Playing Games Quickly So I Have More Time For Games (June 2021 Newsletter) (Patreon)

Hello all of you lovely people. June was a busy month for me. I had a few Rahdo games to cover, but I had to cover them all quickly because I needed to send the laptop that I use for those videos in to get repaired, and thus might not have it for about 2 weeks. Turns out they fixed it very quickly, but I didn't know that, so I just got ahead of schedule for NO GOOD REASON (I'm not mad, it's always good to get ahead of schedule)! Anyway, there are a couple Rahdo games I want to make sure to mention. First is the one above: Distilled. This is a game about distilling spirits, and as a former bartender, I really got a lot out of it. It's a fun economic game with a little bit of push your luck and just the right amount of silliness. You can age your liquors but you don't know exactly how that's going to turn out, so sometimes that produces good flavors like "smoky" or "vanilla" or "spicy," but you also might get flavors like "plastic" which, as you might imagine, don't work as well in a whisky. Anyway, that video isn't public yet, but if you want, you can check it out early here.

Another game I covered for Rahdo that's worth mentioning is Far Away. This is a 2 player coop game about exploring an alien world and completing mission objectives. It's got a quirky sense of humor that's reminiscent of Portal (at least to me), but what really makes it stand out is the alien NPC mechanics. You find alien creatures and they have attributes like "defensive," "herbivore," and "likes to be in big packs" as well as some flavor text, but there are no specific AI instructions. During the alien phase you're encouraged to follow the prompts in a way that makes sense to you based on the info they've provided, meaning that that flavor text is actually important in discerning their behavior. It's very interpretive and makes playing it feel like part TTRPG. The game isn't perfect, not by a long shot, but that style of gameplay is so intriguing that I really hope more games give it a try.

In non-work related gaming, I got to play Nova Luna again, which is an abstract game that I really love. It's all about connecting the right colored tiles to match collections listed on those same tiles, and it has a similar turn order system to Patchwork (makes sense, they're both by Uwe Rosenberg). It's a fairly simple game, but it's just so charming and I hadn't played it for like 2 years, so I'm glad it got to the table. If you get a chance, check it out.

I also got to try out Micro Macro, and while I don't have much to say that hasn't been said by No Pun Included or Shut Up and Sit Down, I think it's a lot of fun. The puzzles start off really easy but they quickly get more difficult, and on top of that, it's just a lot of fun to look at this giant map filled with so many characters and quirky little scenes. And one of the mysteries is about rival tennis players, which I appreciated. Oh, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but both of my parents taught tennis as I was growing up. It's not as much a part of my life these days, but it still feels like a pretty solid part of my identity.

In non-board game news, I watched Bo Burnham's Inside and it absolutely blew me away. I've always loved his work, but Bo presents such a poignant display of how the isolation from this Pandemic changes you, both physically and mentally. It's honestly something that I imagine I'll be showing my children 20 years from now when they ask about covid. I'll say "it wasn't exactly like this, but it was basically this." I can't recommend it enough, though I should also warn you that it gets very dark at times. A friend of mine reported going into a depressive episode of their own after watching it, though they also fully recommend it, so do with that what you will. Also, since watching it, every time I've uploaded a video I've been unconsciously singing the above line. 

The efforts to teach Carl how to play games continues, but he's having a little trouble holding cards without leaving teeth marks.