Letters of Mass Construction

Gen Con 2018 Days 3 and 4

My second Gen Con and Sheri’s first is officially in the books. I had a great time overall but the whole experience was dampened a little because my wife was beat about the head with migraines for the whole Gen Con. She hung in there and says she had a good time but I know she didn’t have as good of a time as she could have. The good news is that she wants to come back (hopefully minus the migraines).

The the last two days were spent mostly trying out games and walking around and listening to rules. We spent a lot of money the first day but only added three games the last two (four counting a pre-order I placed today). All of them were unplanned purchases where the demo wowed us in some way or another. There were also quite a few that I will order later when they become available at my game store.

I’ll start with the purchases. We bought Carthago after watching several rounds and asking a whole lot of questions. My wife and I play most of our board games two players and this game seemed to scale for two players nicely. I loved the game mechanics of trying to build the biggest navy. There were a lot of juicy choices to make every turn and a lot of long term planning. The game felt deep but the rules were easy to understand. I knew we were probably going to buy it when Sheri started correcting one of the players on how to play a rule. Sometimes games with a lot of choices and planning are not Sheri’s go to choice (except for engine building games which she loves). One of the cool things about this game was how you manage your actions. If you play it wrong you can end up in a spot where you have a great move but no action points to play it. The art was great and the price was phenomenal. A lot of game in a little box.

We were completely won over by BarBearian Battlegrounds. It is a direct conflict game with just a few simple rules to learn. Plus, lots of dice rolling which is always a win for me. It is a small portable game that you could easily pack into a smaller box and take on the road with you. Another bonus is that it is fast. I am always looking for quick games that I can add to my after school board game club. My students are always looking for quick games to fill the extra time.

With ten minutes left in the con, I finally made it over to look at Horizons. I was very interested in this game. I have been looking for a 4X game to play with Sheri. I wanted a shorter game before we dove into some of the longer beasts out there and I hoped this one would work. I was sold pretty much immediately. It was beautiful and had a nice set of rules. It also had the added bonus that you can play it without using warfare (something Sheri doesn’t always like). There is an expansion that adds the warfare in but the base game is built around not kicking the crap out of each other. We didn’t think we were going to get to buy this one though because they had sold out. However, while we were talking to the designer they found two copies (one with the extra Kickstarter expansion) so we snapped it up.

The last game I bought was a pre-order called The Hands of Fate Ordeals. This was one of the prettiest games we saw while we were at Gen Con. It also was built to be played solo. I knew I was done though as I watch the deck building mechanic in play. I absolutely love deck builders and one I can play solo, the hook was sunk in before I knew what happened.

There were a couple of games we demoed that are not out yet but we absolutely loved and will certainly buy. The top of that list is easily the third edition of Arkham Horror. This is a game I have always wanted to play but was daunted by what I heard about it. The third edition has integrated the mechanics of the 2nd edition with some of the best parts of Arkham Horror the Card Game and Eldritch Horror (to be fair I have never played the 2nd edition so maybe those other two games stole the best parts of Arkham Horror). The game played smooth, the map was cool, and there was very little for me to learn to dive right in. We also really liked Comanauts, which takes the mechanics of Stuffed Fables and puts them into a horror world. I played Coimbra and loved it but be warned it is a little crunchy. There is a boat load of things going on in this game. I will probably have to watch a refresher video on it once I purchase it. The last game I loved was Tidal Blades which will be Kickstarted in September. A beautiful and fun twist on worker placement (probably Sheri’s favorite game mechanic). We would have bought this game if it had been on sale and will definitely back it.

In the end we walked away with 10 games and two pre-orders. Some of these games will be played a few times and then be put into my after school club and the rest will hopefully enjoy repeated game plays for years to come. Our board gaming has picked up a lot this last year and I actually don’t see this reversing. My interests in playing video games has been dying a slow death the last few years and I think this Gen Con will knock it to the mat and stick a fork in it. I also have bought my games for the year with a couple of exceptions noted above. Now, I just have to learn all the rules.

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Gen Con 2018 Day 2

Hello, my name is Christopher and I have a legacy problem. Welcome to my Gen Con day 2 recap. I managed to keep my wallet in my pocket today. This was a good thing because yesterday I might have spent a little too much money. Don’t get me wrong, I might not be done but at least for today I managed to keep my 4th rate Fort Knox credit card in my billfold (wish I could have done that yesterday. After spending a month’s salary, I went onto losing my credit card. Got it cancelled but now I have to break a different card).

We got to walk around and play a few games today. My least favorite of the ones I looked at was Jetpack Joyride which looked like a Blokus knockoff, only not as good. To be fair I know the game isn’t done yet but my first impression was not good. The surprise of the day was Expancity which looked pretty basic but sucked me in immediately. Easy rules to understand but loads of fun to play. I would have bought it at the con but they were sold out. I did place a pre-order (I am not counting this as a con expenditure. If they have to ship it to me later it doesn’t count. I am not sure Sheri is buying that argument). I also played and enjoyed Nemo’s War but didn’t pull the string on buying it. I only have a couple more spots in the suitcase and didn’t want to give up on being wowed by something else.

We spent a couple hours in the live Dice Tower Podcast. This was not a good thing. It was like watching future dollars leak out of my pocket. Different publishers announced a bunch of games that I knew I was going to want to own. The stand outs were Machi Koro Legacy, remember I have legacy problem, don’t judge me. I enjoy Mach Koror. Not sure what a legacy version is going to look like but I am game. Next up on the must buy was Aftershocks by Alan Moon. The map of San Francisco and Moon meant I was in trouble right away. The big one though had to be Return to Dark Tower. Which honestly I probably wouldn’t have cared about except it is being designed by Rob Daviau (the originator of my legacy problem)and Isaac Childress (the man who stuffed more game into a box than should be possible).

Those were the highlights of day two. Day three will probably be a short one for us tomorrow. It is usually the most crowded day (although Friday’s are suppose to be big and I thought today felt a little light. Thursday was way more crowded) and we might skip out early if we are having trouble getting into games. Still having fun feeding my addiction and hoping I won’t lose anymore credit cards.

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Gen Con 2018 Day 1

Gen Con 2018 Day 1 is in the books. Today was Sheri’s first day and sadly she got bitten by the headache bug. She stuck with it though and eventually the headache let up. I will say my first impression was that it is much more crowded than when I went the first time several years ago. Nowhere was that more apparent than the will call line. It was out of control bad. People were telling me that it took them 2 to 3 hours to get through the line. As far as I am concerned that is unacceptable. That is a huge part of someone’s day. We have only one set of tickets that we need to pick up but I can flat out tell you that we are going to kiss that $12 goodbye if the line is that bad tomorrow. I have been to a lot of conventions, including Comic Con, and never waited 2 hours to pick up my badge to get in. They really need to separate ticket pick up from badge pickup or have a lot more people pushing people through.

That was my only negative though. I just love Gen Con. I love the energy. I love walking around and looking at games. I love demoing games (although we didn’t do as much of that today). Today was my “buy games” day. So we spent a lot of time going around and picking up games. We went to pick up Root first but the line was nutso. As much as it hurt me to move on, we did. I wanted to make sure we got Villainous because I knew it was the one game that would be a Sheri pick. I wanted her to not leave without it. It was a smart move because I also wanted to pick up The Rise of Queensdale. The lines were reasonable and we got both. The nice gentleman at the booth said both were moving fast and would be gone in a couple of hours.

From there we picked up Ticket to Ride New York. We got to play it and it was delightful and fast. Our game finished in 15 minutes and everyone was smiling. I see us playing this a lot while traveling. We walked around and made a game plan for what we wanted to play over the next couple of days. Had a delightful conversation at the Flying Frog Booth about Shadows of Brimstone. Had Dice Throne demoed to us which then tricked us into buying it. That was top level Jedi Mind tricks going on there because we were not planning to buy anything else. Our last stop was to pick up my preorder of The Reckoners. On the way over to the booth we passed by Leder Games and that crazy line for Root was gone. We waited 0 minutes and got Root and its expansion. I was super stoked because that was the one game that I was really intrigued by. I just don’t do lines well.

It was a great first day but we are just about done buying. Our suitcases are filled. We can maybe get one more game and just carry it onto the plane. I can’t wait to see what games jump out at us and scream “buy me” (I can’t imagine Dice Throne will be the only one). Now it’s time to start cracking a few of these open and seeing what joy they have in store for us.

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Board Games Are My Jam!

I have been an avid video and computer gamer all my life. It started early for me. Plugging quarters into an arcade machine and playing Asteroids for the millionth time. I would move onto Tempest and a host of other games. Pong was my first at home system (no “how old are you” jokes are allowed, unless they are funny). I moved onto Atari and then every other gaming system known to mankind. I was good at them. I am still good at them. I regularly have students who are amazed at some high score I racked up. Then about ten years ago everything changed. I bought a board game named Carcassonne.

Sheri and I stayed up late one night in a hotel room and tried to learn the rules. We played a few games and then we never played again. You see I didn’t really like it. Carcassonne is considered a gateway game. It is the game that is often used to get new board gamers into the hobby. The store we bought it from specifically recommended it to us for that reason.

We discovered the store while killing time in Ashland. It’s called Funagain Games. It is wall to wall games and it was a little overwhelming, but I sensed there was something here I really wanted to experience. It made me think back to my childhood and the endless hours of Risk and Backgammon and Pente. I enjoyed board games but video games had stolen me away.

Carcassonne wasn’t for us but I knew the experience was something I wanted. I loved learning the rules with Sheri. I enjoyed our interaction and our time together discovering we didn’t really enjoy the game. This game wasn’t the one but I could feel the tingle of excitement. I knew there was a game out there. We found it with my very next purchase. I bought Ticket to Ride and my video gaming days were all but killed.

I can’t tell you how many hours of Ticket to Ride we played but it was ridiculous. We began teaching other people the game. I brought it to school and taught it to my students. The door was open and I threw myself in like a flash bang. Ticket to Ride was followed by Pandemic, Small World, Lords of Waterdeep, and a host of others. It wasn’t long before I was buying board games on a regular basis (something I used to do with video games).

I formed a board game club after school. I have run summer clubs with my students. We haul board games on trips with us. Last year we took a cruise to Mexico with the intent of never getting off the ship. Instead, I brought a suitcase full of board games and we played games for the whole week (primarily Pandemic Legacy season one which stole a little of our soul that week). The cruise was one of the high points of my board gaming. We would often have people gather around the table and watch us play. I would explain the rules and hope someone would ask to join us.

The other big high point was attending my first Gen Con several years ago. Four days of playing and buying board games. Making new friends. Learning new games. Meeting the designers of the games. It destroyed my desire to ever go back to San Diego Comic Con (a convention that became primarily about hanging out with friends but not actually doing much in the convention).

This week I am going back to Gen Con and I am super excited because I am bringing Sheri. She was the only thing missing from my last trip. Board games have made us even closer than we were before, and we were close before. We thoroughly enjoy learning and playing new games together (this last month it has been 7 Wonders Duel, Charterstone, and a whole lot of Shadows of Brimstone).

This post is the relaunch of my blog. I am not going to be super ambitious. I will post updates on my new novel and about once a week I will post something else that tickles my fancy. I miss writing to an audience and I hope I can find one again. I might post a few more this week because I would love to share what I am digging at Gen Con. I will leave you with this. Find your joy and then share it with someone.

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Terraforming Mars

My first board game review. I hope I do better at it then I do playing some games. I am a converted video game player. I used to play hours and hours of video games a week but honestly I vastly prefer the joy of a good board game than almost any video game I have ever played. Which brings me to my new most favorite thing, Terraforming Mars.

I am going to go ahead and get this out of the way. It isn’t perfect. Far from it but the game has captivated my wife and I (in particular my wife). I am a long time science fiction fan. One of my favorite books is Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson and this game activates my imagination like few others have this last year.

Terraforming Mars is dripping theme. The game is about making Mars habitable by bringing oxygen oceans, and temperature to Mars. Each player plays a corporation who brings a particular skill set to making Mars beautiful (the rulebook recommends players start with a beginning cooperation……don’t do this…..the game is much better from the get go as a unique cooperation).

You terraform Mars by building a game engine that produces resources. You do this through cards. You draw four cards and buy the ones you think will help you produce resources that will get you victory points. This is the first place in the game that I think is a little flawed. I would recommend that you do not play this game as a random draw but instead use a drafting method to buy your cards. The randomness of the card draw means that sometimes a player can really struggle to begin to build their game engine. Which leads to the second flaw. If you get way behind early, it is hard to catch up.

Even with those flaws the game is exciting and fun. I love games that make me start playing one way and then slowly change my strategy as the game goes on. I love games that I have multiple paths to victory. I especially love games that I don’t care if I lose. Board games should be fun and this game is fun. I have never played it the same way twice.

While there are flaws (the player board could have been better) but none of these things took away from my joy. I always felt like I was actually playing a game about terraforming Mars. I was in the theme. When I had a strategy and those cards came up I could feel the joy bubble up. I loved when I bought a card to use later and then got the oxygen level to where I could use it. I loved trying to figure out what my wife was doing and how I could use it to let me win. I haven’t played the game with 3 or more people or solo but as a two-person game it is the boss. I look forward to seeing what expansions might be coming down the pike.

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The Struggle is Real

I have been gone for a long time from this blog. I have been struggling. I have been trying to find my way back to me. To the writer. To the reader. To the legend in my own mind. When I struggle I tend to focus on the things that are the most important to me. The things I can’t afford to damage. My wife and my students are the top of that list. I feel I have done that but I knew it wasn’t enough. I had to find my way back.

In the end I decided it was time to suck it up and go. So here I am. I was going to write a long blog about my inner struggle but decided against it. We live in a world where if I break my arm I get to go to the hospital and a doctor will fix it. The doctor will put a cast on it. My students will want to sign it. People will ask me how I am doing? When is the cast coming off? We are open and often caring with physical injuries.

My injury isn’t physical (although I have had my fair share of those over the last few years). My brain is broken. It has never worked right. I have spent my life managing it. I am usually very good at it. The last two years, not so much. It is hard to explain to people. Most people are not even aware of the struggle. I work in a very social job. I am good at it but at night, when I get home, it sometimes gets on top of me. It weighs me down. It stops me from being me. It pisses me off.

I have always known that I do better when I give my brain something to focus on. I love my brain. It is curious and smart and persistent and funny. I hate my brain. It is dark and anti-social and OCD and sad. I have been working on finding things to do that focus me. Writing is definitely one of them but it isn’t always enough. I think I am doing better at finding alternatives. I think I am doing better.

So here I am. Back and bugging the half dozen people who will read this. I hope I can grow it. I don’t care if I do. I need to write. This is where I will be writing. I will be doing board game reviews and book reviews. I will be writing about the world. I will be funny. I miss being funny. The struggle is real but so are the results. Hang onto your hair pieces, it is going to be a bumpy ride.

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Teaching in Fear

I have cried a few times in my 21-year career as a teacher in front of my students. For those of you who don’t know me personally, this is not insignificant. I do not like to show my pain to the world. I sometimes have a hard time showing it to my closest friends. I can remember the first time I was reading the book Freak the Mighty to my class. My class had a very emotional reaction to a part of the book that caused me to tear up with them. I often tell this story to my students to remind them that words have power.

I cried with a student once as she finally admitted to me that the horror story her friends told me about her home life were true. It to this day the single worst case of abuse I have had the unfortunate displeasure to be made aware of. I cried when I called the authorities. I cried when I filled out the paperwork. I cried when I talked to my principal. It still shakes me up thinking about it.

I cried when Columbine happened. For days any student who wanted to talk with me about it would bring tears to my eyes. As a teacher it hit so close to home. All those young lives lost. All the horror that no person should ever have to go through. Students begging for their lives. It was too much. It is still too much.

And now there is another one. I am not surprised. How can you be surprised about something that happens so frequently. I have lost the capacity for surprise. I have not lost the capacity to absorb the horror of it. The horror never leaves me. Over the next few days and weeks all of the arguments will spring back into public. People will point fingers and make accusations. Others will demand their rights and talk of the inability to change anything. We have heard it all before ad nauseam.

I am writing today because I think that sometimes we lose sight of what this has become. How this infection has seeped into our culture and way of life. As a teacher my perspective of all these shootings is slightly different than many people. Sadly, this is because I sometimes now think of myself as being on the front line.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago my school had an officer involved shooting across the street. The officers killed a suspect who was holding several people hostage. At the time of the shooting our school was only informed that a shooting had occurred across the street. Nothing about the suspect being apprehended or if the incident was ongoing. We locked the school down. The incident happened before school and there were kids everywhere. At that time I was on my prep period so I stayed out and helped the administrators get all students into buildings.

It was at this moment that I had the single scariest moment of my career. I watched as someone hopped a fence across a field facing the apartments where the shooting happened. The person began walking towards our campus. I wish I could describe adequately the fear I felt at that exact moment. I swear to you I could taste it. I began to move rapidly towards the person shouting for them to stop moving, which thankfully they did. We had a conversation where he explained he was the food delivery driver and had left something at his last stop and had gone back to get it. I recognized him at this point and the uniform he was wearing. I explained what was going on and why he had almost given me a heart attack.

The whole thing was spooky but as a school we had done what we needed to do. We got all of our students to safety. We practice it for a reason. Every year we practice it I have a student ask me what am I going to do if there is a shooting and the shooter gets into our class. Every year I answer the same thing. I am probably going to get shot because my job is to keep you safe. My job is to get you back to your parents unharmed. I will do anything to make sure that happens.

Here is the sobering truth. The single biggest fear I have as a teacher is an intruder on campus. Anytime I see someone who doesn’t belong I worry. Anytime I see a car parked in a strange place. Anytime a backfire sounds like a gun. This is not an every so often fear. I worry about my students’ safety every day. I hate after school because there is absolutely no way to figure out who belongs and who doesn’t. This isn’t just my fear. My students worry about it all the time. They ask me how we can possibly keep them safe. It breaks my heart that the best answer I can give them is make it as hard as possible to reach you and hope the police get here in time.

Fixing this problem has no easy answers. Too many people are entrenched in their positions. It being difficult should not stop us from attempting it. I don’t accept my students telling me something is difficult and I certainly don’t accept my country saying it. When has something being difficult ever stopped us from going after it. I don’t really care where you come down on this in your politics. It is time to have an intelligent and thoughtful discussion. It is time to start making the difficult decisions as citizens of this country. It is unacceptable to me that my students and I live in a state of fear. It is unacceptable to me that my country seems to be stuck in quicksand leaving us unable to keep our children safe at school, at the movies, at the mall. It should be unacceptable to everyone, no matter how difficult the choices which will have to be made.

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My Top Ten Tabletop Board Games

I have decided to start reviewing tabletop board games. I have been running an after school board game club for almost three years. This last week I ran my first successful all day tabletop day at our local community center and had a great turnout. Over the last few years I have slowly turned away from video games and embraced tabletop games. I have been purchasing far too many of them (this is a lie. You can never have too many) and it is time for me to really start running all of them through the paces. I am also going to my first GenCon next week and plan on reporting out on all the cool and new interesting things I find. With that in mind I am going to put out a short list of my ten favorite tabletop games so far. I will update the list as new games crack it (I am looking at you Robinson Crusoe).

1) King of Tokyo

I play this game more than any game I own. Simple mechanics, easy rules, and very quick. This is the go to game whenever we need to fill in some time.

2) Pandemic

I love playing this game on the ridiculous level. Had a game once where an eminent victory on the next turn became a crushing defeat and had everyone asking, “What the hell just happened?”

3) Ticket to Ride

This was the game that hooked my wife into tabletop games. It will always have a place in my heart.

4) Lords of Waterdeep

My first worker placement game and still my favorite.

5) Gloom

This game has always been one of my favorites. The storyteller in me goes crazy in it. Next year I will be introducing Gloom into my classroom curriculum for writing.

6) Cosmic Encounters

A fairly easy game to teach with an amazing amount of variety. Not to mention backstabbing your alliances.

7) Firefly

No one was more amazed than me that a game based on a TV series turned out to be great. Traveling around the galaxy setting the Reavers loose on your opponents.

8) Discworld: Ankh-Morpork

I admit my love of Discworld helps keep the game in the top ten. Having said that, it is one of the most played games in my board game club. The mechanics are easy to understand and the cards are beautiful and hilarious.

9) Alien Frontiers

A dice rolling game with an amazing amount of strategy. I just started playing this one so it bumped Galaxy Truckers out of my top ten.

10) Sentinels of the Multiverse

A very deep superheroes card game. I have played this game a lot and still haven’t exhausted all the combinations (mind you I own all the expansions).

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Reading Is My Jam

Summer is here and I needed some time to reset my brain. I have been in a bad place for a long time now. I know a lot of the frustration I feel is because my knee is not healing as fast as my brain wants it to. I miss running. I miss crossing the finish line in races. I miss the feel of accomplishment every time I do something I thought I had no chance of accomplishing. It doesn’t help that I am having a hard time controlling my weight while not running. Throw in a very tough end of the school year. I was zapped. Brain fried. Depression achievement unlocked.

Sheri and I decided to have a relaxed summer. Not as much travelling. In part this is because we are going to London for Star Wars Celebration next summer and we needed to start saving. Mostly, I just needed to relax and read books. Lots of books. Reading has always been my go to anti-depressant (or it was until I took up running).

All told I read 22 books last month. Combined with my first week of really consistent exercise (4 out of the last 5 days I have been able to go an hour on the eliptical or treadmill) and I am feeling like my brain has clicked back into the right place. I actually cracked a few smiles while exercising this week.

When I was younger reading took me away from everything. Allowed me to escape into worlds better than my own. They taught me how to be a better me. Reading is my jam. It always has been. It was a great June and I am ready to get back to writing. Get back to running. Start training for the New York Marathon. You know, being me. Tune in this weekend for my mid-year best of reading list. There are some gems on it.

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Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey

It isn’t always easy reviewing a fifth novel in a series. By now most people who are reading this series don’t need to be convinced to keep reading it. They need only one thing. The confirmation that the series is still great and heading in the right direction. I can assure you that all things are wonderful in The Expanse universe. Well not for the characters but for us, the spoiled readers.

It is hard to maintain the momentum in long series. It is particularly hard to maintain it in long books in long series. I have given up on quite a few series that I was in love with early on but eventually wore me out with the feeling that I had been there before. This has not been a problem with The Expanse series. The first three books were brilliant and then at the end of the third book (Abaddon’s Gate) Corey knocks us out with a twist that opens up hundreds of possibilities for new stories. So far the authors have not disappointed with those possibilities.

Nemesis Games is wonderful for a new reason though. While Holden has always been front and center in the series, this book dives into the other crew members’ histories and gives some meaning and nuance to their story that wasn’t there before. What I love the most about The Expanse series is how big the universe is but how intimate the story can be. How each book builds upon the last one and leaves you wanting more. How the plots are giant space operas filled with giant moments but you come back for your familiar friends.

As in every book before this one the plot is huge and full of future ramifications by the end of the book we have added some old characters to our crew and the story is barreling off in a direction that I did not see coming. James S.A. Corey seems to be writing these books in sets of three. This would make Nemesis Games the second book of the second arc. It spins the story into a new direction and leaves me waiting expectantly for the next book. Luckily, for all of us fans Corey has consistently put out a book a year. Of course, this still means I have to wait a year. I have said it before. The Expanse is the best thing going in science fiction right now. If you are not reading this series, you should be.

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