Pixelart Meeple

For some reason, I've been thinking a lot about when a not-insignificant portion of the board gaming internet showed their WHOLE DAMNED ASS about the fakir cards in Five Tribes.

Finally - FINALLY - recorded my first video for YouTube today.

It's a channel introduction for Pixelart Meeple. I don't yet know when I'll get it finished and uploaded, but I FINALLY actually *filmed* it, and for me that's a big step.

Hopefully it's the first of very, very many.

I'm particular about writing implements, too. I really like the reMarkable Marker Pro.

If you're interested, LAMY makes a compatible stylus based on their Al-Star fountain pen, and it's pretty fantastic. It's my daily driver now.

I'm surprised you found the paper-like screen protector too slippery. I have one on my Galaxy Tab, and I also own a reMarkable 2, and I find the screen protector actually has *more* friction than my reMarkable.

That said: The reMarkable is *awesome*, so I hope you enjoy using it. 😃

Today was a really good day for getting new board games!

Just a couple hours after Earth arrived, we got our copy of Slay the Spire!

The boxes for Earth the board game and expansions arrayed on a walnut gaming table in front of a large library of board games on an Ikea Kallax unit in the background. There are five boxes. In the center is the main game box. To the left is the box for the deluxe resources, and to the right is the smaller box for the Abundance expansion. In front of them are the two smaller boxes that contain the neoprene playmats for the game.

We got our pledge from the Earth + Abundance campaign today! Looking forward to playing this very soon.

A gaming table with a blue play surface, upon which is arrayed the initial setup for a game of Everdell Duo, flanked by two tulip glasses of Crux Brewing's Tough Love [Banished], a bourbon-barrel-aged imperial stout that clocks in at 14% ABV

My wife and I are about to start our first game of Everdell Duo, paired with pints of Crux Fermentation Project's Tough Love [Banished], a 14% ABV bourbon barrel aged imperial stout.

Doors are open, breeze is breezin', gulls are squakin'... doesn't get much better.

We also got a really great, and shockingly close, 5p game of Terraforming Mars in that night.

A full game of Everdell with the new oversized cards, laid out on a large walnut gaming table with a purple velvet play surface.

A full game of Everdell with the new oversized cards, laid out on a large walnut gaming table with a purple velvet play surface. Focused more on the 3D Evertree and Forest/Meadow area.

A close-up of the deluxe resources and resource bowls in the Everdell Collector's Edition.

Focus on a single player's final Tableau in a game of Everdell using the new tarot-sized cards. 18 cards in two offset rows laid out on a purple-velvet play surface.

Had an awesome board game night yesterday and got to play Everdell with the new oversized cards.

Yes, it's a space-hog, but it looks SO GOOD, and the bigger text on the cards is, IMO, an essential upgrade.

Why would you *not* send a Thank You for a Wonder Pick, you f**king monsters.

The boxes for both sets of Everdell Oversized Cards, replacement cards for the game that bump the cards up from standard size to tarot sized.

Everdell is already a space-hog, even on my enormous gaming table, so these are just going to make it worse.

But I DO. NOT. CARE.

Imma be playin' some giant-ass Everdell soon!

I - no shit - had this actual coversation with my psychiatrist this very afternoon.

😬😬😬

Another option: If you have a Daiso Japan anywhere near you, it's a fantastic place to find weird little containers like that. I used to buy stuff for board game bits there all the time.

All of this.

Also: If you've lost your ability to enjoy playing "simpler" games, you've lost something valuable. Go back and play some of those games and learn how to engage with them, because they're not "less than", they're just different.

It's a skill you'll appreciate developing.

My wife won both of these games, but ABSOLUTELY RINSED us all at SETI. She ended with a score of 223 and the next highest score was 156. Just ROCKED us.

Finspan is another great take on the Wingspan formula. It's interesting to me that it feels as though it has fewer individual mechanisms overall, but the way they interact with each other feels more complex. I'm not sure your average mainstream Wingspaner would grok it quite as quickly.

SETI has a very cool combination of mechanisms that feel surprisingly thematic for what is, ultimately, a point-salad Euro. The cards are all multi-use, a mechanism I really enjoy. I'm super happy with the solar-system rotation mechanism, finding it both interesting and consequential for gameplay.

A wide shot of the pre-game setup of the board game SETI. The solar-system dominates the center of the board, flanked by planets and technologies, and four player-boards are set up and ready to play, all on a purple velvet play surface.

A closer picture of the circular solar system board for the board game SETI. It comprises four layers - three of which rotate during gameplay to change the board state. The individual planets of our solar system are represented tobine side, with benefit spaces used during play, and the opposite side of the board houses each player's Publicity and sets of tech tiles they can use to augment their actiins.

A completed player board for Finspan. The board has three columns with six spaces each that can house fish cards during play. In this instance all but one space is covered by a fish card, anf many of those cards also have a small orange translucent rubber Egg token on them, as well as several wooden "school" tokens in the shape of three red cartoon fish.

A close-up of a Finspan card in play. In this case it's a "Blue Lanternfish", with a "school" token and an "egg" token placed on top.

Got a chance this weekend to play two new games: SETI and Finspan.

I really liked both of them! Sorry for the terrible pictures!

The card tray for Finspan. The deck has been sleeved, split in two, and placed in the wells designed to hold them.... and they don't fit. The two stacks of sleeved cards rise significantly higher than the card tray, so much that thry can't even be compressed enough to fit.

Oh, for fuck's sake, guys. What are we doin' here?

(I hope this doesn't come across as a complaint or blame; I'm just genuinely interested in the oddness of something like this.😊)

😆

It's so odd. You'd think this would've been caught during the creation process for the dies.

Hey, @stonemaiergames.com: How does this happen?

The Achievement Tiles in Finspan are cut *just slightly* different sizes:

Got our copy of Finspan from @stonemaiergames.com today!

This week, I begin filming videos I intend to put on YouTube.

As yet, I have no firm release date, but all the prep is finally coming together.

So, everyone. What are some of your favorite independent board game blog/review/news sites?

I'm not disagreeing. 😊 I just think this is very much the bus the Right will throw the USPS under in their ongoing drive to abolish it altogether.

USPS is stopping all parcels because T**mp instituted this change with zero grace period or warning, adding 3 million packages per day that now need to be inspected and catalogued for charges that were previously exempt, and USPS was not given time to hire staff or implement procedures.

Decided to delete my IG account early. Their algorithm was never going to show anyone my final post again without me doing work to repost and push it, and I don't feel like putting in the effort on that garbage platform anymore.

If you followed me over here: Thank you. Spread thr word, if you can.

As much as I wish my decision to leave Instagram was as easy as when I left Facebook and Twitter... it will be genuinely difficult to give up over 4,000 followers there. I'm starting from scratch.

My final post to Instagram is about Meta's evolving disdain for safety, inclusion, and humanity, and it *IMMEDIATELY* got a bunch of right-wing chuds yelling at me for my lefty weakness.

I love it when my decisions are immediately justified.