traditionally you play on a board with holes and pegs to track said points. It can be played with 2, 3, or 4 players (with two variations in the 3-player version) and is a wonderful game to teach someone starting at a young age. It teaches quick decision making, basic addition, and is just a casual, fun game to play at any point.

Backgammon requires a more involved board consisting of chips or tokens (15 per player) and two rows of 12 “slots” for them. Typically these slots are represented as triangles of alternating colors. This game uses dice as well, and is a great strategy game where you typically have many more moves than other board games focused on dice.

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Animal Crossing: Weed Yourself to Victory

I was finally convinced to start playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’d been hesitant to give it a try for a few reasons. First, Nintendo games are expensive. Second, I wasn’t sure I’d actually enjoy it. And third, if I did enjoy it, I wasn’t sure I’d want to sink time into it.

Having played it for a few hours today and successfully paid off my initial expenses to Tom Nook, I totally get the appeal. No, it will never be thrilling. But it’s a simple “life simulator” that you can enjoy to whatever detail you prefer. For me, I’m not necessarily interested in the things I can get. I’m currently motivated by the Nook Miles achievements. I’ll be a big bug-catcher and fish-fisher. The first thing I did was clear my island of weeds, and I intend to do so tomorrow. I found out quickly that if I just suspend my own judgement and allow myself to appreciate the straightforward charm of the game, it’s a relaxing way to pass the time.

Of course, these are all first impressions. I have no idea what staying power it will have in my life, but there’s a large catalog of fish and bugs to find, so that will almost certainly keep me going back every so often. I think the best aspect of the game is that it isn’t any sort of survival or sociology simulator; I don’t need to eat or drink, as best I can tell I’m unlikely to upset my island neighbors. I can focus on myself, do what needs to be done, and that’s it. It’s a game that simplifies activities that can already be considered calming and rewarding. Plus, they buy weeds. I’m going to fund my house using weeds and conch shells, or at least that’s my plan right now.

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Seeing a Professional Musical – Fly

A theater buff friend of mine visited this past weekend, and convinced me to go see a musical in the area called Fly. It is based on the story of Peter Pan, and focused on the serious idea of what it means to grow up. While that is always a main theme with any Peter Pan adaptation, this show took a slightly darker angle, with more adult humor present. I thoroughly enjoyed this production, but it made me think more about different types of entertainment I consume and the ways I judge them in my head.

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Review – 1917

I saw the film 1917 the other week. I had seen the trailer at least a dozen times before, as well as a two-minute feature in a theater about the cinematography. Despite all the exposure and a fairly decent amount of knowledge about the film, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and and would highly recommend it to anyone who isn’t put off by war movies in general. The movie is excellent on its own. However, what it made me think about the creative process was what stayed with me the most.

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Kindle vs. Nook

During this year’s Black Friday, I switched teams in the (not very large) e-reader wars. Ever since I was a sophomore in high school, I’ve used some sort of Nook from Barnes and Noble. Growing up, I always loved Barnes and Noble. Sure it’s a chain, but it’s still a bookstore and I enjoyed supporting it. This extended to the Nook. It always felt like they had better features for a slightly cheaper price than the Kindles that were available. They received backlights on the base model well before the Kindle did, and they still have physical buttons.

Despite all that, the Kindle has finally eclipsed the Nook in certain key features that are useful for me: water resistance, integration with libraries, file transfer, and services.

For reference, I specifically have the Kindle Paperwhite 2018, and previously had the Nook Glowlight 3.

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Narrative-Driven Puzzle Games

If you’ve never used a Plug ‘n Play game before, you’re missing out. They were the one piece of simple video game fun I had growing up. Beyond that, it was various Flash-based games in a browser (and since that’s my only association with Flash, I’m quite bummed it’s being killed.) And although some of my friends had consoles, and I would play occasionally, it was never something that really grabbed my attention.

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