@theartofmadeline
One Nice Bug Per Day
if i look back, i am lost
d e v o n
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Jules of Nature
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Janaina Medeiros
occasionally subtle
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Origami Around
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Three Goblin Art
YOU ARE THE REASON
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@boardoflife
Matter as death magic
Mythology is the seed of technology. Humanity emerged from nature by dreaming of having power over the dream of nature. Our dreams of gods, our myths, are the avatar of our will, the author of our impulse to leverage nature into malleable matter. Matter is the primordial necromancy, the abstraction and annihilation of living nature, the object of our instincts, into unliving matter, the object ofâŚ
A Feast for Odin: The Pig Strategy
A Feast for Odin: The Pig Strategy
The Animal Strategies Chapter Four: The Sheep Strategy The Preamble As a game engine, pigs generate not only bones, meat, spice, herbs, and silver (and possibly wool given at least one sheep) from Livestock Market and weekly market action spaces, they generate more pig tiles free during animal breeding which can upgrade via Mountains and Trade to elk horns and tools. As mentioned in the SheepâŚ
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A Feast for Odin: The Horse Strategy
A Feast for Odin: The Horse Strategy
The Preamble As a game engine, horses can generate not only mead, flax, grain, silver, meat, and leather tiles by Livestock Market and weekly market action spaces, they generate more horse tiles free during animal breeding which can be upgraded on the mountain strips to leather and wadmal. That said, if youâre upgrading or slaughtering your horses, youâre likely playing the horse strategyâŚ
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A Feast for Odin: The Cattle Strategy
A Feast for Odin: The Animal StrategiesChapter Two: The Cattle StrategyThe PreambleThe CaveatsThe Action SpacesAppendix 1: Getting Your CowsAppendix 2: Occupation Cards That Enhance the Cattle Strategy A Feast for Odin: The Animal Strategies (This section also appeared in The Sheep Strategy.) In A Feast for Odin, swords and ships neither reproduce more swords and ships nor upgrade into tiles,âŚ
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A Feast for Odin: The Sheep Strategy
A Feast for Odin: The Sheep Strategy
In A Feast for Odin, swords and ships neither reproduce more swords and ships nor upgrade into tiles, and whaling meat doesnât breed, so it is somewhat surprising that raiding, pillaging, and whaling are the most popular tiling engines in the game, when animals not only make tiles in the weekly market, they make tiles for free in animal breeding phase that you can upgrade into the largestâŚ
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A Feast for Odin: Occupation Card Guide
A Feast for Odin: Occupation Card Guide
What follows is not a comprehensive guide to the 190 occupation cards in A Feast for Odin, but my play notes from using or choosing not to use the occupation cards I have drawn. With 114 plays of A Feast for Odin under my belt, I have probably seen most if not all of the cards, but I only started these notesâwhich originated as a Board Game Geek threadâ after I passed the 100 games mark, theâŚ
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Two-Player Strategy Guide #1: Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small
Two-Player Strategy Guide #1: Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small
 Introduction
With quarantining and/or social distancing limiting your choice of opponents, you may find it currently easier to get two player games to the table. If youâre finding this not only just as pleasurable and diverting, but in some ways, better than playing at higher player counts, there are many reasons for this. While an increasing player count shifts the focus of a board game toâŚ
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Feast for Odin: The Harvest Mini-Expansion (A Review)
Feast for Odin: The Harvest Mini-Expansion (AÂ Review)
Currently only available for 5 Euros overseas, in German online and brick and mortar stores, I canât think of another tabletop expansion that, euro for euro or dollar for dollar, brought as much innovation to a game as Feast for Odin: Harvest has.
Deceptively minimal and light, players will initially see Harvest as a kind of icing or accent on the game that they already love and have mastered,âŚ
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Feast for Odin: House of Bricks, A 192 Point Solo (no Emigration)
Feast for Odin: House of Bricks, A 192 Point Solo #Eurogame #boardgames #tabletop #sologames
Feast for Odin: House of Bricks, A 192 Point Solo (Norwegians; no Emigration; moderate Exploration; Risk and Pillaging-lite; Animal, Crafting, and Building heavy)
Due to my endgame picture, which shows a preponderance of longhouses and pigs (as well as other animals), my starting occupation card (Master Bricklayer), and artisan shed (The Hermitâs Hut, obviously named after someone who likes toâŚ
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Feast for Odin: Which Artisan Shed?
Feast for Odin: Which Artisan Shed?
The Prologue: Which Side Do I Pick?
Iâve wanted to do an analysis of the Artisan Sheds for some time, but with one already on Board Game Geek, I was waiting until I could contribute something not only useful but original.
Whatâs interesting to me is that often the sides you think are good arenât as good as their flip sides. For instance, while most glom on the Hermitâs Hut, thinking they canâŚ
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Feast for Odin: Go Big or Go Home
Feast for Odin: Go Big or Go Home Why the 3 and 4 Viking spots are better than conventional 1 and 2 Viking strategies. #tabletop #boardgames #eurogames
Conventional wisdom in Feast for Odin strategy is that 1V and 2V actions are better than 3V and 4V actions, while I have found precisely the reverse to be true.
This isnât because big actions speed up the game, although this is certainly true. No, itâs because 3V actions give you an occupation card, and 4V actions give you an occupation card play, and many occupation cards emulate the 1V and 2VâŚ
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Feast for Odin: Active and Passive Engines Some tips on engine building in #feastforodin #tabletop #boardgames #eurogames While many of Uwe Rosembergâs worker placement games have an engine building aspect, often in animal breeding and agricultural food engines, Feast for Odin includes numerous options for engine building, so many that you can see the game played several different ways at the same table.
New Novels Now Available on Amazon in Print and Kindle
New Novels Now Available on Amazon in Print and Kindle: Pretender's Reign, Savage Gardens, and Siege of the Shadow Worlds. Books I-III of The Chronicles of Alsantia. #kindle #kindlestoryteller #fiction #fantasy #writing #narnia
My new series, The Chronicles of Alsantia, comprised so far of Pretenderâs Reign, Savage Gardens, and Siege of the Shadow Worlds is now available on Amazon in print and digital.
The series begins in Pretenderâs Reign: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X2CGLF7
In the brownstone temple of The Mansion of the Shining Prince, Loren, Berangere, Lucien and Aito discover a mystery surrounding their cat, Oji,âŚ
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Feast for Odin: Fighting Over Three Viking Islands
Feast for Odin: Fighting Over Three Viking Islands
The first thing you will notice at this tier is that four of these islands are worth hefty points. If you let one player get both Cork and Waterford, they will, more often than not, win the game. Any two of the four 30+ point islands will give a player a large advantage in points. And if a player can get his hands on three of them, youâll see an obscenely high score. (In solo it is quiteâŚ
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Feast for Odin: Speculating in Two Viking Islands
Feast for Odin: Speculating in Two Viking Islands
Compared to the one Viking islands, which require a three Viking investment in round one (1V Mountain Strip, 1 V Whaling Boat, 1 V Exploration), the two Viking islands are a considerable investment of Viking-power, requiring at minimum five Vikings in the first round: 1V Mountain Strip, 2V Build Knarr, 2V Exploration. If youâre able to wait until round 3, you might be able to pay hacksilverâŚ
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 RePlay FX: The Razzle-Dazzle, The Splendor, and The Fringe
Of the fandom conventions in Pittsburgh, RePlay FX is fast becoming my favorite. While I may be biased, having attended since its inception, or since its rebranding as RePlay anyway (in years prior, it was Pinburgh, which still maintains an impressive presence), in its fifth year, the show has become a solid entertainment venue. While RePlay FX has always had razzle-dazzle, in the form of its constant arcade lightshow, and fleets of coin-op, console, and pinball games, in 2019, there were signs that the convention had become healthy and viable in ways other than its impressive spectacle and growing attendance, such as vendors flocking to the convention in larger numbers and greater variety, and convention-goers distributed throughout the entire show floor, enjoying all of what RePlay FX brings to the table.
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And outside the show floor as well. While the tabletop gaming has been relegated to the concourse since the early year of the convention, after Thursday this year, that spin-off rarely had open tables, so that when two of us sat down for a game of Splendor, we had to share a table with another game in session. While most of these board gamers had heads bowed over gateway games like Ticket to Ride and Catan, a few hip gamers threw down Horrified and a few other games getting good GenCon buzz. Families with children also use the concourse as a rest stop, taking a breather at the giant floor checkers, fussball tables, or eighties entertainment center, comprised of a mottled brown couch, NES, and coffee table strewn with vintage TV guides to complete its time travel effect.
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While cosplay remains minor at RePlay FX compared to Tekko or Steel City Con, there were a handful of Stormtroopers, Marios, and other enthusiastic cosplayers in attendance. That said, there were absolutely zero cosplays which I would call riveting, or even noteworthy. While interest in cosplay is usually a good gauge as to fandom participation in an event, I donât believe this is the case with RePlay FX. Despite the lack of cosplay and visible signs of fandom participation, RePlay FX 2019 was suffused throughout with a buzzing wave of enthusiasm. People were not only enjoying themselves, but chattering about it. As the demographic broadens a little, cosplay should become more dynamic.
If my eyes seem drawn to these fringe activities, theyâre a practical slide rule to gauge the growth and performance of the convention. As the arcade and pinball games have always been the hugest draw for RePlay FX, it should be no surprise that these areas continue to see substantial increase, given the steady interest, but with the âfringeâ areas having wait times, such as lines forming at vendors, and increasingly limited table space for board games, here we see RePlay FX threatening to break free of its current shape and become a local gaming megaconvention. Cosplay should become more popular as the fringe areas of the con develop. While I admit this optimistic prediction may be biased by my hope for great things from RePlay FX, my perceptions are also shaped not only by my experience with local cons, like Tekko, Wizard World Pittsburgh, and Steel City Con, but attendance of large cons, like San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, and Mega Con. If Iâm wishful in small part, I believe in large part that the outline of a much bigger event is visible in, and being shaped by, these current trends.
RePlay FX: The Soul and The Aura
If youâve never been to RePlay FX, you may wonder, âwhatâs the draw?â Perhaps youâve been to other gaming conventions, like a PAX or GenCon, and your standards are set by these other gaming fandom venues. Why should you come to RePlay FX?
While you canât go back in time to the magical moment you entered your first video arcade, RePlay FX will likely surpass that memory when you step into its alluring array of coin-op and pinball in a pixel-blasting spread of hundreds of games conjured from past decades and set to free play. Not only Asteroids, Tempest, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders, but countless obscurities and oddities, not to mention pinball machines with cool, mercurial, or downright arcane or diabolical designs that would not be out of place tatted on an arm or sprayed on the side of a cheesy van, but are nonetheless cutting edge after all this time. While you might still be mesmerized if the games were under stark light, the event designers set a perfect ambiance with its shadowy arcade cave lit by a colorful lightshow.
Not only the soul of RePlay FX, but its aura, this host of video games will keep you coming back year after year.
That said, let me take you through a sample first day.
Upon arriving at the David H Lawrence convention center, and having traversed a tunnel draped with RePlay FXâs vinyl banner, you ascend the escalator to registrationâwhich has a steady dozen or so in line on Saturday, a small line on Friday or Sunday, and no line on Thursday (for now, still the best day for skipping crowds and lines)âbuy a shirt if youâre so inclined, glance at the fussball tables, huge plastic checker set, and tabletop gaming, then plunge into Hall A, skipping past all these wooden and plastic analog entertainments in your rush for full-on Pac-Man Fever and the fistful of pixels you came for, and after homicidal driving in Crazy Taxi, you hop into pizza-crunching, sidescrolling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; blast Asteroids into bits; dodge waves of Dalek pinballs authentically voiced by Nicholas Briggs; embrace the accelerating tedium of Space Invaders for one level only; find that game you always got extra mileage on as a kid, and let a line dawdle behind you; then remember why you ever loved Centipede when your eight year old canât walk past one without playing it.
Conclusion
RePlay FX did such an incredible job cramming Hall A with buzzers, blinkers, bumpers, tempests, pac-men, defenders, and asteroids that I had a hard time remembering that this was not the largest con at the David H Lawrence convention center this year. That honor would go to Tekko, who takes over several halls, not only on the second floor but the third floor. Despite that, RePlay FX felt like the bigger con this year, using nearly every inch of Hall A, until it became like a dragonâs lair, hoarded with glints, gleams, and sinister noises, a destination worthy of an epic quest for a four day cache of digital loot.
In terms of vision, RePlay FX is just as big and grandiose as the PAXes and those other gaming cons youâve heard of and dreamed of going toâand if, in terms of size, it hasnât yet achieved it, well, RePlay is only in its fifth year.
Cross-posted on NerdSpan.
RePlay FX 2019:Â Review RePlay FX: The Razzle-Dazzle, The Splendor, and The Fringe Of the fandom conventions in Pittsburgh, RePlay FX is fast becoming my favorite.
Disenchantment with Elegant Games
As Iâve been working on a ranking for the games I own as a future post, Iâve begun to see a trend emerge. Carcassonne has slipped even further down. Splendor has fallen, one of my previous 10s on BoardGameGeek.
It really isnât surprising. I mean, Iâve always preferred The Rolling Stones to the Beatles. When I was younger, I liked T. S. Eliot and Mozart, but Iâve moved on to Charles Dickens andâŚ
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