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Ivana A. | Diary of Difference (1171 KP) rated The Awakening (The Vampire Diaries, #1) in Books
Feb 3, 2020
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#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998210568">The Awakening</a> - ★★★★★
#2 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998210684">The Struggle</a> - ★★★★★
<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Book-Review-Banner-24.png"/>;
<b><i>I had The Awakening and the Struggle (the first and second books from the Vampire Diaries series) on my shelf for years.</i></b>
When I say years, I mean it. It all started when I was in high-school, around 6 years ago, and I was in love with the Vampire Diaries TV Show. When I found out there are books as well, I begged my mum to buy them for me. And once I had them, I never got to read them, because teenage logic...
I recently noticed the Vampire Diaries books sitting on my shelf, forgotten, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to read it in October, because of the whole spooky vibe. So there it is now - even thought the wheel didn't choose it, I did, because it deserved the attention!
Elena Gilbert is a popular girl in high-school and she always gets what she wants. Boys want to be with her, girls hate her, or want to be her best friends. And when this new boy Stefan comes into town, all mysterious, Elena wants him. But Stefan is hiding a deadly secret that Elena might now be ready for just yet. And her life, as well as the life of everyone living in Fell's Church is in grave danger... Elena finds herself between two brothers - one who came for a new life, and the other, who came for revenge...
Reading this book, while already knowing what the plot it, I thought I found find it boring. But no. I still enjoyed every single page of it, and I still devoured this book in one day.
From the first chapter, this book is intense and captures your attention. It is written in third person, but it also contains diary entries that belong to Elena and capture her deepest thoughts that she doesn't dare share with anyone else.
<b><i>I loved Elena!</i></b>
Her character is exactly what I was expected and what I have known to love - brave and fierce, and also willing to sacrifice her own happiness and safety for the people she loves the most.
Elena's friends, Meredith and Bonnie are the friends every girl needs. Funny and caring. A few pages in, and you will get to love them too.
Stefan - the mysterious new guy in school. The guy that tries to stay away from the girl he really wants because he's a danger to her. A little bit of Twilight vibes, but we can get past that. Because there is one thing that Twilight didn't have, that you can find reading The Vampire Diaries...
<b><i>DAMON</i></b>
Even though we only get a glimpse of him in this book, we can feel his presence throughout the whole book. We can feel his connection with Elena, as weird and spooky as it may be. All that danger that he carries with him, we all want to see whether there's anything good in him at all. His story is the most intriguing one, I think. His hunger for revenge makes you really understand both sides of the story and choose a side for yourself.
<b><i>So, are you team Stefan, or team Damon?</i></b>
I loved reading this - it was an amazing experience and it reminded me of my high-school days, of those innocent happy memories. My teenage life didn't include vampires, but hey - it was still awesome!
Pick the Vampire Diaries up if you love Young Adult spooky books, if you loved Twilight and if you love vampire, love and mystery stories in general.
<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Book-Review-Banner-8.png"/>;
<b><i>The Struggle is the continuation of the Vampire Diaries Series by L.J. Smith. The second book that features the life of popular girl Elena Gilbert and her endeavors with the mysterious vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore.</i></b>
The Struggle continues where The Awakening ends; Elena is looking to talk to Damon, knowing that he has something to do with Stefan's disappearance.
I felt like there was more action in this book, compared to the first one. It made me more engrossed with the story and I was very excited for all the twists.
Elena was obviously the main character in this book, alongside Stefan and Damon. I am not sure how I felt about Elena in this book. She seemed to ignore everyone for a while and just be her selfish self - which resulted in getting people in trouble.
On the other hand, I really loved the history of Stefan and Damon. The memories from hundreds of years ago. The author manager to portray the time very well, and I was easily transported into another world, another time... I think these scenes were definitely the favourite part of this book.
I wish we saw more chapters with Bonnie and Meredith. Even though best friends, it didn't feel like they were too involved in the story. We didn't get to know them properly and it has already been two books. I really hope book three will let us meet these two characters better.
I am happy with the book in general.
The scenes, the plot, the twists - they were all very carefully put together. Elena's love choices are opening up, letting us wonder which brother she might choose. Making us choose sides (team Damon here!). This battle between the love and hate of the two brothers definitely seems interesting.
<b>The ending was everything I was hoping for and now I can't wait for the next book. The Awakening and The Struggle were only an introduction and the real adventures are yet to begin!</b>
I recommend it to all of you that love young-adult, teen romance and vampire stories. It will keep you on your toes for sure!
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#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998210568">The Awakening</a> - ★★★★★
#2 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998210684">The Struggle</a> - ★★★★★
<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Book-Review-Banner-24.png"/>;
<b><i>I had The Awakening and the Struggle (the first and second books from the Vampire Diaries series) on my shelf for years.</i></b>
When I say years, I mean it. It all started when I was in high-school, around 6 years ago, and I was in love with the Vampire Diaries TV Show. When I found out there are books as well, I begged my mum to buy them for me. And once I had them, I never got to read them, because teenage logic...
I recently noticed the Vampire Diaries books sitting on my shelf, forgotten, and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to read it in October, because of the whole spooky vibe. So there it is now - even thought the wheel didn't choose it, I did, because it deserved the attention!
Elena Gilbert is a popular girl in high-school and she always gets what she wants. Boys want to be with her, girls hate her, or want to be her best friends. And when this new boy Stefan comes into town, all mysterious, Elena wants him. But Stefan is hiding a deadly secret that Elena might now be ready for just yet. And her life, as well as the life of everyone living in Fell's Church is in grave danger... Elena finds herself between two brothers - one who came for a new life, and the other, who came for revenge...
Reading this book, while already knowing what the plot it, I thought I found find it boring. But no. I still enjoyed every single page of it, and I still devoured this book in one day.
From the first chapter, this book is intense and captures your attention. It is written in third person, but it also contains diary entries that belong to Elena and capture her deepest thoughts that she doesn't dare share with anyone else.
<b><i>I loved Elena!</i></b>
Her character is exactly what I was expected and what I have known to love - brave and fierce, and also willing to sacrifice her own happiness and safety for the people she loves the most.
Elena's friends, Meredith and Bonnie are the friends every girl needs. Funny and caring. A few pages in, and you will get to love them too.
Stefan - the mysterious new guy in school. The guy that tries to stay away from the girl he really wants because he's a danger to her. A little bit of Twilight vibes, but we can get past that. Because there is one thing that Twilight didn't have, that you can find reading The Vampire Diaries...
<b><i>DAMON</i></b>
Even though we only get a glimpse of him in this book, we can feel his presence throughout the whole book. We can feel his connection with Elena, as weird and spooky as it may be. All that danger that he carries with him, we all want to see whether there's anything good in him at all. His story is the most intriguing one, I think. His hunger for revenge makes you really understand both sides of the story and choose a side for yourself.
<b><i>So, are you team Stefan, or team Damon?</i></b>
I loved reading this - it was an amazing experience and it reminded me of my high-school days, of those innocent happy memories. My teenage life didn't include vampires, but hey - it was still awesome!
Pick the Vampire Diaries up if you love Young Adult spooky books, if you loved Twilight and if you love vampire, love and mystery stories in general.
<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Book-Review-Banner-8.png"/>;
<b><i>The Struggle is the continuation of the Vampire Diaries Series by L.J. Smith. The second book that features the life of popular girl Elena Gilbert and her endeavors with the mysterious vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore.</i></b>
The Struggle continues where The Awakening ends; Elena is looking to talk to Damon, knowing that he has something to do with Stefan's disappearance.
I felt like there was more action in this book, compared to the first one. It made me more engrossed with the story and I was very excited for all the twists.
Elena was obviously the main character in this book, alongside Stefan and Damon. I am not sure how I felt about Elena in this book. She seemed to ignore everyone for a while and just be her selfish self - which resulted in getting people in trouble.
On the other hand, I really loved the history of Stefan and Damon. The memories from hundreds of years ago. The author manager to portray the time very well, and I was easily transported into another world, another time... I think these scenes were definitely the favourite part of this book.
I wish we saw more chapters with Bonnie and Meredith. Even though best friends, it didn't feel like they were too involved in the story. We didn't get to know them properly and it has already been two books. I really hope book three will let us meet these two characters better.
I am happy with the book in general.
The scenes, the plot, the twists - they were all very carefully put together. Elena's love choices are opening up, letting us wonder which brother she might choose. Making us choose sides (team Damon here!). This battle between the love and hate of the two brothers definitely seems interesting.
<b>The ending was everything I was hoping for and now I can't wait for the next book. The Awakening and The Struggle were only an introduction and the real adventures are yet to begin!</b>
I recommend it to all of you that love young-adult, teen romance and vampire stories. It will keep you on your toes for sure!
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Becs (244 KP) rated Where Creatures Hide in Books
Jan 2, 2020
<a href="https://bookingwayreads.wordpress.com">Blog</a>; | <a href="https://https://www.instagram.com/ernest.bookingway/">Bookstagram</a>; | <a href="https://https://twitter.com/bookingwayreads">Twitter</a>;
My rating: ?????
Review:
I was sent Where Rogues Hide to read and review for my honest opinion but I only got about 20 pages in when I realized that I needed to read Where Creatures Hide (which is book 1 of the series) and Where Puppets Hide (book 2 of the series). So I rented them off of Amazon so I can give them a quick read through and review. Here is everything that I have felt throughout my read through of Where Creatures Hide.
The story starts by introducing the "Chant of Creatures." This then leads to the opening of the story where there are a bunch of lab technicians doing tests on a girl that is frozen in a tomb of ice. They decide to melt the ice so they can carry out other tests that would lead to the girl's puppet soul being released.
A note on puppet souls:
Puppet souls are the darkest part of a creature's mind. The part of the mind that tells you you're not good enough. That voice that can break you down until you're nothing. They are extremely dangerous because they are numb beings that enjoy killing for pleasure, even if it costs them their own life. <i>"Now what I mean here is that when you give into your dark thoughts, you forget about everything around you. Your family, your friends, the people who love you, the people who matter most. You don't see them, all you see is a shadowy haze of darkness, nothing else. The sun doesn't shine, rain pours thicker than it ever has before but you don't care because you're falling. Falling into that endless bottomless pit of ebony nights. You're not scared because everything you see means nothing. Everything you hear means nothing. The people who call your name, mean nothing... Falling into your puppet soul is like ecstasy. You crave for silence, bliss, happiness and you think the only way you're going to get it is if you truly allow it to overcome you. Even if it means hurting the people around you, and yourself."</i>
The girl's puppet soul ends up releasing for only a short moment before she passes out. This is where Alex comes into the story as he was the only one to survive the release of the girl's puppet soul. Where Creatures Hide follows that girl's story. Her name is Dawn, she is a creature with a puppet soul and has no recollection of who she really is but she's determined to figure that out, even if it means hurting others around her.
"Because love thrives so much more than fear and darkness. Loyalty lies so much deeper with family than it does an army."
Characters:
Alex - the leader of Europha and one of Titan's sons. He is light in a dark and cruel world.
Dawn - the main character with a puppet soul. There is a twist that I can't reveal about her because it's a spoiler, but it was amazing!
Xavior - my baby, my smol cinnamonroll, my love. Xavior is by far my favorite character. He's just so innocent and loves to eat - I can get down with that!
Aziel - a god sent from higher up gods to find and protect the princess, eventually he must... wait, I can't tell you that cause it's a spoiler!
Luna - this little girl right here has my heart wrenched into a million pieces. I want to smother her into my arms and protect her from the world but at the same time, she's strong and independent and doesn't need any protection as long as she has her violin.
Titan - Alex's father. A gruesome man who wants to control all
Inaya - the princess that is to save her people from Titan's grasp
Tremayne - a phoenix lady who is cursed with not being able to touch anybody. Raised Alex after he lost his mother.
Ava - a vampire who doesn't come in until roughly the halfway mark of the book. She ends up standing close with Uma and Susi to protect them.
Uma - a bad ass little cat girl who I just wanted to cuddle in my arms!
Susi - wolf sidekick and protective of Uma
Reasons why I rated it 5 stars:
1. The plot:
I've never read anything by PJ Sheperd and I honestly have no idea why. PJ is an amazing human being with great storytelling skills. Where Creatures Hide packed a punch that I was not ready at all for. I bawled my eyes out, I fell in love, my heart raced at the twists and turns that littered throughout this breathtaking novel. There was an aura of mystery across the entirety of the novel and it honestly added such an appeal to the plot that left me craving more.
2. My enjoyment:
I absolutely 100% enjoyed reading Where Creatures Hide. The execution of the writing was amazing and the amount of background, development, and story that was packed into this little novel was a whirlwind of a roller coaster ride that I will gladly take over and over again.
3. Character and story development:
Guys! The character development within Where Creatures Hide is some of the best I've seen. PJ Sheperd does an amazing job and it was honestly a lot better than quite a few popular authors that have great editors. The story development was a little slow at first but with how the story ended up laying out, it made total sense the way that it was written.
4. Grammar and spelling:
PJ Sheperd has had a lot of hardships finding a good editor as each one has screwed her over. So I am not rating her on grammar and spelling as she is a new-ish indie author. There weren't many grammatical and spelling errors, just a few that could be overlooked but I happened to notice. She knows all about them already.
5. The overall story:
I absolutely am in love. I cannot express how much I've come to love this story-line just know that it's a lot. I can't wait to get my hands on some physical copies so I can reread the story. I'm already ready to do it!
"When you have strength, you fear nothing, and when you fear nothing you overcome the darkness with a blazing beacon of light."
There are three (3) different covers for each book in the Where Creatures Hide series. Each cover has a bit of extra stuff added to either the story or at the end of the book.
OG paperback cover - original PG-13 storyline
Special Edition paperback cover - smut filled storyline
Hardback cover - smut filled storyline + artwork
My rating: ?????
Review:
I was sent Where Rogues Hide to read and review for my honest opinion but I only got about 20 pages in when I realized that I needed to read Where Creatures Hide (which is book 1 of the series) and Where Puppets Hide (book 2 of the series). So I rented them off of Amazon so I can give them a quick read through and review. Here is everything that I have felt throughout my read through of Where Creatures Hide.
The story starts by introducing the "Chant of Creatures." This then leads to the opening of the story where there are a bunch of lab technicians doing tests on a girl that is frozen in a tomb of ice. They decide to melt the ice so they can carry out other tests that would lead to the girl's puppet soul being released.
A note on puppet souls:
Puppet souls are the darkest part of a creature's mind. The part of the mind that tells you you're not good enough. That voice that can break you down until you're nothing. They are extremely dangerous because they are numb beings that enjoy killing for pleasure, even if it costs them their own life. <i>"Now what I mean here is that when you give into your dark thoughts, you forget about everything around you. Your family, your friends, the people who love you, the people who matter most. You don't see them, all you see is a shadowy haze of darkness, nothing else. The sun doesn't shine, rain pours thicker than it ever has before but you don't care because you're falling. Falling into that endless bottomless pit of ebony nights. You're not scared because everything you see means nothing. Everything you hear means nothing. The people who call your name, mean nothing... Falling into your puppet soul is like ecstasy. You crave for silence, bliss, happiness and you think the only way you're going to get it is if you truly allow it to overcome you. Even if it means hurting the people around you, and yourself."</i>
The girl's puppet soul ends up releasing for only a short moment before she passes out. This is where Alex comes into the story as he was the only one to survive the release of the girl's puppet soul. Where Creatures Hide follows that girl's story. Her name is Dawn, she is a creature with a puppet soul and has no recollection of who she really is but she's determined to figure that out, even if it means hurting others around her.
"Because love thrives so much more than fear and darkness. Loyalty lies so much deeper with family than it does an army."
Characters:
Alex - the leader of Europha and one of Titan's sons. He is light in a dark and cruel world.
Dawn - the main character with a puppet soul. There is a twist that I can't reveal about her because it's a spoiler, but it was amazing!
Xavior - my baby, my smol cinnamonroll, my love. Xavior is by far my favorite character. He's just so innocent and loves to eat - I can get down with that!
Aziel - a god sent from higher up gods to find and protect the princess, eventually he must... wait, I can't tell you that cause it's a spoiler!
Luna - this little girl right here has my heart wrenched into a million pieces. I want to smother her into my arms and protect her from the world but at the same time, she's strong and independent and doesn't need any protection as long as she has her violin.
Titan - Alex's father. A gruesome man who wants to control all
Inaya - the princess that is to save her people from Titan's grasp
Tremayne - a phoenix lady who is cursed with not being able to touch anybody. Raised Alex after he lost his mother.
Ava - a vampire who doesn't come in until roughly the halfway mark of the book. She ends up standing close with Uma and Susi to protect them.
Uma - a bad ass little cat girl who I just wanted to cuddle in my arms!
Susi - wolf sidekick and protective of Uma
Reasons why I rated it 5 stars:
1. The plot:
I've never read anything by PJ Sheperd and I honestly have no idea why. PJ is an amazing human being with great storytelling skills. Where Creatures Hide packed a punch that I was not ready at all for. I bawled my eyes out, I fell in love, my heart raced at the twists and turns that littered throughout this breathtaking novel. There was an aura of mystery across the entirety of the novel and it honestly added such an appeal to the plot that left me craving more.
2. My enjoyment:
I absolutely 100% enjoyed reading Where Creatures Hide. The execution of the writing was amazing and the amount of background, development, and story that was packed into this little novel was a whirlwind of a roller coaster ride that I will gladly take over and over again.
3. Character and story development:
Guys! The character development within Where Creatures Hide is some of the best I've seen. PJ Sheperd does an amazing job and it was honestly a lot better than quite a few popular authors that have great editors. The story development was a little slow at first but with how the story ended up laying out, it made total sense the way that it was written.
4. Grammar and spelling:
PJ Sheperd has had a lot of hardships finding a good editor as each one has screwed her over. So I am not rating her on grammar and spelling as she is a new-ish indie author. There weren't many grammatical and spelling errors, just a few that could be overlooked but I happened to notice. She knows all about them already.
5. The overall story:
I absolutely am in love. I cannot express how much I've come to love this story-line just know that it's a lot. I can't wait to get my hands on some physical copies so I can reread the story. I'm already ready to do it!
"When you have strength, you fear nothing, and when you fear nothing you overcome the darkness with a blazing beacon of light."
There are three (3) different covers for each book in the Where Creatures Hide series. Each cover has a bit of extra stuff added to either the story or at the end of the book.
OG paperback cover - original PG-13 storyline
Special Edition paperback cover - smut filled storyline
Hardback cover - smut filled storyline + artwork
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Cryptocurrency in Tabletop Games
Apr 2, 2020
Money. Who knew that paper bills and small metal coins would hold such an important role in our society? In today’s day and age, though, with so much reliance on technology, we’ve managed to create digital currency called cryptocurrency. By buying, mining, and trading various cryptocurrencies, you just might turn yourself into an overnight millionaire! That is, if you’ve got the strategy required to outwit other traders…
You are the CEO of a fin-tech startup company. Leading a team of specialized experts, you will evaluate, trade, and mine different cryptocurrencies. Strategy is key, as you must stay ahead of the trend to maximize your earnings from the market. Can you solve the right algorithms and manipulate the network to help create the most wealth for your company? Or will you be scammed into buying worthless cryptocurrency? Play to find out!
Disclaimer: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This game is available to purchase, so the components seen in the pictures are what come with the game. I do not intend to rehash the entire rulebook in this review, but rather provide the basic ruleset and general gameplay overview of the game. Feel free to pick up a copy of the game directly from the publisher or your FLGS! -L
Cryptocurrency is a game of commodity speculation, action points, trading, and a little push your luck in which players are trying to amass the most amount of money over 5 rounds. To setup the game, place the Cryptocurrency Info Boards in the center of the play area, and place the Market Board next to them. Prepare and distribute the Rumor cards, and create the Ongoing Transactions deck. Each player receives a player reference card, 3 Intern Expert cards, and a total of 6 Wonga (the currency of the game). The game is now ready to begin! Each round is broken up into 4 phases: Prep, Action, Upkeep, and Rumor. During the Prep phase, each player (in turn order) must draw a Rumor card, and may hire a new Expert or take a loan. Experts are hired (purchased) from the Job Seekers pile, and often provide special abilities or increased Action Points. Hired Experts must replace one Expert from their existing team. Your team can only have 3 Experts, so choose wisely who to hire and fire! A loan can be taken to immediately gain 8 Wonga, but interest must be paid for the loan later in the round. After each player has performed these actions, play moves to the second phase.
During the Action phase, players take turns performing one of two actions: Mining or Trading. These actions are performed by spending Action points – each Expert offers a certain number of points to spend. Once you use an Action Point, that Expert is exhausted and can no longer work in this phase. To Mine, players choose one of the 4 available cryptocurrencies to mine (research), and will either Succeed or Fail in this endeavor. If you succeed, you create and earn coins from that specific cryptocurrency, as well as any extra money earned from completing ongoing transactions. If you fail, your turn immediately ends. To take the Trade action, players will either Buy or Sell coins to/from the Market. You are only allowed to buy/sell the same cryptocurrency each turn, and you may buy/sell up to 4 coins each turn. For every 4 coins bought, the Market Board shifts to increase that currency’s price by 1 Wonga. For every 4 coins sold, the Market decreases by 1 Wonga. Once every player is out of Action Points, this phase is over.
In the Upkeep phase, players refresh all Experts, pay interest on any Loans, or completely pay off a Loan. The final phase, Rumor, moves in counter-clockwise order. Players take turns adding their secret Rumor card to the Rumor Track of one of the 4 cryptocurrencies. The market values are adjusted based on the Rumors played, and any face-down Rumor cards will affect the end-game value of the currencies. Play then returns to the Prep phase, and continues until 5 rounds have been completed. Players determine which cryptocurrency was a scam, sell any remaining coins, and then count up their money. The player with the most Wonga is the winner!
I have to admit that Cryptocurrency surprised me. After reading the rules and getting the game setup, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. I was prepping myself for a complicated, quasi-educational game in which I would be relatively unengaged and going through the motions each turn. What I got, however, was the complete opposite. Yes, there is a lot going on in this game, but it offers so many different mechanics and strategies for success that you’re always thinking one step ahead. There’s the aspect of bluffing when it comes to Rumor cards and manipulating the market through those means, there’s drafting of new Experts and shedding your hand of lesser-powered cards, there’s push your luck in the Mining action as the more Action Points you spend, the more opportunity you have for success. There’s not one sure strategy to win, and you are changing and adapting on every turn. You also have to be paying attention to your opponents! Although there’s not really any direct player interaction, everything you do on your turn could throw a wrench in the plans of your neighbor. Can you figure out how they’re trying to play the Market? Or will you try to fly beneath the radar and throw them off your trail?
My biggest issue with this game has to do with components. The cryptocurrency boards and the market board all work together, but they are all their own separate components. So it just makes set-up/tear-down a little more involved because instead of laying out 1 big board and adding components to it, you have to lay out and populate 5 individual boards. It just makes it a little more tedious than I would like, but honestly it has no bearing on the gameplay at all. The quality of the components is pretty good overall, the artwork is tech-influenced and fun, and the cardboard coins are nice and sturdy. So all in all, a pretty good production quality.
So what are my thoughts on Cryptocurrency? I actually liked it more than I thought I would. It’s engaging and strategic, yet relatively simple enough that it doesn’t feel like too much of a brain burner. I am no cryptocurrency expert by any means, but I feel like after playing this game, I have a better understanding of it and how it works. So mission accomplished, Captial Gains Studio – you have a fun AND educational game here. Is it one I will pull out at every game night? No. But it’s one that I am looking forward to playing again in the future. Purple Phoenix Games gives Cryptocurrency an economic 8 / 12.
You are the CEO of a fin-tech startup company. Leading a team of specialized experts, you will evaluate, trade, and mine different cryptocurrencies. Strategy is key, as you must stay ahead of the trend to maximize your earnings from the market. Can you solve the right algorithms and manipulate the network to help create the most wealth for your company? Or will you be scammed into buying worthless cryptocurrency? Play to find out!
Disclaimer: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This game is available to purchase, so the components seen in the pictures are what come with the game. I do not intend to rehash the entire rulebook in this review, but rather provide the basic ruleset and general gameplay overview of the game. Feel free to pick up a copy of the game directly from the publisher or your FLGS! -L
Cryptocurrency is a game of commodity speculation, action points, trading, and a little push your luck in which players are trying to amass the most amount of money over 5 rounds. To setup the game, place the Cryptocurrency Info Boards in the center of the play area, and place the Market Board next to them. Prepare and distribute the Rumor cards, and create the Ongoing Transactions deck. Each player receives a player reference card, 3 Intern Expert cards, and a total of 6 Wonga (the currency of the game). The game is now ready to begin! Each round is broken up into 4 phases: Prep, Action, Upkeep, and Rumor. During the Prep phase, each player (in turn order) must draw a Rumor card, and may hire a new Expert or take a loan. Experts are hired (purchased) from the Job Seekers pile, and often provide special abilities or increased Action Points. Hired Experts must replace one Expert from their existing team. Your team can only have 3 Experts, so choose wisely who to hire and fire! A loan can be taken to immediately gain 8 Wonga, but interest must be paid for the loan later in the round. After each player has performed these actions, play moves to the second phase.
During the Action phase, players take turns performing one of two actions: Mining or Trading. These actions are performed by spending Action points – each Expert offers a certain number of points to spend. Once you use an Action Point, that Expert is exhausted and can no longer work in this phase. To Mine, players choose one of the 4 available cryptocurrencies to mine (research), and will either Succeed or Fail in this endeavor. If you succeed, you create and earn coins from that specific cryptocurrency, as well as any extra money earned from completing ongoing transactions. If you fail, your turn immediately ends. To take the Trade action, players will either Buy or Sell coins to/from the Market. You are only allowed to buy/sell the same cryptocurrency each turn, and you may buy/sell up to 4 coins each turn. For every 4 coins bought, the Market Board shifts to increase that currency’s price by 1 Wonga. For every 4 coins sold, the Market decreases by 1 Wonga. Once every player is out of Action Points, this phase is over.
In the Upkeep phase, players refresh all Experts, pay interest on any Loans, or completely pay off a Loan. The final phase, Rumor, moves in counter-clockwise order. Players take turns adding their secret Rumor card to the Rumor Track of one of the 4 cryptocurrencies. The market values are adjusted based on the Rumors played, and any face-down Rumor cards will affect the end-game value of the currencies. Play then returns to the Prep phase, and continues until 5 rounds have been completed. Players determine which cryptocurrency was a scam, sell any remaining coins, and then count up their money. The player with the most Wonga is the winner!
I have to admit that Cryptocurrency surprised me. After reading the rules and getting the game setup, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. I was prepping myself for a complicated, quasi-educational game in which I would be relatively unengaged and going through the motions each turn. What I got, however, was the complete opposite. Yes, there is a lot going on in this game, but it offers so many different mechanics and strategies for success that you’re always thinking one step ahead. There’s the aspect of bluffing when it comes to Rumor cards and manipulating the market through those means, there’s drafting of new Experts and shedding your hand of lesser-powered cards, there’s push your luck in the Mining action as the more Action Points you spend, the more opportunity you have for success. There’s not one sure strategy to win, and you are changing and adapting on every turn. You also have to be paying attention to your opponents! Although there’s not really any direct player interaction, everything you do on your turn could throw a wrench in the plans of your neighbor. Can you figure out how they’re trying to play the Market? Or will you try to fly beneath the radar and throw them off your trail?
My biggest issue with this game has to do with components. The cryptocurrency boards and the market board all work together, but they are all their own separate components. So it just makes set-up/tear-down a little more involved because instead of laying out 1 big board and adding components to it, you have to lay out and populate 5 individual boards. It just makes it a little more tedious than I would like, but honestly it has no bearing on the gameplay at all. The quality of the components is pretty good overall, the artwork is tech-influenced and fun, and the cardboard coins are nice and sturdy. So all in all, a pretty good production quality.
So what are my thoughts on Cryptocurrency? I actually liked it more than I thought I would. It’s engaging and strategic, yet relatively simple enough that it doesn’t feel like too much of a brain burner. I am no cryptocurrency expert by any means, but I feel like after playing this game, I have a better understanding of it and how it works. So mission accomplished, Captial Gains Studio – you have a fun AND educational game here. Is it one I will pull out at every game night? No. But it’s one that I am looking forward to playing again in the future. Purple Phoenix Games gives Cryptocurrency an economic 8 / 12.
Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated The Words (2012) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
On paper, The Words is a film that is better suited as a literary novella. In print, we, as readers, are often granted insight to our characters thoughts and motivation that is frequently lost on film or delivered in a lackluster voiceover that most critics deem as lazy film making. Furthermore, the story within a story, within a story approach in film often leaves the audience with uninteresting shells of characters and can make a story forgettable at best.
Given these reasons, it is easy to see why many would choose to undertake a less ambitious story for their directorial debut. That group does not include co-writer-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal. This duo is actually successful at tackling this dangerous story-within-a-story film device by keeping it simple. Focusing on the main characters of each story and their motivation, while tying each together with some common themes like love, what it means to write something great, and how far the need for success will drive the characters.
The movie begins with highly successful author Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) conducting a reading of his latest novel The Words. Among his audience is literary grad student and adoring fan, Daniella (Olivia Wilde), who has aspirations of picking the brain of the man that authored her favorite stories and perhaps getting involved romantically. As Hammond begins to read his story we are introduced to the tale of starving writer Rory Jensen (Bradley Cooper) and his wife Dora (Zoe Saldana). The two are a young couple in love, trying to get on their feet while Rory struggles with multiple rejections of his novels, until he is finally forced to come to grips with his own limitations as an artist and a writer.
As he settles into life and a job as a mail clerk at a publishing firm, he finds a lost manuscript in a vintage leather briefcase that Dora had purchased for him during their honeymoon in Paris. That story turns out to be something that moves him to tears. It is the final thing in his realization that he will never be the great writer that he thought he was, the great writer that wrote this anonymous story. In an effort to feel and try to understand what it is like to create something great, Rory decides to retype the novel word for word on his laptop if only to admire the beautiful story that he had instantly fallen in love with. When Dora mistakenly reads the novel, she encourages him to submit it to a publisher. Before he can tell her the truth, his world is transformed into the life he had always imagined he would have for himself and Dora as the novel gains him both great literary and commercial success. And finally, now that his star has risen he can get his own novel published.
Enter Jeremy Irons as the old man who reveals himself to Rory as the true author of his story. The old man feels compelled to explain to Rory the tragic origin of the story that has become the young author’s success. Irons steals every second he is on screen as his delivery of the old man oozes with the intellectual style that has been his trademark over the years. Like Rory, we are helpless to do nothing but listen and get lost in the words of his story as if he was sitting next to us and telling the story in real life.
The old man reveals that the novel is the result of great love and pain that his younger self (Ben Barnes) and the love of his life Celia (Nora Arnezeder) endured. While I am not familiar with Barnes’ and Arnezeder’s work, their performance as the younger couple in Irons’ story had a genuine connection. And while this love story does not seem to be anything new when it comes to film, it served its purpose by strengthening the other stories, showing how a great story can be mused from someplace unexpected, even if only once.
With Rory now confronted with his deceitful success, he struggles to decide how to make things right and live with himself as a fraud. It’s at this point the film subtly suggest that Hammond’s story of Rory may actually be a disguised autobiography.
As Rory, Bradley Cooper gives perhaps his best performance to date. I feel that despite his poor and deceitful decision, at no point does he lose the audience. With the help of a strong and emotionally charged performance by Zoe Saldana, we experience Cooper’s honest plight and can understand the events that unfold around him. He is effective as a man who genuinely believes he does not deserve the success that he stole. Without a doubt, this will be a surprising role for those fans who only know Cooper from the humorous characters he plays in The Hangover and most recently Hit and Run. I hope this is the beginning of growth in his craft beyond the charming, confident character we have seen in Limitless and perhaps into a deeper emotional actor.
The weakest part of this film is the story of Clay Hammond and Daniella. Dennis Quaid is quite unlikable as Hammond. He is monotone in his readings and the prose of his story is mediocre at best. While the film drops hints that Hammond’s story of Rory is autobiographical it makes sense that Quaid’s character is played this way. He succeeds in helping create the notion that Hammond is unworthy of the success his character has enjoyed. But something about his performance is so unlikable that even when his character has a redeeming moment, it is lost on an audience that may not care enough about him for it to work.
To add to this dislike of Quaid, Olivia Wilde seems out of place as the character Daniella. It is not that her performance is bad, it is just that every time they showed her as the starry-eyed fan who is love struck for Hammond, she just seemed out of place. Additionally there did not seem to be any connection between Daniella and Hammond in the way the other characters’ connections helped strengthen their performances.
In the end, I enjoyed this movie more than I expected. Visually the Montreal backdrop does an excellent job as both New York and Paris. And the continual piano score helps blend the stories. The simple focus on the main characters helped maintain the three different stories and keep the overall pacing of the movie in order. In addition, the solid to exceptional performances also helped to keep the film focused and avoided the empty shell of characters that most movies of this nature create. That being said, this movie is not for everyone, but those looking for a change of pace from the summer blockbusters season should consider this film.
Given these reasons, it is easy to see why many would choose to undertake a less ambitious story for their directorial debut. That group does not include co-writer-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal. This duo is actually successful at tackling this dangerous story-within-a-story film device by keeping it simple. Focusing on the main characters of each story and their motivation, while tying each together with some common themes like love, what it means to write something great, and how far the need for success will drive the characters.
The movie begins with highly successful author Clay Hammond (Dennis Quaid) conducting a reading of his latest novel The Words. Among his audience is literary grad student and adoring fan, Daniella (Olivia Wilde), who has aspirations of picking the brain of the man that authored her favorite stories and perhaps getting involved romantically. As Hammond begins to read his story we are introduced to the tale of starving writer Rory Jensen (Bradley Cooper) and his wife Dora (Zoe Saldana). The two are a young couple in love, trying to get on their feet while Rory struggles with multiple rejections of his novels, until he is finally forced to come to grips with his own limitations as an artist and a writer.
As he settles into life and a job as a mail clerk at a publishing firm, he finds a lost manuscript in a vintage leather briefcase that Dora had purchased for him during their honeymoon in Paris. That story turns out to be something that moves him to tears. It is the final thing in his realization that he will never be the great writer that he thought he was, the great writer that wrote this anonymous story. In an effort to feel and try to understand what it is like to create something great, Rory decides to retype the novel word for word on his laptop if only to admire the beautiful story that he had instantly fallen in love with. When Dora mistakenly reads the novel, she encourages him to submit it to a publisher. Before he can tell her the truth, his world is transformed into the life he had always imagined he would have for himself and Dora as the novel gains him both great literary and commercial success. And finally, now that his star has risen he can get his own novel published.
Enter Jeremy Irons as the old man who reveals himself to Rory as the true author of his story. The old man feels compelled to explain to Rory the tragic origin of the story that has become the young author’s success. Irons steals every second he is on screen as his delivery of the old man oozes with the intellectual style that has been his trademark over the years. Like Rory, we are helpless to do nothing but listen and get lost in the words of his story as if he was sitting next to us and telling the story in real life.
The old man reveals that the novel is the result of great love and pain that his younger self (Ben Barnes) and the love of his life Celia (Nora Arnezeder) endured. While I am not familiar with Barnes’ and Arnezeder’s work, their performance as the younger couple in Irons’ story had a genuine connection. And while this love story does not seem to be anything new when it comes to film, it served its purpose by strengthening the other stories, showing how a great story can be mused from someplace unexpected, even if only once.
With Rory now confronted with his deceitful success, he struggles to decide how to make things right and live with himself as a fraud. It’s at this point the film subtly suggest that Hammond’s story of Rory may actually be a disguised autobiography.
As Rory, Bradley Cooper gives perhaps his best performance to date. I feel that despite his poor and deceitful decision, at no point does he lose the audience. With the help of a strong and emotionally charged performance by Zoe Saldana, we experience Cooper’s honest plight and can understand the events that unfold around him. He is effective as a man who genuinely believes he does not deserve the success that he stole. Without a doubt, this will be a surprising role for those fans who only know Cooper from the humorous characters he plays in The Hangover and most recently Hit and Run. I hope this is the beginning of growth in his craft beyond the charming, confident character we have seen in Limitless and perhaps into a deeper emotional actor.
The weakest part of this film is the story of Clay Hammond and Daniella. Dennis Quaid is quite unlikable as Hammond. He is monotone in his readings and the prose of his story is mediocre at best. While the film drops hints that Hammond’s story of Rory is autobiographical it makes sense that Quaid’s character is played this way. He succeeds in helping create the notion that Hammond is unworthy of the success his character has enjoyed. But something about his performance is so unlikable that even when his character has a redeeming moment, it is lost on an audience that may not care enough about him for it to work.
To add to this dislike of Quaid, Olivia Wilde seems out of place as the character Daniella. It is not that her performance is bad, it is just that every time they showed her as the starry-eyed fan who is love struck for Hammond, she just seemed out of place. Additionally there did not seem to be any connection between Daniella and Hammond in the way the other characters’ connections helped strengthen their performances.
In the end, I enjoyed this movie more than I expected. Visually the Montreal backdrop does an excellent job as both New York and Paris. And the continual piano score helps blend the stories. The simple focus on the main characters helped maintain the three different stories and keep the overall pacing of the movie in order. In addition, the solid to exceptional performances also helped to keep the film focused and avoided the empty shell of characters that most movies of this nature create. That being said, this movie is not for everyone, but those looking for a change of pace from the summer blockbusters season should consider this film.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Crazier Eights: Camelot in Tabletop Games
Dec 23, 2020
DISCLAIMER: We have previously reviewed Crazier Eights: Olympus and Crazier Eights: Pantheon, and this preview has much of the same verbiage as the family of games share most things. Near the end of the preview are my thoughts about the differences in Camelot vs Olympus and Pantheon.
War. Old Maid. Go Fish. Crazy Eights. These are classic card games we probably all grew up playing. There have been many re-themes and new difficulty layers spread upon them to make them even more interesting. While UNO certainly has cornered the market on the Crazy Eights base, we have a new contender: Crazier Eights. Recoculous has published several versions of this card game with different themes: Avalon, One Thousand & One Nights, Olympus, and Shahrzad. Today we are taking a preview of Crazier Eights: Camelot.
You HAVE played Crazy Eights right? The card game where you attempt to be the first to exhaust your hand of cards, but you can only play down if you can match the suit or number on top of the discard pile? And if you can’t, you throw down an 8 as a wild and call the color to be played next? Well there you have the easy rules. Crazier Eights: Camelot (which I will from here call C8C) holds basically the same rule-set with a few new mechanics and a theme. The win condition is still the same: be the first to exhaust your hand of cards, but to win you will need to play your hand strategically against your opponents.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, shuffle the large deck of cards and place the deck in the middle of the table. Flip the top card to begin the discard pile and dictate the first card play. Deal each player seven cards and you are ready to begin!
The turn structure is familiar: check for any “start of turn” effects and apply them, draw a card, play and/or discard a card, then resolve any “end of turn” effects. The deck is comprised of Events and Assets in different colors (suits) and numbers like in a typical deck of playing cards. After checking and resolving start of turn effects on Asset cards in your personal tableau, you must draw a card from the deck. This is where C8C strays from OG Crazy Eights a bit. You may play a card from your hand (Assets and Events) and discard a card to the discard pile (matching the suit/number/or an Eight), or simply play a card from your hand without discarding. Cards played from your hand can be Event cards that are played, resolved, and then discarded to the bottom of the discard pile, or an Asset card that is played to your tableau that cause chain reactions or other abilities on future turns. Next, resolve any end of turn effects from Assets in your tableau before the next player begins their turn.
Play continues in this fashion until one player has rid themselves of their hand and is crowned the Master of the Camelot! Or at least, the winner of the game.
Components. This game is a box full of cards. The cards are good. The layout makes sense, and the art on the faces of the cards remind me of very classic art depicting ancient Arthurian scenes. I am no art historian, so I do not know if they are existing art pieces or new ones crafted for this game, but either way, they are a joy to behold… if you can spend the time appreciating the art instead of tracking what cards you need to play and what effects you can chain together (that was me). Extra points to the Recoculous team for associating symbols with the different suit colors for our colorblind friends. This is something that unfortunately goes unaddressed far too often.
This implementation is the third Crazier Eights we have had the chance to try, and I can say that we really enjoyed our plays of it (we played Olympus first and recently also reviewed Pantheon). The game comes with many interesting and varied effects to craft an ingenious strategy, and the art is stellar. Beware of playing with AP-prone gamers, as there is a lot going on and it is more than just a skinned Crazy Eights.
This Camelot set is slightly different than our previous experiences with both Olympus and Pantheon in a few ways. Firstly, it is more of a base game deck like Olympus instead of a standalone/expansion like Pantheon. Secondly, this set seems to use more cards that affect the assets of other players, specifically in destroying them. Additionally, I have noticed a few cards in the deck that specifically say if certain criteria are met one player automatically wins or loses the game. That’s it. Done-zo. Maybe I missed these cards in the other sets, but I do not remember them ever surfacing. Having each set focus on different aspects of the game and the manipulation of the rules ever so slightly to affect a player’s strategy from one set to the next is quite enchanting to me. Could you put all the sets together to make a massive meta-deck a la Munchkin with all the sets and expansions? Probably, but like Munchkin, I probably would rather keep them separate.
Now having played this family of games several times, I can say that it is my favorite Crazy Eights derivative and certainly worthy of a look. If your game collection is sorely lacking in Arthurian-themed card games, or if you want a hybrid game of old school rules with interesting twists, then do consider purchasing this or one of its predecessors.
PS – Don’t worry if, while you are playing, you have all your Assets stolen or destroyed. I have won the game with zero Assets in front of me while opponents have had eight, ironically. Assets are great, but you still need to shed your hand.
War. Old Maid. Go Fish. Crazy Eights. These are classic card games we probably all grew up playing. There have been many re-themes and new difficulty layers spread upon them to make them even more interesting. While UNO certainly has cornered the market on the Crazy Eights base, we have a new contender: Crazier Eights. Recoculous has published several versions of this card game with different themes: Avalon, One Thousand & One Nights, Olympus, and Shahrzad. Today we are taking a preview of Crazier Eights: Camelot.
You HAVE played Crazy Eights right? The card game where you attempt to be the first to exhaust your hand of cards, but you can only play down if you can match the suit or number on top of the discard pile? And if you can’t, you throw down an 8 as a wild and call the color to be played next? Well there you have the easy rules. Crazier Eights: Camelot (which I will from here call C8C) holds basically the same rule-set with a few new mechanics and a theme. The win condition is still the same: be the first to exhaust your hand of cards, but to win you will need to play your hand strategically against your opponents.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, shuffle the large deck of cards and place the deck in the middle of the table. Flip the top card to begin the discard pile and dictate the first card play. Deal each player seven cards and you are ready to begin!
The turn structure is familiar: check for any “start of turn” effects and apply them, draw a card, play and/or discard a card, then resolve any “end of turn” effects. The deck is comprised of Events and Assets in different colors (suits) and numbers like in a typical deck of playing cards. After checking and resolving start of turn effects on Asset cards in your personal tableau, you must draw a card from the deck. This is where C8C strays from OG Crazy Eights a bit. You may play a card from your hand (Assets and Events) and discard a card to the discard pile (matching the suit/number/or an Eight), or simply play a card from your hand without discarding. Cards played from your hand can be Event cards that are played, resolved, and then discarded to the bottom of the discard pile, or an Asset card that is played to your tableau that cause chain reactions or other abilities on future turns. Next, resolve any end of turn effects from Assets in your tableau before the next player begins their turn.
Play continues in this fashion until one player has rid themselves of their hand and is crowned the Master of the Camelot! Or at least, the winner of the game.
Components. This game is a box full of cards. The cards are good. The layout makes sense, and the art on the faces of the cards remind me of very classic art depicting ancient Arthurian scenes. I am no art historian, so I do not know if they are existing art pieces or new ones crafted for this game, but either way, they are a joy to behold… if you can spend the time appreciating the art instead of tracking what cards you need to play and what effects you can chain together (that was me). Extra points to the Recoculous team for associating symbols with the different suit colors for our colorblind friends. This is something that unfortunately goes unaddressed far too often.
This implementation is the third Crazier Eights we have had the chance to try, and I can say that we really enjoyed our plays of it (we played Olympus first and recently also reviewed Pantheon). The game comes with many interesting and varied effects to craft an ingenious strategy, and the art is stellar. Beware of playing with AP-prone gamers, as there is a lot going on and it is more than just a skinned Crazy Eights.
This Camelot set is slightly different than our previous experiences with both Olympus and Pantheon in a few ways. Firstly, it is more of a base game deck like Olympus instead of a standalone/expansion like Pantheon. Secondly, this set seems to use more cards that affect the assets of other players, specifically in destroying them. Additionally, I have noticed a few cards in the deck that specifically say if certain criteria are met one player automatically wins or loses the game. That’s it. Done-zo. Maybe I missed these cards in the other sets, but I do not remember them ever surfacing. Having each set focus on different aspects of the game and the manipulation of the rules ever so slightly to affect a player’s strategy from one set to the next is quite enchanting to me. Could you put all the sets together to make a massive meta-deck a la Munchkin with all the sets and expansions? Probably, but like Munchkin, I probably would rather keep them separate.
Now having played this family of games several times, I can say that it is my favorite Crazy Eights derivative and certainly worthy of a look. If your game collection is sorely lacking in Arthurian-themed card games, or if you want a hybrid game of old school rules with interesting twists, then do consider purchasing this or one of its predecessors.
PS – Don’t worry if, while you are playing, you have all your Assets stolen or destroyed. I have won the game with zero Assets in front of me while opponents have had eight, ironically. Assets are great, but you still need to shed your hand.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Tales of Evil in Tabletop Games
Oct 1, 2020
It is no surprise that following the enormous success of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” that creators would begin developing ideas borrowed from the show’s setting or characters. Of course we have seen games in this “80s kids Goonie-esque adventure game” genre before, and I have to say that I love the setting. When I saw the Kickstarter campaign for Tales of Evil I was immediately drawn to it. Did my investment pay off or is this one a gnarly bust?
Tales of Evil is a cooperative, horror, storytelling, adventure game that uses a unique new “Fusion System” throughout the game. Players will be taking on personas of kids from the 1980s who belong to a club named “Pizza & Investigation.” I do not wish to reveal too much in this review, so I will be covering this as a Solo Chronicles using one character going through the introductory tutorial mission.
DISCLAIMER: We are using the Kickstarter Deluxe version of the game. We do have the expansions from the KS campaign, but will not be using those for this review. Also, we do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, well, just follow the setup instructions in the rulebook. There’s too much for me to explain here. For one character playing the tutorial scenario, the game setup should look similar to what is pictured below. Maybe. The rulebook does not specifically state WHERE each item should be placed, so players will have ultimate freedom to setup items where they see fit to be most efficient for themselves.
Players in Tales of Evil will have no real “turn structure” as most games do, because all players will be adventuring together as a group. So characters will be moving as a group and never splitting the party (RPGers breathe a sigh of relief… maybe). However, as with many adventure games of this style, once players explore into new areas certain markers will placed on the board (Clue, Darkness, Mystery, Search, etc). These markers signify different actions that can be taken, or entrances to areas that are blocked or found, or something that could be traced from one area to another. The leader of the group for the time being is in possession of the Walkie-Talkie and will make all final decisions for the group after any discussion (for solo players, it is just a nice prop). Usually searching for items will result in a card draw and upon the card will be a test to pass using the stats on the player character mat to roll dice for successes. Of course, the other side of that are horrible losses as well.
Players will be traipsing through the area and reading passages from two actual books: the Story Book and the Event Book. Most of the action happens in the Story Book and it will guide players through the story and once choices are made or tests succeeded/failed, the book will instruct players what to do next and to which section to turn to further the story (a la Tales of the Arabian Nights). The game continues in this fashion until the story ends with victory or defeat.
Components. Why yes, that is a real spoon in the photo above. No, it does not come with the game. I will explain in a bit. The components in this game are great. Each character has their own mat for organization, action cards, equipment cards, and status cards that dictate the difficulty of the game and how the character degrades over time in the horror-filled mission. Some components are even glow-in-the-dark! A nice touch, but certainly unnecessary. I find everything to be wonderful quality, even the cards that are kind of polarizing on the KS comments are nice (people are complaining that they are not linen-finished, but I believe the publisher made the right call to make them matte finished if the linen obscured the look and art on them). Thumbs up for components from me.
I wanted to wait until my final thoughts to explain the whole “Fusion System” that is in play here. Tales of Evil uses the catchphrase, “You will get into the game and the game will get into you!” Now, I’m not sure exactly how this game is getting into me, but I’m certainly digging the game and this Fusion System. You see, some cards (in the tutorial, remember, so I’m not really giving much away here) will give players 60 seconds to grab a kitchen spoon for some benefit and a debilitation if they are unable to find one – hence the spoon in my photos. Another card relies on the character (and also then the player) removing their shoes. Still yet another deals with fire or people smoking in the vicinity. If there is fire nearby in real life, it affects the effects of the card drawn. It’s ingenious and I love every little bit of it! I can’t wait to see how the Fusion System will work in this game more and how it can be applied to other games in the future.
All in all I love everything about Tales of Evil. The setting is great, the Pizza & Investigation kids are awesome, and the game itself is incredibly engaging and makes you really think about the choices you make within. Perhaps the haunting feeling of doubting some choices is how the game gets into you, because I did find myself wondering what would have happened had I chosen a different course for some instances. I am very drawn to this game and I want to tackle all of the scenarios. Even solo! And another great thing about Tales of Evil is the fact that a player (or players) can join a game already in progress! So if I am exploring solo and my wife decides she wants to hop in, she just grabs a character mat, sets up the character, and dives right in with me. I LOVE games like that. So versatile.
While I should probably stop gushing at this point I just can’t. This game is so much fun and worth every penny spent on it. I implore you, if you are a fan of exploration adventure games in this vein you definitely need to snatch up a copy whenever you see one. And if you love it as much as I do let me know. We can swap adventure stories.
Oh did I mention the designer is even created a way for us normies to create our own scenarios and upload them to other Tales of Evil players? Yeah, I’m fascinated by that as well…
Tales of Evil is a cooperative, horror, storytelling, adventure game that uses a unique new “Fusion System” throughout the game. Players will be taking on personas of kids from the 1980s who belong to a club named “Pizza & Investigation.” I do not wish to reveal too much in this review, so I will be covering this as a Solo Chronicles using one character going through the introductory tutorial mission.
DISCLAIMER: We are using the Kickstarter Deluxe version of the game. We do have the expansions from the KS campaign, but will not be using those for this review. Also, we do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup, well, just follow the setup instructions in the rulebook. There’s too much for me to explain here. For one character playing the tutorial scenario, the game setup should look similar to what is pictured below. Maybe. The rulebook does not specifically state WHERE each item should be placed, so players will have ultimate freedom to setup items where they see fit to be most efficient for themselves.
Players in Tales of Evil will have no real “turn structure” as most games do, because all players will be adventuring together as a group. So characters will be moving as a group and never splitting the party (RPGers breathe a sigh of relief… maybe). However, as with many adventure games of this style, once players explore into new areas certain markers will placed on the board (Clue, Darkness, Mystery, Search, etc). These markers signify different actions that can be taken, or entrances to areas that are blocked or found, or something that could be traced from one area to another. The leader of the group for the time being is in possession of the Walkie-Talkie and will make all final decisions for the group after any discussion (for solo players, it is just a nice prop). Usually searching for items will result in a card draw and upon the card will be a test to pass using the stats on the player character mat to roll dice for successes. Of course, the other side of that are horrible losses as well.
Players will be traipsing through the area and reading passages from two actual books: the Story Book and the Event Book. Most of the action happens in the Story Book and it will guide players through the story and once choices are made or tests succeeded/failed, the book will instruct players what to do next and to which section to turn to further the story (a la Tales of the Arabian Nights). The game continues in this fashion until the story ends with victory or defeat.
Components. Why yes, that is a real spoon in the photo above. No, it does not come with the game. I will explain in a bit. The components in this game are great. Each character has their own mat for organization, action cards, equipment cards, and status cards that dictate the difficulty of the game and how the character degrades over time in the horror-filled mission. Some components are even glow-in-the-dark! A nice touch, but certainly unnecessary. I find everything to be wonderful quality, even the cards that are kind of polarizing on the KS comments are nice (people are complaining that they are not linen-finished, but I believe the publisher made the right call to make them matte finished if the linen obscured the look and art on them). Thumbs up for components from me.
I wanted to wait until my final thoughts to explain the whole “Fusion System” that is in play here. Tales of Evil uses the catchphrase, “You will get into the game and the game will get into you!” Now, I’m not sure exactly how this game is getting into me, but I’m certainly digging the game and this Fusion System. You see, some cards (in the tutorial, remember, so I’m not really giving much away here) will give players 60 seconds to grab a kitchen spoon for some benefit and a debilitation if they are unable to find one – hence the spoon in my photos. Another card relies on the character (and also then the player) removing their shoes. Still yet another deals with fire or people smoking in the vicinity. If there is fire nearby in real life, it affects the effects of the card drawn. It’s ingenious and I love every little bit of it! I can’t wait to see how the Fusion System will work in this game more and how it can be applied to other games in the future.
All in all I love everything about Tales of Evil. The setting is great, the Pizza & Investigation kids are awesome, and the game itself is incredibly engaging and makes you really think about the choices you make within. Perhaps the haunting feeling of doubting some choices is how the game gets into you, because I did find myself wondering what would have happened had I chosen a different course for some instances. I am very drawn to this game and I want to tackle all of the scenarios. Even solo! And another great thing about Tales of Evil is the fact that a player (or players) can join a game already in progress! So if I am exploring solo and my wife decides she wants to hop in, she just grabs a character mat, sets up the character, and dives right in with me. I LOVE games like that. So versatile.
While I should probably stop gushing at this point I just can’t. This game is so much fun and worth every penny spent on it. I implore you, if you are a fan of exploration adventure games in this vein you definitely need to snatch up a copy whenever you see one. And if you love it as much as I do let me know. We can swap adventure stories.
Oh did I mention the designer is even created a way for us normies to create our own scenarios and upload them to other Tales of Evil players? Yeah, I’m fascinated by that as well…
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Roma (2018) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
“Siempre estamos solas”
Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Roma” has been lauded with praise and award’s hype, and I must admit to have been a little bit snooty about it. A black-and-white Spanish language film with subtitles that – to be honest – looks a bit dreary: can it really be that good? Having now (finally) seen it on Netflix I can confirm that’s a big YES from my point of view. It’s a novelty of a glacially slow film that grips like a vice.
A primer on 70’s Mexican History.
This is a film about ordinary life set against tumultuous times. Set in the Colonia Roma district of Mexico City (if you were puzzled, as I was, where the title came from) it is an “Upstairs, Downstairs” tale of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid and nanny to a middle class family in the early 70’s.
There are two intertwined stories here: Cleo’s personal story and that of the family background in which she works.
Cleo has a pleasant enough life working as partners in crime in the household with Adela (Nancy García García). Life is about getting the work done (well, more of less), keeping the four children happy – to who she is devoted – and scraping enough by to spend her downtime with her martial arts boyfriend Ramón (José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza).
Meanwhile the lady of the house Senora Sofia (Marina de Tavira) has an affluent and cosseted lifestyle amid her loving family.
But times are about to change for all of the players, as events – not just the events of the ‘Mexican Dirty War’ of 1971 going on in the background – transpire to change all their lives forever.
A masterclass in framing.
It’s criminal that I wasn’t able to get to see this in the cinema. Since every frame of this movie is a masterpiece of detail. There is just so much going on that your eyes dart this way and that, and you could probably watch it five times and see more. Even the opening titles are mesmerising, as the cobbled floor becomes a screen and an airliner lazily flies across it.
Even major action sequences, that other directors would fill the screen with (“Do you KNOW how much this scene is costing for God’s sake??”), are seen as they would typically be seen in real life – second hand, from a place of hiding. This is typified by the depiction of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June ’71, where the military, and more controversially the elite El Halconazo (The Hawks) of the Mexican army, turned on a student protest. Most of the action is seen as glimpses through the windows by the characters during a shopping trip to the second floor of a department store. How this was enacted and directed is a mystery to me, but it works just brilliantly.
A masterclass in pacing and panning.
One of Cuarón’s trademarks is the long take (think “Children of Men”) and here he (literally!) goes to town with the technique. An incredibly impressive scene has Cleo and Adela running through the streets of the City to meet their lovers at the cinema. It’s a continuous pan that again defies belief in the brilliance of its execution.
Even the mundane act of Cleo tidying up the apartment is done with a glorious slow pan around the room. Some of this panning is done to set the mood for the film (“Get settled in… this is going to be a long haul”) but others manage to evoke a sense of rising dread, an example at the beach being a brilliant case in point.
The cinematography was supposed to have been done by the great Emmanuel Lubezki, but he was unavailable so Cuarón did it himself! And it’s quite brilliant. So, that’s a lesson learned then that will reduce the budget for next time!
A personal story.
Cuarón wrote the script. Of course he did… it’s his story! He’s the same age as I am, so was nine years old for the autobiographical events featured in the film (he is the kid who gets punished for eavesdropping). Numerous aspects of the film are from his own childhood, including the fact that his younger brother kept spookily coming out with things that he’d done in his past lives! It’s a painful true story of his upbringing and of the life of Liboria Rodríguez: “Libo” to whom the film is dedicated.
Where the script is delightful is in never destroying the mood with lengthy exposition. Both of the key stories evolve slowly and only gradually do you work out what’s really going on. This is grown-up cinema at its finest.
It’s also a love letter from Cuarón to the cinema of his youth, a passion that sparked his eventual career. We see a number of trips to the local fleapit, and in one cute scene we seen a clip from the Gregory Peck space epic “Marooned”: the film that inspired Cuarón’s own masterpiece “Gravity“.
A naturalistic cast.
Casting a large proportion of the cast from unknowns feels like a great risk, but its a risk that pays off handsomely, particularly in the case of Yalitza Aparicio, who is breathtakingly naturalistic. Cuarón withheld the script from his cast, so some of the “acting” is not acting at all – specifically a gruelling and heartrending scene featuring Cleo later in the film. That’s real and raw emotion on the screen.
Marina de Tavira, although an actress with a track record, is also mightily impressive as the beleaguered and troubled wife.
Final Thoughts.
This is a masterpiece, and thoroughly deserves the “Best Picture” awards it has been getting. It’s certainly my odds on favourite, as well as being my pick, for the Oscar on Sunday. Will it be for everyone? Probably not.
There are some scenes which feel slightly ostentatious. A forest fire scene is brilliantly done (“Put out the small fires kids”), but then a guy in a monster suit pulls off his head-wear and starts singing a long and mournful song. Sorry?
There will also be many I suspect who will find the leisurely pace of the film excruciating; “JUST GET ON WITH IT” I hear them yelling at the screen. But if you give it the time and let it soak in, then you WILL be moved and you WILL remember the film long after you’ve seen it.
I remain cross however that this was released through Netflix. This is a film that deserves a full and widespread cinema release in 70mm format. It’s like taking an iPhone snap of the Mona Lisa and putting the phone on display instead.
A primer on 70’s Mexican History.
This is a film about ordinary life set against tumultuous times. Set in the Colonia Roma district of Mexico City (if you were puzzled, as I was, where the title came from) it is an “Upstairs, Downstairs” tale of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a maid and nanny to a middle class family in the early 70’s.
There are two intertwined stories here: Cleo’s personal story and that of the family background in which she works.
Cleo has a pleasant enough life working as partners in crime in the household with Adela (Nancy García García). Life is about getting the work done (well, more of less), keeping the four children happy – to who she is devoted – and scraping enough by to spend her downtime with her martial arts boyfriend Ramón (José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza).
Meanwhile the lady of the house Senora Sofia (Marina de Tavira) has an affluent and cosseted lifestyle amid her loving family.
But times are about to change for all of the players, as events – not just the events of the ‘Mexican Dirty War’ of 1971 going on in the background – transpire to change all their lives forever.
A masterclass in framing.
It’s criminal that I wasn’t able to get to see this in the cinema. Since every frame of this movie is a masterpiece of detail. There is just so much going on that your eyes dart this way and that, and you could probably watch it five times and see more. Even the opening titles are mesmerising, as the cobbled floor becomes a screen and an airliner lazily flies across it.
Even major action sequences, that other directors would fill the screen with (“Do you KNOW how much this scene is costing for God’s sake??”), are seen as they would typically be seen in real life – second hand, from a place of hiding. This is typified by the depiction of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June ’71, where the military, and more controversially the elite El Halconazo (The Hawks) of the Mexican army, turned on a student protest. Most of the action is seen as glimpses through the windows by the characters during a shopping trip to the second floor of a department store. How this was enacted and directed is a mystery to me, but it works just brilliantly.
A masterclass in pacing and panning.
One of Cuarón’s trademarks is the long take (think “Children of Men”) and here he (literally!) goes to town with the technique. An incredibly impressive scene has Cleo and Adela running through the streets of the City to meet their lovers at the cinema. It’s a continuous pan that again defies belief in the brilliance of its execution.
Even the mundane act of Cleo tidying up the apartment is done with a glorious slow pan around the room. Some of this panning is done to set the mood for the film (“Get settled in… this is going to be a long haul”) but others manage to evoke a sense of rising dread, an example at the beach being a brilliant case in point.
The cinematography was supposed to have been done by the great Emmanuel Lubezki, but he was unavailable so Cuarón did it himself! And it’s quite brilliant. So, that’s a lesson learned then that will reduce the budget for next time!
A personal story.
Cuarón wrote the script. Of course he did… it’s his story! He’s the same age as I am, so was nine years old for the autobiographical events featured in the film (he is the kid who gets punished for eavesdropping). Numerous aspects of the film are from his own childhood, including the fact that his younger brother kept spookily coming out with things that he’d done in his past lives! It’s a painful true story of his upbringing and of the life of Liboria Rodríguez: “Libo” to whom the film is dedicated.
Where the script is delightful is in never destroying the mood with lengthy exposition. Both of the key stories evolve slowly and only gradually do you work out what’s really going on. This is grown-up cinema at its finest.
It’s also a love letter from Cuarón to the cinema of his youth, a passion that sparked his eventual career. We see a number of trips to the local fleapit, and in one cute scene we seen a clip from the Gregory Peck space epic “Marooned”: the film that inspired Cuarón’s own masterpiece “Gravity“.
A naturalistic cast.
Casting a large proportion of the cast from unknowns feels like a great risk, but its a risk that pays off handsomely, particularly in the case of Yalitza Aparicio, who is breathtakingly naturalistic. Cuarón withheld the script from his cast, so some of the “acting” is not acting at all – specifically a gruelling and heartrending scene featuring Cleo later in the film. That’s real and raw emotion on the screen.
Marina de Tavira, although an actress with a track record, is also mightily impressive as the beleaguered and troubled wife.
Final Thoughts.
This is a masterpiece, and thoroughly deserves the “Best Picture” awards it has been getting. It’s certainly my odds on favourite, as well as being my pick, for the Oscar on Sunday. Will it be for everyone? Probably not.
There are some scenes which feel slightly ostentatious. A forest fire scene is brilliantly done (“Put out the small fires kids”), but then a guy in a monster suit pulls off his head-wear and starts singing a long and mournful song. Sorry?
There will also be many I suspect who will find the leisurely pace of the film excruciating; “JUST GET ON WITH IT” I hear them yelling at the screen. But if you give it the time and let it soak in, then you WILL be moved and you WILL remember the film long after you’ve seen it.
I remain cross however that this was released through Netflix. This is a film that deserves a full and widespread cinema release in 70mm format. It’s like taking an iPhone snap of the Mona Lisa and putting the phone on display instead.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated No Time to Die (2021) in Movies
Oct 7, 2021 (Updated Oct 10, 2021)
What a wait it’s been for Bond 25! But Daniel Craig’s last outing as Bond is finally here and I thought it was great! It has all the elements of Bond… but perhaps not as we traditionally know it.
Plot Summary:
We pick up immediately after the ending of “Spectre“, with Bond (Daniel Craig) and Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) all loved up and driving off into the sunset together. But their romantic getaway to Italy is rudely broken short by Spectre as elements of Madeleine’s past emerge to haunt the couple.
One element of that past – the horribly disfigured Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) has a plan to make his mark on mankind with a biochemical weapon. And the retired Bond teams with the CIA’s Felix Leiter (a very welcome return of Jeffrey Wright) in a mission to Jamaica to combat it.
Certification:
US: PG-13. UK: 12A.
Talent:
Starring: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Ana de Armas.
Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. (From a story by Purvis, Wade and Fukunaga).
Positives:
- The script has all the trappings of Bond: exotic locations; great stunts; thrilling action sequences; and more gadgets on show than in recent times. Yet it’s a real character piece too, delving far more into Bond’s emotions. The story running through it with Madeleine is both deep and emotional: something we haven’t seen since the Bond and Tracy romance in OHMSS. (And with Craig’s acting, he manages to pull this off far better than George Lazenby ever could!).
- I found the finale to be magnificent, bold and surprising. We’re back to the megalomaniac owning an island lair, à la Dr No. It even has its own submarine pen (a nod to Austin Power’s “Goldmember” perhaps!?). For me, the production design harks back to the superbly over-the-top Ken Adams creations of the Connery years. There are no sharks with frickin’ laser beams… but there could have been. (The set is a rather obvious redressing of the 007 stage at Pinewood, created of course for the tanker scenes in “The Spy Who Loved Me”. It even re-uses of the gantry level control room.)
- Craig is magnificent in his swan-song performance. There’s a scene, during the extended pre-credits sequence, where he’s sat in his bullet-ridden Aston just glowering for an extended period. I thought this was Craig’s acting at its best. I thought this again in a dramatic showdown scene with Rami Malek. Malek is not given a huge amount to do in the film, But what he does he does wonderfully, particularly in that electrifying scene with Craig.
- The film has a great deal more female empowerment than any previous Bond, with the tell-tale signs (although this might be a sexist presumption) of Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the script. Newcomer Lashana Lynch acquits herself well as the first female 00-agent, getting not just kick-ass action sequences but also her fair share of quips. But stealing the show is Ana de Armas (reunited with Craig of course from “Knives Out“). Her scenes in Cuba are brief but memorable, delivering a delicious mixture of action and comedy that makes you think “cast HER as the next Bond”!
- The music by Hans Zimmer! It’s a glorious soundtrack that pays deference not only to the action style of recent composers, like David Arnold and Thomas Newman, but particularly to the classic scores of John Barry. It actually incorporates not one but two classic themes from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, directly into the film. I’m even starting to warm to the Billie Eilish theme song, although I think it’s too similar in style to the Sam Smith offering from “Spectre“.
- The cinematography from Linus Sandgren (who did “La La Land“) is gorgeous: in turns colourful and vibrant for the Italian and Cuban scenes and cool and blue for the tense Norwegian action sequences.
Negatives:
- My main criticism is not of the film, but of the trailer(s). There are so many of the money shots from the film (particularly from the Matera-based action of the pre-title sequence) included in the trailers that I had an “OK, move on, seen this” attitude. Why did they have to spoil the movie so much? IT’S A NEW BOND… OF COURSE WE’RE GOING TO SEE IT. All you EVER needed for this is a 20-second teaser trailer. Just put white “Bond is Back” text on a black background and the Craig tunnel shot to the camera. Job done. It really infuriates me. B arbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, PLEASE take note!
- At 163 minutes it’s the longest Bond ever and a bit of a bladder tester. But, having said that, there are no more than a few minutes here and there that I would want to trim. To do more you’d need to cut out whole episodes, and leaving Ana de Armas on the cutting room floor would have been criminal. As the illustrious Mrs Movie Man commented, “I wish they’d bring in the half time Intermission card like they used to do in the old days”. I agree. Everyone would have been a whole lot more comfortable and less fidgety.
Summary Thoughts on “No Time to Die”: Reading the comments on IMDB for the movie, I’m perplexed at the diatribe coming from supposed ‘Bond fans’ on this one. One-star review after one-star review (despite, I note, the overall film getting an overall 7.8/10 at the time of writing). In this regard, I class myself as very much a Bond fan. (My first film at the cinema was the release of “Live and Let Die” in 1973, but I then binge-watched all the other Bond films at the cinema: they used to do repeated double-features in those days). And I thought this was a fabulous Bond film. Full of drama, action, humour and deep-seated emotion. Couldn’t be better for me, and certainly on a par with “Casino Royale” and “Skyfall” for me as my favourite Craig outings.
As the end of the end credits said – “James Bond Will Return”. Who will they cast as the next Bond? And where will they take the story from here? Two of the most intriguing movie questions to take into 2022.
(For the full graphical review and video review, please search for @onemannsmovies. Thanks.)
Plot Summary:
We pick up immediately after the ending of “Spectre“, with Bond (Daniel Craig) and Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) all loved up and driving off into the sunset together. But their romantic getaway to Italy is rudely broken short by Spectre as elements of Madeleine’s past emerge to haunt the couple.
One element of that past – the horribly disfigured Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) has a plan to make his mark on mankind with a biochemical weapon. And the retired Bond teams with the CIA’s Felix Leiter (a very welcome return of Jeffrey Wright) in a mission to Jamaica to combat it.
Certification:
US: PG-13. UK: 12A.
Talent:
Starring: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Ana de Armas.
Directed by: Cary Joji Fukunaga.
Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. (From a story by Purvis, Wade and Fukunaga).
Positives:
- The script has all the trappings of Bond: exotic locations; great stunts; thrilling action sequences; and more gadgets on show than in recent times. Yet it’s a real character piece too, delving far more into Bond’s emotions. The story running through it with Madeleine is both deep and emotional: something we haven’t seen since the Bond and Tracy romance in OHMSS. (And with Craig’s acting, he manages to pull this off far better than George Lazenby ever could!).
- I found the finale to be magnificent, bold and surprising. We’re back to the megalomaniac owning an island lair, à la Dr No. It even has its own submarine pen (a nod to Austin Power’s “Goldmember” perhaps!?). For me, the production design harks back to the superbly over-the-top Ken Adams creations of the Connery years. There are no sharks with frickin’ laser beams… but there could have been. (The set is a rather obvious redressing of the 007 stage at Pinewood, created of course for the tanker scenes in “The Spy Who Loved Me”. It even re-uses of the gantry level control room.)
- Craig is magnificent in his swan-song performance. There’s a scene, during the extended pre-credits sequence, where he’s sat in his bullet-ridden Aston just glowering for an extended period. I thought this was Craig’s acting at its best. I thought this again in a dramatic showdown scene with Rami Malek. Malek is not given a huge amount to do in the film, But what he does he does wonderfully, particularly in that electrifying scene with Craig.
- The film has a great deal more female empowerment than any previous Bond, with the tell-tale signs (although this might be a sexist presumption) of Phoebe Waller-Bridge on the script. Newcomer Lashana Lynch acquits herself well as the first female 00-agent, getting not just kick-ass action sequences but also her fair share of quips. But stealing the show is Ana de Armas (reunited with Craig of course from “Knives Out“). Her scenes in Cuba are brief but memorable, delivering a delicious mixture of action and comedy that makes you think “cast HER as the next Bond”!
- The music by Hans Zimmer! It’s a glorious soundtrack that pays deference not only to the action style of recent composers, like David Arnold and Thomas Newman, but particularly to the classic scores of John Barry. It actually incorporates not one but two classic themes from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, directly into the film. I’m even starting to warm to the Billie Eilish theme song, although I think it’s too similar in style to the Sam Smith offering from “Spectre“.
- The cinematography from Linus Sandgren (who did “La La Land“) is gorgeous: in turns colourful and vibrant for the Italian and Cuban scenes and cool and blue for the tense Norwegian action sequences.
Negatives:
- My main criticism is not of the film, but of the trailer(s). There are so many of the money shots from the film (particularly from the Matera-based action of the pre-title sequence) included in the trailers that I had an “OK, move on, seen this” attitude. Why did they have to spoil the movie so much? IT’S A NEW BOND… OF COURSE WE’RE GOING TO SEE IT. All you EVER needed for this is a 20-second teaser trailer. Just put white “Bond is Back” text on a black background and the Craig tunnel shot to the camera. Job done. It really infuriates me. B arbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, PLEASE take note!
- At 163 minutes it’s the longest Bond ever and a bit of a bladder tester. But, having said that, there are no more than a few minutes here and there that I would want to trim. To do more you’d need to cut out whole episodes, and leaving Ana de Armas on the cutting room floor would have been criminal. As the illustrious Mrs Movie Man commented, “I wish they’d bring in the half time Intermission card like they used to do in the old days”. I agree. Everyone would have been a whole lot more comfortable and less fidgety.
Summary Thoughts on “No Time to Die”: Reading the comments on IMDB for the movie, I’m perplexed at the diatribe coming from supposed ‘Bond fans’ on this one. One-star review after one-star review (despite, I note, the overall film getting an overall 7.8/10 at the time of writing). In this regard, I class myself as very much a Bond fan. (My first film at the cinema was the release of “Live and Let Die” in 1973, but I then binge-watched all the other Bond films at the cinema: they used to do repeated double-features in those days). And I thought this was a fabulous Bond film. Full of drama, action, humour and deep-seated emotion. Couldn’t be better for me, and certainly on a par with “Casino Royale” and “Skyfall” for me as my favourite Craig outings.
As the end of the end credits said – “James Bond Will Return”. Who will they cast as the next Bond? And where will they take the story from here? Two of the most intriguing movie questions to take into 2022.
(For the full graphical review and video review, please search for @onemannsmovies. Thanks.)
KittyMiku (138 KP) rated Sold to the Werewolf Prince in Books
May 23, 2019
Contains spoilers, click to show
This book is very short and has a good thought behind it. Since the world Hannah is now trying to integrate into is all about being kind and polite at all costs, its easy to see why she would have troubles with some of it. If offending someone meant execution, any human would have a problem living there without issue. I think that is the biggest idea I found to be enjoyable in the book. I love the idea of aliens and space travel, but the view point on having to keep your tongue tied to always be able to be kind to someone is what pique my interest. However, its not just your voice and words, its in your actions too. That whole world made sure everyone at all times are kept in a pleasured and blissful state.
At first, I was intrigued on the aliens and the life on their planet, but I found my interest leading me more towards how Hannah explained how Humans act to one another and how its hard to come by people who are naturally kind and respectful. Though the idea of being executed for saying anything in any way that could offend someone is kind of hard to get behind, I also feel like its something we should all strive for anyways. I can see the disadvantages of always being kind and polite as well though. In the book, Hannah had made it clear she was never sure what would offend someone and get her possibly killed and so she kept a lot of questions and thoughts to herself. I can completely understand that. To a degree though, I think keeping unkind things or questions that could be offense to yourself to be a great idea. However, when it comes to asking things about someone's religion or culture, I would think that wouldn't create a lot of offense. After all, we are all curious about something we don't understand or don't know. It did bring up a lot of things that we allow our children to say and do that isn't kind and allows others to feel unworthy or disrespected. For example name calling. In the story Hannah had tried to explain there are ways to say something to make in endearing. She used the term "bookworm". She went on to explain that in school people called her a bookworm to be mean and hurtful, it was an insult, but at home her mother used the term endearingly because Hannah always had her nose in a book. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know this is often a true case. Kids at school can be mean and hurtful if you don't fit in, but sometimes the insults they deal can also be ones of endearment from those we love. An example of this is the label gamer. In schools being a gamer meant you didn't have a ton of friends and often were picked on because you preferred to be at home playing your games than going to parties. However, if your wife is playfully teasing you by calling you a gamer, or uses it as an endearing term, it is not hurtful at all. Isn't it funny how something so silly as a single word used to describe you can have duel purposes; Hurtful and endearing?
I think Hannah's explanation of that was pretty dead on, but that wasn't all she brought up that reminded me of how awful humans can be. She has brought up how possessive humans can be to materials, enough to kill or have a hand in killing someone else for it. This is something we actually see everyday, if we allow ourselves too. People kill other people for money and material objects. People kill animals, and we aren't talking about for food purposes, because they want to or because it will allow them to make money for certain pieces of the animal. They aren't just hurtful, they are lethal to others and their environment. I found myself cringing at how real her words were. I know these things are going on in the world, we all do, but to have it spoken out loud so bluntly makes you wish it would just stop. In the book, Hannah had stated the American Government had stated that aliens had visited and they covered it up. And Prince Tamkin had stated because of human hostile nature, they didn't see why they should bother with the humans. He said most aliens didn't see the humans worth the hassle. That brings me to question if it is possible that this is also true.
Think about it. Let's say this particular book is correct in the fact aliens exist and they gave up trying to communicate with us because of our hostile natures. Always putting ourselves first and anyone, anything else last. It would make sense in a way, don't you think? I know this is a Sci-fi romance book, but at the same time, it does make a lot of sense. Hannah had said we were egotistical and self centered, thinking we had the best technology in the universe and that we can take anything we want and its true. As a race, humans are horrible creatures. That's not to say there aren't good ones out there. Even Hannah had explained that there were groups of people who fought for the Earth and others. Just as there are people in the real world who do that same. So if Wright can have a lot of truth in the book, who is not to say she was able to come up with a reason on why aliens stay away from Earth? Even though the space travel seems still to far for us to know if that was that is a real thing or not, it is still something worth thinking about.
I do have one major compliant about the book. The intercourse scenes. There were a total of three heavily detailed scenes that I don't completely understand. Do not get my wrong, the first scene was to make it so you understood that pleasing the woman in the bedroom was extremely important and it completely proved this case. However, I do not feels that so much needed to be in the book. The story could have used more details on the alien planet and the major city they resided in. I would have loved to know more about it. I would have loved to actually have seen the different communities and wild life. I was disappointed there wasn't more but instead I got steamy intercourse scenes that would make adult movie stars blush.
I would rate this book 3 stars out of 5 stars. It had brought up a lot of topics to discuss and ponder on and definitely left me wanting more, but the intercourse scenes were over the top and just too much for me. I would have been find with just the first one and maybe shorter scenes for the others. To me it just took away from the story in a way I didn't like.
At first, I was intrigued on the aliens and the life on their planet, but I found my interest leading me more towards how Hannah explained how Humans act to one another and how its hard to come by people who are naturally kind and respectful. Though the idea of being executed for saying anything in any way that could offend someone is kind of hard to get behind, I also feel like its something we should all strive for anyways. I can see the disadvantages of always being kind and polite as well though. In the book, Hannah had made it clear she was never sure what would offend someone and get her possibly killed and so she kept a lot of questions and thoughts to herself. I can completely understand that. To a degree though, I think keeping unkind things or questions that could be offense to yourself to be a great idea. However, when it comes to asking things about someone's religion or culture, I would think that wouldn't create a lot of offense. After all, we are all curious about something we don't understand or don't know. It did bring up a lot of things that we allow our children to say and do that isn't kind and allows others to feel unworthy or disrespected. For example name calling. In the story Hannah had tried to explain there are ways to say something to make in endearing. She used the term "bookworm". She went on to explain that in school people called her a bookworm to be mean and hurtful, it was an insult, but at home her mother used the term endearingly because Hannah always had her nose in a book. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know this is often a true case. Kids at school can be mean and hurtful if you don't fit in, but sometimes the insults they deal can also be ones of endearment from those we love. An example of this is the label gamer. In schools being a gamer meant you didn't have a ton of friends and often were picked on because you preferred to be at home playing your games than going to parties. However, if your wife is playfully teasing you by calling you a gamer, or uses it as an endearing term, it is not hurtful at all. Isn't it funny how something so silly as a single word used to describe you can have duel purposes; Hurtful and endearing?
I think Hannah's explanation of that was pretty dead on, but that wasn't all she brought up that reminded me of how awful humans can be. She has brought up how possessive humans can be to materials, enough to kill or have a hand in killing someone else for it. This is something we actually see everyday, if we allow ourselves too. People kill other people for money and material objects. People kill animals, and we aren't talking about for food purposes, because they want to or because it will allow them to make money for certain pieces of the animal. They aren't just hurtful, they are lethal to others and their environment. I found myself cringing at how real her words were. I know these things are going on in the world, we all do, but to have it spoken out loud so bluntly makes you wish it would just stop. In the book, Hannah had stated the American Government had stated that aliens had visited and they covered it up. And Prince Tamkin had stated because of human hostile nature, they didn't see why they should bother with the humans. He said most aliens didn't see the humans worth the hassle. That brings me to question if it is possible that this is also true.
Think about it. Let's say this particular book is correct in the fact aliens exist and they gave up trying to communicate with us because of our hostile natures. Always putting ourselves first and anyone, anything else last. It would make sense in a way, don't you think? I know this is a Sci-fi romance book, but at the same time, it does make a lot of sense. Hannah had said we were egotistical and self centered, thinking we had the best technology in the universe and that we can take anything we want and its true. As a race, humans are horrible creatures. That's not to say there aren't good ones out there. Even Hannah had explained that there were groups of people who fought for the Earth and others. Just as there are people in the real world who do that same. So if Wright can have a lot of truth in the book, who is not to say she was able to come up with a reason on why aliens stay away from Earth? Even though the space travel seems still to far for us to know if that was that is a real thing or not, it is still something worth thinking about.
I do have one major compliant about the book. The intercourse scenes. There were a total of three heavily detailed scenes that I don't completely understand. Do not get my wrong, the first scene was to make it so you understood that pleasing the woman in the bedroom was extremely important and it completely proved this case. However, I do not feels that so much needed to be in the book. The story could have used more details on the alien planet and the major city they resided in. I would have loved to know more about it. I would have loved to actually have seen the different communities and wild life. I was disappointed there wasn't more but instead I got steamy intercourse scenes that would make adult movie stars blush.
I would rate this book 3 stars out of 5 stars. It had brought up a lot of topics to discuss and ponder on and definitely left me wanting more, but the intercourse scenes were over the top and just too much for me. I would have been find with just the first one and maybe shorter scenes for the others. To me it just took away from the story in a way I didn't like.
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Trogdor!!: The Board Game in Tabletop Games
Aug 8, 2019
I cannot possible explain to you how many hours of my college career were spent LMBO at the homestarrunner.com website. Teen Girl Squad. Strong Bad E-mails. The incredible Halloween episodes. If you know what I’m talking about, I hope you enjoyed some sense of beautiful nostalgia just now. So when I saw that someone was making a board game based on a secondary (or a thirdedary) character from one of my favorite websites from my not-so-youth I knew it would be mine someday. That day has come and I am here to report my thoughts on Trogdor!! The Board Game.
Trogdor!! The Board Game, which I’m just gonna start calling Trogdor!!, is a cooperative area burninating puzzle adventure game for only the coolest of the cool. The twist on this game, if you are unfamiliar with Trogdor or Homsar, is that the players are all essentially cultists who assist Trogdor to burninate the countryside, all the cottages, and chomp the peasants or send them to the Void.
DISCLAIMER: Though this was Kickstarted, I did not splurge on the deluxe version, so I have the meepled version and it does just fine. Furthermore, I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup the game (and I found this part tedious) lay out the countryside tiles according to one of the suggested layouts in the back of the rule book or simply wherever you want in a 5×5 grid. This is your game board now. Also place out the thatched-roof cottages, peasants, knights, and archers. Trogdor starts the game in the middle tile, prepped for his burnination run. Each player also receives a Keeper of Trogdor persona card that provides special abilities, an item card that can be used during play, and an action card that determines how many action points a player may use as well as possibly special abilities to use for the turn. Troghammer starts the game on the Trog-meter, ready to come onto the board to wreak hammery havoc on our hero.
A turn consists of two phases. The first phase has the current player drawing an action card which intimates the number of action points (AP) the player can use for actions: Move Trogdor one space orthogonally, Chomp a peasant to increase health, Burninate a tile/cottage/peasant, Burrow into a tunnel and pop out the other side, or Hide in the mountains. Movement is easy: move Trogdor one space per AP you’d like to spend. Chomping requires Trogdor to be on the same tile as a peasant, but then you can chow down on them to increase our deity’s health bar. Burninating also requires Trogdor to be on the same tile as the tile/cottage/peasant you want to burninate. The Lake tile has special burninating rules, as do thatched-roof cottages. I will also allow you to learn about burninating peasants on your own, as it is pretty amazing. Burrowing requires Trogdor to be on a tunnel tile and spend an AP to teleport to the other tunnel (a la Small World). Trogdor may also simply Hide on a mountain tile to be protected from the attackers that act during the next phase. If players to not like either the action card they were dealt or the card they drew, they may simply discard a card to take their turn with 5 AP and no special abilities.
The next phase is where the board elements do their thang. The active player will draw and play a movement card. From instructions on this card the board may spawn more peasants, will move the peasants, will move the knights and also archers. Peasants do not fight Trogdor, but they can possibly repair burninated tiles. Knights WILL hurt Trogdor whenever they pass through or end their turn on the same tile as Trogdor. Knights will also automatically repair any burninated thatched-roof cottages they pass through. Troghammer is a special knight who only comes into play once Trogdor is hurt the first time. Archers will attack an entire column or row depending on which direction they were traveling when they ended their movement. If Trogdor still has peasants on the Trog-meter (representing health), then the next player takes their turn. If Trogdor has no more health and he is hit again, he enters a fiery RAGE! I will let you discover what happens during this event also.
The players win when all the tiles, cottages, and peasants have been burninated or eliminated from the board. They lose when Trogdor is defeated and they have not completed their victory conditions.
Components. It’s always so hard to really know exactly what you will be receiving when you Kickstart a game. Especially from a company not known for board games, and which has never produced a board game. So, I was anticipating something entirely different as I was opening my box. This is what I received: excellent tiles with UV spot on each side (super fancy!). I usually don’t care about UV spot anywhere on my game, but that seems to be en vogue now, so I’ll just try to enjoy it when I can. The other cardboard bits are great too. The cards are of great quality, but I went ahead and sleeved the action and movement cards since I knew they would be handled quite a bit. The Trogeeples (jeez) all are of great quality, and I really appreciate the additional Trogdor meeples included. I had a big chuckle about that. The artwork is comical (like in a comic) and I also appreciated all the Strong Bad enhancements as well. The only negative I have about the components of the game is the ridiculous thin box of air that was included as a buffer near the insert. I threw it out, put my sleeved action and movement cards in a plastic deck box in its place and now I’m much happier.
Overall, I had such a blast playing this game. Is it mostly due to nostalgia and reverie? Perhaps. But, Bryan was playing this with us and he didn’t know anything about Trogdor or Homestar Runner. He also really enjoyed the game, so I think the level of familiarity doesn’t matter. Obviously I did not explain EVERY rule to the game, but hopefully by my quick description my readers get a good idea of how the game plays. I can honestly say that I love love love this game and will treasure it always. If/when I see this at my FLGS I may just buy up all the copies to give as gifts. It’s really good. That’s why Purple Phoenix Games give this one an MSG’d 15 / 18. Oh, and you’re welcome for my holding back of all the quotes I COULD HAVE put in this review. I could have really earned my nerd card renewal.
Trogdor!! The Board Game, which I’m just gonna start calling Trogdor!!, is a cooperative area burninating puzzle adventure game for only the coolest of the cool. The twist on this game, if you are unfamiliar with Trogdor or Homsar, is that the players are all essentially cultists who assist Trogdor to burninate the countryside, all the cottages, and chomp the peasants or send them to the Void.
DISCLAIMER: Though this was Kickstarted, I did not splurge on the deluxe version, so I have the meepled version and it does just fine. Furthermore, I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rule book, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy from the publisher directly or from your FLGS. -T
To setup the game (and I found this part tedious) lay out the countryside tiles according to one of the suggested layouts in the back of the rule book or simply wherever you want in a 5×5 grid. This is your game board now. Also place out the thatched-roof cottages, peasants, knights, and archers. Trogdor starts the game in the middle tile, prepped for his burnination run. Each player also receives a Keeper of Trogdor persona card that provides special abilities, an item card that can be used during play, and an action card that determines how many action points a player may use as well as possibly special abilities to use for the turn. Troghammer starts the game on the Trog-meter, ready to come onto the board to wreak hammery havoc on our hero.
A turn consists of two phases. The first phase has the current player drawing an action card which intimates the number of action points (AP) the player can use for actions: Move Trogdor one space orthogonally, Chomp a peasant to increase health, Burninate a tile/cottage/peasant, Burrow into a tunnel and pop out the other side, or Hide in the mountains. Movement is easy: move Trogdor one space per AP you’d like to spend. Chomping requires Trogdor to be on the same tile as a peasant, but then you can chow down on them to increase our deity’s health bar. Burninating also requires Trogdor to be on the same tile as the tile/cottage/peasant you want to burninate. The Lake tile has special burninating rules, as do thatched-roof cottages. I will also allow you to learn about burninating peasants on your own, as it is pretty amazing. Burrowing requires Trogdor to be on a tunnel tile and spend an AP to teleport to the other tunnel (a la Small World). Trogdor may also simply Hide on a mountain tile to be protected from the attackers that act during the next phase. If players to not like either the action card they were dealt or the card they drew, they may simply discard a card to take their turn with 5 AP and no special abilities.
The next phase is where the board elements do their thang. The active player will draw and play a movement card. From instructions on this card the board may spawn more peasants, will move the peasants, will move the knights and also archers. Peasants do not fight Trogdor, but they can possibly repair burninated tiles. Knights WILL hurt Trogdor whenever they pass through or end their turn on the same tile as Trogdor. Knights will also automatically repair any burninated thatched-roof cottages they pass through. Troghammer is a special knight who only comes into play once Trogdor is hurt the first time. Archers will attack an entire column or row depending on which direction they were traveling when they ended their movement. If Trogdor still has peasants on the Trog-meter (representing health), then the next player takes their turn. If Trogdor has no more health and he is hit again, he enters a fiery RAGE! I will let you discover what happens during this event also.
The players win when all the tiles, cottages, and peasants have been burninated or eliminated from the board. They lose when Trogdor is defeated and they have not completed their victory conditions.
Components. It’s always so hard to really know exactly what you will be receiving when you Kickstart a game. Especially from a company not known for board games, and which has never produced a board game. So, I was anticipating something entirely different as I was opening my box. This is what I received: excellent tiles with UV spot on each side (super fancy!). I usually don’t care about UV spot anywhere on my game, but that seems to be en vogue now, so I’ll just try to enjoy it when I can. The other cardboard bits are great too. The cards are of great quality, but I went ahead and sleeved the action and movement cards since I knew they would be handled quite a bit. The Trogeeples (jeez) all are of great quality, and I really appreciate the additional Trogdor meeples included. I had a big chuckle about that. The artwork is comical (like in a comic) and I also appreciated all the Strong Bad enhancements as well. The only negative I have about the components of the game is the ridiculous thin box of air that was included as a buffer near the insert. I threw it out, put my sleeved action and movement cards in a plastic deck box in its place and now I’m much happier.
Overall, I had such a blast playing this game. Is it mostly due to nostalgia and reverie? Perhaps. But, Bryan was playing this with us and he didn’t know anything about Trogdor or Homestar Runner. He also really enjoyed the game, so I think the level of familiarity doesn’t matter. Obviously I did not explain EVERY rule to the game, but hopefully by my quick description my readers get a good idea of how the game plays. I can honestly say that I love love love this game and will treasure it always. If/when I see this at my FLGS I may just buy up all the copies to give as gifts. It’s really good. That’s why Purple Phoenix Games give this one an MSG’d 15 / 18. Oh, and you’re welcome for my holding back of all the quotes I COULD HAVE put in this review. I could have really earned my nerd card renewal.