Didn't get a ton of gaming in this month. Board game group moved to a new location because the restaurant we were at was grumpy with our existence. I think the group is quite well mannered and we've never taken up so much space that they couldn't seat other guests, but they felt we weren't spending enough money so asked us to find somewhere else to go. Which, fine, that's their prerogative, but groups like this meet on Tuesdays because restaurants tend to be dead so our presence is just extra money with little work for them. The last night we met there they had a total of 4 other tables the whole evening.
Anyway. We're trying a new location, however the new location is a brewery and limited to 21 and over so we'll likely keep looking for locations since there were often people in attendance that now can't attend.
Played the first scenario of Peacemakers: Horrors of War again with 2 players at the meetup. We were successful in ending the conflict.
At the next meetup we played Heat with a full group of six. I'm still really enjoying the game. I did not win this time. I believe I came in 4th due to poorly handling the final 2 turns.
Celebrating Jess' birthday we played Everdell with a friend (without any expansions to keep it a little more simple). Jess won handily.
And the following weekend, to further celebrate Jess' birthday with other friends, we played Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. We played Year 4, without any expansions, and were victorious.
The End is Nigh anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey
This has been sitting on my ereader for a very long time. It's part of a 3-part series of short stories that take place just before, during, or after some apocalyptic event. This anthology covers the "just before" stories.
Some decent stories in it.
Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
This had been on my "to read" list for a while, but then Mike mentioned it in the presentation he gave to the Lab back in July so I pushed it forward to read sooner rather than later.
It recounts a team of 15 Smokejumpers (elite fire-fighters that parachute to a fire to get it under control quickly--a big deal during the era that forest-fire management practice was to put them out as quickly as possible) who jumped on the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. Within 2 hours 10 were dead and 2 fatally burned.
It tries to answer the question, "What happened?"
Interesting read. A little bit of an odd style. Maclean kind of tells the story at least 3 times with slightly different bents and I think his writing is easiest follow if you read it in the voice of a guy telling a tale in order to get the right cadence.
The End is Now anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey
The second installment in the aforementioned series. I think I enjoyed this one more than the first, but I'm getting a little burnt out on apocalypse stories at this point.
Humankind by Rutger Bregman
Bregman looks critically at human history and the current best data across sociology, psychology, anthropology, etc. to argue the position that people are generally good.
People have done horrible things--of course, without question--but those are aberrations from the norm.
I thought it was a fair interpretation of the available data and any time Bregman introduced a counterpoint to the narrative of everyone-is-terrible he would straightforwardly acknowledge the flaws in his examples.
Easy read and a nice reprieve from the apocalypse stories.
Most of my modeling energy has been in to some longer term projects I'm working on. So I didn't get much printed this month.
First up was a modification to my organizer for The Guild of Merchant Explorers. The guy that runs the board-game group was impressed with my design and wanted one for himself, but he puts all his cards in sleeves. So I modified the card trays for sleeved cards and printed him a copy. The modified version is up on MakerWorld with the original.
The cats had an altercation at the window screen the other night and when we came out to investigate (at 2am) we found that the screen had been pushed in ~4-5 inches and the little plastic catch that holds it in place was broken. So apparently a neighborhood cat threw itself at the screen?
So I measured things and designed and printed out little catches that pressure-fit into the jamb opening and hold the screen in place. Seem to work pretty well. I couldn't get one out when I tried.
Played Heat a couple of times. One loss, one win. I'm enjoying this game much more than I expected to. It's pretty straightforward to play and there's no adversarial interactions, but the competitiveness pushes me to play more aggressively than I normally do in games.
I got tagged in to Apiary take over for someone two-thirds through a game at the board-game group. I did not win. It was not what I was expecting from the few times I've seen it go by on the Internet. It's not about being a beekeeper. It is about a far-flung future where bees have evolved sentience and you need to manage a bee spaceship to out-compete the other bee species. I'd play again to at least get the full experience.
Jess and I played Quest 19 of Kinfire Chronicles: Night's Fall and got drubbed by a dragon. We limped back to town to lick our wounds.
Later we played Quest 9 which went far more successfully. We caught and defeated an illicit arms dealer as the mystery of his customer network deepens.
Got two of my crowdfunding games this month. The first to arrive was Defenders of the Wild. Which in my head is "Everdell goes to war." You play cooperatively as a confederacy of woodland creatures defending their homes from marauding machines. Played at the board game group with experiences gamers--we lost. And what's more is none of us had a clear idea what a winning strategy looks like. We were really close to winning at one point though. Need to give it a few more goes to see if I can "figure it out."
The other crowdfunding game that was delivered in August was Peacemakers: Horrors of War. This one, in my head, is "Everdell tries to stop a war." You play cooperatively as a team of woodland creatures trying to stop battling tribes from destroying each other. It's a very unusual game. Your ability to influence things is subtle. You're looking for opportunities to nudge events just a little in one direction or another in order to create conditions for the warring factions to negotiate a peace.
I played the first scenario two handed (two players, but only me playing) and was able to eek out a victory and get the ocelots and macaws to stop fighting.
The family continued our time-traveling adventure in Escape the Crate: Escape from Sherwood Forest. We successfully completed both chapters and rescued Robin Hood and Little John from the sheriff's jail.
Before Peacemakers: Horrors of War the publisher released another game Lands of Galzyr which takes place in the same universe. This is a purely story-telling game however. You take on the role of one of 4 woodland creatures making your way through the world. You have a personal quest you're embarking on but can engage in any number of side quests and narrative vignettes along the way. It's not a game you win or lose--it's a game you experience for the joy of the journey.
We played through one session as a family, but with 4 players I think it moves a bit too slowly. I think it would be significantly more enjoyable for everyone to play with no more than 3--and preferably just 2--players.
And finally, on the last day of the month, we played Ex Libris with friends. Jess won again, as usual.
