Actualol Newsletter - January 2021 (Patreon)

Hey there patronisers,

Sing it with me - “The third lockdown’s the bleakest” (tune: The First Cut is the Deepest).

What little novelty there was has long worn off, and the terrible British weather combined with the short days and the fact that there’s no end in sight has made everything feel quite miserable. It’s depressing to be in the country with the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world, but not at all surprising. Just add it to the pile of things to be deeply ashamed of, along with Brexit, and now being the only big Western nation with a clown in charge.

Nevertheless, we feel safe and lucky. And we can overcome our relative struggles with chocolate and TV and an almost ceaseless practice of online Codenames.

Two new exciting games have been keeping us entertained. Cantaloop, a board game take on point and click adventure games that has managed to revive my love for a genre that I thought I’d never love again.

And Burgle Bros 2 which feels familiar and fresh at the same time. I’m afraid I’m saving any more words on them for a future video.

Actual Life

An unplanned resolution crept up on me this month - to quit Twitter and Facebook. I’ve long resented how much time I spend aimlessly scrolling them as a distraction - something I leaned into when my anxiety was really bad. But more often now they make me feel worse than before I open them, and I’d rather turn my attention elsewhere.

This decision was galvanised by a book I’ve been reading called “Deep Work”, which extols the virtues of focused, uninterrupted sessions of work to get the best results. Coincidentally, I’d also been reading “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work”, which talks about the working routines of many great artists and scientists, and common amongst many is a focus on intense bursts of work.

The research and the theories presented have really resonated with me, and I’ve been trying to approach my writing from this deep work stance. But it’s not easy to retrain your brain after decades of 24/7 emails and social media.

From another perspective, my time is finite and I’d rather put an hour towards writing and making better videos, than promoting myself on social media. I don’t think the benefit of having a Twitter presence outweighs the time lost on what I’m actually good at.

I will still post my videos there, and keep the accounts open for the occasional practical use. I can’t promise I won’t be drawn back in, but I’m hopeful.

5 More Board Game Arena Tips

Following on from my Board Game Arena video, here are five more games that I’d recommend on there, which don’t need a premium account to create a table.

1. Sobek is a card game from Bruno Cathala that uses a mechanism I love in games - corruption. Whoever has the most corruption each round loses points.

You play as merchants, trying to make the most money by collecting sets of goods. On your turn you can take the first card in the row for free, or skip to a further one, taking all the cards you skip as corruption. Of course, some cards are much better than others - enticing you to be corrupt. And if you don’t take it, by the time it comes back to you someone else will have it.

You have to spend a turn to cash in a set - but when’s a good time to give up on taking a card? And when is the set ready to cash in - what if you get another one? If you don’t take the time to cash them in, and the round ends, you will get much less points. And cards not in a set of three - go straight in your corruption pile!

Every decision comes with a potential pitfall, and I love the suspense of the final corruption reveal.

2. Alhambra is a classic tile-laying game that was recently added to BGA. I long dismissed it for its bland theme, but for an old game, it has some unique mechanisms that feel fresh.

To buy buildings to add to your palace, you spend currency cards. But there are four different coloured currencies - so you might not have the colour you need to buy the building you want. Instead, you can spend your turn taking currency instead.

You’re competing to have the majority in different building types - which makes the game feel interactive - snatching buildings before others can afford them.

But placement is tricky. Each tile has a black line, representing the outer wall of your palace. You’re trying to connect them up to score points, but you can really cause yourself problems because your wall can stop you from placing new tiles. Uniquely for a tile-laying game, you do have the chance to rearrange - but it costs you a turn to make a small swap.  Retribution for messing it up in the first place.

It feels like a classic, turns are quick, and the decisions are tough but satisfying. I need to add this one to my offline collection.

3. Speaking of offline collections, Letter Tycoon is a game that I used to own, but didn’t survive one of my vicious culls. It’s a clever twist on a word game that anyone could play.

You create a word each turn, using your hand of cards and common letters. The longer it is, the more money you’ll make - which you can then spend to buy the patent of one of the letters you used. From now, you’ll get paid every time someone uses your letter.

It’s a genius idea that really works - the more common letters are more expensive, so you have to save up, and the other players must decide whether to hamstring themselves by avoiding your patents, or use them so they can make longer words and get paid more.

The patents for the black sheep of the alphabet (who uses Js anymore?), come with special powers which can give you double word scores.

That layer of patent scoring keeps everyone interested in your turn, and it’s surprisingly light and unobtrusive - especially compared to something like Paperback.

Letter Tycoon is one of the rare games that I question whether I should have gotten rid of it. It’s only fault is that some players are much better at making words, other players find that upsetting, and so no-one wants to play - the curse of all word games.

4. Dice Forge is an unusual choice for Board Game Arena, given that its unique selling point is the tactile joy of building your own dice. And yet, I found it transforms into a speedy experience with the rhythm of a mobile game.

On everyone’s turn your dice are rolled, and depending on what faces come up, you will score gold, or resources, to spend, or straight points. BGA takes care of all the tallying, which is nice because it’s easy to lose track in the cardboard version.

Then you can spend your gold to buy better faces for your dice, to score more on future turns. Or spend your resources to buy cards to start making points.

By the time it’s your turn, your cup is usually runneth over with gold, so you want to spend it to free up space for more gold. But if you keep doing that, you won’t ever take a turn to buy the card to convert excess gold into points. It’s a fun dilemma to have.

Dice Forge isn’t the most interactive of games, but I like this one for a chilled experience.

5. I didn’t want to repeat myself by suggesting a game I’ve already recommended in a recent video. But, I also don’t want to half-heartedly recommend a 6/10 game that I wouldn’t play myself. So instead, here are three mini recommendations of games - and you can watch my recent videos of them to find out why they’re great.

Santorini - A quirky abstract game that works best with two players. In my Tabletopia video.

K2 - An exciting mountain climbing game, with the threat of freezing to death. In my Tabletop Simulator video

Hive - A timeless abstract game for two players. In my Travel Games video.

Board Game Arena have offered me three gifts of Premium membership and I want to give them to the patrons. If you would get good use out of a premium account, put your username in the comments and the first three will get the gift.

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

- Burgle Bros 2

- Cantaloop

- Die Seher von Santiiba

Song of the Month - Fickle Friends - IRL

Now watching - The Great, Jane The Virgin, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet

Now reading - Deep Work by Cal Newport

I hope you have a great month,

Jon