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devourer--of--books · 4 years

Text

tagatha dating simulator au

- It’s sunday night and local college student, Agatha, hasn’t sleep in two days, practically glued to her chair at the library, trying to absorb the maximum of information she possibly could before finals on monday morning.

- Sitting across from her is her roommate and best friend, Sophie, who doesn’t seem nearly as concerned, playing a game on her phone. Mostly because she already failed half of her courses and is considering dropping out of college to pursue a modeling career, why try at this point-

- Agatha appreciates that Sophie is keeping her company, she really does, but even if her friend was using headphones, Agatha can still hear the background music and the voice actors very clearly. That on its own was distracting enough, but it was always the same lines, with the background music looping as Sophie restarted the game prologue over and over again.

- Around the fifth time she hears the app-staring-exclamation ‘milady!’ her eye starts twitching.

- By the twelfth she slams her book shut, earning herself a glare from all the remaining students in the library.

- “How terrible do you have to be at a game to not be able to get through the prologue?” she whisper-shouts, taking the sit beside Sophie, looking at the screen.

- “That’s not the problem,” her friend defends, proceeding to explain the game.

- Trial by Tale is a recently released dating simulator that has managed to gather a cult-like following. The game was praised for its diverse range of LIs, well-written routes, stellar voice acting, high-quality art style and a beautiful soundtrack. It was apparently highly addicting as well, as Agatha had never seen Sophie be that invested in... any game... like, ever.

- Basically, the main character was transported inside a fairytale-fantasy-like world, where they were introduced as a ‘reader’ to compete in the ‘trial by tale’, a inter-worldly tournament, set up by a mysterious entity (a magical pen known as ‘the storian’), in which the winner would be granted an unconditional wish.

- “Original,” Agatha snorts.

- “Can you just shut up and listen?”

- During the prologue, the main character meets most of the main LIs and according to the player’s decisions, the game would put them into a specific route, based on affection levels with each datatable character.

- There were about thirty bad endings for the casual route (where the player either made stupid choices or didn’t gather enough affection with any LI), ranging from mildly sad to terribly gory. Then, each route had five early bad endings, that could happen during the trial, resulting in the main character’s death.

- If the player managed to win the tournament with the LI, bargaining with the storian for the survival of two competitors, then two new endings would be unlocked: a normal ending, in which the reader would wish to go home and a happy ending, in which the reader wished to remain forever in the fairytale world living happily ever after with their partner.

- “And that’s where it gets weird,” Sophie pauses, opening up the Trial By Tale wiki page. “Every single LI has a walkthrough and seven possible endings.”

- She shows Agatha a bunch of characters, offering some commentary on their personalities and backstories. Then, she pauses at the last. "All but one." The character is the prettiest, if not a bit too perfect. ‘Tedros of Camelot’, it says on the top of his page, his basic info and biography listed to the side, but it’s full of gaps, blanks and ‘???’s. It was mentioned that he was a dateable character, yet no walkthrough was provided.

- “Why doesn’t it say anything? Has he not been released?”

- “No one has managed to get his route so far, but according to the game developers, it’s possible. We don’t even know what his voice sounds like.”

- “And you think you will because…?”

- “I’m me. I’m getting Tedros’ route even if it’s the last thing I’ll do.”

- Agatha decides to leave her be, going back to the books, while asking for her to at least lower the volume.

- An hour or so goes by until Sophie grows hungry and decides to leave the library, going back to the dorm. After that, Agatha finally manages to concentrate, and time goes by in a flash.

- In fact, it passes so quickly that she’s not even sure what time it was. When did everyone leave?

- Her phone is dead and the clock on the wall is frozen at midnight. Probably broken, Agatha decides. It couldn’t be midnight, the lights were still on, the library closed at 10:30pm sharp and no one came to kick her out. She was tired, but she wasn’t deaf. She calls for the librarian.

- All the lights turn off at once. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t freak her out a bit.

- Then, she notices a blue glow from under the table. Please don’t let it be a demon.

- It’s a smartphone, with a bedazzled case, a loading blue screen emitting the light. Trial By Tale’s soundtrack starts to play and soon enough the words appear. Touch anywhere to start. That was Sophie’s phone. Which would be fine and normal and okay if Agatha wasn’t pretty sure Sophie left with it.

- The music starts to loop, and Agatha uses the light to guide her to the entrance, only to find it locked. Every other exit was blocked as well. Ha. Funny.

- Eventually, she surrenders, clicking on the screen, trying to close the app. The last thing she hears is ‘milady!’ and everything turns black as she feels the floor disappear from under her feet, her consciousness fading as she fell into an abyss of darkness.

- She wakes up lying on grass, near a gate, the words Trial By Tale engraved on top of it.

- She pinches herself, feeling it sting as she stared at the gate, pinching harder and harder to the point she nearly screamed in pain. The gate was still there. Agatha focus on her senses. She’s never able to smell things on her dreams.

- This place smells like dirt, pines, dried blood and iron.

- It’s a dream, she tries to convince herself. Very vivid dream, but it’s a dream.

- A bunch of floating text appears in front of her: Welcome, competitors!

- The storian tells Agatha everything Sophie already told her: it’s a tournament, in which 40 teens from different fairytale kingdoms, including the reader world, must compete amongst themselves for survival during 24 hours. You could pair up with someone, forming an alliance, but there could only be one winner. Then, the world froze, turning black and white, three options appearing in thin air:

A: I’m a boy

B: I’m a girl

C: I’m neither/both/something else.

- Agatha experiments. The text didn’t respond to her voice or gestures; she had to touch it. B. They disappeared up in smoke, being replaced by a new choice:

A: climb over the gate early

B: go in as soon as the gong goes off

C: run into the woods

- All of those sound horrible, she’ll hang around here, thank you very much.

- Agatha decides to pick B, because it sounded the least likely to get her killed. Tapping the option, color returns and more texts appears, telling her the rest of the rules. Apparently, all forms of magic and weapons were allowed, as it was a tournament to the death.

- Well, she had neither a weapon nor any magic, geez, things were certainly looking up.

- A gong can be heard and Agatha waits for her legs to magically move according to her choice.

- They don’t.

- She debates on staying put for a few minutes, maybe way too many, but then she remembers: casual route endings vary from mildly sad to terribly gory. Agatha doesn’t wanna find out which one she’d get by sticking around.

- Her future now depends on her romancing one of these pieces of code. Thankfully, it was just a dream, right?

- Inside the arena (?), she gets some other choices, which Agatha uses to her advantage, trying to figure out which LI she was going for and how to win them over.

- Hort, according to her friend, was the easiest to please and the most boring of them all. Nicola was efficient and Sophie had managed to unlock her happy ending without a walkthrough. Aric was a psycho, and so was Japeth. Don’t pick Rhian, her friend had warned. Anadil was a hard one to guess without the walkthough, Hester was super hot and Agatha’s type but that could go very wrong (clearly her type wasn’t working out, as she was painfully single) and-

- Is that Japeth or Rhian? She can’t tell, but he’s coming her way.

A: introduce yourself

B: try to kill him

C: hide behind the rock

- She chooses C, but climbs a tree instead, because he surely would be able to see her behind the rock, was he blind or something?

- “You sure are taking your time choosing,” a voice whispers from the branch above her, nearly giving her a heart attack, “...first time player maybe? Or just dumb?”

- Tedros, the mysterious character, was looking down at her, resting on a higher branch.

- Agatha glares at him before blurting: “You’re shorter than you look on your CG.”

- He chokes. “You can hear me?”

- “Why are you british?” she notices the accent, given how different it sounded from all the other voice actors.

- “I’m bi,” he frowns at her in offended confusion.

- (The himbo energy in this bus is astronomical.)

- They bicker a bit and Japeth grows suspicious of the hushed conversation, nearing the tree. Tedros asks for her help taking him down. Agatha is like, sure, whatever at this point, just trying to forget that Tedros broke the fourth wall. It’s a dream, don’t overthink too much.

- She distracts Japeth, and Tedros tries to ambush him, but it backfires horribly, resulting in Tedros now being a few seconds away from dying a very very painful death.

A: run away

B: ally yourself with Japeth

- Agatha hesitates over option A, convincing herself that Tedros wasn’t a real person. He was a just a character in a game. But while the entire world is black and white waiting for her answer, she swears his eyes remain icy blue.

- Trick of the light?

- She presses A but throws herself towards Japeth, colliding with him. Agatha ends up being stabbed in the arm, but otherwise fine, which is more than Japeth can say, as he fell into a conveniently located black hole. That hurt like a bitch, how is this a dream?

- Tedros is shook.

- “What did you do? How did you even-” he eyes the blood in her arm. “You’re bleeding!” Tedros rips his shirt to wrap it around the wound, and Agatha does her best not to stare at him while he tends to the wound.

- A blue ribbon in the sky tells Agatha she is now on Tedros’ route. A ribbon they can both read.

- “That’s… troublesome.”

- “What, is your route cursed or something?”

- “...”

- “It’s totally cursed, isn’t it?”

- They argue a bunch and Agatha tries to ditch him but ends up almost dying twice. Tedros saves her, and insists that since he accidentally gave her his route, he’ll help her stay alive for as long as he can.

- Together they figure out that Agatha’s ability to disobey the game choices might be able to uncurse his route, hopefully sending her home by the end and resetting the game as it was meant to be, allowing people play his route.

- Agatha is pretty sure Tedros is not telling her something, but she kinda does owns him her life now (“2x1, sucks to suck, reader.”) and he offered to share some of his food and hiding spot with her. Doesn’t hurt that he clearly knew how to fight and had a big sword, while Agatha had.... free will and nothing else apparently???

- They end up talking over fruits and water (we love a healthy king) in a cave and Agatha finds out basically every other character’s backstory, learning a ton about the context of these trials as well as what the game felt like for the characters.

- According to Tedros, every other character was doomed to repeat the same route and actions following the reader’s choices, only to lose all memories by the end, as the game reseted. They were all blissfully ignorant of the fact that this was, in fact, a dating simulator. All of them but Tedros. When Agatha asks him why, he closes off:

- “Every single character has a core wish they want fulfilled. It can be the same wish every time, or it can change once your route resets. My original wish contradicted the memory reset, so no one has been able to play my route at all. And if no one plays, I can’t reset. If you go home and the game resets, I’ll make a different wish and my route should be fixed for good.”

- Agatha doesn’t ask what he wished for and he doesn’t tell her either; it feels like way too personal of a question for strangers eating berries in a cave.

- She does ask him what his new wish will be, though.

- “I’ll restore my kingdom back to its former glory,” he starts, a certain sadness in his eyes. “They deserve a prince who doesn’t waste time wishing for-” Tedros interrupts himself, telling her about his kingdom instead.

- Agatha knows he’s related to King Arthur due to his name on the Trial By Tale wiki, but she’s surprised that he actually gives her that info willingly. He is indeed the prince of Camelot, but his mother abandoned the palace when he was nine and then his father died a few years later, sending the kingdom into despair and disgrace.

- (“That’s rough, buddy.”)

- To lighten the mood, she decides to tell him about ‘the reader world’.

- “To exist in your world might be something then,” he smiles, “I mean, beats hanging around here. You said you have a machine that can play music anytime you want?”

- Tedros is fascinated with everything and asks her about all sorts of stuff, like about politics, lgbtqa+ rights, tik tok, food, the economy, school and fashion trends. Also, memes, lots of memes.

- They spend like 8 hours straight hidden in a cave, just talking, bickering and actually having a lot of fun. The lack of choices even makes her forget she was still in a game.

- Tedros notices how tired she looks and offers to keep watch while she sleeps.

A: say no as a joke

B: outright refuse

- Agatha taps A.

- “Sure, do you mind if I lean on you though?”

- Is this like a date or are we like doing my route and you’re sleeping on my arm platonically? Tedros is shook, part 2.

- Agatha tries not to fall asleep, but she does take a nap, leaning on his shoulder. Surprisingly enough, an hour later she’s still alive, but her head was now on his lap and he was petting her hair.

- “Hi.”

A: get up

B: kiss him

- She doesn’t wanna get up, but she doesn’t really feel like kissing him would be appropriate for the moment. She presses B, yet remains still for next few minutes. Tedros looks a bit disappointed, as if he was waiting for her.

- “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

- “Do you want me to?”

- He doesn’t reply immediately, running his fingers through her hair. “Everyone wants to kiss me. I’m hot, I’m a prince and I’m rich.”

- “You’re gonna need to do better than that to get me to kiss you,” Agatha tells him. “If we survive this I’ll kiss you once, just before we unlock your normal ending and I go home. For a CG.”

- “But then I won’t remember it at all.”

- The comment makes her nervous. Once this is over and Tedros gets his route unlocked, he’s gonna be just another character. He’ll say things like that to everyone. Agatha has to chastise herself for growing attached to a video game character. He’s not real. He wasn’t yours to begin with, you’ve known him for less than a day. Get a grip.

- They stay in silence until another gong goes off, the storian’s text showing up in the air: “12 hours left. Only 10 competitors remain.”

A: stay in the cave

B: leave

- Agatha chooses B and they head out of the cave to see who else was alive, just in time to not be crushed under heavy rocks. Strangely they don’t bump into anyone. What they do run into, though, is a bunch of traps and creatures meant to randomly eliminate competitors. Great.

- Somehow, Agatha always chooses the right option and alters her actions just enough to save them at the last minute. Is she a pro-gamer? One can only marvel at how lucky she’s been getting in this game. No, but like, really, is she? Tedros is impressed.

- At the 6 hour mark, there’s 4 people left, including the two of them. He’s been eyeing Agatha weirdly and she doesn’t know what to think of it because she liked hanging out with him, but at the same time, he is a piece of code.

- There’s like, a dramatic confrontation with the other two competitors, which turn out to be Aric and Hester, not as a pair, but as individuals, and it ends up working out in Tedros and Agatha’s favor, as those two end up murdering each othe while Tedros and Agatha have the advantage of teamwork. It’s a great action sequence, but if you’ve read this far, I’m pretty sure you’re not here for the action.

- Anyway, the storian appears, but unlike the other routes, instead of giving Agatha the opportunity to bargain for them both to survive, her options are:

A: kill Tedros

B: kill Tedros

- Agatha doesn’t tap either. She stays still, glaring at the pen while the world remained black and white.

- Then, the entire arena starts to shake, the game glitching as Tedros moves, his colors fading in and out, his expression tortured, as if just smiling at her was painful, his eyes glowing unnaturally blue. “Let’s get you home,” he mouths, before stabbing himself with his own sword, falling to the floor as the colors returned for good.

- Agatha couldn’t breathe, kneeling beside him.

- “To meet someone who’d love me for me,” he admits, bleeding out into the ground, a single tear running down his face. “That was my original wish. And then I met you.”

- She kisses him on the lips, and as you know, true love’s kiss breaks every spell, heals every wound and transcends the limits of storytelling.

- Tedros’ chest is slowly healing, but just as he gets stronger, Agatha grows weaker, starting to disappear through his fingers in rays of lights, back to the reader’s world, leaving a lonely prince by himself in a bloody arena with a magical pen.

- “Unconditional wish for the winner, hm?”

- Back at the library, Agatha wakes up with a snap, falling off her chair.

- The clock on the wall reads 10pm and the few students left at the library glare at her. She hurries to gather her things in her arms, going back to her dorm trying to make sense of what just happened. It was all a dream. It had to be because her arm is intact. She has been running on too much caffeine, finals start the next morning, she was stressed, that’s all.

- Sophie is still playing the game once Agatha arrives at the dorm, and as soon as she walks in, her friend tells her the news:

- “See, darling, I told you I’d get Chaddick’s route eventually!”

- Chaddick’s route?

- Agatha doesn’t even reply, going straight to bed, still haunted. That night, she has no dreams of handsome boys in caves, neither does she dream of blue-eyed princes bleeding out.

- Monday afternoon, though, a distracted Agatha is walking back to her dorm after taking her exams, when she bumps into someone, nearly knocking her over. She is about to yell at the stranger when her voice gets caught on her throat.

- “To exist in your world might be something,” the familiar stranger smiles at her, “I mean, I’m Tedros Pendragon, nice to meet you.”

#school for good and evil #The School for Good and Evil #sge #agatha x tedros #Tagatha #tedros of camelot #Agatha of camelot #Agatha of Woods Beyond

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gimme-a-hand-scaevola · 3 years

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A review of the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley that nobody ever asked for...

Ok so @chemcat92 recommended me this book and I listened to it on audiobook and I just... have a lot of thoughts. I haven’t read the sequel and I’m torn if I will. Having watched some AMVs of the show, it’s a hard pass. My review is going to be in three parts:

1. The plot

2. Wasted Potential - In General

3. Wasted Potential - Gestalt the Most Wasted Character Potential I’ve Read since Drizzt Do’Urden

Obviously spoilers under the cut.

Part 1: The Plot - i.e. I think Daniel discovered books four days before he started writing

Ok so... The plot of this book. It starts off STRONG I will give it that. Myfanwy Thomas wakes up in a rainy part surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves and no memories. She soon discovers her previous self lost her memories but because she was organized and knew it was coming, she has eased new Myfanwy’s transition. She gets to choose to stay in her life through letters and then we get an easy way to give flashbacks. Anyway this part RULES.

Honestly, the book starts strong as hell. Myfanwy discovers she has supernatural powers over people’s nervous systems and is a trained bureaucrat for a supernatural wing of the government. This all runs sort of like a combination of Heroes and Harry Potter in the best way possible. And here is where we find the strongest part of the book: the superpowers.

We don’t have to look that far to find Heroes type shows or books where everyone has a special ability, so if you’re going to go that route, you’ve gotta bring it. And honestly, Daniel brings it. They powers are cool as hell, they’re inventive, they’re well bounded. I felt like I understood what people’s powers and limitations were. We were in a land with magic, but it never felt cheap. This is going to dovetail into my absolute RANT about Gestalt but give me a sec to get there.

Ok. So honestly I don’t even have any complaints until the third act. Act one gives us the set up, act two introduced the big bad the Grafters and so far so good. We’ve got good but elitist supernatural guys vs. bad but more egalitarian supernatural guys. We also know that it was someone in the supernatural org (it has a name but the name is so stupid I can’t spell it) that betrayed our protag and stole her memories and they’re still around and teamed up with the evil Grafters. Intrigue?? Don’t know who to trust???? Love it.

For some reason everyone is either old, or hot, or so inhuman it’s viscerally horrifying. Love this touch. Eleanor from the Good Place taught us that it’s totally free to imagine everyone in a story as super hot. And it is. So they’re all super hot. Love it. Good commitment, Daniel.

But then we get to Act three. So, this was a big swing on ol Danny’s part because a lot of the effect of this had to do with carrying out mystery. We’d built a lot of tension on the suspense Who Betrayed Myfanwy. So obviously it’s really important for me to be surprised or at least satisfied with who this is. (As an aside, I would have been ok with guessing correctly, I definitely don’t subscribe to surprise trumping cohesive plot). Ok. With that on paper... like... holy shit. What a stupid “reveal.”

So in part 1, like the first scene we get of old Myfanwy’s letters giving us context, she says that her apartment at work was inherited from a dude Conrad something that got promoted. And then she says it’s super badly decorated, and later we see it and this shit is straight out of Austin Powers, mirror over a round bed, The Whole Shebang. But she also says that this guy who otherwise is supposed to be very smooth and charismatic like... asks her about the decor.... every time they interact. Every Time They Interact. The second this was mentioned (WHICH IS AFTER WE KNOW SHE WAS BETRAYED) I'm like “oh ok so this guy bugged her room he’s the villain” and I only wasn’t sure because it was WAY too obvious.

But no. He’s the villain. He has a big reveal where he’s like “AND I BUGGED YOUR ROOM” and I'm like... well... yeah. Of course you did. But here’s the thing tho... Myfanwy’s like... WHOLE ASS JOB is planning covert ops. So... is she good at her job??? IS SHE????

But we also don’t actually show how characters are based on their actions, we are just told how they are. But we will circle back to that in the Gestalt part. That’s honestly the sum of my rant about the plot. It was nothing. It put all its eggs in the basket of the worst most boring reveal of all time. Daniel, I think you might just be boring.

Part 2: Wasted Potential - Everything but Gestalt who gets a special part to themselves.

The big sin of this book might just be too many good ideas. There’s a lot of characters, they all do cool stuff, but we have like 200 pages, so there wasn’t enough time to do anything with all these guys. I got lost about who was who like 80 times because they’re basically all sneaky hot magic guys. One of them smokes and is a soldier and he seems chill.

There’s a vampire and he gets a scene and a long intro that reads more like a wiki page. Like it was interesting but you would have lost NOTHING cutting him as a character except that he was cool. You never ever believe that he was the bad guy because it’s super well established in the Certified Back Story that he could give two shits about the politics of the humans. He’s there bc he’s an adorably young vampire who is very curious so his dad set him up as a powerful government agent as though it was enrolling him in a prep school. Love it, but again, we don’t.... need him around.

There’s a lady who can walk through dreams and I thought she was going to be important based on the fanfare of her introduction but then we forget about her basically entirely.

There’s a whole American wing that we also only see anything interesting about in side story. Basically the world building is really good. Like pretty superb to be honest. But it’s bracketing a story that is nothing so it makes even good characters seems really random. And that bring us to:

Part 3: My Darling, Gestalt. My Type. My Weakness. What a Sad Little Thing You Are (Also misogyny)

Alright... if the rest of this review wasn’t salty enough for you... let the salt begin. Gestalt. So named because of the word meaning larger than the sum of its parts. And so they were destined to be. And so they were most definitely not. So Gestalt’s whole thing is that they are one consciousness with four bodies. They can either control one body at a time and sort of shut the others down or they can control them all at once but that becomes harder if one of them requires more attention than another, like if one is in a fight.

Two twins (men), one fraternal brother, and a sister. If anyone is thinking “uhoh, only one girl, hmm can Daniel handle that? Seems like maybe some Smurfette style misogyny-lite is coming,” you would be wrong. Super wrong. Because it is not misogyny-lite. It’s aggressive Fight-Me-In-A-Perkins-Parking-Lot misogyny. So go fuck yourself, Dan.

Alright, so to number Gestalt’s sins.

1. Scrape off some of that intro mustard.

They’re introduced in the LONGEST fucking passage I’ve ever read telling me that this dude is hard to talk to and weird. Like, I’m in an urban fantasy book already, I'm all set. Also... bitch SHOW ME they’re weird. Like can I see some interactions that give me second hand embarrassment??? No. It is actually never uncomfortable to talk to Gestalt. I only know that because people are super fucking rude about them. But it is never earned. So I don’t feel sympathy when people are like “Oh noooo you have to spend a car ride with Gestalt? Ewwwww sorry.” I’m just like, “What’s your fucking problem? They seem fine.”

2. They’re supposed to be Bad At Planning but when??

Alright so there ARE times they’re bad at planning and we will GET TO THAT. But it’s only post-reveal like... what we are told during a monologue that they were dumb as shit. And that wasn’t even like not being good w/ details like it’s implied they are, it’s literally like doing dumb ass stuff. And it felt more like my bud Dan didn’t have a good handle on why stuff was dumb as rain than Gestalt being silly.

Also.... this is a stupid use of this sort of character. They’re dumb and bad at planning??? THEY’RE A JOINT CONSCIOUSNESS why would you waste that making them “Good at kicking ass.” ugh. Fine.

3. They get sidelined IMMEDIATELY

So a guy named Pumice Stone or Kettle or Lil boy Bad At This or something outs that Gestalt is working with the Grafters because he like.... wasn’t paying attention. It was boring. But anyway so they capture two of the bodies and then stop addressing Gestalt until the end. They have one weird scene where the protagonist like.... freaks them out but ok. Fine. Why is Gestalt so Yelly. Why are so many villains in this book yelly. Ew.

4. The REVEAL MONOLOGUE.

I know this is a long ass review already. But my Feelings Must be Heard. So in the end when Conrad surprises no one but “smart” Myfanwy that he was the bad guy, we also get a reveal from the surviving Gestalt bodies that:

a. There’s an incest baby

b. They’re afraid of death

c. They’re so phenomenally stupid I have lost all interest in them

So... this is where the misogyny comes in. I’ll note here that the only time we interact w/ Eliza, the special girl body, is when she takes a carried to Hogwarts the super secret magic school with Myfanwy and she doesn’t do anything except we get the internal note that she’s like... gained weight. This is the misogyny-lite we expect. (And no, Dan, you don't get any points bc a female character is the only pleased she got pudgy bc YOU wrote the female character so we’re all set there.)

And then we discover that the weird blonde (lol oh yeah they’re all hot blondes) baby that Conrad “Evil Austin Powers” British-Last-Name has with his weird wife is actually a Gestalt body that Eliza had after she boned down with her other body who is genetically a brother and consciously herself.

K. Ok. I have. Ok. Alright. Daniel. Ok.

SUBPART A: My Feelings about Gestalt: Oh Eliza, my darling, my dear, would that I could bring you Justice

So after Eliza is shot dead one of the interchangeable boy bodies of Gestalt yells at Myfanwy about how terrible that is bc it was the only body who could bear children so now THE HORROR they’ll die.

For god’s fucking sake Daniel O’Malley. What the fuck is your goddamn problem. You LITERALLY wrote a Smurfette Syndrome character who is only important because she can have babies. She is literally just there to be a baby-box. What the fuck. Get fucking wrecked. Thank GOD Starz cut your program and fuck the Aurealis Awards for giving you an award for this fucking book. But they’re a sci-fi award so this is probably super progressive for them. I was pleasantly annoyed by the basic nature of this book until this part. Now I am just done with your content. This was more overtly sexist that Supernatural. So... real swing and a miss.

ANYWAY FORTUNATELY this opens a whole new can of worms that I get to ruthlessly mock certified Basic Bitch Daniel O’Malley for.

SubPart 2: Gestalt Raises Interesting Philosophical Questions Daniel Isn’t Smart Enough to Address

So, remember, I would have cut this dude more slack if he didn’t do that to Eliza. Gestalt, to be honest, this whole review is dedicated to what you Could Have Been.

Interesting Questions or Comments We Could Have Asked:

Does having a baby being one of five of your bodies affect your consciousness? That thing doesn’t have object permanence? Is there like an intellectual cost to having another baby body? No, we don’t care. I think we just had there be a baby bc “Weird sister-sex” was as interesting as Daniel could get. Side Note: The obvious question of “lol haha lol is it incest or mAsTurBation is not going to be addressed here bc it is literally too boring to consider)

Does having a body who textually is said to have post-partum depression affect your joint consciousness? If not, why bring it up?? Bc she has “weird lady disease” is that why???

Are they....afraid of death????? Why didn’t you ever bring this up? Why have they showed only excitement at the prospect of very dangerous fights up to this point? Why are all four bodies in the field.

WHY ARE ALL FOUR BODIES IN THE FIELD. Ok so here is one of those points that is definitely stupid but stupid in a dumb as dirt way. If you were afraid to lose your baby-box body, why would you send her into battle?

Why didn’t they freeze a bunch of her eggs? In fact, why did she bear it at all? Why put your one female body that you only want for babies through that sort of danger? Canonically they all get paid an absurd amount and Gestalt is paid for each body, they can afford a surrogate.

Why let a weird dude who is at best contemptuous of you raise your baby body? Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Doesn’t that give him a huge amount of leverage over you?

Is the quality fo Gestalt’s form destined to decline if genetically they can only make more bodies by full genetic sibling offspring? Does that scare them? Again... does their physical brain affect their consciousness?

If so... maybe that would be a good reason for them to want to join up with the Grafters who are way ahead in genetic research and engineering.

ANYWAY Gestalt is sexist as shit and boring as hell and had SO MUCH WEIRD POTENTIAL.

In summary: It was definitely fun but Fuck you, Daniel O’Malley

#the rook #Daniel O'Malley #Myfanwy Thomas #Gestalt #Book review #the rook starz

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faroreswinds · 4 years

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Data Mining Activities & Quotes Analysis: Sylvain

As per what I said before, I want to look deeper into data mining for funsies and just see what I can spot.

Today’s character is: Sylvain!

As a little disclaimer, I won’t be doing all his quotes because that’s a LOT! Instead, I’m just going to focus on stuff I think is interesting to look at, like particular classroom questions, or his lost items, or whatever. One day, I’ll probably get into the chapters individually but today is just to focus on one character. I’ll also update this as I find more stuff, as a small heads-up. If you find something that I missed, feel free to let me know and I’ll update the post as well.

Ok, so let’s get into it!

Check out more from this series of analysis here. They will be updated over time.

Basics- Battle

Most of the battle quotes aren’t interesting, and the data mining does not include the voiced lines without text so I had to turn to the wiki page. That said, there were a few Post Time Skip Defeat the Enemy quotes he says I find particularly interesting:

"Don't bother haunting me."

"Burn until we meet again."

Based on Annette’s support with Claude, we know the Kingdom has a particularly interesting view on the afterlife. I won’t go into the details here- instead, I will be making a Kingdom focused page for all things cultural that will cover it- but the talk of “burning” and “haunting” go along with their beliefs.

Not to mention, it is very, very dark. And Sylvain, despite his carefree attitude, has got a dark and gritty view of life. He’s smiling on the outside, but he will have no qualms with taking you down.

Basics- Cooking and Choir

Sylvain just has no interest in either of these things, as per his quotes:

Cooking Together

Part I: Cooking... Cooking... Heh. Well, it'll all work out somehow...maybe.

Part II: If you just follow the recipe, most things will come out fine. I think.

Choir Practice

It's hard to sneak out when the professor is watching.

Share a Meal- Dining Dialogue

Sylvain only has two people he has quotes with during meal time: Ingrid and Dimitri. Surprisingly, not Felix, despite having an ending with him and not an ending with Dimitri. His quotes with Ingrid are just cute, but I think his quotes with Dimitri have some nice little insights:

Support C

Sylvain: You know what, Professor? His Highness here is the most stubborn guy I know.

Dimitri: Now, Sylvain, why not go ahead and eat? If you do not, I may help myself to it.

Support B

Sylvain: By the way, how delicious are the monastery meals, right? We sure don't eat like this back in the Kingdom.

Dimitri: I agree. If we could only grow more food on our poor soil, and in the severe winter of the north...

Sylvain has a lot of quotes, including from FEH and from his support with Dimitri, that pertain to wanting Dimitri to relax (and that he’s too stubborn to). This goes hand in hand with the relationship chart that came out from Nintendo Dream some time back:

I wish I could link this picture to the original translator, but I don’t know who did it. But as you can see, Sylvain wants Dimitri to relax.

The quotes from support B gives some insight into the Kingdom, about how they just don’t eat like they do at the monastery because the winter of the north is so severe and it’s hard to grow food.

Sylvain’s default responses aren’t particularly interesting, except for:

Neutral: I realized it after I got to the monastery—nobody in Faerghus knows how to cook.

Basically saying that the food at the monastery is particularly good. This goes well with Faerghus having poor yields of food in general.

Share a Meal- Favorite/ Least Favorite Foods

Sylvain seems to have a pension for fish, as based on his favorite foods. Nearly every dish he loves is fish based, except for one with is a meal for two dish (obviously a philandering thing), a few white meat dishes, and the Sweet Bun Trio, which is a Faerghus sweet. Except for the Sweet Bun Trio, all his favorites have meat, which makes sense because colder climates tends to lend to meat dishes to maintain the calories needed to maintain body heat. The dishes with fish include Teutates Loach (a fish from the Kingdom), White Trout, Airmid Pike, and Albinean Herring.

He has few dishes he doesn’t like, which all happen to be seafood based except for one. The fish meals are not described as particularly tasty, or they are extremely simple without much preparation. The only non-fish meal he doesn’t like is the Beast Meat Teppenyaki, which is described to have a wilderness taste- and he probably doesn’t like it due to history he may have with his brother.

Interestingly, he doesn’t seem to have an interest in Gautier Cheese Gratin, which has cheese from his region.

Gifts and Lost Items

Sylvain, of course, does have some items/like certain gifts that pertain to the philanderer in him. These include:

Gift: Dapper Handkerchief- A handkerchief adorned with refined embroidery. Appreciated by fashionable men .

Lost Item: Unused Lipstick- Lipstick that would make an ideal gift for a young lady. It probably belongs to someone who likes wooing women.

Lost Item: Crumpled Love Letter- A carelessly discarded love letter. It probably belongs to someone with a complicated love life.

Sylvain clearly takes an interest in fashion, as well as his womanizing ways leaking into his lost items. We can see his casual nature when it comes to wooing the girls with the fact that the lost letter is “carelessly discarded”.

But the rest of the gifts/ lost items paint Sylvain’s other side:

Gift: Landscape Painting- A landscape painting of magnificent Lake Teutates in the clearing fog. Appreciated by those who enjoy nature or art.

Gift: Board Game- A fun activity in which players compete using stones on a board. Appreciated by those who enjoy tactical thinking.

Lost Item: The History of Sreng- A book recording the history of the Sreng people. It probably belongs to someone who has ties to Sreng.

Despite his carefree side, many of us know that Sylvain is actually incredibly smart and takes an interest in making positive changes and taking his job seriously. The board game shows he enjoys tactical thinking, and his lost item, the History of Sreng, shows he is taking an interest in local politics and is keen to learn. As for the Landscape Painting, we can see that Sylvain enjoys art (as you will see later), and that he’s not all about women and lazing about.

As for his disliked gifts:

Gift: Book of Crest Designs- A book containing the designs of 21 identified Crests. Appreciated by those who enjoy studying Crests.

Gift: Watering Can- A tool used for watering plants. Appreciated by those who enjoy gardening.

Gift: Floral Adornment- Flowers cut short so they can be worn decoratively. Appreciated by most ladies and those who like gardening.

Obviously, thanks to Sylvain’s history, disliking Crest-related gifts is no surprise. However, he also doesn’t seem to have an interesting in gardening, as he is not keen on the gardening-related gifts.

Classroom- Instruct

Sylvain has three study requests:

You know, jousting is a popular sport in Faerghus. The ladies love a guy who can joust. Speaking of... Let's polish up my riding and lance skills.

The best way to impress people is to save them by diving into harm's way. That's what a Great Knight does, yeah? So let's focus on my axe and heavy armor skills.

I want to study reason and faith. What, surprised? Hey, I may be rough around the edges, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a little magic!

We learn a few things from these:

Jousting is popular in Faerghus. Makes sense for a knight-based nation.

Sylvain seemingly wants to impress people by diving in harm’s way. But based on his general attitude, I think he really actually wants to just protect people and is pretending it’s all about the ladies.

Sylvain wants to learn magic, both faith and reason.

He also does not liked to be consoled- he wants critique to improve himself.

Critique

Part I & Part II: I'll have to do better next time.

Console

Part I & Part II: OK. You can stop it.

Classroom- Questions and Answers

Sylvain has two questions he can ask in the classroom:

This is from the academy phase, and we can see that Sylvain prefers it if you tell him to basically play hard to get. There are some interesting things regarding Ingrid’s dislike here, but this is about Sylvain... and apparently, he doesn’t want to change and doesn’t like it if you tell him to clean up his act. (Ingrid likes it, though).

This one is from part two. Of course, it pertains to the war, and how depressing it is, and wants something to do to feel a bit better. Funnily enough, the other infamous nobles Ferdinand and Lorenz join him for this one! We can see they all have different tastes, but Sylvain is not interested in a cup of tea, but would rather ask out a girl. He’s not against talking a walk though, but no one seems to actually like it either.

There are other questions that Sylvain joins in on, but I will add those when I eventually get to them. For now, I will just start with these two and update later.

Group Tasks

Similar to the dining dialogue, Sylvain only has quotes with Dimitri and Ingrid, and not Felix despite having an ending with him. That said, Sylvain has more dialogue with Ingrid than Dimitri, so we will start with Dimitri first:

Stable Duty & Sky Watch

Support C

Sylvain: So, Your Highness, you're gonna keep the scolding to a minimum, yeah?

Dimitri: Why are you assuming you will be scolded? All you need to do is take things seriously.

Support B

Dimitri: Hey, Sylvain. I would like your help for today's work.

Sylvain: Heh, so you've finally learned you can't do everything yourself?

Results

Support C - Good

Sylvain: Professor... It's... It's finally over...

Dimitri: You are quick to tire out, Sylvain. You should consider building your stamina.

Support C - Perfect

Dimitri: Professor, the work is now complete. Sylvain did his job as well.

Sylvain: Was getting yelled at my job? Because, yeah. I did that.

Support B - Good

Sylvain: The result was fine... Though I thought we could have aimed even higher.

Dimitri: Agreed. Let's come up with a better plan next time.

Support B - Perfect

Sylvain: Professor, don't you think we did pretty well? His Highness here did most of it.

Dimitri: No, it was not all my doing. We made it thanks to your help, Sylvain.

These occur only when you pair them for stable duty and sky watch, which would be both activities the pair would find common interests in due to their personal budding talents and canon classes. We can see that Dimitri wants Sylvain to take things seriously, and Sylvain takes a more playful approach. Sylvain will also comment on Dimitri learning to not shoulder everything on his own, calling back a bit to Sylvain’s concern over Dimitri not being able to relax.

Sylvain seems to be annoyed early on at Dimitri’s constant scolding, but this changes when their support improves, the two of them praising each other and hoping to improve together.

Now for Ingrid:

Stable Duty & Sky Watch

Support C

Sylvain: Ugh, I'm with Ingrid? I'm not gonna get away with anything.

Ingrid: Stop messing around and get moving. You don't work, you don't eat.

Support B

Sylvain: Hey, Ingrid, this kind of work is definitely your thing, and I've got some urgent business, so...

Ingrid: I can't finish this all alone. Try to be helpful sometimes, Sylvain.

Support A

Sylvain: Me and Ingrid? Hm, I guess I'll get to work.

Ingrid: Well now, a rare and welcome proclamation. You're a real sight to behold when you try to be.

Weeding

Sylvain: Weeds have it tough. They sprout then get ripped right out of the ground. I'll do my best to be gentle.

Ingrid: Are you seriously trying to seduce a weed? Unbelievable.

Sylvain: What? No! Come on. I was just talking to myself.

Clearing Rubble

Sylvain: If I had to clear this out by myself, I think even I would get depressed...

Ingrid: Fine, fine, I'm not going to leave it all for you.

Sylvain: Let's do it quick though...before I change my mind. I'll grab the heavy-looking chunks. You get the rest.

Results

Support C - Good

Ingrid: Ah, seems we've finally finished.

Sylvain: That's it! I'm done! No more work for me, especially not with her...not in a million years.

Support C - Perfect

Sylvain: Hey, we did pretty well. All because I really went for it, of course.

Ingrid: You're a glib one, aren't you, Sylvain? I did the bulk of the work here, you know...

Support B - Good

Sylvain: I wouldn't call it a rousing success, but it went OK, all things considered. Right?

Ingrid: Well, it went OK once I rolled up my sleeves and helped you.

Support B - Perfect

Sylvain: Heh... How's that, Professor? If ya ask me, I think we did pretty well.

Ingrid: Yes, Sylvain put his back into it for once. Next thing we know, pigs will be taking to the air.

Support A - Good

Sylvain: I don't want to complain since we did OK and all, but that could have gone a lot better.

Ingrid: I think so too... Next time, I'll try even harder.

Support A - Perfect

Ingrid: Professor, here's the report. Perfect, don't you think?

Sylvain: Ingrid and I go way back. If we couldn't manage to cooperate, then what would that say about us?

Sylvain and Ingrid have dialogue no matter what they do. We can see, especially in the stable and sky watch, that at first they don’t really get along. Sylvain is tired of Ingrid’s pestering and Ingrid is tired of Sylvain being lazy. But as their support goes up, we see that they get along better. Ingrid starts praising Sylvain, and Sylvain starts putting more effort in.

Sylvain also seems to be a bit melancholy about the weeds, noting that they start to take life before someone takes takes it away from them.

Finally, just some fun default stuff.

Uses keigo when speaking to

Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri, Seteth, Hanneman, Manuela, Gilbert, Alois, Catherine, Shamir, Jeralt, Rhea, Jeritza, Anna

Spoken to with keigo by

Bernadetta, Dorothea, Petra, Ashe, Ignatz, Lysithea, Marianne, Flayn, Constance

“Keigo” is polite speech, used when addressing people who are in a station in life above you, whether in title or simply out of respect. For instance, he uses keigo for those who are older than him and teachers, like Manuela and Hanneman, and for those who are in higher stations, like Dimitri or Edelgard.

Those who speak keigo to him consider him of higher status, or someone worthy of respect. Looking at this list, I would say status.

Tea Party- Favorite Tea

The Tea Party is a pretty big section, so I won’t cover everything but I’ll try to touch on what seems important. Feel free to let me know if you notice more!

Anyways, Sylvain seems to have a pension for black teas, although not all black teas listed in the game. He prefers Bergamot Tea (commonly known as Earl Grey) which is popular among nobles (he shares this like with Edelgard, Lorenz, Hanneman, Constance, and Anna, most of whom are nobles, and in particular are nobles with particular taste) and Seiros Tea, another black tea that is actually from south Almyra, interestingly enough! He shares this like with Ferdinand, Lorenz, Ignatz, Yuri, and Anna. Both of these teas have a three star rarity- not the cheapest tea in the list, but not terribly rare either.

He will note that the tea is expensive if you give him an expensive tea, and perhaps seems a bit uncomfortable with you going out of your way.

This tea must have been expensive. I'm sorry if I made you go out of your way.

Tea Party- Talk

Sylvain has a number of quotes from talking, although most of them aren’t too terribly interesting. However, some have some great insight:

Is something wrong with my face? A bruise on my cheek? Heh... Nah, Professor. Everything's fine.

Everyone has their own reason to fight. At least I'm honest about mine.

Opera, art, literature, I love 'em. They always give you something to talk about.

Sometimes, I'm surprised how warm the monastery is. I wish my parents' home was like this.

Sylvain is an interesting guy because in some ways, he’s not honest and in others, he is. For instance, he insists that you do not worry about his injury. Don’t worry about him. He’s not being honest about any pain he has- this includes his distastes for a lot of women chasing him despite his philandering. However, he is honest in others in his world views. He’s a lot like Dimitri when it comes to trying to see the other side, as seen in “everyone has their own reason to fight”. This is displayed in his other quotes throughout the game too, although we won’t be touching on those.

As as per the gift of art he likes, we can see here that he’s actually very much into culture and art. He likes them, and likes to talk about them.

And finally, some insight into his family. Sylvain’s relationship with his father is complex (as per the Blue Lion tradition) and here we can see that he doesn’t view his family home as warm- both perhaps literally in that it’s a cold climate, and figuratively.

I won’t be going over the like options because there are too many, but I will take note of a few options that make him blush:

Working together...

The opera...

Cute monks...

Some insight things into Sylvain. Obviously, as he likes the opera, the topic of it will be among his favorite. Sylvain likes people working together (although he himself is a bit of a loner, he wants people to work together and talk things through like Dimitri does) and finally, the cute monks...

I’m taking special note of that because in English, traditionally monks are male. However, the game seems to use monks for both men and women (monks in Greek can be used for both), and the Japanese word used instead is 修道士. Someone with superior Japanese can correct me, but it would seem that this is a masculine word, used for men, especially when using the kanji 士, which means “gentlemen” or “samurai”.

However, as stated before, the game uses monk for both men and women. I checked the files and even the female monks use 修道士. So, while people claim this is proof he is bi, I would not call it a strong indicator personally (At this time I still think he has a thing for Felix, don’t get me wrong).

Advice Box

Part I

I wonder if I'll ever find a partner who understands I don't mean any harm when I flirt with others. Does someone like that really exist?

You're bound to meet someone open-minded someday.

That's a dream that will never come true.

Have you considered giving up on flirting?

I'm hesitant to invite a girl to my room in the middle of the night with You Know Who living right next door. I'm terrified of the scolding I'd get the next day.

Maybe I'll rethink the room assignments.

It makes sense that she would be angry with you.

Perhaps it's time you and I discussed your behavior.

Part II

I'm weary from this ceaseless fighting. I wonder if I'll ever meet a kind, beautiful young lady who can cure my hardened heart.

You will one day. I'm sure of it.

Save the dreams for when you're sleeping.

A woman like that wouldn't go for you.

All we do is battle. The fighting never stops, and it's turning everyone's disposition dour. Even the ladies! We should throw a banquet to lift everyone's spirit.

Good idea. I'll see what I can do.

It's too soon to let down our guard.

How selfless of you.

Part I notes aren’t too interesting, other than that Sylvain is worried about Dimitri (his neighbor in dorms) hearing his rendezvous with the ladies and getting a scolding.

Part II is more interesting. Sylvain’s second note is about lifting up everyone’s spirits regarding the war, and that throwing a banquet might help make everyone feel better. He prefers if Byleth agrees and will start to make arrangements, rather than getting praise for his selflessness.

And for now, that’s all! I will update as I go, but for now I hope you enjoyed this!

Suggestions and new info welcome.

#Sylvain data mining #data mining #3H data mining

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breezy-cheezy · 5 years

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Mmmmmkay I have to rant about Nier: Automata for a bit; I accidentally triggered the end of the game (playthrough 2, ending B) last night and stayed up till 2:00 trying to finish the stupid “not allowed to save” phase. But y’aLL IT’S SO GOOD??????? AND 3RD PLAYTHROUGH ISN’T ANOTHER RE-RUN OF THE SAME STORY WE GET MORE STORY AAAAAAAAA

(more under the cut because there is ALOT for those who care;;;;;)

- OK SO THE MUSIC IS AMAZING??? I love LOVE that the music dynamics build in instruments and intensity as you progress towards danger/plot, but also softens again for quieter moments and just...musical storytelling is so sooooo my jam I love it. Also that the music goes 8 bit when 9S hacks stuff, it’s actually kinda cute X’D

- ON THE SUBJECT of 9S being able to hack into enemies and you getting to play that as a little teeny ship shooting down viruses and barriers and whatnot. Genius???? That added SO MUCG to the story on the second playthrough as 9S. Particularly discovering the fact that all of humanity?? Is actually extinct?? ...even BEFORE the aliens/machines attacked earth?? WH A T?????? WHAT THE HECK ARE ANDROIDS FIGHTING FOR THEN????? *every time an android salutes and says “glory to mankind” now* GLORY MY FOOT THEY ALL DEAD MOVE ON--

- I realize it probably has alot to do with the lore of previous nier games and I’ll probably have to trawl through Wiki pages soon here. Emil himself really broke my heart aaaaaah baby...his side quest is so sad. I also looked at arts and he was a really cute kid?? Before he was turned int the freaky moon skeleton thing...?? Oh my goodness......

- The secret lunar tear flower room is gorgeous. I just sat there for awhile to soak it all in...the music is so nostalgic and I’ve never heard that song bfore how do y’all DO THAT--

- Emil’s shop is pretty cute. He just drives around the ruins and sells stuff if you shoot him and he’ll stop X’’’D It did ruin alot of serious moments tho. *Engels, talking about how he’d sinned for killing so many androids and choosing death--* “S-A-L-E SAAAALLLEEE~~!! EVERY SALE’S A WIIIINNNNNN~~~~!!!! LALALaaaaaa~~~...” Me: *facepalm*

- ...I just realized the little tune he sings is a cheerful rendition of the music in the flower room. H E C K

- ANYWAY. Onto the actual game. I really really enjoyed playing as 9S for obvious reasons (bABY) but it really did add so soooo much to the pretty much surface level story when you first play as 2B. Which sums them up pretty well...2B, Battle unit 2, pushes on relentlessly, avoids thinking too hard about things and what she’s doing because oh dear, EMOTION might get in the way...9S, Scanner unit 9, on the other hand, cannot stop his curiosity. He asks questions, he sticks his nose in way further than he should to some dangerous stuff. I think he realized Machines were sentient and had feelings long before 2B, but was in denial for a good while. You learn so much more about what you’re fighting as 9S, because he scans. He observes, searches, discovers. Heck, some hacking caused him to experience empathy for the poor things, to his horror...

- Actually, there are alot of scenes where either 2B or 9S questions why a machine they’re killing is screaming for help, of crying for lost family, or loudly proclaiming loyalty to a king they’ll give their lives for...they stop for a moment, but the other quickly jumps in and reminds them that it’s just imitation. It’s not real, it’s fake, machines can’t feel, yadda yadda...it was odd to me they kept switching off on reminding, but...I think they both know, deep down, what they’re doing. But denial. Because if machines DO have feelings, if they are sentient...what does that mean for all they’ve killed...? Just...hoo BOY the moral dellimas in this game?? Scary good. The quests get that across alot.

- I don’t like the theme of hopelessness in most of the side quests?? I do see many of them as cautionary tales though. We watch many characters lose hope and the will to live after their thing/person they’re living FOR is gone. It makes me worry alot about 2B, who is a soldier through and through. 9S actually does have hopes and dreams for things outside of the war, which I love ;7; they definitely lean on each other alot emotionally on this respect though...I don’t know quite what to make of the themes of the game this far in yet;;;;

- The love between 9S and 2B is of course my favorite thing. Familial, romantic, idk. I, being me, see it as more platonic, “You’re my rock in this storm” only friend/sister/brother vibe, but as more of a fan of platonic relationships, that is what I tend to do. But 9s following 2B around like a lost puppy and trying to do all he can to help and do his job but also getting bored with said job and trying to make the most of things, asking all the “why” questions, 2B acting irritated but also always keeps him close and makes sure he’s safe....going ballistic when someone hurts her boy ;;v;; I love...2 kids. Their operators and pods are such fun dynamics too~~

- As far as endings A and B...DANG. It hit worse because you get backstory on the giant ocean machine (that 9S just hit with a giant missle, which he also had to ride to keep it on the right path...DX NO SELF PRESERVATION) he just...wanted his mama......;;A;;

- Also it’s not fair. 9S is so injured by that missle attack, then I guess Adam finds him and is like “HM. *sticks the lil boy impaled on a wall* Perfect. *proceeds to emotionally and mentally torture said child*“ like YO ADAM THAT’S NOT HOW YOU DO THINGS. Then 2B proceeds to kick down walls for her boy and kills Adam and walks off carrying 9S bridal style into the sunset. Lovely. I have a comic idea for this part, lol.

- Oh I don’t like Adan very much, he is pretty tho?? There was alot of blood though...how do machines bleed?? How do the androids bleed?? What??? I question this alot.

- HHHHHHH THE BECOME AS GODS CHAPTER SCARED ME I DON’T EVER WANNA DO THAT AGAIN DANG SUICIDAL ROBOTS SCARED ME SO BAD

- Fighting Eve was...annoying but still heartbreaking. He misses his brother so much....even though Adam is a butthead and couldn’t care less he left his little brother behind DX just everything about that fight was Tragic. Also Eve developing more self awareness and realizing “Eve” is a girl’s name and being a bit miffed LOL that’s what y’all get when your first book is the bible kiddos...I realize they’re technically like what? 2 weeks old still???

- The ENDING. From 9S’s perspective is especially scary....the corruption transforming him, 2B coming in to kill him to stop the pain, he BEGGED her to, just....hhhhhhh babies ;;A;; 2B’s soft broken crying over him as she’s forced to strangle her only friend to death just aaaaaAAAAAAAA I DIE ;;;;;;;;~;;;;;;;;;

- I was actually able to cry over it this time coz. It was 2 am. No parent awkwardly watching over my shoulder. Because the pose for this scene is...........super awkward..........like......really........their clothes are super torn up and uh. The first time I was just hoping my parents wouldn’t mistake it for a sex scene or something hhhhhghhhhh;;;;;; I really really REALLY wish the pose was different, the game does need to give the fanservice a rest, at LEAST for a scene this serious DX I’m able to ignore it but when someone else is watching I don’t wanna have to explain;;;;

- That IS a big gripe I have with the game. The fanservice. Just. Why. How is 2B’s outfit practical?? Self destruct mode???? REALLY???? Get this girl battle shorts or something please.....I guess if I looked at it more as a ballet outfit?? I might make some edits when I draw her because GEEZ.

- 9S gets some of this too. Self destruct mode, his shorts are blown off???? WHAT THE HECK???? Welp, never using that again. also why is he the only yorha boy android??????????? X’’’’D They never explain that!!

- BACK TO ENDING STUFF why were there random data hologram girls standing there, watching 2B strangle 9S?? Just...silently there...they weren’t there in the first playthrough?? I’ve seen them a couple times but they’re NEVER mentioned?? WHAT ARE THEY-- is it a glitch?? Wha--

- Teeny 9S being able to dump his consciousness into a giant machine robot guy and cradling 2B in his hand ;;~;; he’s fine y’all I’m so GLAD (I wanna draw something for this scene.... I wanna draw alot of things)

- I love Pascal. He should adopt all the sad people to his happy peace village. He already started that...what a good egg.

- The accessories option is lovely. I’ve been running around with 9S with a blue bow in his hair forever now ;7; replaced with the flower in his hair because BOYS AND FLOWERS I LOVE but I think I might give the flower to 2B because she’d look lovely with it and....I miss the blue bow X’D

- Also the AMOUNT of things this could line up with a KH universe....as far as how androids work, hearts (black boxes), memories making you...you, being able to transfer “hearts” to new bodies when the old is destroyed, POWER OF LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP...there’s alot. I dunno what to do with this info...

Anyway, I have alOT of thoughts and feelings on this game, it’s like...a very cool book. I’ve had trouble putting down. These aren’t even all of them but idk who I can actually rant to so here it is for the Void

I’m so interested to see where it goes!

#breezy babbles #ALOT #idk where else to put this so here #for the void #this probably absolutely makes no sense I'm so sorry #nier: automata #nier #meta #????kinda #I loooove love love 9S with all my heart and soul #he's also voiced by Mob's english voice actor which is SO MUCH CUTER #they need to hang out #I love 2B so much too #their operators are cute #pascal is cute #everyone is cute

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islcs · 6 years

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( taylor hill / cisfemale / she&her ) the paparazzi have spotted ISLA DUCHOVNY, the TWENTY-TWO year old ACTOR who’s currently working as RILEY YOUNG on SUBURBIA. the tabloids have called them VIVACIOUS and JOCULAR, but also TEMPESTUOUS and IMPULSIVE. during their time in the spotlight, they’ve been dubbed the VISCEROTONIC.

its 2k18, my name is cara, and i still suck @ these ! which btw is exactly why you’re getting this long c/p (: BUT COME PLOT WITH US ( angst ! tabloid drama ! secret romances ! exes ! awesome friendships ! betrayal ! fake friendships ! gimme gimme, i’m here for it all. ) jckdk onto the trash:

this is my sinnamon roll isla lorraine duchovny as in eye luh! like…eye luh youuuuu ♥

she’s a gemini and if that doesn’t say anything about the kind of person she is i don’t know what does.

she didn’t have the best childhood growing up?? she’s from cute town in north carolina and the daughter of a charming mechanic and a small town waitress with v big dreams. her mom was a bit consumed with the idea of becoming an actress and aside from a few smaller roles on daytime soaps and what not, she passed on before she could ever live out that dream to the fullest. isla doesn’t ever talk about the how or why of that death ( she’s blocked a lot of it out ) and all her wiki page will tell you is that isla was young and chooses not to talk about it in an effort to preserve her mom’s vibrant memory.

to stay connected to her, isla held on to that dream for herself and when she was fifteen, she attended her first casting call for a small role in a new movie shooting in the area and looking for local talent. she wasn’t cast for the part but one of the casting directors was impressed enough with her to suggest she audition for another film.

she was 16 when she finally made her silver screen debut in an film along side tom hanks.

soon enough isla was becoming a household name, and while he was supportive at first, isla’s dad hugely disagreed on isla’s decision to continue on with the career. he blames hollywood for her mother’s death, so their relationship is fairly strained because of it. not wanting to be around to see it swallow isla up and spit her out the way it did her mother.

still…she’s always sending him money and making sure he and the bills are taken care of.

it’s usually sent back.

she plays the oh so turbulent riley young on surburbia – does life imitate art? sometimes. she’s tempestuous so every now and then her emotions...get the best of her what can i say. she’s like...a dormant volcano...until something sets her off and she’s ready to erupt.

an actual media darling for better and for worse. she genuinely gives her publicist grey hairs at times bc she doesn’t take it that seriously. girls just wanna have fun !

she’s impulsive, though, which tends to get her into trouble with her love for spontaneous adventures, spending time with people she’s usually advised not to, and/or going out for a wild night on the town …LiteraLLy always losing a damn shoe when she’s drunk its her mo ://

weeeell most of the time its bc she’s probably trying to throw it at someone…i mean, some people are just ignorant and gross can you blame her and one talks to her or her friends like that — also, paparazzi please learn the definition of personal space.

she gets bored SO easily…like she’s super duper jaded with fame at this point so sometimes she’ll peace out for a trip somewhere v remote and obscure whether its to help build homes or laying out on a beach. she loves having a voice though ?? and using it when she can for good. very philanthropic!! pls protect the ocean!!!

she’s been vegan for like six months now

loves animals??? pls don’t get her started on them. she will literally stop mid conversation with you just to get a better look at one. i wish i was kidding. she’s 100% kristen bell’s reaction to sloths.

look overall, isla is just...v charming and playful and sweet, honest. they’re all sides she shares with everyone until they’ve wronged her, a friend, or just given her a good as hell reason not to. because then…well, she can be a feisty, petty little thing. and she just...doesn’t deal well with being hurt honestly?? and would rather shut you out for it than take the chance of it happening again.

#zenith:intro #if you get through all of this #& still wanna plot #you deserve the world

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mrjohnangulo · 5 years

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BGG.CON 2018 Recap

by Mary Prasad

Here we are once again for my marathon BGG.CON coverage! This year I'm hoping to fit it all into one part, some of the game publishers I had missed at BGG.CON didn't reply to emails asking for information. So less work for me! Yay! This worked in my favor since my husband and I decided to get our diving certification (plus enriched air and advanced certifications) in between the holidays and into the new year, making things extra crazy. (Don't even get me started on our current tax nightmare and having to change accountants.) BGG.CON 2018 was held November 14-18 at the Hyatt Regency DFW for the last time. It was a little sad as we said goodbye to the wonderful Hyatt staff, who have done such an excellent job over the years.

During the Closing Ceremony, a Hyatt representative was made an honorary geek (games were given to the staff too!) On a more positive note, BGG.CON is moving to a larger space! The 2019 convention will be at the Hyatt Regency Dallas. The exhibit hall will be in one room, rather than two (woo hoo!). The main ballroom will be larger and there will be more hotel rooms available. The hotel will handle about 5,000 attendees but BGG.CON will not max out in the first year due to extra growth issues and logistics. The number of attendees this year was about 3,200. The new location will be closer to Love Field airport. I highly recommend taking advantage of this. It's especially nice for those who like to fly Southwest (like me). We've actually been flying into Love Field the last few years anyway since we discovered it was a lot less expensive for a direct flight, including Lyft to and from the hotel. Also, the airport is smaller — easier and faster to get in and out.

Good thing BGG.CON is moving to a larger space - doubling up doesn't look too fun. Fun Fact: This year's theme was the 1980s. Thanks to the hotel staff, there was 80s music in the lobby and bar plus retro candy and decorations. TeamGeek dressed in theme the first day (as usual) and there were themed T-shirts and posters available for sale. The line this year was similar to last year, averaging less than an hour wait time. (If you waited until the bulk of attendees went through, it was rather short — I think I waited only a few minutes.) Premium badges were available again this year at a flat fee of $400. There were the same number as last year, 150. The benefits were mostly the same except there were no extra games this year. (Last year it was sponsored by CGE.) This option is planned for 2019 but no word on pricing or how many will be made available (although it will be no more than 5% of badges sold). Thank you to [user=CaptainQwyx]Jeff Anderson[/user] for providing stats and some of the other information in this article. Door Prizes Attendees received one item in each group (group/game/company): A/Tokaido 5th Anniversary Collectors Edition/Active Player Network A/Colony/Bézier Games A/Nine Navies War/Decision Games A/Battle Cry of Freedom/Decision Games A/Saint Malo/Ravensburger B/Shop 'n Time/Mercury B/Infamy/Mercury B/Flick 'Em Up/Pretzel Games B/Road Hog: Rule the Road/Ultra PRO B/Flag Dash/Ultra PRO C/RARRR!!!/APE Games C/duck! duck! Go!/APE Games C/Rise to Power/APE Games C/Mini Meteor/Mayday Games C/Mow Money/Mayday Games C/H.I.D.E.: Hidden Identity Dice Espionage/Mayday Games C/Memoarrr!/Stronghold Games D/Nerdy Inventions/Mayday Games D/Twist of Fate/Mayday Games D/Voodoo/Mayday Games D/PUSH/Ravensburger E/Pint Glass/Starling Games Ultimate Geek Sponsors Thank you to the following companies for their ultimate support of BGG.CON: - Active Player Network - http://activeplayernetwork.com - APE Games - http://www.apegames.com - Bezier Games - https://beziergames.com/ - Decision Games - http://decisiongames.com/wpsite/ - Mayday Games - https://www.maydaygames.com/ - Mercury Games - https://www.mercurygames.com - Pretzel Games - http://www.pretzelgames.com/en/ - Ravensburger North America - https://www.ravensburger.us/start/index.html - Starling Games - https://www.starling.games - Stronghold Games - http://strongholdgames.com/ - Tasty Minstrel Games - http://playtmg.com/ Hot Games The following "hot" games were available throughout the convention in a separate area of the main game room: 2 Architects of the West Kingdom 2 Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra 2 Blackout: Hong Kong 2 Carpe Diem 1 Coimbra 1 Concordia: Venus 1 Everdell 1 Forum Trajanum 1 Fuji 2 Gùgōng 1 Key Flow 2 Newton 2 Reykholt 1 The River 1 Root 2 Teotihuacan: City of Gods 1 Treasure Island 2 Underwater Cities 1 Western Legends Game Library 6,443 games were available for check out in the BGG.CON library. Below are the top ten games checked out of the library, preceded by the number of checkouts. There's a full list available as well. This does not include the games that were available throughout the convention in the Hot Games area. Information provided by [user=Aldie]Scott Alden[/user]. 117 Cryptid 104 Everdell 102 Gizmos 90 Azul 89 Villainous 86 Planet 81 Men At Work 80 Coimbra 76 The River 66 Wildlands 66 Wildlands: The Unquiet Dead

Oopsie! Someone bumped the table during (dexterity) game Men at Work. OK, it was me. I said I was sorry! Please still be my friends! Math Trade Okay, this may be the 13th year of the math trade. Last year it was touted as the 10th or possibly the 11th – not really sure what happened to the 12th. Maybe 13 ate it? If you are interested in what games were up for trade or what games people wanted, check out the Math Trade Actual Geeklist or the Hopes and Dreams Request List respectively. Math trades are a super cool way to trade games you no longer play/want for something new to try. If you want to participate, start checking the BGG.CON forum at the beginning of October. There were 297 traded (1010 not traded), with 72 people making at least one trade. Organized by [user=rossum]Mischa D. Krilov[/user]. Virtual Flea Market (VFM) If you have a lot of games to sell, this is an excellent venue for you (especially if you are a far distance from Dallas). List your games ahead of the convention (details here), then bring only those that sold! Time and space was reserved at BGG.CON for participants to meet up. Since the VFM has grown so much, this year 45 minutes were allotted (instead of the typical 30 minutes). There were a few rules everyone was asked to follow to make things go smoothly. Board Game Bazaar (Flea Market) This event fills up with sellers every year so there are plenty of games to barter over. I've gotten some great deals in the past. Below are a few photos of the event, taken during set-up (i.e., before all the craziness started, the hall crowded, and most of the games were sold). If you plan to shop at the Board Game Bazaar, get in line early! It is a long one.

Mystery Meat! Did you take a chance? If you bought one of these, let me know in the comments what it was! I'm very curious (and slightly apprehensive).

Not all the items being sold were games per se, but usually they were game related. Check out these cute meeple bags.

Wow look at the price on this! I'm thinking there may be a sale at our house in the near future. Don't tell my husband. He probably won't miss it, right?

Ooo, candy! Tasty incentives... I think there were games on that table, too.

Spiel-a-thon [user=sconway]Stephen Conway[/user]: "The 10th Spiel-a-thon at BGG.CON was held in Dallas, Texas on November 16, 2018. It was a tremendous success! We had our largest turnout to-date for a Spiel-a-thon in Dallas. AND we raised the most money ever for this location! $3,500 in less than 3 hours. Each Spiel-a-thon is about more than asking people to pry open their wallets, though. The driving force behind every Spiel-a-thon is to demonstrate how play can be a powerful force for good in the world. Don't get me wrong, we welcome your contributions any day, any time. But if you come to a Spiel-a-thon, you come to pay by playing! You play. Then you pay. And The Spiel Foundation uses this money to assemble bundles of games. Each bundle allows more kids and seniors to play. Each game bundle we send out delivers more fun into the world. It's a perfect circle of fun. And that is priceless. Many many thanks to the people who made this event such a success. Thank you to my new Spiel partner Doug Richardson for all his hard work. Thank you to our intrepid staff of volunteers: Francie Broadie Patty Richardson, Marguerite Cottrell, Jay Bartelt, Erin Green, Veronica Worley, Rachel Lee, Ezra Denney, Jeff Ridpath, Beth Heile John Knoerzer and Debbie Ohi." Geek Buzz Every attendee is given a Geek Buzz code with their badge. The Wiki Geek Buzz page has information on how it works. Results are posted on the full leaderboard. Here are the top ten (as of December 31, 2018). 1. Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra 2. Western Legends 3. Everdell 4. Architects of the West Kingdom 5. Carpe Diem 6. KeyForge: Call of the Archons 7. Root 8. Teotihuacan: City of Gods 9. Sagrada 10. War Chest Guests Attending BGG.CON for the first time was video game designer and board gamer, Tim Schafer. For example, he directed Grim Fandango, the first LucasArts game to use 3D graphics overlaid on pre-rendered static backgrounds (Wikipedia on Grim Fandango). Returning again this year were game designers [user=mleacock]Matt Leacock[/user], [user=Eric Lang]Eric Lang[/user], and [user=RobDaviau!]Rob Daviau[/user]. There was a Special Guest Panel on Saturday evening where attendees could listen, chat, and possibly ask questions.

Matt Leacock — look how happy he is to see me! Who needs a puppy when you have awesome friends like this? Originally Rich Sommer was scheduled as a guest but he was able to get a new TV gig. Another cool special guest thing was a live playthrough of Gloomhaven's new community campaign, which included Tim Schafer, Gloomhaven's designer [user=Cephalofair]Isaac Childres[/user], [user=CaptainQwyx]Jeff Anderson[/user], and [user=Aldie]Scott Alden[/user]. A live stream was broadcast. Even Isaac Childres was excited: "The first scenario of the new Community-Driven expedition will go live at BGG.CON. So the scenario will be available Wednesday, Nov. 14, and then Thursday night, I will be playing it on a live stream at the con with Jeff Anderson and Scott Alden from BGG, and Tim Schafer (!!!), creator of some of my favorite video games like Monkey Island and Psychonauts." Fun Fact: This was BGG's first live-streamed event from BGG.CON. There is some Q&A with Isaac at the end of the video. Youtube Video TeamGeek A special thank you goes out to the staff of volunteers and workers of TeamGeek! They are a big part of BGG.CON's success.

Events You can find the official BGG.CON Schedule here and the Special Events page here. —AssassinCon AssassinCon, sponsored by Mayday Games, ran in the shadows of BGG.CON. Participants must pre-register before the convention. Players in this meta-game are given a special ribbon to attach to their badges. Each must find their target and have them sign their card (the target is eliminated and this is their trophy); the player then gains their target's card as their next target. Players had to report in to the Mayday Games to record their trophies (ties were broken by earliest trophy time recorded). The player who gained the most trophies by Saturday afternoon became the Master Assassin. Prizes: Master Assassin $100.00 Gift Card to Funagain Games 2nd Place $75.00 Gift Card to Funagain Games 3rd Place $50.00 Gift Card to Funagain Games

Funagain Games Booth in the Exhibit Hall —Catch the Moon

Hosted by Active Player Network. Description from BGG.CON Events page: "Test your balance and stacking skills in the new dexterity game Catch the Moon in an event hosted and sponsored by Active Player Network. Catch the Moon, from Bombyx, is an easy-to-learn game for all ages and skill levels that will have you on the edge of your seat wanting to play over and over to hone your strategy and technique. Event attendees will be taught how to play, and may stay and enjoy for as many plays as they want within the 2-hour block (play time is 20-30 minutes). There will also be a live prize drawing, offering players the chance to leave with a copy of the game!" —Introduction to Board Wargaming and Board Wargamers Meet & Greet The Meet & Greet was hosted by [user=doccummins]Christopher "Doc" Cummins[/user], Publisher at Strategy & Tactics Press and CEO of Decision Games. The purpose was to meet new and returning fellow war-game enthusiasts and discuss games would like to play during the convention including setting up schedules for game play. The Introduction to Board Wargaming sessions were two 20-30 minute presentations, also given by Doc Cummins, on basic concepts and terms of board wargaming. The presentations were followed by demonstrations using enlarged versions of Decision Games' mini-games such as: Germantown, Caesar's War, Eagle Day, Phobos Rising, Vikings Tournaments —Tichu Tournament This year's tournament had 24 teams (48 people). Prizes included Tichu decks for the finalists and badges and guaranteed hotel reservation for winners (reservation does not include the cost of the hotel room).

—PitchCar Tournament Attendees could test their flicking skills as they raced their cars (wooden disks) through a custom designed stunt track. And they meant business – check out that crazy track!

There were forty participants in the tournament. For the preliminary races, they had five unique tracks set up, with eight participants per track. There were three preliminary races, with each player getting to race three of the five tracks. Participants were reshuffled so they ended up playing against different people rather than all three races with the same people. After the three preliminary races, players handed in their scores (i.e. their positions they finished for each of the races added together). The lowest eight scores advanced to the final race, where they tore down the preliminary tracks, and built one mega final track for the finalists. The prize was a big trophy. The hosts for this event were [user=BlueWaldo]Chad DeShon[/user] and [user=chaddyboy_2000]Chad Krizan[/user] (the latter provided this information). —Poker Tournament The Annual Texas Hold'Em Tournament is a staple for BGG.CON. There were about 225 participants this year. Amateurs were encouraged to play; if they showed up early, they could get a rules summary to help them get started. No money was involved but there were great prizes! It was sponsored by Tasty Minstrel Games, which awarded a stack of games to the winner as well as a game to everyone in the final game. BGG also gave the winner a couple badges and a guaranteed hotel reservation to next year's event (reservation does not include the cost of the hotel room). Hosted by [user=CaptainQwyx]Jeff Anderson[/user]. —Treasure Island Treasure Island, a SPIEL '18 release, premiered at BGG.CON as a play-to-win tournament. The tournament was played over two rounds with eleven tables, narrowed down to two tables for the second round. The winner of each of the three tables received a copy of the game (distributed by Asmodee North America). Exhibit Hall —R&R Games Information provided by Frank DiLorenzo, President of R&R Games. Outback was released at SPIEL '18. This is a dice rolling, push-your-luck strategy game where players collect sets of Australian animals to maximize their points. It's super cute too (who doesn't love koalas, platapus, or kangaroos?). This R&R version includes variants as well as an option for team play.

The Table is Lava was released at SPIEL '18. Yep, lava table, card islands, and meeples... throw your card and be sure to attach/touch to another card "island" or you don't get to use the card action. Win by having the most surviving meeples. The Coconuts Edition expansion adds another player, cards, and meeples. Fun Fact: Really more of a clue... Frank says "it wouldn't hurt to know how to use the Wayback Machine." —Game Toppers Information provided by Kevin Burahardsmeier. Game Toppers are portable gaming tops that can convert your home table into a high quality gaming solution. Each Topper has modular parts, such as cup holders, accessory trays, and dice towers. They also sell thematic game mats, Game Topper storage bags (for Topper storage and portability), and Game Totes - insulated totes for game storage and portability. Another Kickstarter is coming Q1 2019 featuring new mats, new accessories, and new topper sizes (they currently have five sizes).

—Daedalus Productions New expansion boxes are coming to Kickstarter November 2018. Because game boxes aren't Tardis' ... Instead having inserts lift the game box lid, this new larger box allows games to be fit in perfectly while using the original lid. For example, all of Small World, Underground, and expansions will fit in one box, with both lids: one on the bottom (held by friction) and one on the top, so that in the shelf, it just looks like two games. Daedalus will also be offering magnetic lid bit boxes, which will be configurable and customizable with smaller boxes inside. Boxes will be available in both black or white.

—Catan Studio Information provided by Morgan Dontanville, Catan Studio Catan: Rise of the Inkas was released at SPIEL '18 and should be on the shelves of the English-speaking world November 2018. Inkas uses the standard Catan structure and drastically makes changes in the mechanisms to depict the rise and fall of Andean tribes. Each player must play through the rise and decline of three Inkan tribes in order to win. Rise of the Inkas includes three new trade goods, in addition to the five resources, powers added to Longest Trade Route and Most Combat Skills. But the biggest change of all is the ability to build over top of other players' settlements.

Catan Scenario: Crop Trust is an add-on scenario for your base Catan game. Catan worked closely with Crop Trust, an international nonprofit organization who's goal is to protect global food security. They are most famous for their seed vault in the Arctic that safely houses over 4,000 species of seed. The scenario encourages players to be aware of crop diversity and the dangers of monocultures by way of event cards. It also gives new ways to score points through banking crops' seeds into the seed vault. The game can collapse entirely if there is too much of a threat to the food supply. A large portion of the profits and royalties go to supporting the Crop Trust.

Fun Fact: Catan Studios sent a team to Svalbard, home of the northern most civilization in the world as well as the seed vault that houses all of the saved samples for the Crop Trust. While they were there, they played Crop Trust. —CGE Information provided by Justin Sweigart, Director of North American Operations. Trapwords released at SPIEL '18; U.S. release at BGG.CON. This is a dungeon-themed word guessing game where two teams are trying to guess the word their respective team member is trying to get them to guess while avoiding words on a list selected by the opposing team. Teams try to work their way through a dungeon with different rooms. Curses are placed on certain rooms making things more difficult (these affect the first team(s) in the room and only hangs around for one round). The goal is the defeat the boss monster (which moves up when both teams fail). A timer is optional. Through the Ages: Leaders and Wonders (working title) has a planned release of second quarter 2019 (both physical and digital). This expansion for Through the Ages mainly contains more leaders and wonders for each age of the game. Fun Fact: At SPIEL '18, CGE had a very VERY large helium balloon over their booth. It was so big that it took two tanks to fill it. (Photo, copyright CGE.)

—KOSMOS Information provided by Tom Wetzel, Customer Service Representative. Mercado was released at Gen Con 2018. This is a bag draw game where players draw colored coins from a bag and place them around tiles in a display, on their designated player color's side (each tile has all four player colors, one on each side). The tiles represent merchants, objects, and perfume, each of which has a cost in some combination of coins. Merchants give players wild coins or privilege tokens. Privilege tokens give players victory points and/or benefits. Objects give the players victory points and/or effects (may be good or bad, e.g. gain a counterfeit coin in your bag), better than privilege tokens. Perfumes also have beneficial effects. The player who makes a complete circuit on the score board triggers the end game; the player with the most points wins. Ubongo Fun-Size was released December 2018. This is a smaller box (seven inch) game with thinner puzzle card tiles but the number of puzzle cards included is the same as the original Ubongo game (but double-sided) and the pieces are the same size! Game play has been changed to eliminate the die, instead it is a race to finish filling in the puzzle area first (either with three pieces or four pieces, depending on the side played — four pieces being more challenging). First person to finish gets to keep their puzzle card and takes a gem; other players who finish within an allotted time also get to keep their cards. Players play eight rounds (eight cards). Scoring is one point per gem and one per card. The winner is the player with the most points.

Fun Fact: Rüdiger Dorn got his start designing board games early in life when he "got to know the C64-games Donkey Kong and Frogger." Unfortunately he did not have a computer, so he designed his own board game versions of these games. When asked why he decided to design a bag pulling game, he responded "I love the suspense and the feeling of the material in my hand." —AEG Information from Todd Rowland, Alderac Entertainment Group.

War Chest was released at Gen Con 2018. This is an abstract bag-building war game. High quality poker chips, representing players' units, are drawn each turn; they determine what a player can do on their turn. The goal is to control certain spaces on the board (there are not enough for each player). Each game, players draft four of a possible sixteen units, giving the game a lot of variety and strategy options. Space Base: The Emergence of Shy Pluto has a planned release of first quarter 2019. This is a "saga" expansion, as opposed to a legacy one, giving a story line to the game but the game may be reset and replayed. Scientists, in the process of trying to invent warp technology, attracted a planet-eating creature to the players' star system. This expansion takes players through the "adventure" of solving this problem. Fun Fact: About two years ago, for the Thunderstone Quest Kickstarter, the CEO of AEG put a yellow meeple in one of the playtest photos used on the Kickstarter page. There was a note saying "yellow meeple not included." People started asking why the yellow meeple wasn't available. It became a sort of joke over the next couple years. The yellow meeple started showing up in other AEG promotions and advertisements, even sporting anime eyes in the Unicornus Nights advertising. When Thunderstone Quest was released, an actual yellow meeple was included due to its popularity.

—Wattsalpoag Games Information provided by Kris Gould, owner of Wattsalpoag. Echidna Shuffle was released June 2018. This game is basically an echidna traffic jam where players try to deliver their three bugs to their tree stumps. During setup, players place put pick-up markers out on the game board; this is where the bugs will be picked up. An opponent (to player's left) puts a player's corresponding three stumps on the board. The winner is the player who delivers all three of their bugs.

River Explorers (working title) is planned for release in 2019. The object of game is to make the most money by moving a stack of explores with at least one of your own in it up river along a marked path, dropping explorers (one per space) as you move. The owner of an explorer gains money for being dropped at their trading post (one per disk in the stack next to their matching trading post). At the beginning of your turn you put a trading post next to a space then take your turn: placing an explorer on an empty space or moving a stack of explorers. Fun Fact: The sequel to Echidna Shuffle will be called Echidna Candy Store, based on the pun. —Meeple Realty Meeple Realty makes inserts, and now miniatures, for board games.

Meeple Realty - Terraforming Mars miniatures (seen in photo) coming to Kickstarter early 2019. —Stronghold Games Information provided by Stephen Buonocore, President Stronghold Games.

AuZtralia was released in November 2018. Thematic spiritual successor to A Study in Emerald. The Old Ones, after being defeated in England, have taken up residence in Australia. Players must now defeat them while building rail systems and mining resources. Mechanisms include resource management, rail building, and combat versus the Old Ones (semi-cooperative element against the Old Ones). Terraforming Mars: Colonies was out in November 2018. This is the fourth expansion to Terraforming Mars. Players now visit the outer planets' moons and astroids, where players establish colonies and set up trade routes. There is more player interaction via trading and having other players visit your colonies. Fun Fact: Stephen sent me a couple fun facts. Here's one: Sir Percival (see Stephen's cat photo) was the first "Knight of The Stronghold." Stephen might be a little too attached to his pet. For your entertainment, I thought I'd share an excerpt from our Fun Fact conversation:

—Mayday Games Information provided by Ryan Bruns, President Mayday Games. The Golden Sails has a planned release of second quarter 2019. This is a set-collection, card-driven game where players are navel merchants trying to acquire sets of goods to meet demand: spices, gems, weapons, animal, and spells. Bad Doctor was pre-released at Gen Con 2018 and recently released. This is a tile-laying, player action based game where the goal is to treat patients with the hopes of curing them, or at least not letting them die on your turn. If a patient dies on another player's turn or is cured on your turn, any doctor markers you have on the patient come to your score pile. Doctor markers are put on patients through the best use of your two actions per turn. The winner is the first player to collect 8 doctor markers. Fun Fact: Artist Bill Holbrook did the artwork for Bad Doctor. He also does the word's longest running daily web comic: Kevin and Kell.

—Starling Games Information provided by Dan Yarrington, Starling Games and CEO Tabletop Tycoon. Archmage: Ascendant, expansion for Archmage, has a planned release mid-2019. This adds four new modules to the game: Places of Power, New Spells, Prophecies, Cooperative Play (two-player). King's Forge: Masterworks has a planned release of third quarter 2019. This is the fifth expansion for King's Forge. There are four new types of dice: Borealis ("wild"), Aether Ore (metal/magic), Heartwood (wood/gem), Grimstones (chaotic/variable). The game also includes Ambassadors and a new Royal Decree. Fun Fact: Tabletop Tycoon has a town, Tabletop Tycoon Town, where their staff has unique character representations (avatars) that they choose. They have an artist create each representation, which goes into the Tabletop Tycoon Town image on their website. The avatars are also used on their reserved parking spaces and business cards.

—Gamelyn Games Information provided by Nathan Hatfield, Chief Sales Officer. Tiny Epic Zombies was released October 2018. The game features five modes of play: cooperative AI controlled zombie, cooperative with human controlled zombie, competitive with AI controlled zombie, competitive human controlled zombie, and solo. It introduces a whole new set of items for ITEMeeples® (e.g. axe, machetti, chain saw). There are two vehicles (cop car and motorcycle) in which ITEMeeples can ride, allowing them to move further. There are 14 human characters/cards, with zombies on the backs of the cards, for a total of 28 choices. Humans must complete three objectives to win the game; zombies must kill all humans to win. There are different levels of difficulty as well, e.g. one survivor token death ends the game vs. some number of deaths ending the game. Note: players are not eliminated from the game upon token deaths. Game play is under an hour. Tiny Epic Mechs has a planned release of mid-2019. This is an arena combat game, player vs. player, with action programming (e.g. Robo Rally). The ITEMeeples® in this game actually go inside power armors and mech warriors, which sit on the board. When an ITEMeeple moves to it, it may jump inside.

Fun Fact: Every member of the Gamelyn Games team has bungie jumped and sky dived. —Grey Fox Games Information provided by Alex Goldsmith, Grey Fox Games.

City of Gears was released at SPIEL '18. This game originally started as a contest entry for Best Steampunk Game on The Game Crafter, a website for creators to build and sell games. This is a resource management, area control and engine building game where you uncover a lost steampunk city and bring it back to life, using robot workers you deploy from your factory. The game includes 21 unique city tiles, 9 of which you use each game, and 40 different development cogs, each of which grant you a special player power.

Reavers of Midgard is the sequel to the worker placement game Champions of Midgard. It was recently funded on Kickstarter and has an expected release date of second quarter 2019. Reavers of Midgard's core mechanism is single worker placement, with each player getting one action and the rest getting weaker and weaker versions of the same action in turn order. You will send your viking crew to do battle with epic monsters, raid fortified keeps, get boat upgrades from villages, and conquer new lands. Fun Fact: When Reavers of Midgard was initially pitched by J.B. Howell, the game was originally themed to take place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. —Devir Information provided by Adam Growden, Sales Administrator, Devir Games. Silk pre-released at BGG.CON, with the full release first week of December 2018. In Silk you play a giant silk worm farmer in the Akaishi Mountains. You will be using your silk worms, shepherd, mastiff, and building improvements to control areas of the board. Your worms will graze on the grassy tiles to score points. Each player will determine their actions by rolling two dice at the beginning of their turn, showing what actions they can take. The die results can be modified by players spending their victory points to adjust the result up or down. Actions can be anything from scoring points to bumping an opponent's silk worm to the Ookami, a monster who steals any silk worms he comes in contact with (costing the player points). Fun Fact: The designer Luis Ranedo is the singer of Spanish Rock band Madera. Youtube Video

Papua will be releasing alongside Silk the first week of December 2018. In Papua, players compete by sending scientists to different board locations allowing them to: discover new plant and animal cards, increase their number of scientists, gain more actions in a turn, gather food and money to supply their expedition, or collect scientific notebooks recording their findings. Players will score points through discovering new species, recording their findings, and resource accumulation. Sets are collected through a mixture of worker placement and secret bidding. Fun Fact: Papua's title art is based off of an image of the Hewa people. The Hewa were one of the last contacted tribes in Papua, with contact not being made until 1975.

Papua Game Board —Eagle-Gryphon Games Information provided by Jason Grantz, Sales Director. Fleet: The Dice Game was released at the end of 2018. This is a roll-and-write game set in the Fleet universe. Players go fishing by drafting "fish" dice that are used to acquire boats and fishing licenses (special abilities). The object of the game is to gain the most victory points by visiting the market, wharf, and harbor. Players sell fish to gain coins in the market and visit buildings at the wharf for end game victory points or special abilities. The harbor unlocks extra storage, more fishing, and victory points. Escape Plan, by the designer of The Gallerist and Lisboa, has a planned release at Origins 2019. Players are each members of a gang who pulled a bank heist then hid money around the city. Now that it's safe to retrieve the money (freshly laundered of course), they are all suspicious of each other. Each tries to recover the most money from the various businesses where money was stashed. The game takes place over three days (with rounds of 6 to 8 actions). To win, a player must escape the city with the most money.

Fun Fact: Eagle-Gryphon's CEO, Rick Soued, and his wife, Joanne, just spent the last six months traveling all across Europe for their anniversary. —Queen Games Information provided by Ian Kissell, Queen Games. Bastille was released at SPIEL '18; it premiered at BGG.CON in the U.S. This is a light to medium Euro game in which players are trying to gain victory points by acquiring leaders, by completing missions, and through various bonuses. It is a worker placement game where the higher placement (influence number) goes first (or first player in the space if tie). The workers (influence number) may be upgraded through one of the actions. Luxor: the Mummy's Curse, an expansion to Luxor, is expected to be released first quarter 2019. It includes three expansion modules: The Mummy, Pitfalls, and New Treasures. Fun Fact: Queen Games started by selling Carrom boards for about the first ten years. —Surfin' Meeple Information provided by Ian Birdsall, Group Marketing Manager, and Nikki Pontius, Surfin' Meeple. Treasure Island, released at SPIEL '18, premiered at BGG.CON as a play-to-win tournament. Published by Matagot. In Treasure Island, one person plays Long John Silver. The other players are interrogating him to find out where he buried his treasure. Some information is hidden and some is public knowledge. The game includes a dry erase board map of the island, rulers, and templates. Players use the latter two to draw lines along which they move, and circle their dig area. Clues can include the direction to where the treasure is buried.

In Imagineers, published by Maple Games (below), players are building rides in a theme park to attract customers, represented by colored meeples, e.g. blue like water rides, red like thrill rides, yellow like family rides. Each player may also upgrade their own roller coaster (on their personal player mat), for example, by adding a loop to their roller coaster. The object of the game is to gain the most fame. Players use happiness points to gain fame; money is necessary to build new attractions and upgrade roller coasters. You generally get happiness by having visitors ride attractions (any player may do this) and gain money by having visitors use your attractions. The game has an intuitive Mancala style of play.

Fun Fact: Chris Leder originally designed Imagineers nearly twenty years ago under the title "CoasterCraft." Fun Fact: Surfing' Meeple got their name from one of the owner's children who loved to surf while living in Californa. —Maple Games Ian Birdsall, Group Marketing Manager. Dragon Boats of the Four Seas is a light euro style game with elements of auction bidding and set collection. Set in a fictional kingdom inspired by Chinese mythology, players take on the roles of leaders of one of the great houses of Zhong-Guo. Over several rounds, players will trade, build farms, and make offerings for the safe passage of their ships to the forgotten lands. Dragon Boats of the Four Seas comes with three-dimensional dragon boats. There are many viable strategies to attain victory. Fun Fact: The original "Four Seas" metaphorically made up the borders of pre-Han dynasty China. —Kolossal Games Ian Birdsall, Group Marketing Manager. Western Legends is available now (reprint also in the works due to demand). It is an open world, sandbox game. Assume the role of historical figures of the American West as you carve out your legend in any number of ways. You can gamble, drive cattle, fight bandits, prospect for gold, rob the bank and become an outlaw, or become a marshal and uphold the law. The possibilities are near endless. Very thematic. Fun Fact: Fans of Western Legends will have the opportunity to Ante Up! this January. Kami-Sama is an intuitive strategy game set in rural Japan during the Edo period. Assume the role of one of twenty Kami with your own unique powers. Use your asymmetrical abilities to place or remove shrines, build patterns to gain favor, draft villagers for bonuses, and work in balance with Nature to become the chief deity of the land. Kami-Sama will be available for retail release in first quarter 2019. Fun Fact: The designers of Kami-Sama hid a number of cute cats among the villages in the game. —Floodgate Games Information provided by Ben Harkins, Owner Floodgate Games. Sagrada: 5&6 Player Expansion was released at Gen Con 2018. This expands the Sagrada base game to five or six players and introduces new private objectives that are position based, shown on each player's card as shaded areas. It also adds a private dice pool: two dice of each color that are rolled only at the beginning of the game; on their turns players must choose one die from their private pool and one from the public draft pool. Bosk has a planned release of late Spring 2019. This is an area control game where players, each as a species of tree, play over four seasons. Spring is when players grow trees, Summer is a scoring round (along the park trails), Autumn is when the leaves fall off the trees - covering certain areas, and in Winter players score for area majority per region in the park. Fun Fact: Bosk was signed by Floodgate Games after Daryl Andrews (co-designer) showed it to them at BGG.CON 2017.

—Indie Boards & Cards Information provided by Nick Little, Vice President of Production and Development. Exodus: Paris Nouveau was released September 2019. This is a social deduction game with hidden teams (hunters and rescuers), set in the Dystopian Universe. This game is a little heavier than The Resistance. It has an auction system to determine the leader each round. There are multiple ways to win depending on which team a player is on. Aeon's End: Legacy has a planned release of end of January 2019. This is the first legacy deck-builder game. It is a cooperative game in which players play as mages trying to fight off a big nemesis boss monster. Players start out as a adept mages. At the end of each chapter (e.g. game) players may upgrade their respective mages by choosing their abilities. At the end of the campaign, players will each have a complete mage that may be played with all other Aeon's End games (i.e. it's a character generator!). Unlike other legacy games, over 80% of the content is repayable outside of the legacy campaign. A reset pack will be available upon release that will allow players to replay the campaign and generate new characters.

Bladius, Aeon's End: Legacy Fun Fact: The designer of Aeon's End: Legacy loves Kpop music. —Infinite Dreams Gaming and Conquest Gaming Warehouse 13: The Board Game will be released first quarter 2019. This is a semi-co-operative (hidden traitor) game where players take on the role of one of the Warehouse agents. The game comes with rules for a fully cooperative variant. Like the television show, the characters go out seeking to retrieve dangerous artifacts: "snag it, bag it, and tag it." Players spend actions to obtain cards, then use the cards to get dice (working the case). Artifacts are retrieved by rolling the right combination on dice to match those on the artifacts. There is a field agent training video available (rules).

Infinite Dreams Gaming has plans to Kickstart an expansion second quarter 2019 featuring H. G. Wells and James MacPhearson as playable characters.

Fun Fact: The designers Michael Aldridge, Russell Rupe, and M. Shawn Smith II, were invited by Eddie McClintock, one of the main actors, to his house to play the game. He played his character, Pete. Eddie also did the voiceover for the Kickstarter video. —BGG Geek Store So many cool things to be found at the BGG Geek Store: promos, games from Asia, apparel, and more!

—Fantasy Flight Games KeyForge: Call of the Archons was released in November 2018. This is a unique deck game by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield. Each starter box contains two starter decks (two different decks but these are the same in each starter box) plus two completely unique decks (across all boxes produced) plus all the components to play the game with two players. The goal of the game is to forge three keys. Each player's decks contains cards from three of the seven available houses. On their turn they may play as many cards as they want (no cost) from only one of the houses. The cards allow players to collect aember, attack their opponent's creatures, etc. Aember is needed to forge keys. A Game of Thrones: The Board Game – Mother of Dragons expansion has a planned release of December 2018. This adds House Targaryen (dragon meeples to control!) and House Arryn, the Iron Bank of Bravos option (loans), and a side board of Essos (check spelling of all this). It also expands play to eight. Fun Fact: The lead developer of KeyForge, Brad Andres, created a character of himself in the game, featuring his image on one of the cards: Quixo the Adventurer (a common house Logos card). —Plaid Hat Games Neon Gods was released November 2018. This is an area control game that takes place in the "futuristic" year of 2009. Each player controls one four brightly colored gangs whose goal it is to rule the city by gaining the most blurp. Players gain blurp by building structures, selling product tokens, and winning fights. Players add cards to their game decks through recruiting, which in turn places more of their own gang figurines on the board. Comanauts has a planned release of December 2018. This is the successor game to Stuffed Fables but geared more towards adults. It has similar game mechanisms and is more streamlined and stepped up a bit. Dr. Strobal has gone into a coma taking with him the knowledge of how to save the world. Players take on the roles of comanauts and venture into his subconscious to try to wake him up in time to prevent the end of the world. —Wyrmwood Gaming Wyrmwood makes beautiful game-related things out of gorgeous woods (like purpleheart, zebrawood, and black walnut): dice towers, dice trays, deck boxes, game tables, and more!

—Z-Man Games Information provided by Beth Erikson, Z-Man Games. The Great City of Rome debuted in Europe at SPIEL '18; the U.S. release is planned for early 2019. Players are trying to rebuild Rome, creating their best plan, by placing cards in a 4x4 grid, to present to the Emperor. The first player (which rotates) places their pawn on an action strip denoting resources. The few resources gained the more choices of city cards the player has, i.e. the strip has five resources (bricks and cogs in various order, over 6 double-sided strips), the further down the player plays on the strip, the more they gain, i.e. they gain all resources from the space they are on and up. The player with the best city plan _ that is, the most points — at the end of the game wins. Narabi previewed at BGG.CON and has a planned release of early 2019. This is a small, quick co-operative card game in which players are trying to organize stones in a garden. The stones are cards, numbered or blank, that must be put in ascending order either clockwise or counterclockwise. Each stone card has a corresponding restriction card associated with it (before the game starts, each stone card will be randomly paired with a restriction card and put in a card sleeve - this provides variability between games). Each player gets a number of cards, depending on the number of players, giving them limited knowledge of their cards (restrictions). The players' cards are in front of them with stone side up so restrictions are hidden. On their turn, players exchange stones, working towards the correct arrangement one move at at time while following the restrictions. Fun Fact: Atha Kaanani, the staff illustrator for Z-Man Games, used his girlfriend's image on the cover of Pandemic: Fall of Rome. Since she's his artistic muse, you may see her featured in his other art as well. —Victory Point Games Information provided by Alan Emrich, Studio Lead. Gem Rush Second Edition was released at BGG.CON. This is a 1 to 7 player, competitive or cooperative, fast playing game through a magical gem mine. Skillful hand management and play are key to scoring. The goal is to get the most points by building out rooms in the mine. The new edition added new magical gems and skill cards for individual player skills. The third printing of the second edition of Nemo's War is due to be released third quarter 2019. This will include two new expansions, Bold and Caring and Dramatis Personae. Bold and Caring includes two new motives: adventure and humanist. Dramatis Personae includes twelve new adventure cards mainly dealing with the crew (old and new). Fun Fact: "A Christmas Miracle" promo card is in production for Nemo's War (set in 1870) in which Captain Nemo invents nascent light bulbs and illuminates them on deck for the assembled crew on Christmas Eve. The author of "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas," Jules Verne, was no fan of Christianity but a big fan of science, thus the card is a scientific nod on a Christian holiday. —And now for something completely different... My friend, Debbie Ohi, and I took a break from all the fun at BGG.CON to do a little shopping at my favorite Japanese "dollar" store, Daiso. Technically, it's a $1.50 store but that doesn't sound as good (and I barely acknowledge the extra $.50 plus tax... although this may have added to my checkout shock). Daiso is located only in a few western states right now, so whenever I visit one I make sure to plan time (and suitcase space) for Daiso. They have the cutest sticky notes! Little polar bears, penguins, colorful pencils, and so many others — it's hard not to buy them all. (They're only a dollar, right?) They also have really smooth paper, comparable to Rhodia writing pads (which are much more expensive). Perfect for pointed pen calligraphy practice.

Below is a photo of our combined haul. Funny how all those dollar items stack up to well over $100 (I'm not saying how much over either, just in case my hubby is reading this... love you baby!).

—Ravensburger Information provided by Mike Mulvihill, Ravensburger. Carpe Diem was released at SPIEL '18. This is being hailed as a good introduction to Stefan Feld games since it's a bit more forgiving. This is a tile placement game in which players are trying to build up their own districts and gain victory points to win the game. Points are generated in various ways, and gained at the end of each of the four rounds and at the end of the game. In a four player game there is a tableau of 12 cards (reduced for fewer players) between which each player, at the end of a round, must place a marker between two cards (the space must be empty; they are not cleared during the game). The two cards score immediately. If a player does not have the resources or configuration in their district to score points, they get -4 points. The influence track determines the order players place their markers. The district, influence track, and resources will score at the end of the game. Impact: Battle of Elements was released December 2018. This works similarly to Strike in which player toss dice into an arena (called a cauldron) trying to get matching symbols. In this version, the first die determines the element power that will be active for that game. For example, if the first die tossed has a lightning symbol on it, the Lightning Storm will be active. This means that whenever there are two or more lightning symbols showing in the cauldron, there will be a lightning storm: all players must quickly throw one of their dice into the cauldron at the same time. The active player then receives all dice that show matching symbols. A player who runs out of dice is knocked out of the game. The last player standing is the winner. Fun Fact: For Halloween, Paula Biemann, Ravensburger's Consumer Marketing Specialist, dressed up as Ursula from their game Villainous. In the photo, she's also holding up the Ursula figure and the Arrogance card (featuring Ursula) from the game.

—WizKids Information provided by Zev Shlasinger, WizKids Games. Magic the Gathering: Heroes of Dominaria Board Game was released at BGG.CON. This is a Euro-style game set in the plane of Dominaria. Players use mana for various actions, such as building manaliths, leylines, confronting the Cabal, and discovering artifacts. Player characters, Planeswalkers, also go on quests to gain victory points. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of games. Bumúntú will be released in January 2019. This is a beautiful tile game where players use animal movement powers to collect tiles in order to gain points in various ways, depending on the animal. There is a favor board that determines the value of each animal at the end of the game. The board can be manipulated by players during the game by collecting specially marked animal tiles. There are a few tiles that are marked with symbols that will allow a player to score them at the end of the game as well. For example, animal tiles with masks on them give more and more points per mask collected. Fun Fact: Almost everyone who worked on Maiden's Quest was female: artist, graphic designer, most playtesters, developer, lead play tester, and editors. —Cryptozoic Entertainment Information provided by Matt Hyra, Lead Board Game Designer. Cult: Choose Your God Wisely was pre-released at BGG.CON and should be in stores now. This is a worker/Priest placement game with a unique take on in-game currency: Followers. Players choose Gods and send their Priests to places in the Eternal City in an attempt to bring their deity victory over the minds and souls of humanity. Followers are gained and sacrificed. Altars are built to the different Gods as they clash in this new take on the genre. Fun Fact: Cult: Choose Your God Wisely can now be played on Tabletopia (a virtual platform for board games co-founded by Agrology), allowing people to check it out before purchasing the physical game. Rick and Morty Rickshank: The Rickdemption Deck-Building Game released at BGG.CON. This is a standalone game that is also fully compatible with the original Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind Deck-Building Game. New features include Access Tokens and Council cards. Access Tokens can be bought, gained, and spent in numerous ways. Many cards reference them in one way or another. They also give you the potential to increase the number of Votes you have when a Council card is played. Each Council card causes a Vote to be taken amongst the players. A Referendum is a Vote amongst the players to decide if they should all perform the listed action, or not. A Sanction is a Vote that players take to decide which player should be punished (with varying effects). Lastly, a Bid is a Vote on who should earn a positive effect. Here, each player Votes only for themselves, and the high bidder earns it. Fun Fact: The infamous Szechuan Sauce card is in the game. Get it before it's gone!

—Bellwether Games Information provided by Dennis Hoyle, Bellwether Games. Coldwater Crown: The Sea is scheduled for release in early 2019. It is the first boxed expansion to Coldwater Crown, the strategic fishing game from designer Brian Suhre. Coldwater Crown: The Sea integrates with the original game by adding a new fishing location (the Sea), five new species of fish, a new type of fishing tackle, punchboard fishing boats, and two variant species challenge tiles. A new Port action in the game allows players to move their fishing boat to "Sea," where they can catch Sea fish (and only Sea fish) with any color of bait. Sea fish are scored according to a special weight scale, with the potential for a lot of points, tempting players to stay "at Sea" longer while forgoing points from the standard fishing challenges.

Mars Open: Tabletop Golf was released in July 2018. It is a dexterity golfing game with a flickable paper "golf ball" that can fly, spin, hook, skip and flop. Players assemble and play-through a course, one hole at a time, from the punchboard obstacles provided in the game. They use standard mini-golf rules with modifications to account for the nuances of flicking a "golf ball" on a table. The rulebook provides diagrams to assemble 54 different holes, including trick-shot holes. Players may also design their own holes.

Fun Fact: During development of Mars Open: Tabletop Golf we conducted innumerable tests of the flight paths of the "golf balls," including distance trials on the floor like the one shown in the photo above. —SolarFlare Games Information provided by Dave Killingsworth, Owner & CEO SolarFlare Games. In late August 2018, SolarFlare released its first licensed game property, ROBOTECH: Force of Arms. It is a 1v1 sci-fi card game of fleet movement, area control, and bluffing, which plays in about 20-30 minutes. Everything you need to play comes in a box that fits conveniently in your bag or backpack. Player involvement and card interaction keep the game fresh so it's fun to play over and over. The game is also available online. Fun Fact: Dave Killingsworth, "ROBOTECH: Force of Arms is based on the 1985 Anime Robotech (The Macross Portion). Since we released ROBOTECH: Force of Arms the fandom has been wildly enthusiastic. We took scenes from the show and had the artists remake them in a modern and high resolution style that people have called 'Art as good as nostalgia remembers.' Since this has been so popular, we are actively working on ROBOTECH: Crisis Point, our early 2019 release (also a 1v1 but with deep strategy) based on the Masters part of the show, followed by ROBOTECH: Invid Invasion late in 2019, which will be a 1-6 player fully cooperative game based on the New Generation. Thus, if you sit and play all 3 games over a 2-3 hour period it will be like you played the show."

—Mercury Games Information by Richard "Doc" Diosi, President of Mercury Games. Rail Pass will be released in mid-2019. It is a co-operative, modular pick-up and deliver game. The game is not quite like other train delivery games because it is timed. Players work together to deliver goods (colored cubes) from their respective cities to other players' cities, all of which are color coded (the cubes and the cities). There are always six cities in play regardless of the player count. Trains are loaded with cubes and passed to adjacent players sitting at the table. Although dexterity is a component, the main mechanism of the game requires loading and unloading trains of different capacities, and crew that can only deliver to an adjacent city before being sent back to their 'home' city. Logistics are a large part of this game. The game has a ten minute timer; players must deliver as many cubes to the correct colored cities as possible. Players score the two cities with the least cubes of their color delivered. Any dropped cubes (ones that may have fallen off trains as they are passed back and forth) are treated as negative points. Big City: 20th Anniversary Jumbo Edition will be releasing in mid-2019. This reprint from the late Franz-Benno Delonge is the original modular city-building board game. It features new larger and detailed miniatures and is played on a colorful set of modular neighborhood boards. Utilizing cards for property ownership, players trade and play cards to place buildings and other structures onto the modular boards, scoring points for adjacency to other certain types of buildings, as well as whether the new building is in the "outskirts" (at the edge of the modular board) or "downtown" (encapsulated by other properties within the modular boards). The playing of the City Hall piece unlocks the ability to place many special buildings. A new redevelopment phase has been added to the original game to promote more property card trades among players. Also, a new expansion has been made for the game using pieces approved by the late Mr. Delonge. Fun Fact: The City Hall piece fashioned for this version of Big City is Toronto's City Hall at Nathan Phillips Square.

Big City Parking Garage, a new piece from the expansion Closing Ceremonies

Lincoln had on the special jersey for Game Night. Be sure to check out the latest episode. This year there was a rather odd thing happening at the prize drawing. Number after number was called with no claim, and some that were claimed turned out to be incorrect (winning tickets are checked) — the games kept coming back. This was the first time in all the years I have been going that this has happened. I'm not saying it was anyone's fault, although it was guest of honor Tim Schafer's first time announcing. Just sayin'.

Tim Schafer, announcing yet another "winner"

Prizes, prizes, and more prizes!

When Jeff Anderson speaks, everyone listens intently: (Front) W. Eric Martin thinking about his next article, (R) Eric Lang falling asleep on his feet, (L) Michelle Alden and Matt Leacock sharing a private joke.

Finally Eric Lang, a.k.a. Bunny Ears, gets a taste of his own medicine. Way to go special guest Tim Schafer! You might even be invited back!

A very full room and one very happy (bordering on crazy?) looking Debbie Ohi (bottom right)

Special custom graphic posters given away Finally... There were many other things going on at BGG.CON that I didn't get to cover. These included: Puzzle Hunt, Battling Tops, Orphans and First-Timers Meetup, Designer/Publisher Speed Dating, UnPub (Proto Alley), the ever popular Game Show (two times!), and more. Hope to see y'all next year!!

Ironically, after yelling at Rodney to put his hands down, it was actually the best photo of the bunch. from BoardGameGeek News | BoardGameGeek http://bit.ly/2FPKFiQ

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