Actualol Newsletter - November 2020 (Patreon)

Hello patronizers,

I hope this finds you with hope!

I’m sorry for the newsletter delay, the Christmas video took over my life this last month and a bit, and now I’m playing catch up. It also means I haven’t played many games which aren’t already in the video, so this newsletter will venture into other media instead.

Yesterday the vaccine reached these shores, so I’m beginning to get excited for the day when I can safely play multiplayer board games again.

Actual Games

I’m always on the lookout for simple two player games, which led me to Aqualin, an abstract game from Kosmos, in their well-curated two player line. And it’s as simple as you could hope for. You take it in turns to place a tile anywhere on the board. The scoring goals put you at loggerheads - one player wants to create big collections of the same colour, the other player wants to create big collections of the same animal type.

Before placing the tile, you can slide one existing piece along its row or column (if the spaces are empty), allowing you to reposition things - and usually reclaim a piece for your collections. It’s an interesting challenge working out how to trap pieces, so that they won’t be dragged back to your opponent’s clutches.

I really like that the board and the pieces are shared - nothing is guaranteed, and you have to reassess your plans each turn, giving up one tactic to form another. Aqualin is a neat little game. Overall, I found it lacked some excitement - the gameplay doesn’t offer big moments or turning points, and so it can feel a bit repetitive. It certainly gets you thinking, but it didn’t quite feel a return on that investment.

Actual Life

We’ve been under national lockdown this month, so we’ve turned to our television for company.

For Serena’s birthday, we relived our trips to the Edinburgh fringe, by watching some live comedy. NextUp Comedy is a Netflix style streaming service with recordings of live comedy. We watched two of our all-time favourite shows. Firstly, Reunion by Max and Ivan. A two-man show, where they play all the characters at a school reunion. Here’s a funny scene taken from it: https://youtu.be/pM5HNuvHeoU

And Hammerhead by Joseph Morpugo, which is a brilliant spoof of a Directors Q&A that happens after a play. Sadly, I don’t have a clip to share, but you can get a week's free trial on NextUp, and I would highly recommend them both.

We raced through The Crown Season 4, in less than a week. Being neither a royalist or a patriot, I never expected to enjoy this series, but I find it to be a fascinating character study of the ultimate dysfunctional family. I’ve also enjoyed learning about specific events in British history that happened before I was born.

Then we turned to The Queen’s Gambit, the new darling of Netflix. It’s a mini-series about a troubled orphan who becomes a world-class Chess player in the sixties. Much like The Crown, it does an incredible job of capturing the period, with its costumes and set dressing.

Anya-Taylor Joy is a great lead, and her relationship with her adoptive mother is a particular highlight. I found the story to be a little formulaic - I could always predict when she would win or lose a chess match. But it has a nice ending, and since it’s only a mini-series it’s worth the commitment.

We’ve settled into Christmas earlier than usual this year, and into the new phenomenon of Christmas television series. Netflix’s metadata-inspired cynicism is showing, but I’m not mad about it.

Dash and Lily is a cute rom-com about two teenagers who communicate through a notebook that Lily hides on a shelf in her favourite book shop in New York. It’s funny and not too cheesy. If you like romantic comedies, and Christmas, it hits all the right heartwarming notes.

Home For Christmas is a Norwegian series about a 30-something single woman, who tells her family she’s bringing a date to Christmas Eve dinner, because she’s fed up of being asked. She then spends December trying to find someone, getting into all kinds of humorous situations.

It feels especially Christmassy, thanks to the idyllic, snowy Norwegian town it's filmed in, with everyone dressed in Nordic knitwear. The lead character, Johanne, is loveable and it balances the calamity of her love-life, with more dramatic moments in her job as a nurse. You’d expect a Christmas rom-com to feel trite, but the Norwegian perspective is refreshingly adult. Or it may be that I’ve been tricked by their accents.

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

• Remember Our Trip
• Iwari

• Nidavellir

Games that have just arrived

• Master Word
• The Fuzzies
• Fiasco (2nd edition)

Song of the Month - Dua Lipa, Angèle - Fever

Now watching - Catch 22, Barry Season 2

Now reading - How To Age - School of Life

I hope you have a wonderful December.

Actually yours,

Jon