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Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Virtual Reef Diver in Tabletop Games
Nov 19, 2020
Ahh, ze Great Barrier Reef. How I would love to see you! To swim with ze fishies and see ze beautiful colors! But alas, I am no great diver, and have only snorkled once – in ze Caribbean. I am very interested in ze marine life on ze reefs surrounding Australia, and so when I heard of a game from one of our favorite publishers (who happen to be Australian) featuring photos of ze Great Barrier Reef I knew I had to take a look.
Virtual Reef Diver is an educational card game that helps to bring awareness to happenings of the Great Barrier Reef and even implements ways for players to participate in the studies of this natural wonder. The winner(s) of the game is (are) the team who scores the most points at the end of three rounds, and also hopefully learns several new things along the way.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. It is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, but to give a general idea of the feel of the game flow. You are invited to download the rulebook, purchase the game through the publisher directly, or through any retailers stocking it. -T
To setup, shuffle the Action card deck, the Reef Disturbance deck, and the Reef decks separately, placing them on the table. Each team, or player, may be given a Classification Card (reference card) as well. From the Reef deck deal 12 cards face-up on the table in a 3×4 (or 4×3 whatever) grid. Each round a new set of 12 cards will be dealt to the table. Determine the starting player/team and the game may begin!
Players will decide at the beginning of the game which mode they wish to play: Standard or Advanced. I will be previewing the Standard mode. On a turn a player will choose a card from the grid and attempt to identify its type: Hard Coral, Soft Coral, Algae, Invertebrates, Fish, Marine Mammals, or Technology. If correct, the player will collect the card as a trophy and it will be worth VPs at the end of the game. The next player may then take a turn identifying the type of card and collecting if correct, or leaving on the table if incorrect.
All cards are worth VPs except the Technology cards. These, once correctly identified, will allow the player to exchange it for an Action card to be used in the future. Action cards can be very powerful at different times during the game.
Once all 12 cards have been taken for the round the players will reveal a Reef Disturbance card. These typically will have players discarding cards of a certain type, or several cards at once. Some Action cards will negate these effects, so having them ready is great strategy. The grid may now be replenished and the second round started. The game ends at the end of the third round and players count up points to determine the winner!
Components. Again, while this game is in production, I treated it as a preview, and these are final components. That said, this game exists to benefit the Australian Government-funded citizen science website ACEMS. Further, this game is a bunch of cards in a box. The photos on the main Reef cards are mostly quite nice, with a couple looking perhaps a little outdated. The other graphics on the game are fine. They don’t get in the way, and are functional. The cards themselves are also fine quality. Nothing in the box is exquisite nor subpar at all.
The gameplay is something that I am struggling with as a reviewer. You see, this is a VERY different game depending on the mode you play. I will probably always play it on Standard mode because I can guess what type a card may be, but the Advanced mode also awards extra points for identifying the common name, taxonomic family (scientific name), and habitat of each card’s subject. That is for eggheads, man! I’m just a normal American-educated gamer. I don’t know that stuff! So the Standard mode is relatively easy to play and be good, where the Advanced mode is for those times when you have, let’s say, a Scrabble or Chess snob who revels in being the most intellectual person in the room. That’s not at all a bad thing, and I hope any real eggheads know I am kidding around. I am merely jealous at how smart many people are.
That being the case, this game would work well for a group of younger gamers eager to learn about the marine life on the Great Barrier Reef, or those looking for a relaxing quasi-trivia style card game. Need to amp it up and play on Advanced mode? Go for it. I’ll still be flailing about like a clownfish out of water trying to understand the difference between hard and soft coral and how to distinguish them. Seriously. Take a look for yourself and help out a VERY worthy cause in the process.
Virtual Reef Diver is an educational card game that helps to bring awareness to happenings of the Great Barrier Reef and even implements ways for players to participate in the studies of this natural wonder. The winner(s) of the game is (are) the team who scores the most points at the end of three rounds, and also hopefully learns several new things along the way.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. It is not my intention to detail every rule in the game, but to give a general idea of the feel of the game flow. You are invited to download the rulebook, purchase the game through the publisher directly, or through any retailers stocking it. -T
To setup, shuffle the Action card deck, the Reef Disturbance deck, and the Reef decks separately, placing them on the table. Each team, or player, may be given a Classification Card (reference card) as well. From the Reef deck deal 12 cards face-up on the table in a 3×4 (or 4×3 whatever) grid. Each round a new set of 12 cards will be dealt to the table. Determine the starting player/team and the game may begin!
Players will decide at the beginning of the game which mode they wish to play: Standard or Advanced. I will be previewing the Standard mode. On a turn a player will choose a card from the grid and attempt to identify its type: Hard Coral, Soft Coral, Algae, Invertebrates, Fish, Marine Mammals, or Technology. If correct, the player will collect the card as a trophy and it will be worth VPs at the end of the game. The next player may then take a turn identifying the type of card and collecting if correct, or leaving on the table if incorrect.
All cards are worth VPs except the Technology cards. These, once correctly identified, will allow the player to exchange it for an Action card to be used in the future. Action cards can be very powerful at different times during the game.
Once all 12 cards have been taken for the round the players will reveal a Reef Disturbance card. These typically will have players discarding cards of a certain type, or several cards at once. Some Action cards will negate these effects, so having them ready is great strategy. The grid may now be replenished and the second round started. The game ends at the end of the third round and players count up points to determine the winner!
Components. Again, while this game is in production, I treated it as a preview, and these are final components. That said, this game exists to benefit the Australian Government-funded citizen science website ACEMS. Further, this game is a bunch of cards in a box. The photos on the main Reef cards are mostly quite nice, with a couple looking perhaps a little outdated. The other graphics on the game are fine. They don’t get in the way, and are functional. The cards themselves are also fine quality. Nothing in the box is exquisite nor subpar at all.
The gameplay is something that I am struggling with as a reviewer. You see, this is a VERY different game depending on the mode you play. I will probably always play it on Standard mode because I can guess what type a card may be, but the Advanced mode also awards extra points for identifying the common name, taxonomic family (scientific name), and habitat of each card’s subject. That is for eggheads, man! I’m just a normal American-educated gamer. I don’t know that stuff! So the Standard mode is relatively easy to play and be good, where the Advanced mode is for those times when you have, let’s say, a Scrabble or Chess snob who revels in being the most intellectual person in the room. That’s not at all a bad thing, and I hope any real eggheads know I am kidding around. I am merely jealous at how smart many people are.
That being the case, this game would work well for a group of younger gamers eager to learn about the marine life on the Great Barrier Reef, or those looking for a relaxing quasi-trivia style card game. Need to amp it up and play on Advanced mode? Go for it. I’ll still be flailing about like a clownfish out of water trying to understand the difference between hard and soft coral and how to distinguish them. Seriously. Take a look for yourself and help out a VERY worthy cause in the process.
BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated Rope (1948) in Movies
Nov 15, 2018
Master Director working some Masterful Camerawork
For my next deep dive into a film of the "Master of Suspense", Alfred Hitchock, I thought I'd pull out a "one-trick pony" film of his, 1948's ROPE. Based on a stage play, HItchock decided to film this movie as it were a play - keeping the entire film in one location (an apartment) and to film it in (what appears to be) one long take.
And, darn it all, if he doesn't pull it off.
The film starts off with a murder, we see two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) strangling their "inferior" friend. They then decide to hold a dinner party to see if anyone can tell that they have committed murder. Included in this party is the dead friend's girlfriend (Joan Chandler), his father (Sir Cedrick Hardwicke) and their old school teacher (James Stewart).
The fun of this film isn't "will they get caught", it's "how will they get caught - and by who". The cast is wonderful (especially Hardwicke) but they all take a back seat to the absolute stellar performance of Stewart who begins to piece together that something is amiss and turns the tide on the two murderers.
The real star of this film is Director HItchock and his camera. Since he decided to make this in one long take, it took a master of organization and logistics to pull this off, having stagehands move furniture and walls out of the way (and back in again) as the camera moved around. In 1948, a camera could only hold 10 minutes worth of film, so the "one long take" aspect of this is a trick, as it is really 8 takes with strategic timing of camera movements behind walls and backs to give the illusion of seamlessness.
The interesting thing of this "trick" is that you are totally at the control of what Hitchock wants you to see (and not see). There is a scene about 1/2 way through the film that completely ignores the action and the people in the scene and focuses on the trunk the body is in. It is a masterwork, and the tension of keeping your focus there throughout the course of this part of the film is scary, tense and mesmerizing.
One last thing, Hitchock makes a cameo in every one of his films. Try to tell where Hitch is in this film (and, no, it is not as someone walking by the apartment at the beginning of the movie).
Not one of Hitchock's best, plotwise, but one of his best, camera-wise. Well worth checking out.
Letter Grade A-
8 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
And, darn it all, if he doesn't pull it off.
The film starts off with a murder, we see two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) strangling their "inferior" friend. They then decide to hold a dinner party to see if anyone can tell that they have committed murder. Included in this party is the dead friend's girlfriend (Joan Chandler), his father (Sir Cedrick Hardwicke) and their old school teacher (James Stewart).
The fun of this film isn't "will they get caught", it's "how will they get caught - and by who". The cast is wonderful (especially Hardwicke) but they all take a back seat to the absolute stellar performance of Stewart who begins to piece together that something is amiss and turns the tide on the two murderers.
The real star of this film is Director HItchock and his camera. Since he decided to make this in one long take, it took a master of organization and logistics to pull this off, having stagehands move furniture and walls out of the way (and back in again) as the camera moved around. In 1948, a camera could only hold 10 minutes worth of film, so the "one long take" aspect of this is a trick, as it is really 8 takes with strategic timing of camera movements behind walls and backs to give the illusion of seamlessness.
The interesting thing of this "trick" is that you are totally at the control of what Hitchock wants you to see (and not see). There is a scene about 1/2 way through the film that completely ignores the action and the people in the scene and focuses on the trunk the body is in. It is a masterwork, and the tension of keeping your focus there throughout the course of this part of the film is scary, tense and mesmerizing.
One last thing, Hitchock makes a cameo in every one of his films. Try to tell where Hitch is in this film (and, no, it is not as someone walking by the apartment at the beginning of the movie).
Not one of Hitchock's best, plotwise, but one of his best, camera-wise. Well worth checking out.
Letter Grade A-
8 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
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