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Mister Maker: Let’s Make It! – Design, Draw, Paint, Make and Play
Entertainment and Games
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IT’S TIME TO GET CREATIVE! Inspired by the hit Kids TV show Mister Maker, this official app is...
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Choiceworks
Education and Medical
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The Choiceworks app is an essential learning tool for helping children complete daily routines...
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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Citadels in Tabletop Games
Aug 13, 2021
In Citadels players will be donning the mantle of potential Master Builders and will need to build the greatest buildings within the city and manipulate the powers of special people within its walls. The game ends when a player has built their seventh district building. The player with the most VP at this time will be crowned Master Builder and winner of Citadels!
To setup, decide which eight characters will be used in the game, gather their cards and tokens, and place their tokens in ascending order on the table. This is to remind all players which characters (and their rank) is in play. Assemble the district (building) cards per the rules and shuffle the deck. Deal each player four of these district cards along with two gold coins. The eldest player will begin the game as the current First Player (complete with crown mini) and will begin the first phase of the first round.
Citadels is played over several rounds, each with two phases played within. The first phase is the Selection Phase, where the current First Player takes the character cards, shuffles them, adds zero to two cards (dependent upon number of players) face-up on the table and one card face-down. They then choose from the cards remaining in hand which character’s powers they would like to enact for the turn. The cards are passed to the next player in line who will do the same, and so on around the table.
Once all players have chosen their character card, the Turn Phase can begin. The current First Player (the one with the crown) will announce the characters in rank order, with the lowest character going first. In a typical game using only original base characters, this is “1: Assassin.” Whomever chose the Assassin card will flip over their character card, perform its special power, and then continue with their turn. In this case, the Assassin’s special power is to announce the name of a CHARACTER to assassinate. NOTE: This does NOT mean the name of the PLAYER. So the Assassin could choose to assassinate the King character, not the Travis player. After the character has used their power, the player can continue with the rest of their turn, though some character powers may be used at any time during the player’s turn.
After the character power is used, the player will gather resources in the form of two gold coins from the bank or by drawing two district cards from the deck and choosing one to keep in hand. After this choice, the player may then build one district in their play area if they wish and if they can afford to do so. Once complete, the crowned First Player will call out the next character rank (2: Thief in our example) who will continue their turn in the same way. The game continues in this fashion until a player has built their seventh district. The round continues until all players have had an equal amount of turns. Players then count VP on district cards and bonuses per the rulebook. The player with the most VP at the end of the game is crowned the Master Builder and winner of Citadels!
Components. I have to say that I enjoyed the components in the older version of Citadels I used to have just fine. I had sleeved all my cards, and the gold coins were nice back in the day. This version, however, includes many more components and each one is higher quality than the previous version’s. The art on the cards has been updated and is much much nicer now as well. The addition of the crown mini, the character tokens, and other components not mentioned here merely increases my love for Citadels. Windrider has knocked it out of the park with this version. And that’s saying nothing about all the additional characters now included in the game! Oh boy, so much variability!
Along with that variability is the customization of the game. You can play with one of the six pre-constructed provided suggestions in the rulebook or create your own combination of different characters. With three versions of each rank, many possibilities are… possible.
I do love Citadels, and with the right group can be a show-stopper all on its own. Some players may get a little offended or sassy because there is a fair amount of Take That in Citadels with the character interactions, so if playing with people who don’t understand the difference between a game and real life, I would prep them appropriately. I love being able to outwit my opponents by drafting certain characters they didn’t think I would want. Keeping them all on their toes during the game is sneaky fun.
So for me, with the amount of replayability, high quality and excellent components, and cutthroat gameplay I simply adore Citadels. I can pull it out with different groups and have different play experiences and try to tailor the character offering to the strengths of my players, or simply use one listed in the back of the rulebook. Purple Phoenix Games gives Citadels an underhanded, yet scholarly 21 / 24. It’s a stunning, magical, wonderful game and one of Bruno Faidutti’s best ever! Surely this is already in your collection, right? If not, make it so.
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Steven Sklansky (231 KP) rated Live By Night (2017) in Movies
Sep 10, 2017
Ben Affleck really does love Boston, because once again that where this whole thing begins. I didn't live in the 20's but the Boston accent must not have been established yet. It was quite refreshing not to hear it in a movie. I really didn't know Boston's backstory but I guess like everywhere on the East Coast there was a mob presence. They did a really good job showing the life of someone in the mob. It wasn't just the killing and booze. It really went deep with the love story of both women and what he had to go though to keep the love and them alive. Even though one of them turned out to be a backstabbing bitch.
When the story progressed to Tampa it was interesting to see something that I don't think has been portrayed in movies. Or I have never seen it. The mob in Florida. The interactions between the Irish and Italian mob in a world of Mexicans and Cubans was done very well. There was a lot going on and it never got boring. The only part of the story that got a little off was rivalry of the mob in Tampa and Miami. You never saw the fights between them until the end. I just thought it was over and done with after the Italians were run out of town. Or maybe I just missed it.
I won't tell you what happened to anyone at the end but the gun fight was amazing. So may parts put in and the chirography was done very well. I think the very end could have been done differently. To me it was very off putting and didn't understand why they choose to go that direction. Granted it was based off a book that I never read and maybe that's the way it had to be. But it could have been written better in the book too. Books seem to get the point across better anyway.
If you like gangster movies, see it. If you like Ben Affleck, see it. If you just want to watch a movie not to be bored, see it.
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Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Small Great Things in Books
Apr 9, 2019
This book was amazing. I have been a fan of Jodi Picoult for a long time. Her books have a way of grabbing at your heart strings and make you look at the world from a different perspective. This book was no exception. I literally read this book from cover to cover. Rarely do I read the Author's Notes, but this time I did. I had to know where the inspiration for this book came from and what would make a white woman write a book about such an explosive topic in our society today. As a woman of color I felt a lot of emotions while reading this book.
Ruth Jefferson is a highly educated nurse at Mercy-West Haven Hospital. Despite being the only black woman in her department and one of the few in her neighborhood, she gets along well with her colleagues and neighbors and considers some of them friends, or so she thinks. As Ruth tells her story, I can relate to some of the struggles she faces. I was always taught not to judge people by the color of their skin. With part of my family descending from slaves and another part who owned slaves, my family is quite a mix of cultures. But when Ruth is put on trial or murder, these colleagues and neighbors were no longer her friends, they were now people who saw her as the black woman who killed a white baby.
This is an important book for everyone to read. Told from three points of view; Ruth's the nurse on trial for killing a baby; Turk, the white supremacist father of that baby; and Kennedy, the white, female public defender who is Ruth's attorney. Each character learns about themselves and the people around them over the course of this book.
I commend Jodi Picoult for tackling this difficult subject, especially during this time in our country when the subject is so relevant. As she mentions in her Author's Notes, most white authors write historical fiction about the black community, but this book fits right with today's headlines and some are even mentioned. This book helps to confirm why Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors.
For the lovers of football and history - this book will be of your interest. If you happen to have any connecting with Northern Ireland as well - this book is made for you!
<img src="https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/510KFWLQLML.jpg"/>
I don’t think I fit in the description above. I love watching football - but I am not a football maniac, that knows who plays where, the club’s managers and who is on top of the Champion’s League this year. I love me some good sports matches, and I know a lot of players by name or face, but that’s about it.
Now - Gunshots & Goalposts: The Story of Northern Irish Football - the book that covers the stories of many football players in the past century in Northern Ireland.
While it covers so many stories, I wasn’t able to connect to any of the characters, and I choose to blame this on the way the book was written.
Which - is not a bad thing at all. Why? Because, this book is not meant to make you fall in love with the characters. It is instead, meant to show you the real picture of their lives, the politics that were ongoing in that time, and give you a brief history lesson of what you happened to miss in high school. All related to football, of course.
For me, it was very useful to learn a bit about the politics and history. Before I started the book, I knew NOTHING about Northern Ireland’s history. I knew NOTHING about their football history. This was a great first book for me to dive into the waters of the history of Northern Ireland's football.
The author, Benjamin Roberts, has done a wonderful job in the description and research. It covers a lot of the history period from the First and Second World War, the protestants vs catholics, the unionists vs nationalists, the east vs the west.
This book reminds me a lot of a movie that has been made in the country where I was born - Macedonia. The movie was called ‘’The Third Half’’ and deals with Macedonian Football during World War II, and the deportation of Jews from Macedonia. It reminded me a bit of this, even though in this book we don’t connect with the characters, or dive into their stories too much.
This is a three-star book for me - for the sole reason that this is not a book that I would usually read, and I wouldn’t read books similar to this one either. I enjoyed it, at times, but wouldn’t re-read it. However, I would definitely recommend it to people that love both football and history. I just prefer books where I connect with the characters.
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Sophia (Bookwyrming Thoughts) (530 KP) rated Destiny Gift (Everlast, #1) in Books
Jan 23, 2020
Marking in ebooks is the only way not to get in severe trouble. x) I pity my poor planner with the chickenly scribbles of doom.
Destiny Gift is actually a really interesting book, being set in a futuristic (though not so far from today I'm assuming) New York with a hint (okay, more like a lot) of mythology hooray! and fantasy double hooray! mixed in. So much is made clearer about halfway through the book, but Haygert manages to keep us in suspense and not confuse readers in the process, which basically shows that the author has great writing potential and hopefully a very successful writing career too!
The idea behind the Destiny Gift is also pretty intriguing, so let me toss some basic word math in: Visions + Made Up Mythology (Because then one has full control of making of legends. So much fun.) + Other Goody Elements = Cooking Up A Pretty/Really Good Story.
I hope that sums up my entire thoughts in a nutshell of good old math. No Algebra needed (YES). But I'm not exactly finished, because I still need to talk about the characters, and having no clue about the characters is pretty much a book losing an arm or leg (ouch).
Victor and Micah, the lovely guys one can go swoon over if they so choose but no thanks. I'm focusing on good old days of Finals seemed to be too perfect. Well, I take that back. They're not perfect. They just seem too perfect in looks. Not that I mind.
I also like Micah's humor. Victor seems more of a "I'm a poisonous snake. You know, red on yellow. Stay away if you want to live." type of person. Not exactly the most pleasant image, since this is the snake I'm talking about:
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YI9vO_3_YLQ/UqYxHxURzOI/AAAAAAAACIo/L09fY3iu8Ic/s1600/thCAIAE0RF.jpg" />
Freaking out? It's not the actual poisonous one. I didn't really want to... "poison" my blog with snakes you know. :p
I was sort of thinking about Biology at the time the review was written.
I suppose it isn't a terrible comparison. Why? I'm not giving spoilers....
<blockquote>"All right, let's change the question. What* are you three?"
"Power Rangers, ever heard of them?"</blockquote>
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Review copy provided by author for review
Original Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Owls
This review and more can be found at <a href="http://bookwyrming-thoughts.blogspot.com/2013/12/review-destiny-gift-by-juliana-haygert.html">Bookwyrming Thoughts</a>
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Night Reader Reviews (683 KP) rated The Queen Of The Geraticaian Empire in Books
Jan 9, 2020
At the direction of The Mistress, Alexandra creates the first Constitution of Geratica that is adopted by the new government. Two main political parties form, Conservatives and Radicals, and elections begin. Elizabeth surprisingly joins the Conservative Party alongside Linda instead of the Radicals as everyone expected after her involvement with the Male Rights Protesters. Unsurprisingly Linda also runs in the elections, not wanting to give up her power. Meanwhile, Alexandra graduates from Castra University and starts looking for employment.
Things are not all smooth sailing though as conditions in Geraticai are still out of balance. The woman placed there from Geratica to be their Queen is put in jail by her own sister-in-law in a play for the throne. The sister-in-laws seat is not secure either as the Hybrid living inside the Mistress starts thinking up ways to get back at those in Geratica it feels wronged it. The Hybrid plans to attack Geratica, specifically targeting Queen Alexandra and Linda in order to name itself The Queen of the Geraticaian Empire.
What I liked best about this one was how the characters evolved over the course of the book. Linda is starting to relax on her views and accept that times are changing. Other characters are evolving and growing as well, yet her transformation is the most shocking. Although this book was packed full of surprises. There is once again very little that I can negatively say about this book. Having to choose something I would pick the issue of transport between Geratica and Geraticai after the two are separated. It states that direct travel through the transport capsules is no longer possible yet there are a few connected to the Mistress who can still do it so why not everyone?
The target readers for this book remains the same as the first two. That means this book is geared towards adult female readers more so than other groups. While there isnt as much sex in this one as the previous two books, politics and the occurrence of rape still keeps it at an adult level. I rate this book 4 out of 4. For many books, as the series moves on it starts to lose something and just rides off of the popularity of earlier books. That is not the case with this book. I found this book to be just as well written and compelling as the first two in the series.
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Fiete Quiztime
Education and Games
App
It´s Quiztime! In this fun and educational trivia quiz, parents and children ages 4 and up can work...
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Weesurf - The HD surf forecast
Weather and Sports
App
*** THE FIRST HD FORECAST MODEL FOR FREE IN THE WORLD *** The only app that provides 1km resolution...