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Merissa (11787 KP) rated The Trail Boss and the Brat (Farthingdale Ranch #6) in Books
Mar 22, 2022 (Updated Jun 30, 2023)
THE TRAIL BOSS AND THE BRAT is the sixth and final book in the Farthingdale Ranch series and we finally get Quint's story.
Quint is set in his ways and tells himself that Brody and Kit are all he needs. Ashley, a poor little rich boy-brat, arrives on the scene to shake that belief. Ashley has lost the only person who believed in him and encouraged him to be his own person. She left him a gift of time at Farthingdale Ranch. He books up but doesn't pay attention to what is required of him, leading to a dangerous situation for him and Quint.
This does allow them time to get to know each other, though. Quint realises there may be more to Ashley than he first thought and soon starts to imagine all the possibilities life may be offering him.
This was a great finale to the series and also offered up an answer to what happened to two characters from a book that links to this series. I loved that part! I'd always wanted to know and thought I never would. I will admit to my eyes leaking at that part!
A great end to a fantastic series. Brilliant stories, one and all, and absolutely recommended by me.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Mar 18, 2022
Quint is set in his ways and tells himself that Brody and Kit are all he needs. Ashley, a poor little rich boy-brat, arrives on the scene to shake that belief. Ashley has lost the only person who believed in him and encouraged him to be his own person. She left him a gift of time at Farthingdale Ranch. He books up but doesn't pay attention to what is required of him, leading to a dangerous situation for him and Quint.
This does allow them time to get to know each other, though. Quint realises there may be more to Ashley than he first thought and soon starts to imagine all the possibilities life may be offering him.
This was a great finale to the series and also offered up an answer to what happened to two characters from a book that links to this series. I loved that part! I'd always wanted to know and thought I never would. I will admit to my eyes leaking at that part!
A great end to a fantastic series. Brilliant stories, one and all, and absolutely recommended by me.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Mar 18, 2022
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Boba Boss in Tabletop Games
Nov 21, 2019 (Updated Nov 21, 2019)
If you are a fan of Purple Phoenix Games then you probably know of our love affair with Happy Salmon. It’s an excellent dexterity card game and it just works in so many different situations. So when I saw the promo video for Boba Boss (linked below) I thought that we might have a contender on our hands. Was I right?
Boba Boss is a quick-playing modular action/dexterity card game of filling your orders for demanding customers of your delicious boba tea. You appease them by filling their order cups with brew, but your opponents are also trying to fill their cups as quickly as possible. Are you able to complete your orders before your competitors?
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know if the final components will be similar or different, or if the Kickstarter campaign will alter or add anything through stretch goals. -T
To setup, you will need to decide which modules of the game you wish to incorporate. The game comes ready to play out of the box for an easier first game. I suggest you play this way to get familiar with how the game plays before you start adding in different modules. Or don’t. I’m not your mother.
Once the game is setup your objective is this: fill all your cups. You do this by frantically flipping cards from your deck hoping to get Straw cards. One straw will fill one cup. Two straws will fill two cups. Play needs to be brisk because the other players are flipping over cards as well and some of them will instruct the player to unflip (re-flip? Probably the same thing…) your readied tea card. This means that you must hope to flip over more straw cards to fill your cups.
There are three ways to play Boba Boss and they all have to do with the spill cards. These are cards that will have text on them in different colors. The three modes of play are identified by using three aspects of the spill cards: splatter color, text color, text text. So a spill card could have a red background (splatter color). If the round is played using splatter color and you flip over one with a red splatter color, you may unflip a readied red cup. The next round you may choose to play these cards with the text color. Each card will also have bubble text in different colors. So maybe that same red splatter card will have green text, so you would unflip a readied green tea card. And the final mode is text text. This means that same card may have the text in green but the word actually spells out “purple,” in which case you will unflip a purple player’s readied tea card. Play continues in this fashion until someone yells, “BOBA!” indicating they have two or less cups to fill. Once a player has filled all their cups they must yell, “BOBA BOSS!” And then they are crowned the victor.
This is just the base base game. Like I said, this game is modular in that you can add different dimensions of difficulty to it to have just a ridiculously confusing and frenzied play experience. One such module will add “optional flavors” to your game to increase the chaos and replayability. One example is shown below – “Karatea” (karate). When you draw and play Karatea you are to kick (flick) another player’s tea cup card where they will need to reset it to continue play. This just increases the time needed for the kicked player to win and just causes mayhem in the process. These extra flavor cards were provided to us but we just could not get all of them into play. The “Royaltea” and “Tea Rex” cards are favorites of ours.
Components. Again, we were provided with a prototype version of this game, so components may end up being very different from what we played with. This game is a box of a ton of cards. Thankfully the cards provided were glossy because they are handled A LOT. The glossy protection will help with survival of the game while being obsessively played. We appreciate that. The art is great on the cards, and the colors are fabulous. No issues with components from us, even in this prototype version.
As if we didn’t already have enough stress in our lives, along comes Boba Boss and makes us sweat in the first 60 seconds. This game is such an adrenaline rush as you are trying to fill customer orders for boba tea. Playing with three different game modes and tons of different cards to be added in modular fashion makes for an excellent balance of chaos and brain adaptation that you just don’t get anywhere else. Honestly, as you can see from our preview, we had so much fun playing that we didn’t have time to take photos of much of the game, but we hope in adding our photo along with a graphic and video from the publisher that you will forgive us. We are very excited to watch this Kickstarter campaign and hopefully our readers will give it a chance. It fills a unique niche and earns a place next to our beloved Happy Salmon. High praise for a great game.
Boba Boss is a quick-playing modular action/dexterity card game of filling your orders for demanding customers of your delicious boba tea. You appease them by filling their order cups with brew, but your opponents are also trying to fill their cups as quickly as possible. Are you able to complete your orders before your competitors?
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a prototype copy of this game for the purposes of this review. These are preview copy components, and I do not know if the final components will be similar or different, or if the Kickstarter campaign will alter or add anything through stretch goals. -T
To setup, you will need to decide which modules of the game you wish to incorporate. The game comes ready to play out of the box for an easier first game. I suggest you play this way to get familiar with how the game plays before you start adding in different modules. Or don’t. I’m not your mother.
Once the game is setup your objective is this: fill all your cups. You do this by frantically flipping cards from your deck hoping to get Straw cards. One straw will fill one cup. Two straws will fill two cups. Play needs to be brisk because the other players are flipping over cards as well and some of them will instruct the player to unflip (re-flip? Probably the same thing…) your readied tea card. This means that you must hope to flip over more straw cards to fill your cups.
There are three ways to play Boba Boss and they all have to do with the spill cards. These are cards that will have text on them in different colors. The three modes of play are identified by using three aspects of the spill cards: splatter color, text color, text text. So a spill card could have a red background (splatter color). If the round is played using splatter color and you flip over one with a red splatter color, you may unflip a readied red cup. The next round you may choose to play these cards with the text color. Each card will also have bubble text in different colors. So maybe that same red splatter card will have green text, so you would unflip a readied green tea card. And the final mode is text text. This means that same card may have the text in green but the word actually spells out “purple,” in which case you will unflip a purple player’s readied tea card. Play continues in this fashion until someone yells, “BOBA!” indicating they have two or less cups to fill. Once a player has filled all their cups they must yell, “BOBA BOSS!” And then they are crowned the victor.
This is just the base base game. Like I said, this game is modular in that you can add different dimensions of difficulty to it to have just a ridiculously confusing and frenzied play experience. One such module will add “optional flavors” to your game to increase the chaos and replayability. One example is shown below – “Karatea” (karate). When you draw and play Karatea you are to kick (flick) another player’s tea cup card where they will need to reset it to continue play. This just increases the time needed for the kicked player to win and just causes mayhem in the process. These extra flavor cards were provided to us but we just could not get all of them into play. The “Royaltea” and “Tea Rex” cards are favorites of ours.
Components. Again, we were provided with a prototype version of this game, so components may end up being very different from what we played with. This game is a box of a ton of cards. Thankfully the cards provided were glossy because they are handled A LOT. The glossy protection will help with survival of the game while being obsessively played. We appreciate that. The art is great on the cards, and the colors are fabulous. No issues with components from us, even in this prototype version.
As if we didn’t already have enough stress in our lives, along comes Boba Boss and makes us sweat in the first 60 seconds. This game is such an adrenaline rush as you are trying to fill customer orders for boba tea. Playing with three different game modes and tons of different cards to be added in modular fashion makes for an excellent balance of chaos and brain adaptation that you just don’t get anywhere else. Honestly, as you can see from our preview, we had so much fun playing that we didn’t have time to take photos of much of the game, but we hope in adding our photo along with a graphic and video from the publisher that you will forgive us. We are very excited to watch this Kickstarter campaign and hopefully our readers will give it a chance. It fills a unique niche and earns a place next to our beloved Happy Salmon. High praise for a great game.
Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated Baby Driver (2017) in Movies
Jul 11, 2019
After falling into debt with a crime boss, Baby (Ansel Elgort), must pay back what he owes by being the getaway driver for brazen daytime heists. The crime boss, Doc (Kevin Spacey), promises Baby that once the next job is done he will be debt free. Baby does the job and heads home feeling finally free and ready to start doing good things with his life. He meets a beautiful waitress, Debora (Lily James), and plans to drive across the country with her. It may be too good to be true. He soon learns that being debt free may not mean that he gets to walk away from the life of crime. Being an exceptional driver has made him indispensable to Doc. Now Baby has a choice between walking away, which Doc has promised to hurt him and those he cares about if he does, or do one more job, and hope he find a way out of the criminal world and onto the road with Debora.
Writer/Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) does a masterful job of drawing the audience into the story with the soundtrack in a really fun and original way. From the chase scenes to the mundane task of getting coffee, the music immerses the viewer into Baby’s world. The film starts out with an exciting car chase sequence and keeps moving all the way to the end. All of the chase/driving scenes are really well done, which was expected for a movie with driver in the name, but impressive none the less. The pace of the film was consistent and it flowed all the way to the end. Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, John Hamm, Eliza Gonzalez and the rest of the supporting cast did really well and all brought interesting characters to the film.
I loved the originality of the story and how it was executed. This is definitely a soundtrack I will have to listen to again. There were couple loose ends with some of the characters that didn’t get tied up but that was minimal. It is a fun ride and has a little bit of something for everyone. There is a love story, action, a compelling story, and a mixed in comedy that lightens the mood.
Writer/Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) does a masterful job of drawing the audience into the story with the soundtrack in a really fun and original way. From the chase scenes to the mundane task of getting coffee, the music immerses the viewer into Baby’s world. The film starts out with an exciting car chase sequence and keeps moving all the way to the end. All of the chase/driving scenes are really well done, which was expected for a movie with driver in the name, but impressive none the less. The pace of the film was consistent and it flowed all the way to the end. Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, John Hamm, Eliza Gonzalez and the rest of the supporting cast did really well and all brought interesting characters to the film.
I loved the originality of the story and how it was executed. This is definitely a soundtrack I will have to listen to again. There were couple loose ends with some of the characters that didn’t get tied up but that was minimal. It is a fun ride and has a little bit of something for everyone. There is a love story, action, a compelling story, and a mixed in comedy that lightens the mood.
Andrew Rich (36 KP) rated Muramasa: The Demon Blade in Video Games
Jun 18, 2019
Visuals (3 more)
Pacing
Subbed not Dubbed
Choices for creating/obtaining new equipment
Repetitive Gameplay (1 more)
The maps may confuse some
Muramasa: The Demon Blade was my favorite game released for the Wii, and remains one of my favorite video games of all time. The hand-painted background illustrations and characters fly by as you explore the world, either as Momohime or Kisuke, and fight your way through each screen and each boss.
Part of the reason I love this game as much as I do is that it's an odd duck. There's too much role-play to be a full on action game, but too many elements of an action game to be a full on role-player; but still somehow manages to to feel quite like an action role-player. Muramasa occupies a weird middle ground that I haven't encountered in any other action/role-play title, and it's a middle ground that I keep going back to.
Lately my Wii has been just a Homebrew-channel-running emulator machine, but rediscovering Muramasa has turned it back into an actual Wii. I almost even want to buy a PS Vita, just to pick up a copy of Muramasa Rebirth!
Part of the reason I love this game as much as I do is that it's an odd duck. There's too much role-play to be a full on action game, but too many elements of an action game to be a full on role-player; but still somehow manages to to feel quite like an action role-player. Muramasa occupies a weird middle ground that I haven't encountered in any other action/role-play title, and it's a middle ground that I keep going back to.
Lately my Wii has been just a Homebrew-channel-running emulator machine, but rediscovering Muramasa has turned it back into an actual Wii. I almost even want to buy a PS Vita, just to pick up a copy of Muramasa Rebirth!
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