Actualol Newsletter - December 2021 (Patreon)

Happy New Year!

And Happy New Discord! I’ve set up a Discord channel, (basically a message board) for Actualol patrons to hang out and chat about games, and arrange games on Board Game Arena.

To connect to the Discord, you have to connect your Discord account to your Patreon account. Details on how to do that are here. Please come and join in! I put it live an hour ago, and there’s already 60+ people in there!

Thank you to all the patrons who have been playing me on BGA lately. I don’t know what has come over me, but the score is currently: Jon 12 - 2 Patrons! Congratulations to Kumi Ori and Meeshpod for beating me in Welcome To and Letter Tycoon. I am currently unbeaten in Patchwork - perhaps a new challenger can puncture my inflating ego?

Actual Life

We had my Mum visit us for Christmas, and we got to play some games with her. I’ve rekindled some love for Azul from playing it Board Game Arena, and it’s one of very few games that I’ve re-acquired after ditching it a few years ago.

There’s no disputing its crown as a brilliant gateway game. But I should have trusted my former judgement because it’s still just a little too dry and lacking in exciting moments for me. Much like Splendor, I think it works better as a turn-based Board Game Arena game.

With the threat of another potential lockdown, I took the opportunity to play some new 3 player games. Stella, the new Dixit spin-off was really nice. I’m amazed they can keep making new games with these cards, but this one is a stand out. I’m going to try it again with some friends for NYE this evening.

We also played Hibachi (formerly Safranito), a quirky dexterity game that I’m glad to have finally tried. It definitely deserves its cult status, but I’m not sure if it’s one for me, long term. It’s the age old question - does the Faff Thwart the Flicking Fun?

Actual Games

Dollars to Donuts is a tile-laying game from the designers behind Point Salad. It has you running a donut shop. It looks cute, and it sounds cute, but ist es gut?

To make the donuts you have to connect these long, thin tiles together, combining half donuts to create whole donuts. And that DONUT make any sense, but whatever.

What’s more surprising is this thematic leap has been made for an uninspiring puzzle. The placement of tiles feels messy, every time you will end up with more incomplete donut halves than finished whole ones - which is really disappointing to look at, and deeply unsatisfying. It betrays what we love about puzzle games - making everything fit perfectly. It’s made worse when your tiles start sticking off the edge of the board, which just feels wrong.

And it is really hard to look at your board and the tiles on offer and know what to take. Other tile-laying games like Patchwork or Cascadia are intuitive - it’s obvious what will fit and what won’t. In Dollars to Donuts, we kept needing to take tiles and see them on our board before we knew whether it was right. And even then it was a case of picking the tile that would make the least mess - we never felt excited by the tiles we got. And that’s just sad. Give this one a miss.

A Game of Thrones: B'Twixt is the opposite - a game that looks bad and sounds bad, but it turns out is…not bad. It’s a card game that borrows the “Between” from “Between Two Cities” and gives it a Game of Thronesy name - B’Twixt is to Between as Eddard is to Edward.

The B’Twixt being the shared space between two players. You don’t have your own player area, you share two councils with the players seated to your left and right. And you’re trying to fill those councils with influential characters from Game of Thrones.

Each round, a character will be up for grabs and you take it in turns to play cards from your hand to try and win the character, by having the highest influence value. Each card has a power that will manipulate proceedings, such as stealing another player’s card. So it’s all about timing: when to play certain cards, and when to bow out.

You win the game by having the most points in your weakest shared council, so you want a balance of strength among your two sides, and so do your allies. So often you’ll choose not to waste cards trying to win a character, if you think your ally will win it and put it in your shared council anyway.

B’Twixt will be divisive because it is chaotic. And you could class some of the cards as “take that”. But it is a predictable chaos. You learn quickly the cards other players could use against you, and you know to expect them. Plus, you seldom feel attacked yourself, because you are, after all, sharing your councils with another player.

And sometimes chaos is fun. In a light, quick paced card game, it’s fun to see characters switch allegiances, and try to swing things in your favour just at the last minute. I’ve really enjoyed being caught in that mosh pit, never knowing if I’ll rise to the top or get my head kicked in. It is definitely not for everyone, but it makes for a neat Game of Thrones vehicle. I just need to play it more to see if it can hold my interest long term.

Actually Resolved

This time last year I was trapped in an eternal lockdown, dreaming of all the wonderful things I would achieve when I was free. So I must go easy on past Jon and the demanding new year’s resolutions he expected of me. Nevertheless, I will try and answer him.

See last year’s newsletter for the full resolutions

1. I wanted to work with other people on the channel

Yes and no. I am proud of myself for taking the plunge and finding Bart to help me film videos, and the videos we made together. Unfortunately, the pledge drive hasn’t guaranteed it to be a regular thing, but I hope to hire him periodically for specific projects.

2. To make a more journalistic video

My focus changed a bit over the year, and I didn’t end up following the idea I had planned. But, I am proud of trying new things with the Board Game Sequels video, the history of classic games, and the festival video. As long as I keep trying new stuff and they’re as well received as those, I’ll be happy.

3. To make another song

I took my eye off making a song this year. But I plan to bring the wigs out again when I can find the right idea for them.

As for my personal resolutions, I won’t dignify them with a response!

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

• Stella
• Suspects
• Camel Up: Off Season

Games that have just arrived

• Machi Koro 2

Song of the Month - Seventeen Going Under - Sam Fender

Video of the Month - America’s Next Top Simp - Smosh

Now Watching - Around The World in 80 Days - BBC

“If you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you eh?” - (Love) Actually yours,

Jon