Smashbomb

I backed this on Kickstarter, with the Oracle, Dragon Rancher and Inn Keeper expansions. Over the course of our first evening playing, my wife and I had 1 game of learning the rules, then another three games fairly quickly.

The pieces (ships, meeples, and individual gaming boards) are fantastic (although a couple are a little fiddly/weak) and every single character has their own flavour and type of sub-game;

The Alchemist makes potions by drawing marbles, firstly from a bag, then from a "decanter" (echoes of Quacks of Quiddlingberg)
The Blacksmith makes weapons and armour from dice rolls and combos in furnaces (not quite Yahtzee)
The Captain sails her fleet of ships to go fishing and treasure hunting using a spinning compass mechanism (can't put my finger what this reminds me of)
The Chronomancer (a great Back to the Future nod) travels through time portals to get pieces of technology, using a slide-and-shift board (like a mini Labrynth)
The Dragon rancher (believe it or not) hatches, raises and sells dragons; a couple of mechanics which work well together (even if one is shovelling poop) but not really like a game I've played
The Innkeeper is a great sub-sub-game; he can only sell drinks at one point, but he can put people up in his Inn which gives a bonus. A little bit of prediction work, but not like a other game I can think of.
The Oracle uses a scatter/dish for her fetishes and dice, and this limits what she can do - but I'd say she has the most varied scope of games (dots, predictions, and a few others)

The aim of the game is to be the Merchant who makes the most money, without attracting too much Corruption. Each game is played over three days, and each day has a limited amount of time. Each task the characters do has a different amount of time-cost - it might take 1h to brew potions, but it takes 2h to get ingredients from the decanter and prepare the potions. At several points each day, random Adventurers are drawn from the bag, and put into the travelling ships, as chosen by the drawer. However, there are also rogues who take up space and don't buy anything!

My only real complaint with the game is the comparatively long set up (5-10 minutes seems to be our average) for a 30-45m play time for 2 players - but it is really worth it. If/when this goes to retail, I'd say every gaming group who enjoys a combination of resource management, meeple and worker placement, and beautiful set-piece games, should give this a try.

Kudos

Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Noelle (2019) in Movies

Dec 20, 2020

Noelle (2019)

2019 | Comedy, Family, Fantasy

7.7

(18 Ratings)

Movie Rating

It's been 84 years...okay, only a year, but Disney+ really screwed us over on that one in the UK.

Noelle and Nick have grown up in the wonderful world of Christmas. Nick is destined to take his father's place, but when that time comes the magic doesn't, and he decides to take a break the week before Christmas to relax... and doesn't come back. Noelle must venture out into the real world to rescue Nick, and Christmas.

I had managed to zone out on the film before seeing it, I was basically sold on the idea of a Christmas film starring Anna Kendrick that was written and directed by Marc Lawrence... I genuinely didn't need to hear anything else, and so didn't bother with anything extra before I pressed play.

To say I was shocked at the beginning is an understatement, but I can understand why this particular piece of information wasn't in the descriptions... though the blatant lie in the synopsis above seems a little off. I doubt me revealing the actual shocking moment could constitute a spoiler as in hindsight it's pretty obvious, but I'm going to leave it at that vagueness just incase... sorry!

Noelle is easy to predict, but as traditional Christmas fodder I don't think that's really an issue. Its predictability allows you to sit back and relax while you watch it.

I did enjoy the story, and Anna Kendrick does a wonderful job of the naivety in Noelle as she explores the city. She gives the film an amusing lightness with some genuine moments that add some emotion into the proceedings.

Shirley MacLaine as Polly works well in her role as a sidekick and the humour at the beginning particularly amused me. There was definitely something in her that I could identify with.

I sadly wasn't really wowed with much of the ensemble. Maceo Smedley as Alex made a great job of his role and the relationship he had with his father, the script seemed to work nicely with to highlight his kind nature and personality... but other performances were... fine... and helped to move everything along. The characters were much the same, though Gabe Kringle seemed to be missing something to give him that little extra, even with the "nerdiness" factor that they could have worked with he didn't hit the spot.

Early on I was really worried about the effect that were used, Snowcone looked a little ropey, thankfully, although it didn't get any better, the adorableness made up for it in spades.

I really did enjoy the feeling I got from this film, Kendrick's spirit was rather infectious and her humour, intentional or not, brought a smile to my face. At just 1 hour 40 this is well worth your time to watch. While there might be room for improvement I think it's exactly the sort of film that's needed at Christmas, and especially this year.

Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2020/12/noelle-movie-review.html