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Highway to Halloween: Lowe's Haunted Living 15-Foot Animated Skeleton Watcher

It's Summerween! It's that time of year when the days are long, and Halloween comes early for all the spooky girls and boys. Lowe's has already debuted part of their Halloween lineup for the year, and they've got a real giant of an animatronic this time around: the 15-foot (!) Animated Skeleton Watcher. They sent me one to help you decide if you want to have this giant welcoming trick or treaters to your homes. What Is the Lowe's Haunted Living 15-Foot Animated Skeleton Watcher? The Animated Skeleton Watcher is a 15-foot tall, motion activated prop designed to be outdoors. It retails for $429, and can be purchase on the Lowe's website or from a Lowe's store. Here are the features: - WATCH OUT—the towering, headless 15-FT ANIMATED WATCHER™ holds his severed skull high, scanning the scene with LED eyes blazing like a watchtower beacon sweeping across your haunt! - Turning eerily from side to side, the 15-FT ANIMATED WATCHER™ commands attention with chilling phrases, spooky sounds, and sweeping LED eyes that keep your haunt under constant surveillance! - Outdoor-rated and frightfully strong, this easy-to-assemble, sound, motion, or footpad/button (sold separately) activated giant stands tall with a sturdy metal frame, super-bright LED lights, external speaker capable (not included), and powered by 5.9V 3A DC adapter (included)! Assembling the 15-Foot Animated Skeleton Watcher Opening up the 74-lb box, you'll find the contents neatly organized, with many parts protected by bubble wrap. If you're intending to store it in the box later, I always recommend taking multiple photos as you remove parts, so you're able to fit everything back inside at the end of the spooky season. The assembly of the Animated Skeleton Watcher is pretty straightforward, especially if you've built a giant before. You always start at the base, and then build up: Something that I found interesting about the build is that there are several metal rings that you'll use during construction to help bulk out the legs and the chest. They're easy to insert, and lock in with the use of cotter pins. There are also several thumbscrews included, to help secure the poles together. The poles are already pretty securely connected without them, so they're just an added measure. Once the legs are attached, it's time to lay down the prop and continue the build. You use the Skeleton Watcher's box to keep the prop at a workable angle. The next step is to pull the clothes down over the legs, then attach the waist frame.  After you get the waistframe attached, you're going to run a metal tension wire from that frame down to the base, where it will connect with a turnbuckle wire tensioner. At first when I was assembling, it seemed like the tension wire wasn't long enough. I realized that I had to significantly loosen the turnbuckle to be able to secure the wire. Don't worry about that, as you'll tighten it all up later in the assembly. Next up is attaching the shoulder frame, and an additional metal loop for the chest. At this point in the build, you'll connect several wires to the ones coming out of the control box. One wire comes down from the shoulder frame, and you snake it down inside of the frame to connect it. Another is from the sensor located on the front of the prop's pants. You can also easily access the control panel from a velcro opening in the side of the left leg. The final part of the build recommends that you use three people, and I will definitely say from experience that this is a good recommendation. After pulling up the clothes and closing the shirt and overalls with velcro, you'll attach the arms to the shoulder frame, then the head to the arms, and finally the hands to the arms. There are also wires that you'll connect from the left arm to the skull. Once that's done, you'll want to use those three same people to walk the Animated Skeleton Watcher upright. Once he's up, you'll adjust the tension in the turnbuckle wire tensioner, so that the skeleton isn't leaning. Once you've got the Animated Skeleton Watcher up, the next step is making sure he's stable. That means inserting the metal base supports, and running the tether lines from the waistframe down to the included ground stakes. The tether lines run out through grommets in the back of the Skeleton Watcher's shirt. I really appreciated the clips that are on the tether lines, which allow you to loop a line through the top of the stake and then clip it back onto the tether line. This gives you good tension in each line, no matter how close or far away you've placed the stakes. After that, all that's left is to plug the Animated Skeleton Watcher in and see him go! The Skeleton Watcher is plenty imposing in the day with his 15-ft height, but it's at night where he'll really shine (no pun intended). He has multiple phrases, as you can see here: And here: The Lowe's Haunted Living 15-ft Animated Skeleton Watcher - Final Thoughts I'll be honest, when I first saw photos of a giant skeleton in overalls clutching his head, I wasn't very impressed. This is supposed to be scary? But my opinion changed upon putting the Skeleton Watcher together and seeing him in action. With that 15-ft height, this is an incredibly imposing prop. We assembled him in our neighbor's backyard, and then took this photo from a second-story window in our house: Three things really sell the Animated Skeleton Watcher as a creepy masterpiece. The first one is the height. The second is the voice and sound effects, which if you haven't heard already, go back and watch those videos right now! And third? The eyes. Those bright LEDs are spotlights, which sweep the area in the dark, searching for souls. I was definitely hoping they'd be that bright, and I wasn't disappointed. Here's a look at the lights falling on a wall: If you're looking for a standout, scary prop for Halloween that will really stand out, then the Animated Skeleton Watcher could be just what you're looking for. It's sure to make an impression on everyone that sees it in action, and will especially fit in well if you have some of those animal skeleton props that have become popular in recent years. I've consistently been impressed with Lowe's giant animatronics. They're easy to assemble and look and sound great, and have never failed to draw a crowd, and the Animated Skeleton Watcher is no exception. For more information or to make a purchase, head to Lowe's website or your local Lowe's store. Lowe's sent a unit for evaluation but had no input into this review.   Read the full article

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Click That Brick! Lumibricks Neon Tech Tower and Neon Tech Station

Lumibricks is certainly keeping busy with their 2026 release schedule! Hot on the heels of the Cyberpunk Police HQ and Police Urban Convoy that I reviewed back in May, they have two new Cyberpunk Neoncity releases: The Neon Tech Tower and the Neon Tech Station. These sets are not only designed to fit thematically into the growing Neoncity line, but they've also been made to connect directly together easily. Let's take a look at each set, and how they work with each other. Lumibricks Cyberpunk Neoncity Neon Tech Tower The Neon Tech Tower is a 2,227-piece set from Lumibricks that includes 5 minifigures and 27 light points. When completed, the building measures 10.24" x 10.24" x 18.5". It retails for $149.99, and can be purchased directly from Lumibricks, or from the Lumibricks store on Amazon. There are 13 brick bags, as well as two instruction books, and a box containing the lights and tools for the set. As is usual for Lumibricks sets, there are no stickers, instead having 40 screen printed bricks. There are also two acrylic panels and a flowing light strip. If you've seen my other Lumibricks reviews, the light kit will look pretty familiar. There’s a power brick, a couple of bags of lights, a USB cord, tweezers, and a small Phillips screwdriver. The power brick operates on AA batteries, which are not included. Lumibricks suggests testing out all of the lights before starting assembly (though I have yet to have any non-working lights). Lumibricks Cyberpunk Neoncity Neon Tech Tower - The Minifigures There are 5 minifigures included, a good amount for a set this size. These are, from left to right in the image below: Nyx the hacker; Violet, residential district citizen; Argus, data researcher; Elias Kade, corporate controller; and Manson Holt, technical engineer. The instructions for building all of the minifigures comes before the assembly of the building. Assembling the Neon Tech Tower There are four primary sections to the tower, with the assembly being spread out over 13 steps in the two instruction manuals.  Information Collection Hall The hall is essentially the ground floor of the tower.   Here's a look at the completed Information Collection Hall: In this stage of the assembly, you'll also put together a humanoid robot that can be placed in his charging station inside the building, or displayed outside. As this stage also has you connecting the battery pack, I figured it was a good idea to do a light check before moving on: Data Storage Center The next level of the tower is the Data Storage Center. The data center core is removable, and slides into the tower. Data Analysis Lab The third level is the Data Analysis Lab. As with the data center, the data analysis lab slots into the tower. CEO Office and Final Details The last part of assembly is the CEO Office at the top floor, and the removable walls that will complete the tower. Here's a look at the CEO's office, which slots into the top of the tower: And here's the completed tower: The completed tower, lit: Lumibricks Cyberpunk Neoncity Neon Tech Station That's just the first building. Lumibricks also sent me the Neon Tech Station, designed as a companion to the Neon Tech Tower. The Lumibricks Neon Tech Station, at 1,282 pieces, is a much smaller set than the Tech Tower. It comes with 2 minifigures, and 13 light points. When completed, it measures 8.86" x 7.56" x 14.17". With its smaller size comes a smaller price, as it costs $74.99, and is available on the Lumibricks website or on the Lumibricks store on Amazon. With the lower brick count, there are only 10 bags, along with one instruction book. With less lights, there is also less power consumption, so the battery box runs on AAA batteries instead of the AA that light the Tech Tower. Lumibricks Cyberpunk Neoncity Neon Tech Station- The Minifigures As opposed to the 5 minifigures from the Neon Tech Tower, these two figures don't even get names. It's just alluded to that they help prevent cybercrimes. Assembling the Neon Tech Station The reduced brick count results in a much faster build.  The majority of the detail for this building is on the exterior, with only the Computation Monitoring Room removable for play. The last bag also comes with a tri-wheeled robot. Here's what the completed station looks like: And here's what it looks like lit up: Connecting the Neon Tech Tower and the Neon Tech Station Connecting the two sets together is a simple 2-part process. First, a decorative vertical piece from the Neon Tech Tower will get removed from that set's base, and will connect horizontally to form a bridge between the two sets. Second, there are power terminals at the bases of both sets. When placing the sets base to base, the terminals will touch, allowing you to power both sets with just the battery pack from the larger Neon Tech Tower. Here's what the two buildings look like from the back, connected at the bases and with the bridge linking the pair: And here's what it looks like from the front, with the lights turned on. As I mentioned, you only have to flip the switch on the larger building's power supply in order to light up both buildings. Lumibricks Neon Tech Tower and Neon Tech Station - Final Thoughts I really like the designs for these two sets. They very much feel like they come right out of the business sector of Lumibricks' Neoncity line. They have a much more industrial feel than some of their earlier cyberpunk sets, but still share those brighter lights that make them at home with the entire line. Assembly-wise, both sets were easy enough to put together, but require careful attention to the illustrations, especially when dealing with the lights. I had to do a partial teardown of the Neon Tech Station halfway through, because it turned out that I'd accidentally placed a power terminal in the reverse of the position it showed in the instruction book. Thankfully, it only required me to take apart a couple of sub assemblies to fix the problem, but could have been much worse had I not tested out the lights midway through the build. Otherwise, the only difficulty I had while assembling both sets was something that, on paper, looked like it should have been no trouble at all: the two poles in the photo below. It's a little tricky because you can't push the poles completely into their connecting pieces, otherwise they're not long enough to attach them to the holders on the wall. However, if you pull out the poles too much, then the connecting pieces fall off. It took me a few frustrating moments to get it just right. That issue aside, both sets were a lot of fun to put together. Both the Neon Tech Tower and the Neon Tech Station used some very interesting building techniques, and the end result speaks for itself. The Tech Tower has a lot more areas to pull out and play with than the Tech Station, but that's also to be expected as it's half the price of the larger set. These are a couple of very attractive, futuristic buildings that look fantastic both together and separately, and will be a great addition to a growing Cyberpunk Neoncity. For more information or to make a purchase, head to the Lumibricks website. Lumibricks sent these sets for evaluation, but had no input into the review. As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission on qualified purchases. Read the full article

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'Splatoon Raiders' Is Pure Gold

Even with massive recent releases like Pokémon Pokopia and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, this week's new arrival, the Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive Splatoon Raiders, still deserves to be in the conversation for game of the year. It takes everything you love about the quirky squid-based shooter, wraps it in a tight and satisfying single-player narrative, then turns the entire affair up to 11. You take on the role of the Mechanic, an Inkling or Octoling that you can customize to your liking, who joins the members of Splatoon 3's host band, Deep Cut, as they plumb the depths of the mysterious Spirhalite Islands. Promising treasure and adventure, the island chain also offers up ample natural resources like Spirhalite Crystals and Salmonid Power Eggs. Oh, did I forget to mention the Salmonids? Yeah, this place is lousy with them!

The Salivator is not to be trifled with. image: NOA From Lesser and Boss Salmonids you might recognize from previous Splatoon entries to Raiders' own Seasoned variants and even a handful of super-sized Mythic Salmonids, the game throws wave after wave of slimy foes at you as you work toward that next goal or waypoint. Of course, since this is Splatoon we're talking about, you're not exactly defenseless against this onslaught. You'll start things off with a fairly basic weapon, but you'll quickly begin amassing quite an arsenal dropped by splatted enemies. Weapons each have a level, representing base damage, as well as a star rating. The more stars, the more likely a weapon is to have special characteristics, things like speed or damage increases or properties allowing enemies to become Scorched or Frozen.

Upgrading all three tanks at once is a great way to maintain balance. image: NOA Despite Splatoon Raiders' single-player slant, you aren't forced to go it alone. A member of Deep Cut will accompany you as your Bot Buddy, piloting the heavily armored, drill-equipped Exploration Bot. Collecting Power Eggs fills a special Showstopper meter. With the gauge full, your Bot Buddy can unleash a powerful attack to punish big bads or easily eliminate scores of lesser enemies. Still, as impressive as it is, that's not the only thing the Exploration Bot has to offer. Your Bot Buddy will attack enemies independently, but you can easily call them close to help you out in a jam or just to give you a little jump boost as you investigate the terrain. The biggest addition Raiders provides to the Splatoon universe is its tank system. The Speed, Power, and Tactical Tanks represent purpose-built devices for different styles of gameplay. Whether your plan is to outrun, outgun, or simply outclass the Salmonid army, there's a tank for that.

The Booyarang is a versatile gadget. image: NOA Like your character himself, these tanks can be leveled up through gameplay, making them all the more formidable. Most importantly, each tank has attachment points for specialty Gadgets. Replacing the sub-weapons of old, gadgets support each tank's gameplay style, from the Power Tank's crushing Meteor Mitt to the Speed Tank's gravity-defying Flywire. The Mechanic's Tinker ability allows him to equip newly discovered parts to said Gadgets, customizing them to your liking, and later in the game, Shiver can even help you develop parts of your own. Fret not, Deep Cut fans, for Frye provides a similar service on the weapons front while Big Man manages your Hoard, a veritable treasure trove of… well, treasure, including Salmonid research, Briny Scrolls filled with off-the-wall lore, and your Relic Collection. These shimmering relics do more than just bump up your collection's value; they also unlock unique powers that can be equipped to your tank to provide more game-changing buffs. Some relics are tied to specific tanks, but several (including many of the most powerful) can be equipped to any tank.

Some relics are more useful than others, but they all provide interesting buffs. image: NOA From the relative safety of your Hideout Ship, a central hub that grows and changes as the Mechanic gathers more and better supplies, you'll launch routine raids on various island locations using your Treasure Map. Some focus squarely on the hunt for relics, while others have you powering up the Exploration Bot to mine massive crystals, and others still have you exploring dangerous Salmonid dens in search of Spirhalite Gems. There are also optional Sampler Dungeons, hidden mini-challenge missions that swap out your current equipment for specific tank, weapon, or gadget combos. Successfully navigate the challenge to discover the skill tomes needed to upgrade your tanks. As you blast your way through each of these challenges, leveling up and learning more about your allies along the way, you'll simultaneously uncover another delightfully strange Splatoon universe story. Unsurprisingly, this one focuses largely on the secrets of the Spirhalite Islands and its Salmonid inhabitants. Taken together, it’s a little bit Legend of Zelda, a little bit cosmic horror, and a whole lot of post-apocalyptic Inkling charm. From start to finish (and beyond), Splatoon Raiders rewards the player for the simple act of playing. Whether or not your raid was successful, you'll still arrive back at your home base with all your salvage, experience, and crystals intact. Have fun, cause chaos, splat some Salmonids, and if you fail? Just try again!

Shiver's Shark Bite Showstopper is genuinely terrifying. image: NOA If you get really stuck, you can even call for help, allowing players online to come in for the assist so that you can complete that particularly troublesome raid. You can also make yourself available to be others' knight in shining armor, using your freshest, fiercest gear in the service of others. A game of squids and kids that's not afraid to ramp up the difficulty (or to hit you with the occasional truly haunting visual) and a solo shooter with robust multiplayer support, Splatoon Raiders is a game that could certainly be accused of doing too much. Yet, somehow, it manages to execute it all flawlessly. Available this Thursday, July 23, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2, this one is a must-buy that's sure to please! And should a particularly devious dungeon get the better of you in Splatoon Raiders, just send out the call for assistance, and I'll come running. Review and promotional materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. Surely the real treasure is the friends we made along the way.

[geekdadblog]

Stack Overflow: Recent Reads

Because of some travel this week, I'm a little short on time so this week's stack is shorter than usual (and I probably won't have a column next week at all). This week includes a few books I haven't finished yet but wanted to share because they seemed timely for various reasons.

Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett

Mac Barnett is a children's book author, and this year he became the U.S. National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. I've written about many of his books in the past: the Brixton Brothers kid-detective series, the Terrible Two series, Mac. B, Kid Spy (featuring Mac himself as a kid, spying on behalf of the Queen of England), plus many picture books back when my kids were small and their books were big. (I try not to say that my kids have "outgrown" picture books because I think there's still a joy to them and we still maintain a large collection of them even if my kids aren't reading them regularly these days. They're there for them to return to whenever they want. And my kids know that I still read a lot of kids' fiction on a regular basis, not just because I'm reviewing them, but because they're something I want to read and share with people.) Barnett's books tend toward the silly and absurd and were always delightful to read out loud—the hardest part was keeping a straight face. Make Believe is actually his first book for adults, and it's about kids' books. In this collection of essays (complete with often silly footnotes), he makes the case that adults should care more and talk more about kids' books, because adults are almost entirely in control over what stories end up in front of kids. Kids, in general, are not the ones writing, illustrating, publishing, selling, buying, or selecting the books for which they are the primary audience. Kids' books often carry the weight of needing to be educational or otherwise helping to "improve" kids rather than just entertaining them. They're also lumped into one genre, despite the fact that they are as diverse as adult books: non-fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, humor, and more. Apparently Barnett did catch some flak for one particular line in the book, in which he riff's off Sturgeon's Law (or Revelation—see the footnotes) and says that "94.7 of children's books are crud." That's not a great way to win friends in the children's book industry, for sure—but while the number cited is meant to be an exaggeration and is based on Sturgeon's 90 percent figure, he does make a good case for why there are so many bad children's books out there, and suggests that a lot of it is due to the way that we don't trust kids to know what they like or want or need. (I might note that, with the proliferation of AI-generated picture books showing up these days, that 94.7 percent might end up being an undercount within the next few years if we can't head it off.) At any rate, this is a short book—I read it almost in a single sitting—but it has some really great thoughts on children's books, and it's also very funny. If you love books and you love kids (or especially if you somehow work in children's books despite not loving books and/or kids), I think it's worth a read!

A Pox on Fools by Thomas Levenson

Hey, so have you heard about the diarrhea parasite? It took a long time for the CDC to track down the source of cyclospora to iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, which led to the biggest outbreak in the US since it was tracked in the mid-'90s. In part, that's because the current administration saw fit to gut the CDC, including the departments that track things like this specific parasite. (It has also come out that Taylor Farms donated a huge amount of money to a super PAC that lobbied against food safety traceability, delaying a law that was initially slated to go into effect this January.) A Pox on Fools isn't about cyclospora, but this current news cycle is very much in line with the topic of this book: the rejection of vaccines and the path that led us here. I've only read the first couple chapters so far, but Levenson digs into the claims made by RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement, comparing them to objections made about vaccines when they were first being developed. He explains what's wrong with these arguments, but also shows how this current wave of vaccine skepticism is not making American healthy again, but is instead leading us toward increased health risks and away from the tools that we can use to combat them. I'll report back in more depth when I've finished the book, but for now I'll just caution that this book will probably make you mad—I mean, more than you already are.

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

I read Persepolis over a decade ago, and I've had this 20th anniversary edition on my shelf for a few years now. After Satrapi's passing at the beginning of June, I thought it was time for a re-read. It's a window into Iran during a specific time period, but as Satrapi wrote in the new foreword, it's also surprising how much has not changed in the intervening years. (Or rather, that things change, and then revert, and then change again.) Satrapi was herself a controversial figure—her death resulted in both a lot of praise and a lot of condemnation from different quarters—and I wanted to go back to re-read her book to see what sort of an impression I'd have this time around.

My Current Stack

Currently I've started reading A Crime Through Time by Amelia Blackwell, in which Georgiana Darcy (yes, from Pride & Prejudice) finds herself transported to 1999 and attempts to solve a murder. I have to admit that I don't know Pride & Prejudice well so a lot of the references are probably wasted on me, but I am enjoying the fish-out-of-water time travel portion of it, at least.

[geekdadblog]

'FlipToons' Is Back with Season 2

FlipToons is back for a second season, with all new characters! Note: Since the gameplay is largely the same as the first season, the components and how-to-play section of this review are mostly a repeat of my review of the original FlipToons, with some additions about changes to the new season.

What Is FlipToons: Season 2?

FlipToons: Season 2 is a deck-building game for 1 to 4* players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 15–30 minutes to play. It retails for $19.95 and will be released at Gen Con 2026, with pre-orders open now that will ship before August. The game is a mix of deck-building and auto-battler (more on that below), and is pretty easy to learn, so the game is family-friendly but isn't just for kids. * While you do not need the original FlipToons to play this, there are rules to combine the two sets to accommodate up to 8 players. FlipToons: Season 2 was designed by Jordy Adan and Renato Simões and published by Thunderworks Games, with illustrations by Diego Sá.

FlipToons 2 components. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu

FlipToons: Season 2 Components

Just like the first season, FlipToons: Season 2 is entirely cards: - 24 Starting cards (6 per player) - 4 Fame cards - 4 Reference cards - First Player card - Critic's Choice card - 53 Toon cards - 5 Price cards

A selection of the toon cards. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The bulk of the cards in the game are toon cards, done in the old rubber-hose style and depicting various animals. Each card has a rank and indicates how many are in the deck. Below that is a fame amount, and often some additional card effects. For the most part, the card effects are pretty easy to understand, but there is a section in the rulebook that provides further details about specific animal abilities. The fame cards are a simple double-sided chart, two columns per side, numbered 1 to 40. The player reference card has a turn order on one side and an icon glossary on the other, but also includes an arrow at the top of the card—you use it with the fame card to indicate your current fame each round. Other cards are pretty self-explanatory: price cards just have a big number on them from 3 to 15 indicating the price of a card in the market, and there's also a first player marker and a Critic's Choice card that shows a "+3" on it. If you order FlipToons from Thunderworks Games, you'll also get the Big Button mini-expansion, which comes with 4 Big Button cards and 2 Platypus cards—I'll explain how that works at the end of the "How to Play" section. My preview set did not include this mini-expansion, so it isn't pictured here. The whole thing comes in a box with a small footprint, just big enough to hold two decks of cards side-by-side, with a little extra room in case you sleeve cards. I usually associate deck-building games with big boxes and hundreds of cards, so it's always fun to see something like this that's very compact.

How to Play FlipToons: Season 2

You can download a copy of the rulebook here. The Goal The goal of the game is to score the most fame in the Final Flip, which happens after any player reaches at least 30 fame.

Starting setup. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Setup Lay out the price cards in order. Shuffle the toon cards and reveal five cards below the price cards for the market—arrange them from lowest to highest rank so the lowest rank card costs 3 and the highest rank card costs 15. Set the Critic's Choice card nearby. Give each player a set of 6 starting cards, as well as a fame card and a reference card. The player who most recently watched a cartoon takes the first player card. Gameplay Each round has four phases: Flip, Check Fame, Market, and Cleanup.

Your initial flip isn't very exciting... Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Flip: The flip phase is done simultaneously by everyone. Shuffle all of your cards, and then play them out face-up in a grid: two rows of three cards each. Some cards have abilities that are triggered immediately when played, though none of the starting cards do. These could result in more than 6 cards being played. Once you complete the grid, you stop flipping cards even if you have cards left over. If you run out of cards before you fill your grid, you just stop. During this phase of the game, you don't make any choices—you just play the cards in the order they come up. Check Fame: Everyone checks fame simultaneously. Add up all of the fame shown on all of your face-up cards. Some card abilities will let you stack cards—all face-up cards count, even if they have other cards stacked on them. Mark your fame using your reference card and the fame card. If anyone generated at least 30 fame, the player with the most fame this round takes the Critic's Choice card, and the next round will be the Final Flip. Market: In turn order, each player gets two market actions, which can be used to hire or dismiss toons. To hire a toon, pay the fame cost shown above that card in the market. To dismiss a toon from your grid, pay 5 fame and then place it in your own personal "dismissed" cards pile. (You may only dismiss face-up cards in your grid; cards that have been turned face-down or that are still in your deck cannot be dismissed.) Note that unspent fame does not carry over to the next turn, so use it or lose it! After both of your market actions, refill the market if needed, making sure to arrange all the toons by rank order. Cleanup: Collect all the cards in your grid and add them to your deck, and reshuffle your entire deck. (In a 2-player game, you also discard the leftmost and rightmost cards in the market and refill.) If nobody reached 30 fame this round, pass the first player card clockwise and start a new round.

I reached 34 fame this turn! That triggers the end game, and gave me the Critic's Choice bonus. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Game End When a player has achieved at least 30 fame, the next round will be the Final Flip. The Critic's Choice card, which is given to the player who had the highest fame during the round, is worth +3 fame in the Final Flip. The player who earns the most fame during the Final Flip wins! In case of a tie, tied players collect all their cards and flip again. Continue until there is a winner! Big Button 2 Expansion If you order FlipToons from Thunderworks Games, you'll get the Big Button 2 expansion included for free. During setup, give each player a Big Button card, and shuffle the 2 Platypus cards into the toon deck. Once during the game, you may push your Big Button (flipping it over to the broken side) to refresh the market. Shuffle your grid back into your deck and flip again. The Platypus is a Rank 26 card (the highest so far) worth 5 fame; when you hire it, everyone immediately resets their Big Button if it has already been used. The Platypus is worth 3 bonus fame if your Big Button is face-down.

Combining the two seasons gives you an extra-large market. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Combining Seasons If you have both sets of FlipToons, you can combine the two, and then play with up to 8 players at once. For the market, you'll use the price cards from the first set, plus the 3 and 15 from Season 2. If you have four or fewer players, flipping these two over so the little "X" is seen at the bottom. All of the toon cards are shuffled together into one big stack, and you still lay out the market as before, ordered by rank. Since it's possible that you'll have different cards with the same rank (like the Crow and Rooster in the photo), the more recently drawn card goes further to the right. Each player gets one starting set of cards (don't mix and match these!), and gameplay proceeds as normal. The one other change is that during cleanup, if you have four or fewer players, the first card and last card in the market (below the "X" price cards) are both discarded and refilled. The Season 2 cards have a very tiny "2" in the bottom right corner for sorting purposes.

FlipToons is GeekDad Approved!

Why You Should Play FlipToons: Season 2

FlipToons: Season 2 was announced at the beginning of July, and will get its official release at Gen Con. As with the original, I got an early media copy and I've already played it a bunch, and I'm enjoying it as much as I did the first. It's a quick, snappy game that takes a popular game mechanic—deck-building—and combines it with one that may not be as well-known: auto battler. Auto battlers are games in which you make some decisions about how things are set up, but then there's a portion of the game that just plays out on its own. Challengers! is another example of a favorite game that uses a similar mechanic—you add cards to your team, but when it comes time to play a match against another player, you both just play out your cards in order. There are 25 different animals represented in the toon deck, and I like the variety of powers, which can make for some cool combos. There are a couple that will flip other cards face-down, nullifying them, but they usually provide a lot of fame themselves. In Season 2, there are several fish cards (seen in my gameplay photo earlier) that tend to flip other cards face-down—but they're immune to being flipped themselves, making for a powerful combo if you can collect them all.

Some cards stack or otherwise make it possible to play more than 6 cards into your grid. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Some cards can stack on top of face-down cards (and each other), giving you several cards' worth of fame in a single grid slot, and the Gorilla seen above lets you play the next card in a separate third row, giving you even more cards in your grid. The Capybara and Hippo both give you bonus fame based on cards remaining in your deck, which encourages you to hire more than you fire—but that also makes it harder to make sure your best cards actually get played into the grid.

Love a bloated deck? The Capybara and Hippo are for you! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The cards are always arranged by rank in the market, so that the weakest card is cheapest and the most powerful card is the most expensive—but that does mean the specific price of any given card is not set. If you're lucky, the market is full of high-ranked cards, and you could get a rank 20 card for only 3 fame. If you're unlucky, you might end up being unable to afford even a rank 8 because it has been bumped up to the higher prices.

Some cards have effects that trigger when you hire or fire them. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Dismissing a toon always costs 5 fame, so that's always an option if there isn't anything in the market that you want. And as with many other deck-building games, it also matters what you get rid of. If you hire a bunch of cards but don't dismiss anything, then your fame levels can vary wildly from round to round, particularly if you're only drawing a small portion of your total deck. And, of course, your starting cards are typically weaker and won't provide as much fame or powerful effects compared to cards you can hire from the market.

If you love chaos, you'll want to look for these critters. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The new season provides a lot of fun new animals and abilities. Some of them are similar to the first season, but just tweaked in different ways, and overall the set injects some novelty into the game. If you like a bit of unpredictability, there are some cards that will randomly dismiss other cards (or even themselves). Even the starting set of cards has been changed, with cards that gain extra fame based on their positions in the grid, or the Firefly that gives you a small fame bump if you're in last.

The "return" effect is new to Season 2. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The one brand-new card effect is "return": returning a card means it goes back to the bottom of your deck, so if you have a lot of cards then it may not get played this turn. Most of the return cards help you get to your more powerful cards, but the crab is just picky and will only stay if it's on one of the sides of your grid. Combining the two games is fun in theory but does make for some wacky outcomes. Both sets have some cards that combo well, and there are certainly cross-set combos, but there are others that may get diluted—for instance, some of the fish cards in Season 2 score based on other fish in your grid, so those aren't strictly equivalent to the Season 1 cards that can't get flipped. As far as adding more players—I do appreciate that I can occasionally play with more than just 4 players, but I think if I had 7 or 8 people I'd personally recommend playing two separate games of FlipToons. Although the flipping portion is simultaneous, the market is in turn order, and with a bigger market, I could see a lot more opportunities for analysis paralysis, and I imagine the game would easily run more than twice as long. One of the things I love about FlipToons is how snappy it is, and I fear that you'd lose a bit of that at the high player counts. I gave the first FlipToons our GeekDad Approved seal because I felt it was a fantastic game, fitting a quick deck-building experience into a small box. FlipToons: Season 2 is a terrific sequel that lives up to the original—a good intro to deck-building for new players but still satisfying for experienced players who love to optimize their decks. Chasing after that perfect flip is so much fun—especially when you actually achieve it! Visit the Thunderworks Games website to pre-order a copy of FlipToons: Season 2! Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.

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Crowdfunding Quick Pick: A Peek Inside 'Bullet Cubed'

Earlier this month, Level 99 Games launched a Gamefound campaign for Bullet Galaxy, two new expansions to their Bullet game series, and the campaign includes tiers to get the base game, the expansion content, or even an all-in with everything included. I've mentioned some of the earlier Bullet campaigns in my crowdfunding roundups in the past, but I've never done a full review, mostly because it's a game that I backed myself but had not received a review copy. In fact, I'd pretty much bought myself every set (two base sets, three expansion kits, and the deluxe wooden tokens) prior to 2025. Last year, Level 99 ran a campaign for Bullet Cubed, a much-needed all-in-one storage box, along with two more expansions, and this time they sent me a review copy! Since the current campaign is already live and time is short, I'll give you a brief overview of how the Bullet games work, and then dive into the fancy box. Bullet is kind of a mix between a falling-blocks puzzle and a bullet-storm videogame, featuring manga-style heroines (and now also some cats), each with their own unique abilities and stories. It can be played competitively or cooperatively (each character also has a boss version that you can battle together), and has some real-time aspects to it.

Your player area. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu There are a ton of characters now (each base set comes with 8 characters, and the expansions add 4 more). The character has a large portrait mat that often has special rules or abilities (Marc, seen above, is one of the simpler ones and does not have extra rules associated with her). They also have a unique action mat (placed to the right), with an energy tracker, several actions, and space for more actions. Finally, there's a deck of pattern cards that are unique to that character. Each player has a "sight" mat (placed in the center), a grid of circles where bullets (round tokens) are placed: each one goes into the column matching its color, and travels down a number of spaces based on the value of the bullet, skipping over occupied spaces. Everyone has a bag of bullets, and you have to play all of the bullets in your bag before you can complete the round.

This pink bullet made it all the way to to the bottom—I've been hit! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu If a bullet travels to the bottom row of your sight, then you've been hit! The bullet slides to the left, covering up one of the hearts on your character mat, and if you lose all your hearts, then you've been eliminated. Game over! So how do you survive all these bullets that are flying at you?

Spend energy to use your actions to manipulate bullets. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Everyone has a set of actions that let them manipulate bullets (and some other effects). You start with full energy each round, and then you can spend energy to move bullets around, draw more pattern cards, and more. For instance, Marc can spend an energy to move a bullet to any space—a pretty powerful action! Each round, you'll also gain additional action tiles—these don't cost energy to use, but are discarded after use.

Matching a pattern lets you remove bullets. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu But just moving bullets around isn't going to save you—eventually you'll get overwhelmed! That's where the patterns come in. If you can arrange your bullets to match one of your pattern cards, then you can remove bullets in the spaces with the starburst icon. In the photo above, the three bullets in a row form the required pattern, and then the three spaces marked with the starburst are cleared (whether they had bullets or not). Cleared bullets are placed in front of the next player, where they'll be added to their bag on the next round!

Patterns may require particular colors, numbers, or even open spaces. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Patterns have various requirements, but the other trick is that they're discarded after you use them, so you're constantly making different patterns. You'll get to draw some more at the start of the next round, but otherwise you typically have to spend energy to draw more patterns if you've used them all up. Between rounds, your energy resets, but any remaining bullets in your sight stay there. Then, you add all the bullets that were passed to you by your neighbor, plus you have to add a handful of bullets from the supply. The amount that you add from the supply increases every round, so the pressure builds up until eventually everyone starts getting overwhelmed. The last player standing wins. (In the cooperative mode, bullets that you clear attack the boss instead, but the boss also has a deck of patterns that everyone has to match in order to avoid negative consequences.) It's a really great puzzly game, figuring out how to manipulate bullets into your patterns so you can stay alive, and it has that Tetris-like feeling where the game is just going to keep accelerating until you can't keep up ... so you just need to outlast your opponents! With two base sets and a pile of small-box expansions, plus the wooden tokens, there hadn't been an easy storage solution for everything. I did manage for a while to get everything into the two base game boxes, but it was a really tight fit, and that was before the two new expansions from last year.

Bullet Cubed - ready to be filled! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The Bullet Cubed box is incredibly fancy: it has two wings that open up, and then a cover flap that lifts up, revealing two layers of storage. It's definitely what the kids (used to?) call "extra"—undeniably cool, like the gull-wing doors of a DeLorean, but not necessarily the most practical. While the box is open, it's taking up twice as much table space ... and you're going to need all the table space you can get for the game itself!

The token tray for action tiles, energy tokens, and other special tokens. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The top layer includes a token tray with a lid that will hold all of your action tiles, the energy tokens, as well as the various other bonus tokens that some of the characters use for their special abilities.

Filled to the brim! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The sight mats go on top of the token tray, and the character mats (and action mats) fit into the other half of the large upper tray. Each of the characters also has a long single sheet bio that is mostly flavor text, though it does include the difficulty level and play style. These are stacked underneath the character mats. (Si Yu Xiao, seen in this photo, is a character who comes with the storage box—her name is also seen on the box front.) There's no really easy way to flip through these, so eventually I may need to alphabetize them so that there's some sort of order.

Under the top tray is the card storage and bullet storage. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Below the top tray are two long narrow boxes (with magnetic flaps) that hold all of the pattern cards, and a channel in the center that holds all of the bullet tokens and the cloth bags.

Card storage with dividers. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Finally, here's a look at the card storage: Bullet Cubed includes dividers for every character up through the 2025 expansions. (Presumably future expansions will include their own dividers). The dividers are actually a thick plastic, not just taller cards, so they're very sturdy. They're also marked with an icon based on which set the character came from, in case you want to sort them that way. (Mine are all alphabetized.) One thing I noticed was that all of the cards fit into just one of the long boxes, which means there's room for twice as many cards ... but definitely not twice as many character mats in the upper storage, which is nearly full. My guess is that this is extra room for sleeved cards. There's room for a few more character mats, but I don't know how many more characters they're planning to make before you'd need to get another storage box!

The top flap has storage diagrams. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The top flap has handy storage diagrams when open, so you can figure out where everything goes, though it is actually pretty intuitive. So, there you have it! A slick storage solution for a fantastic puzzle game. If you're interested in Bullet, whether you just want to try out the base game or you want to splurge on the completionist set, check out the Gamefound campaign! Disclosure: I received a copy of the Bullet Cubed storage box, as well as the Bullet: Orange+ and Bullet: Fan expansions for review purposes.

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Reaping the Rewards: 'Misfit Heroes'

Build your crew of wacky heroes in the land of Absurdia, from the supermodel skeleton to the many-limbed stock broker. In "Reaping the Rewards," I take a look at the finished product from a crowdfunding campaign. Misfit Heroes was originally funded through Kickstarter in early 2025; it was delivered to backers earlier this year and is now available for purchase. This review is adapted from my Kickstarter Tabletop Alert to show the finished product.

What Is Misfit Heroes?

Misfit Heroes is a tableau-building game for 2 to 4 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 30-45 minutes to play. It retails for $39.99, with an optional deluxe upgrade kit available for $39.99. (It looks like it is currently sold out through AEG, but may still be available through other online retailers or your local game store.) Some of the cards can be a little more complicated than others, but for the most part I think the 10 and up age rating seems about right, both for the gameplay and the content; the mix-and-match heroes are often silly and a little cartoony. Misfit Heroes was designed by Phil Walker-Harding and published by AEG, with illustrations by Matthew Owen.

Misfit Heroes - base game with deluxe upgrade components substituted. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu

Misfit Heroes Components

I was sent both the base game and the deluxe upgrade kit, so this review will cover both. Here's what comes in the base game box: - 96 Character cards - 96 Attribute cards - 4 Reference cards - 120 Card sleeves - Influence tokens: - 54 Single-influence tokens (18 each Forest, Sea, Mountains) - 6 Triple-influence tokens (2 each Forest, Sea, Mountains) - 24 Quest tiles (6 each Forest, Sea, Mountains, City) - 70 Coins (38 copper, 16 silver, 16 gold) - Start Player token - Scorepad

Since I had the deluxe upgrade, I didn't punch out the cardboard tokens—here's a sampling of what they look like. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu And here's what comes in the deluxe upgrade kit: - 120 Printed card sleeves - Misfit Healers mini-expansion - 100 Wooden coins (40 copper, 40 silver, 20 gold) - 24 Wooden Quest tiles (6 each Forest, Sea, Mountains, City) - 72 Wooden Influence tokens (24 each Forest, Sea, Mountains) - 1 Metal First Player token - 4 Neoprene player mats

Characters (top) combine with attributes (bottom) to form the cards. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Misfit Heroes uses AEG's Card Crafting System, where transparent cards are layered over other cards inside a sleeve to create different combinations. (Mystic Vale was one of the earlier titles in the series.) In this one, the character cards are transparent and include the character portrait, name, and an activation effect, along with potentially a coin cost and a faction banner. The attribute cards are opaque, with a background illustration for the character, the attribute name (like "scared" or "reptilian"), an activation box, and a point value trophy; these cards may also have a coin cost and banner.

By our powers combined! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu They're layered together to create the titular misfit heroes, with 9,216 possible combinations (and even more with the mini-expansion!). Often the attribute card has illustration parts that will combine with the character—extra arms, tails, wings, and so on. There's also a mix of things from the fantasy world and things from our everyday world, so you'll get things like a Politician Ghost or a Two-Headed Wedding Planner.

You'll want to peel the protective film off the plastic cards to make the colors more vibrant. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The sleeves are pretty sturdy, and you get a bunch of extras in case any of them come apart. Before the first game, you'll need to mix up the cards and sleeve them all. (You also need to peel off the plastic protective film on the transparent cards if you want the transparency to be a little more clear.) The deluxe edition sleeves have a custom  Misfit Heroes card back; the base game sleeves are fully transparent. One minor complaint about the cards is that the color on the transparent cards can be a little darker, which made the tiny influence icons a bit harder to read, particularly because the leaf and the water drop are both the same overall shape. Some of my players had a hard time making out these icons and recognizing the "any influence token" icon—it would be nice if they were just a bit larger in general. Also, the triangle cards are all phrased as "If X, then Y" which makes it sounds like you can play the card, but you only get Y if X is true. In fact, you can only play the card at all if X is true. This is something I'd noted in the prototype and had hoped would get changed, but the finished game retains the misleading wording.

Neoprene mats from the deluxe set. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The neoprene mats in the deluxe kit are simple but nice: they hold your 4x4 grid of cards, and are each decorated with a different mix of characters and details from the game. All of the wooden tokens are nice and chunky, printed with the same imagery as the cardboard versions. The one difference is that there aren't triple influence tokens—they just put in more singles.

Adding four more characters and attributes gives you a whopping 784 more combinations! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The Misfit Healers mini-expansion added 4 more characters and 4 more attributes to mix and match into the deck.

Wooden coins from the deluxe upgrade kit. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The deluxe upgrade box is designed to store everything inside (and you dump the base game box and cardboard bits). It has a nice insert with a lid and I appreciated that the wooden coins have their own storage box as well, but the neoprene mats are always a little unwieldy since you roll them up and shove them into the narrow channel on one side. I'll note that the first player marker is listed as wooden on the box itself, but it's actually a sizable enameled metal token. (Also of note is that the deluxe upgrade box does not say it is a deluxe upgrade box anywhere on the outside—it just says Misfit Heroes and has the same box-back description as the base game, and it's only the list of components that differs—good luck, game stores!)

The deluxe box stores everything together. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu

How to Play Misfit Heroes

You can download a copy of the rulebook here. The Goal The goal of the game is to score the most points.

Starting setup. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Setup As an optional setup step, deal everyone 4 cards from the deck, and let them mix and match the characters and attributes for those cards, and then shuffle them back into the deck. Deal 5 cards to each player, placing the rest of the deck within reach. Make a supply of influence tokens and coins. Place the quest tiles in a supply—depending on player count, some of will be removed. Choose a starting player and give them the start player marker and 35 coins; each subsequent player gets 5 more coins than the previous player.

Building out my grid. (Face-down cards are "stunned" cards.) Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Gameplay On your turn, you do one of four things: Recruit, Draw, Gain Influence, or Gain Money. Recruit: Recruiting is how you play cards from your hand to your tableau, which is a 4x4 grid on the table. Every player has their own tableau, and the first card you play should be in the lower left-hand corner, which is considered the first column and first row, and later cards just need to be touching an existing card. To recruit a card, pay the coin cost shown at the top left corner of the card—if there are two costs, add them together.

Examples of the four recruitment boxes. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The first box below the name is the recruitment box, and there are four types: - Heart: Triggers once when you recruit the card - Triangle: A condition you must meet in order to recruit the card - Star: A fee you must pay when you recruit the card - Trophy: Includes a condition for end-game scoring At the bottom of the card is the activation box—this is the card's effect and takes place when you recruit the card. Some cards will also let you activate other cards—if so, it only triggers their activation boxes, not their recruitment boxes. Cards may let you gain influence or money, draw more cards, recruit more cards, and more. Some star cards will "stun" other cards, turning them face-down so they no longer count for anything. (The Misfit Healers expansion has a "heal" action that flips stunned cards face-up again.) Draw: You may discard any number of cards (including zero), and then draw that many cards plus two more. Gain Influence: Take one influence token of your choice. Gain Money: Take 10 coins from the bank.

Quest tiles always cost 6 influence—the sooner you get them, the more points they're worth! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu At the end of your turn, you may claim one quest tile. For the Forest, Sea, and Mountain quests, you must spend 6 influence of that type to take the highest available tile from the supply. For the purple City quests, you must spend 2 of each influence. Finally, you must discard down to 8 cards, 8 influence of each type, and 80 coins.

Completing your grid ends the game. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Game End The game end is triggered when any player recruits their 16th hero, filling the tableau. Finish the current round so everyone has had the same number of turns total. You score points for the following: - Face value of all of your quest tiles - Face value of the hero cards in your tableau (non-trophy cards are 1 point; trophy cards have conditional scoring) - 1 point per influence token - 1 point per 10 coins The highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the most cards left in hand.

Why You Should Play Misfit Heroes

Phil Walker-Harding has designed a lot of games that I've enjoyed (including Sushi Go! and the GeekDad Game of the Year Finalist Museum Suspects), and I was delighted to see his take on AEG's Card Crafting System, which was created by John D. Clair and has so far been primarily used by Clair himself. In this case, the system lets players mix and match heroes in a way that reminds me of those little flip-tab books I had as a kid where you could combine different creatures or people, maybe putting a Viking head on a doctor torso with a mermaid tail. It's a lot of fun to create silly combinations, particularly since there's such a broad range of attributes and heroes: you get a lot of traditional fantasy characters or attributes, but also a lot of everyday, mundane things too. What I hadn't expected from the description is that you don't mix and match cards during the game. When you first unpack the game, you'll assemble your first 96 combos, and then each time you play you can give players an opportunity to re-scramble a handful of them, but the card crafting all takes place in between games rather than as part of the strategy. After playing it, I can see that it would probably lead to analysis paralysis if the heroes and attributes were in separate piles and you were building them as you played. Just a hand of 5 of each gives you 25 possible outcomes, which is already overwhelming, let alone doing that for a whole 16-card tableau. For a "10 and up" game, that's probably too much.

Some misfit heroes. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu But just because you aren't crafting cards during the game doesn't mean it's not a crafty game: Misfit Heroes is all about making the most of the weird heroes you've been dealt. There are all sorts of interesting combinations: cards that recruit other cards, cards that activate other cards, and cards that are worth points depending on how you arrange your other cards. There aren't that many trophy cards, but they tend to score for things like "heart cards in the same row or column as this one" or "your biggest group of star cards." There are also cards that refer to the faction banners on the left side of the card: blue for human, red for beast, purple for misfit. Once you get a sense of what types of trophies are out there, you can start to set up your tableau to prepare for them in case they show up. Another tactic is to go for the influence tokens quickly: each influence token is worth a point, but you can exchange 6 of them for a quest, and the earlier you do it, the more points it will be worth. The first tile of each type is worth 12 points—that's double the value! But you have to keep an eye on what your rivals are collecting, because sometimes waiting a single turn to get a quest could cost you a few points as other people snatch up exactly the ones you were saving up for. Filling up your tableau is what will end the game, but it's not necessarily a guarantee that the person with the most cards will have the most points. I've played some games where the winner had the fewest heroes, but they had made good use of them to gain influence for quest tiles. The trophy cards can be worth a lot of points if you can get them placed right, but sometimes they're barely worth more than the default 1-point cards (and usually cost more!).

Who's that diver? Don't you recognize them? Photo: Jonathan H. Liu I like the fact that there are different viable scoring strategies, but mostly I just like the wackiness of the heroes and figuring out how to make an effective team out of a band of misfits.  (I highly recommend having your players announce the names of the heroes as they recruit them!) If you like card combos and games with a bit of humor, check out Misfit Heroes! For more information, visit the AEG Misfit Heroes page! Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.

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Stack Overflow: Borders and Crossings

Borders are strange things. Some are physical things: a river, a canyon, a wall. Others are more conceptual: the lines between countries, for instance. And then there are those that are magical: the borders between worlds. Today's stack of books has stories about crossing borders of all sorts.

Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim

I'm going to start with a book that really wowed me with its premise and the way it was explored. Sublimation is set in our world, though with one significant difference: when you cross a border, there's a chance that you split in two. It has to do with your intentions and beliefs, but there's a version of you that stays behind, and a version of you that goes.  But if the two versions of a person come into physical contact with each other, they remerge into a single person again. Rose and Soyoung are "instances"—Rose lives in American and Soyoung lives in Korea. When they were ten, their mother tried to immigrate to America, but they both split at the border, leaving themselves behind. Now, Rose is thirty and has never been back to Korea; when Soyoung calls her to tell her that their grandfather has died, she decides to go back for his funeral, meeting her instance in person for the first time since they split. Rose is pretty happy with her life, but Soyoung envies her and wants to reintegrate, to have all of Rose's experiences of growing up and living in New York. Yujin is Soyoung's best friend; they reconnected sometime during college after a period of estrangement. He had gone to college in New York, and at one point when returning to school for winter break, he instanced unexpectedly, so now there's a version of himself in the US and one in Korea. Unlike Rose and Soyoung, Yujin and YJ keep in touch regularly. They even have a long-term plan: Yujin studied science and YJ went into business, and they're hoping YJ can apply for dual-citizenship and then they can remerge and have the best of both worlds. Although the story centers around these Korean characters, the book also has lots of interludes that explore a bit more of this world, sometimes recasting ancient stories in light of this version of reality. The Odyssey comes up quite a bit, with discussions about the two versions of Odysseus, the one who went on all the adventures that we've read in our own universe, and the one who stayed home the entire time. Another story that comes up is the Garden of Eden—because when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, there were also versions of themselves that stayed behind. Kim also puts a spin on some Korean folktales. It's a fascinating change to the stories, giving them new meanings. The existence of instances has a lot of other implications on things like how the government handles immigration (including instancing and reintegration). Mergebreak, the tech company that YJ works for, has a consumer product that prevents reintegration most of the time, but now they're working on another product that claims it can even reverse reintegration. We get to see the story from the point of view of the four main characters, and Kim does a great job of showing the differences in how they see themselves and how others see them. Though I will warn you that if you're somebody who gets frustrated with poor communication and misunderstandings between characters, there's a whole lot of that here. Almost every combination of these four characters has relationships in which they aren't really on the same page but think they understand the other, and at least part of the plot is driven by these assumptions. One of the curious aspects of the book (that took me a little bit to get used to) was that it's mostly told in second person—always an odd choice in my opinion when it's not a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book—but then later there's a shift, and it's used in a really effective way. Sublimation is an enchanting story that makes its outlandish premise feel real, and then uses it to explore the experience of immigration and family and identity, with some great observations of the tech industry as well. It's one of my favorite reads of the year so far.

The Endless Game written by J. D. Amato, illustrated by Sophie Morse

Okay, now for something a bit lighter, at least on the surface: capture the flag! In this graphic novel, Fred has just moved to Lakeside, Illinois, and when he goes looking for some kids to hang out, he's initially treated with some suspicion and hostility, suspected to be a spy. But a spy for what? Well, as it turns out, all of the kids in town are involved in a game of capture the flag that has been going for decades, split between the Uphill and the Downhill parts of town. It is played for the entire summer, and each side has a huge base for their flag, prisons for their captives, and specialized roles for all of the kids involved. There's a neutral Council of Homeschooled Kids who serve as the court for the game, and the adults are not allowed to interfere with the game—though those who grew up there are all familiar with the rules themselves. It's taken extremely seriously: kids who get captured have to spend all day in jail (until the streetlights come on) and then report back to jail the next day, unless they get set freed by a teammate. Not even other summer activities take precedence over being jailed. Fred is soon recruited by Downhill and sworn into the game, and he learns that strange things have been afoot. Downhill's previous king was banished—he'd almost succeeded in stealing Uphill's flag the prior summer, but then was accused of vandalism and was shipped off to Montana, throwing Downhill into disarray. Some of the Downhill kids are convinced that he was framed, but Uphill's king has some powerful parents and it's been impossible to get the proof they need. The Endless Game is largely about Fred finding a place for himself and figuring out who he is, so that's not so unusual from other kids' comics. It's about making friends, standing up to bullies, and having an incredible summer. But the high-stakes, unending game of capture the flag (and the strange culture that has grown with it) makes for an intriguing setting, even if the "good kids" and "bad kids" dichotomy is a bit simplistic.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy, illustrated by Carson Ellis

I mentioned last week that I'd finally started reading Wildwood, which was originally published way back in 2011. I don't have any good excuse for not having read it well before now, but with the animated film coming out later this year, I figured it was finally time. In case you're one of the few people left who still haven't read it, here's a quick summary: in the world of this story, Portland is only on the east side of the Willamette River; on the west, past the Industrial Wastes, lies the Impassable Wilderness. That's how it appears on maps, and nobody ever goes there. I mean, come on, it's impassable. But then one day a bunch of crows fly down and grab Prue's baby brother Mac and fly off into forest, and she decides she has to go track him down. Her classmate Curtis follows her, and the two find themselves in a strange world, with talking animals and a bird kingdom and even a small town in the south where the Pittock Mansion (an actual Portland landmark) serves as the government offices. The two soon get separated, and both end up getting entangled in a larger plot that soon involves the whole wood. The book reminded me in parts of Narnia—a passage into a different world with colorful characters and talking animals and mysterious plots. There's even a beautiful lady who's clearly bad news but Curtis immediately falls for her story about her rightful place, and at first I was quite annoyed that he (like Edmund) was so easily swayed by a pretty face and some tasty treats. But then I remembered that, first, Curtis is only twelve, and second, the state of our country shows that people who should have much more sense than a twelve-year-old are easily swayed by pretty faces and promises of power. So, uh, I guess that tracks. While there is ultimately a happy ending (kind of a spoiler, but not really—it's a kid's book), it's not entirely a fairy tale ending, either. There are huge battles and there's lots of death (even if in most cases it's not primary characters), and some of it gets pretty gruesome. And I would say that the ending isn't happy for everyone, and there are also some characters—looking at you, Prue's parents—who maybe got a happier ending than they really deserved. At any rate, it's an exciting adventure and it's easy to see why LAIKA is making a movie of it. I've got the other two Wildwood books on my shelf too, so I'll be digging into those soon.

Lightfall Book 4: A Place Between by Tim Probert

I've written about the first three books in this graphic novel series here, and my daughter and I were both excited for the fourth book. Bea and Cad were shipwrecked and separated. Cad encounters several Spirits, including one who takes him to another realm, kind of a limbo between life and death. Bea finds herself in the capital city Pellydir, where the king thinks she is a spy at best, or an omen of doom at worst, and sentences her to death. Yeah, there's some heavy stuff happening in this chapter of the story, and both characters have a lot to figure out, including things like whether they've been doing the right thing up until now. They've discovered that their actions—what they thought was saving the world—has had some dire consequences for other people. Things are complicated. I really love the artwork in this series, the way that both Cad and Bea are navigating their way through these difficult decisions, though I also wish that I got to read a bit more story before this book ended and we have to wait for the next one! Disclosure: I received review copies of these books. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers!

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Stack Overflow: Declaring Independence

So, our nation celebrated its 250th birthday this weekend—a pretty big deal, and yet we're still a fairly young nation in the scheme of things, and it seems like we're still figuring things out and making a lot of mistakes. The occasion has led to a lot of reflecting (not to mention all that hubbub about a certain reflecting pool) about patriotism and nationalism and, well, politics. While a lot of people still had a great time celebrating the holiday, there was also a lot of dissatisfaction and dissent, including some real "rain on the parade" weather in DC. Today's stack includes two books that I felt were relevant reading for the weekend, things to ponder as we consider two and a half centuries of this Great American Experiment.

Declaration/Emancipation Illustrated by R. Sikoryak

A few years back, I wrote about Sikoryak's Constitution Illustrated, which includes the text of the Constitution, juxtaposed with a variety of comics. This two-in-one book does the same thing, but with the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Gettysburg Address (which doesn't get a mention in the title). The book is printed back-to-back, so you read the Declaration starting from one cover, and then flip the book over and read the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address from the other cover. The images aren't usually literal illustrations of the passage they're paired with, though in many cases there is at least some connection. Instead, each page is a single panel featuring various characters—the Avengers, the Wizard of Id, Ziggy, Family Guy—but dressed in colonial garb, picking up the Declaration where the previous page left off. The Emancipation Proclamation gives prominence to Black comics characters in its illustrations. Of course, I've read the Declaration of Independence before, though it's been a long time since I've read the whole thing beyond the often quoted sections about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." In particular, the charges brought against King George that serve as justification for instituting a new form of government struck me as distressingly familiar—an observation that I'm certainly not the first to make in recent years. Imposing taxes, standing armies, obstructing immigration, cutting off trade, depriving people of trial by jury... these aren't just complaints from 250 years ago—they're things we see on social media today. (Granted, there are also parts that are different; the language about "merciless Indian Savages" feels backwards and racist, and calls to "British brethren" for their support is not as relevant to our situation now.) Reading the Emancipation Proclamation, what I noticed most was how much more it read like a legal document, with provisions and technicalities, rather than something like the Declaration that has some poetic flair. We were taught in school that the Emancipation Proclamation is how Lincoln freed enslaved people, but we often gloss over the part where it only applied to the Confederate States and didn't apply to several slave-holding States that weren't in rebellion. The Gettysburg Address, on the other hand, is a speech meant to inspire and encourage, praising the soldiers who died in battle and setting forth a vision of what the nation might become. It's remarkably brief, but maybe that's also what made it so memorable. As before, Sikoryak offers very little in the way of commentary. There's an index that lists the comics that the characters are taken from, and some timelines of events leading up to the Declaration and to the Civil War, but outside of that the book is largely just the text of these documents themselves. The illustrations themselves carry some weight and sometimes feel like they shed a bit of light on the author's opinions of the text in question, but for the most part Sikoryak lets the text speak for itself and it's up to you to interpret it.

Foundling Fathers by Meg Elison

Foundling Fathers is a political satire, and unlike Declaration Illustrated there is no question which side of the fence the author is on. The year is 1750—or so the four young men living on an island plantation have been told. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington have been raised as brothers by their mother, Mary Libertas, who tells them stories about their heroic deceased father. Their teacher and father figure, Jeff Hancock, has given them an education that will prepare them for statecraft so that one day they will be ready to lead the nation. And that's when Ben finds his mom's iPhone in the privy, and everything begins to fall apart. It is actually the year 2026, and the four young men—now in their late teens and early adulthood—are part of an experiment by the Antediluvian Society, a shadowy organization that wants to make America great again by bringing back its founding fathers. They've secretly cloned them and raised them in an 18th-century setting, cut off from all modern technology (well, except for the airplanes that occasionally pass over in the sky) and outside society, in the hopes that they'll grow up to be the inspiring figures they were the first time around. (And if Thomas Jefferson keeps impregnating the servant girls, or John Adams turned out to be a bit whiny ... well, they'll work with that.) It's a pretty short novel so I don't want to give too much away, but the discovery of the iPhone opens their eyes to the truth, and forces the hand of the Antediluvian Society to move up their timetable for their planned reveal. Things hardly go according to plan, though, and there's a lot of humor and pointed observations about what it would be like if young clones of the founding fathers suddenly turned up in our modern world. The society includes an old true believer who really thinks that the best solution is a re-run of our past; a colonel who can't wait to have Washington on his side; a tech billionaire who really doesn't care about history at all but thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. The book is a critique of those who have nostalgia for a whitewashed version of our history—the one in which our founding fathers were mythic figures and not flawed men who often held contradictory views. It's Elison's birthday present to America, a country that she loves despite its flaws and lies, and it's worth a read. Disclosure: I received copies of these books for review purposes. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent, non-billionaire booksellers!

My Current Stack

I've been trying to get through my stacks of comics (as usual), and in particular catching up on some of Ben Katchor's books, both old and new. I also just finished a truly fascinating book called Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim that deals with topics like immigration and Asian diaspora and identity, by imagining a world in which people sometimes split into two when crossing a border. I'll definitely have more on that soon. And I've just started reading Wildwood by Colin Meloy, which I never actually read despite it sitting on my shelf for about 14 years now. (I barely started it once but got distracted by several other books I needed to read and then ... just didn't finish.) But now, with LAIKA making a stop-motion film of it, I think it's finally time to explore this weird version of Portland.

[geekdadblog]

I (Don't) Got Rhythm – GeekDad Reviews 'Rhythm Heaven Groove'

As someone who's been making music since his early teens, I tend to overestimate my abilities a bit when it comes to rhythm games. Then, along comes a title like Rhythm Heaven Groove that really puts me in my place. In a 1990s garage band, your repertoire is straight four on the floor, in the pocket, uncomplicated. In Rhythm Heaven Groove, however, you'll experience everything from J-Pop to power metal, from fills and accent beats to tempo shifts and polyrhythms. The trick is that Groove makes everything so fun, so loud and colorful and so much larger than life, that you don't really even mind the occasional whiff.

I felt kind of bad launching these frogs, but the little guys really seemed to be into it. image: NOA Available now for the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, Rhythm Heaven Groove, the fifth installment in the franchise, challenges players to press buttons in time with the beat—a feat that's sometimes easier said than done—across scores of minigames. From simple single-button inputs to alternating rhythmic pairings, there's a beautiful simplicity to its diabolical challenge. This time around, there's also a text-to-speech assistant, a digital narrator who sets the stage for each of your random rhythm activities (in addition to reminding you about how not properly adjusting for TV delay and that using wireless headphones can interfere with the game's razor-thin margin for error). There are three levels to this read-aloud setting, including toggling it off completely, but I actually found this creepy robot girl's voice added to the outright surrealism of the Rhythm Heaven experience.

The multiplayer options are nice and varied. image: NOA From the game's main menu—a strangely sterile and muted interface that's probably my only real knock against the title—you can choose to "Play with Friends" to enter a dedicated multiplayer mode. This gridded dashboard includes options to register and set player names, as well as choose from a variety of classic Nintendo rhythm game setups. You know, ninjas, unlikely sports scenarios, and that overly hairy onion—all the classics. The more you play, the more minigames become available, with ample co-op and versus options to suit your party gaming needs. The main offering, though, remains "Play Solo." This mode slowly reveals four separate themed minigames per level, from making a dog jump to catch a soaring frisbee to launching frogs off a lily pad to concealing ghosts from a sneezing moon. (Yes, these are all things you're expected to do in Rhythm Heaven Groove!) Advance through each minigame in a level, and you're treated to a remix, a more elaborate production combining elements of the four previous activities.

"Who's Got Rhythm?" gets really tricky really fast. image: NOA For the rhythm-challenged like myself, Groove provides ample opportunities to practice before each game kicks off in earnest. You can also hold down the Y button to get a look at examples of proper timing, which I found particularly helpful. Your performance is, of course, graded, although I'd say that Rhythm Heaven Groove goes out of its way to not hurt your feelings. I was often assured that my ranking for a minigame was good or even really good when it obviously was not. The player is also given an overall score for "Flow," that being a mastery of rhythm. (Mine spent a lot of time in the high 70s, making me a "Rhythm Novice.") The minigame rank you're looking for here is amazing, which denotes a perfect or near-perfect performance and also nets you a coveted medal. Medals are used to unlock new items in the game's Rhythm Toy Box, an ever-growing collection of low-stress games and rhythm quizzes that even includes a neat little step sequencer.

I'd gladly pay for more Beatspell. image: NOA Medals also unlock new chapters in Beatspell, a rhythm-based RPG where your spell attacks and buffs are tied to the same timed button presses as Rhythm Heaven Groove's core gameplay. While not super fleshed out, this was my single favorite element in the game, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see it pop up in future series entries or even as its own dedicated experience. Visually, Groove's various minigames are bold, bright, and uncluttered. The title isn't exactly a visual powerhouse (especially compared to some of the other recent releases I've been playing on my Nintendo Switch 2), but everything is certainly fun and evocative. More importantly, the musical selections in Rhythm Heaven Groove have truly taken on a life of their own. This is especially apparent in the remix levels, where the songs are big, beautiful, poppy compositions that draw you in and make you want to really nail those button inputs.

Opening and closing an umbrella has never been so stressful! image: NOA Rhythm Heaven Groove also makes it easy for you to revisit your favorite songs (Sound Studio), rewatch examples of proper timing in minigames (Video Examples), and explore so much more via its main menu. That sad, uninspired little main menu… Still, with great original music, ridiculously charming minigames, tons of unlockables, and the quirky perfection that is Beatspell, Rhythm Heaven Groove is easy to love and hard to resist. Especially at the bargain price point of $39.99! Things are heating up outside, and Rhythm Heaven Groove represents the perfect way to inject a little rhythm and whimsy into your indoor summer activities. So grab the demo and see if you have what it takes to get into the groove.  Review materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. How am I still so bad at Hop, Stop N Roll?!

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'Splatoon Raiders' – A GeekDad First Look

I have adored the Splatoon franchise since it first sailed onto the Nintendo Wii U way back in 2015. Since that time, I've played every game, acquired an impressive number of Splatoon amiibo and pieces of related merch, and even read the manga. Still, for the last decade, Splatoon as a game has remained a singular experience, a quirky online third-person squad-based shooter. There have been wisps of single-player content too, but these story modes have focused more on convoluted lore dumps than any actual character or even genuine plot development.

Finding my next mission waypoint was never a problem. image: NOA Splatoon Raiders, arriving on the Switch 2 later this summer, promises to be something different, something more. Players take on the role of the Mechanic, who, aided by the members of Deep Cut, explore the exciting (but predictably hostile) Spirhalite Islands in search of treasure in a single-player, story-focused adventure. From your home base of the Hideout Ship, the Mechanic and one of Deep Cut's charismatic trio (Shiver, Frye, or Big Man) inside a mechanized Exploration Bot will conduct raids on island sites, following glowing beacons to locate valuable Spirhalite… and more! You will, of course, encounter resistance from the local Salmonids, some of which represent brand new forms never encountered before.

Big Man can fit inside the Exploration Bot... but it's a pretty tight squeeze. image: NOA With your trusty weapon and the backup of your Bot Buddy, you stand at least a fighting chance, but you'll need to rely on all those splatting skills you've developed over the past three Splatoon titles. This time around, though, sub-weapons have been replaced by gadgets, pieces of independent tech that attach to one of three specially-designed ink tanks. The Speed, Power, and Tactical Tanks each offer a different experience tailored to a broad play style, but there's no need to restrict yourself to just one. It's easy (and encouraged) to experiment with different tank, weapon, and partner styles, which, just like switching up your character's wardrobe, is easily done aboard the Hideout Ship between raids.

Weapons have distinct power levels, and some even possess special attributes. image: NOA Helpfully mapped to the trigger buttons, the aforementioned gadgets can be strictly offensive, like a slashing melee attack (Splatchet) or deployable turrets (Shot Pot), more geared toward crowd control, like a spinning vortex of ink that helps keep Salmonids at bay (Splatellites) or a boomerang that deals damage coming and going (Booyahrang), or even environmental traps like exploding ink balloons (Bombloons). Your gadgets have a cool-down period, though, so you won't just be able to spam your way to victory, no matter how perfectly paired your selection is. Using these gadgets, your weapons, and your wits, you'll collect Salmonid eggs that can be used to power up special attacks for your Deep Cut companion just like you amass Spirhalite shards to complete raids. You'll also level up your character, pick up other materials to upgrade your gear, and find sweet treasures (Salmonid Relics that can do things like increase HP recovery or decrease ink consumption) and loot drops as you battle your way across the island chain.

You can change difficulty easily if you find the battles a little too challenging. image: NOA Difficulty only affects enemy damage, meaning you can uncover the same relics, weapons, and gadgets even if you prefer to play on the lowest setting. Also, drops and experience are retained even if you die before completing a raid, which helps prevent a lot of frustration when faced with massive enemies like a whole new breed of ferocious special Salmonids. How do I know all this? Well, earlier this month, I was given the chance to spend some early hands-on time with Splatoon Raiders, and it was all I'd hoped for and more. Obviously, the title sticks close to gameplay techniques it's cultivated over the franchise's history---you'll fire ink, transform into your squid/octopus form to traverse said ink quickly as well as replenish your supply, and repeat---but it's a pure action game rather than a zone-control shooter.

Tinkering with and upgrading your gear is key to success in Splatoon Raiders.  image: NOA Between the hordes of enemies and the crazy loot drops, I couldn't help but be reminded of other beloved series, like Borderlands and Diablo, as I made my way across exotic islands and plumbed subterranean caverns all in the name of bigger, better, and more stuff. But Raiders had yet another trick up its sleeve that I never saw coming; should you prefer, you can play the game in co-op with up to three other players, thus bringing the classic Splatoon setup full circle into this new and distinct game. You can learn more—including lots of spoilery stuff I didn't go into—by watching today's Splatoon Raiders Direct, which should be dropping at the same time as this written preview! https://www.youtube.com/live/xgeuzWwExIY?si=nBdF_Naqm7tJu67E The long and short of it, though, is that Splatoon Raiders is already shaping up to be a spectacular spinoff entry. It completely nails the traditional Splatoon aesthetic, which looks gorgeous on the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, but it tweaks the structure just enough to appeal to those put off by the very nature of a competitive online shooter. If you're in the market for more Splatoon action on your new Switch 2 console, this game is for you. If you've always longed for a single-player Splatoon experience that was the main course rather than a separate add-on, this game is for you. And if you're simply looking for an unusual, unassuming game of the summer to come along and blow you out of the proverbial water, Splatoon Raiders is definitely for you! Travel and accommodations were provided by Nintendo of America so that I could participate in this invite-only media event. This post contains affiliate links. Unsurprisingly, my go-tos are the Power Tank, Big Man, and the most powerful rapidfire gun available.

[geekdadblog]

Save Up To 65% During FlexiSpot's 4th of July Sale

Here at GeekDad, we've been covering and enjoying products from FlexiSpot for years. As I'm writing this article, I'm sitting in the C7 Morpher chair, and typing on an E7 Pro Standing Desk. Both of which I have reviewed, and (spoilers!) loved. FlexiSpot consistently makes sturdy and highly functional furniture, not just for the office but also now for the bedroom, living room, and garage.  And with their 4th of July sale, FlexiSpot has put some of their bestselling products on sale for as low as 65% off the original price. That E7 Pro Standing Desk I mentioned? It was $499.99, but with the sale, you can pick one up for $399.99, saving $100. It's available in a variety of woods, with many other options to choose from. Or maybe you're looking for a new bedframe for your bedroom? The Kana Japanese Joinery bed is $170 off, so you can pick one up during the sale for as little as $379.98. And not only that, but until June 30th, there are bonus coupons available for bedroom furniture that can further reduce the cost of your purchase. These coupons can be found on the 4th of July sales page.  But here's something even cooler- during the 4th of July sale, you have a shot at your entire purchase being completely free! On June 29 at 9:00 PM, July 4 at 9:00 AM, July 9 at 9:00 AM PDT, the first 20 submitted and paid orders for each period will get up to $800 of their purchase paid by FlexiSpot, and not you.  So if you've been thinking about upgrading some of the furniture in your house, and are looking for some great ergonomic products, you're definitely going to want to check out FlexiSpot's 4th of July sale. Because there's nothing better than getting something terrific for your home and saving money in the process...well, nothing better unless it ends up being free! For more information or to make a purchase, head to the FlexiSpot 4th of July Sale! The sale runs through July 10th.   Read the full article

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Kickstarter Quick Picks: 'Machines of Bone & Blood' for 5e

Have you been playing Dungeons & Dragons for many years, and feeling a bit of "been there, done that"? Maybe you just finished Curse of Strahd, and are dying (no pun intended) for another horror campaign, but something a little...different. If that's the case, then you may want to check out this new campaign setting from Somanyrobots. What Are Kickstarter Quick Picks? Kickstarter Quick Picks are short looks at projects currently on Kickstarter that are of interest to me, and by extension, many of our GeekDad readers. A Quick Pick is not an endorsement of the Kickstarter campaign, nor have I (as yet) received any product copies to review. If you like what you see here, go check out the campaign and decide for yourself if you’d like to back it, or wait until GeekDad has had a chance to go hands-on. As always, caveat emptor- let the buyer beware. New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer. What Is Machines of Bone & Blood? Machines of Bone & Blood is a new horror sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5e and other compatible games, based in the Ivory Empire setting unique to this book. The book will be 300+ pages, and will be available in digital, PDF, hardcover, and VTT (virtual tabletop) formats. Machines of Bone & Blood is coming from Somanyrobots, who previously crowdfunded the 5e sourcebook Songs of the Spellbound Sea. Machines of Bone & Blood is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter with pledges starting with a PDF copy for $30. The campaign will end on July 9th at 2pm PDT, and at the time of this writing has raised over $90k. It should be noted that Machines of Bone & Blood is written for the 2014 D&D 5e ruleset, but will have conversion information if you are playing with the 2024 5.5e rules. What's In Machines of Bone & Blood? Machines of Bone & Blood is a sourcebook that contains both player and DM options for the Ivory Empire setting. This new setting is called the "Necroindustrial Revolution." It's somewhat analogous to our Industrial Revolution, but with a lot more necromancy and gothic mad scientists!  Two New Classes Speaking of necromancy, one of the new classes is the necromancer. Playing as a necromancer, you'll use a resource called spirit points to animate a variety of undead minions. There will be over a dozen subclasses for the necromancer, including: - The Soul Master: the paradigmatic necromancer, combining minion commands and fearsome spells seamlessly. - The Death Knight: An armored warrior in the frontlines, able to strike down a foe and raise their corpse mere moments later. - The Galvanist: A science-obsessed necromancer who practices their art through electrical modifications. - The Boneshaper: A dark caster who wields fearsome osteomancy spells and equips its minions with weapons made of cursed bone. The second new class is the Abomination, a martial/support that becomes more and more frenzied until it transforms into a monster. Here are a few of the subclasses for that class: - The Beast: The emblematic abomination shifts into a terrible beast, akin to the werewolves of folklore. - The Flame: An abomination who sets themselves alight and lays waste to the battlefield. - The Slayer: A whirling demon of teeth and claws, ripping through opponents. In addition to these new classes, there will also be dozens of new, thematic subclasses for the existing D&D classes. Four New Species Four new playable species include: - The Shadeborn lineage, individuals born under a black moon and with darkness entwined in their souls. - Awakened Trees, mighty oaks inspired to march from their forests to tear down the belching factories. - The Bonebound lineage, workers driven by desperation to necromantically augment their own bodies. - Fenwyrms, bog-dwelling reptiles who take up arms after their homes are poisoned by soul-smoke. Spells Did someone say spells? There will be over 100 new spells in the book, primarily focused on necromancy, osteomancy (bone magic), and shadow magic. Monsters More than 40 new monsters are introduced, ready to help bring the Necroindustrial Revolution to life (or probably more appropriately, death). The Ivory Empire Setting The Ivory Empire is a powerful and reclusive island kingdom, its might is built on the back of naval power and far-flung merchant colonies. Today, its noble class is intoxicated with the possibilities of necromantic power—self-sustaining factories, autonomous machines, and no need to bother with pesky laborers ever again.  Machines of Bone & Blood will have mini-settings within the Ivory Empire, each coming with 2-4 page setting primers, with adventure seeds, key locations, prominent NPCs, and regional maps. Why You Should Back Machines of Bone & Blood So make no mistake: this is an adventure setting, not an adventure itself. Machines of Bone & Blood is a sourcebook for both dungeon masters & players, creating an evocative setting and providing plenty of tools for creating original adventures in the Necroindustrial Revolution. Speaking of the Necroindustrial Revolution, it sounds like it will be a very interesting setting in which to place campaigns. The undead are replacing workers in the factories, much like automation was taking over in the actual Industrial Revolution...and how AI is replacing workers today. So the adventures should end up feeling very relevant to the players.  There is a 20-page playtest document that you can download and check out for yourself here. You'll be able to take a look at the details of the Necromancer class, along with a couple of its subclasses, as well as a couple of subclasses for existing D&D classes. I particularly liked the Deathhunter Conclave Ranger, which gets special abilities to combat the undead. Which may not be of as much use in a more traditional setting, but in the world of the Ivory Empire, there's plenty of undead to fight. The playtest document and the Kickstarter page should give you a good sense of whether you like the setting and options for your playgroup. It's certainly a bit darker than a lot of campaign settings out there, but if you (like me) dig horror, then there's a lot to appeal in Machines of Bone & Blood. Somanyrobots' previous campaign setting, Songs of the Spellbound Sea, was well-received, so if you're looking for a different take on gothic horror, you should definitely take a closer look at Machines of Bone & Blood. For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Machines of Bone & Blood Kickstarter page! Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.  To subscribe to GeekDad's tabletop gaming coverage, please copy this link and add it to your RSS reader.   Read the full article

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Blast Off With 'Star Fox' on the Nintendo Switch 2

Star Fox is a notable Nintendo property both for its enduring popularity and its rather nebulous timeline. The 1993 SNES original was rebooted as 1997's Star Fox 64, which was itself remade as Star Fox 64 3D (2011) and further reimagined for the Wii U as Star Fox Zero (2016). This is all to say that you're very likely already familiar with the Lylat Wars, the Star Fox team, and that sinister simian, Dr. Andross. However, no matter how many times you've fought your way through the system's sectors and planets, you've never seen anything quite like Star Fox for the Nintendo Switch 2.

Switch 2 mouse controls continue to be an unexpectedly impressive feature. image: NOA While the game makes the most of its classic rail shooter roots, Star Fox goes out of its way to let you pilot the iconic Arwing your way. There are first- and third-person perspectives, All-Range Mode segments that let you add quick turns and loops in addition to your obligatory barrel rolls, and even Joy-Con 2 mouse mode support, which extends into Star Fox's two-player co-op option, allowing a second player to serve as a mouse-controlled gunner. Star Fox additionally makes great use of the Switch 2 hardware with robust GameShare and GameChat support, with its character avatar system serving as solid motivation to finally pick up that compatible USB camera you've had your eye on. You can participate in GameChat sessions as your favorite character with nicely responsive face-tracking and animations.

Nintendo, please bring this GameChat avatar system to *ALL* upcoming Switch 2 releases. image: NOA Multiplayer Battle Mode puts players in a four-on-four mercenary clash featuring team Star Fox vs team Star Wolf, complete with the matching character avatars, but it also supports the single-player Bot Battle for those just looking to practice or get their feet wet. Star Fox boasts a Challenge Mode, wherein you can revisit previously explored levels (alone, using local co-op, or via GameShare) in an attempt to complete any number of interesting new objectives. At the heart of the experience, though, remains the traditional campaign. Just like the Star Fox games of old, it offers branching maps and a similarly branching narrative, where your in-game performance and decisions ultimately determine how your play-through ends. This initially straightforward experience cultivates and actively rewards replayability, with more and more of the Lylat System opening up as you hone your skills.

The Holoviewer is the perfect place to dive into Star Fox lore. image: NOA This is further reflected in your Holoviewer, where you'll continue to fill out encyclopedic entries on allies, enemies, and locations, and in the form of additional unlockables like more avatar rigs and customizable player icons/Battle Banners. All this hard-fought loot is certainly appreciated, but I quickly realized that the real reward of playing through Star Fox on the Nintendo Switch 2 is the very experience itself. Visually, the game is impeccable, with characters, vehicles, and environments that are all less photorealistic than they are hyper-realistic. Every element fits perfectly into this living, breathing game world with a stunning fidelity that elevates the time-honored tale of space-fox against space-wolf into the realm of a veritable space opera.

It's the Star Fox Team in all its next-gen glory. image: NOA Star Fox's expansive suite of lushly rendered songs and sound effects, as well as its fully voice-acted dialog, completes the package, making for a seamlessly cinematic experience that lands in this weird middle ground between Star Wars popcorn entertainment, Mass Effect-style immersion, and… the Muppets? (I'm reaching for a beloved talking animal property here, and as a Gen-Xer, that's obviously the first place my mind went.) All of this is ably served by a control scheme that is as responsive as it is uncomplicated. Movement is tied to the left analog stick, Shoot/Charge and Bomb are A and Y, respectively, and Boost and Brake are mapped to X and B. Even the most complicated aerial maneuvers are easy to execute, with Somersault and U-turn tied to the up and down arrows on the D-pad, directional tilting mapped to the L and R triggers, and an all-important Barrel Roll as simple as a trigger double-tap.

Oh, Peppy Hare, don't ever change! image: NOA Fans demanding a little more panache can enable button combos in the Controls menu, where you can also invert the Y-axis for each of the featured vehicles, but Star Fox outright refuses to belabor the point. This helps keep the experience pure and accessible, just like it was for those of us from generations past on other Nintendo systems. Look, the Star Fox franchise will likely never reach the heights of, say, Mario or Zelda, and that's ok. (Even Donkey Kong himself has had to fall in line behind Nintendo's big two.) Instead, the series is best served by putting its best foot forward, by channeling all those decades of space-faring history into an experience that is polished, engaging, and above all else, fun.

Easy difficulty reduces enemy damage and always returns downed wingmen, but you can't earn medals or high scores. image: NOA That is exactly what Star Fox for the Nintendo Switch 2 represents. Robust multiplayer options make it a fine fit for online gaming enthusiasts as well as family gamers, the GameChat avatar system adds a nice dash of novelty to its particularly well-designed character models, and the campaign's multiple difficulty levels ensure that everyone from old heads to new players who only discovered Fox and company via Super Smash Bros. or the Super Mario Galaxy Movie can all have a fine time on Corneria… and beyond! Star Fox is a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, available on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at an MSRP of $49.99 digital and $59.99 for the physical release. Review and promotional materials provided by Nintendo of America. This post contains affiliate links. Do an aileron roll!

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Stack Overflow: Space-Time Sci-Fi

The reason I'm calling today's column "space-time" is because I've got two books set in space and two about time travel. Ta-da! Let's start with the space books. Disclosure: I received review copies of these titles. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent bookstores instead of billionaires.

Platform Decay by Martha Wells

Look, if you haven't read any of the Murderbot Diaries series, you're seriously missing out. Go check those out and then come back; I'll wait. All caught up now? Great. Murderbot is on a rescue mission. You don't find out immediately exactly who needs rescuing or why, so I'll omit that, but what you do know is that Murderbot has teamed up with Three, the SecUnit that was recently liberated. Three is still trying to figure out how to behave with its newfound freedom, and Murderbot makes for a strange mentor. Since the last book, Murderbot has also installed a mental health module that is supposed to help it figure out how it is feeling, so we get the occasional report, along with Murderbot's own snarky responses to it. Murderbot and Three infiltrate a huge space station, where they have to use all of Murderbot's hacking tricks to find and extract their rescuees. But it's not that simple: they encounter somebody who, at least the last time they met, was not exactly friendly to Murderbot. And now they have to work together. One of the best things about Murderbot isn't the plot, but all of the internal monologue that Murderbot has while narrating the story. It suffers from social anxiety, but is working through it, despite Martha Wells' insistence on putting Murderbot in situations that test its boundaries. Watching it figure out how to be a better "person"—and now trying to help Three figure out how to behave—is both touching and entertaining.

The Photonic Effect by Mike Chen

It's been a while since the last Mike Chen novel, so I was happy to dive into this space opera. (And he's got a young adult book coming later this year, too!) The Photonic Effect is set nearly three hundred years in the future, when humans have access to interstellar travel and have spread across the galaxy. The scientific starship Horizon got trapped in a gravity well, in which they encountered beings (including humans) from other universes and banded together for survival. When they were finally able to escape the gravity well, they found themselves in the middle of a civil war, and since the Horizon belongs to the Galactic Cluster Fleet, the government has expectations for how the ship will be used in the war. In particular, its photonic engine—which uses technology from the light-based beings in the gravity well—could prove crucial to the war, if only they could get it to function reliably. The captain and crew of the ship are torn in their allegiances; many agree with the tenets of the Withdrawal Movement, and some aren't even from this universe and don't want to fight in this war at all. Meanwhile, they've also received a distress call from the gravity well, and they feel a responsibility to go to their aid. The book is told in the third person, but each chapter focuses on one of the characters, so we get inside their heads a little more for that section. Captain Demora Kim has tried to keep the war outside of her ship, to be a neutral scientific research ship, but as the war progresses, the Horizon is called into duty. Neera, the engineer, is an alien who has a brilliant mind but has a hard time trusting his own judgment; he came from a world in which nobody questioned authority and just obeyed orders from above. Tanav Lexin was a musician—he was actually supposed to be playing a gig on an intergalactic cruise ship when it got pulled into the gravity well, and although he insists he's not an officer, Demi often relies on his ability to read people and to bring people together. The book really throws you right into the middle of things: there's a brief timeline that hints at some of the things the Horizon and its crew have been through, but Chen really gives a sense of that shared history through their interactions, and lets you piece together the rest over the course of the book. It's a galaxy-spanning tale that is also very intimate, as each of the characters has their own obstacles to overcome as they search for the best path forward.

Double Shadow by Andrew Ludington

Okay, and now on to the time travel! Double Shadow is a sequel to Splinter Effect, sort of an Indiana Jones with time travel. Rabbit Ward is a chrono-archeologist: he goes back in time, tracking down artifacts at the moment they were lost (to war, to fire, or other disasters) and then hides them in a secure location. When he returns to the present, the Smithsonian is able to dig them up, rescued from obscurity. In Double Shadow, Rabbit come across a murder in ancient Jerusalem while on a mission, and is surprised to hear the murderer speak English—he must be a time traveler. Back in the present, he gets a frantic text from Helen (his sometime adversary) asking him to track down somebody named Einar Eshek back in 68 CE. When he arrives, he discovers a younger Helen, who doesn't recognize him, and they set off to look for Eshek. As with the first book, there's a lot of real history mixed in with the story: the time that Rabbit and Helen are running around Jerusalem is leading up to the war between the Jews and Rome, and tensions are high. In the meantime, they're trying to figure out who Eshek is, and whether he's also the time-traveling murderer. Ludington keeps you guessing about Eshek's real identity, and even when you do find out, there's still a lot involved in actually catching him. We do get to find out a bit more about Helen in this book since she's such an enigma in the first one, and Rabbit also has some personal growth, but most of the book is about the whodunnit, the extreme difficulty of tracking down a killer who can jump around in time. There's plenty of action, a lot of history, and a bit more romance than the first book. (Also, a content warning: it is pretty gruesome at points.) And it looks like we can probably expect more adventures of Rabbit and Helen based on the ending.

The Traveler by Joseph Eckert

Scott Treder has a problem: he is jumping forward in time uncontrollably. It started at 7:52am on a random Monday in April, where he suddenly found himself in the same place, having lost 24 hours. Then it keeps happening every time it hits 7:52am. And each time he jumps, the length of the jump doubles. The first half of the book is a harrowing thought experiment: can you imagine what it's like, experiencing only 24 hours before you leap into the future? Even by the third jump, Scott's wife Amy is struggling with his increasingly lengthy absences. Their precocious 7-year-old son, Lyle, announces that by the fifteenth jump, Scott will go 45 years into the future. How do you deal with that revelation? That you'll only get a handful of days in your kid's life before he's older than you—and then only one or two more days with him before he's dead of old age? Scott tries to find help for what's happening, but the physicists at the university can't figure it out—and then word leaks, and the reporters descend on the family. Later, as Lyle grows up, he studies theoretical physics, promising his dad that he'll find a solution, while Scott continues to fast forward through the years. It reminded me a little of The Time Traveler's Wife, though in this case it's the time traveler's son who ends up playing a bigger role. But where Henry's jumps happened at unpredictable times and could send him forward or backward in time, eventually snapping him back to his "present," Scott's jumps are like clockwork, precise and unchanging. A mythology arises around him: when he appears exactly as predicted, it's like a prophecy fulfilled, but people react in very different ways. By the time we get into the second half of the book, though, Scott is leaping hundreds of years, thousands of years, and more. Civilizations rise and fall: we go from utopia to apocalypse and back again, and all the while Scott is left to wonder why this is happening to him, whether there is an end to it. I'll admit: this is the part of the book that lost me a bit. It felt like part of it was an observation that we humans are just not great at progress: we make huge scientific advancements, and then we destroy each other, and then we rebuild. But that point probably could have been made in fewer pages. It also got more mystical, and the suspension of disbelief just got a little harder each time he jumped into the distant future. I found myself wishing we had more time to explore the first fifteen jumps or so, the emotional impact of trying to be a father when you're absent for most of your kid's life. The one other thing that bothered me about the time travel is the inconsistencies. If you're going to write a time travel story, one of the important rules is figuring out your timeline, right? Since we do get some actual dates in the course of the story, we're able to pinpoint Scott's initial jump to 2018. With the doubling, he soon goes from days to months to years. But later in the book he references COVID-19, which he wouldn't have experienced, as well as the movie Oppenheimer, which he also would have jumped over. And there's also one bit (when a physicist is explaining things to Scott) where he claims that Scott's jumps prove determinism rather than a branching-path sort of multiverse. Now, I've spent a lot of time thinking about time travel, and I read and re-read that physicist's explanation and came to the conclusion that it didn't make any sense at all. Of course, you could always say that this character is just wrong, but he's supposed to be one of the best theoretical physicists around, so that was frustrating to me. Accurate or not, though, it was definitely a thought-provoking book.

[geekdadblog]

Build Your Supervillain Lair in 'Spyworld'

Fill your secret lair with traps and guards, and send your agent to infiltrate your rival's lair.

What Is Spyworld?

Spyworld is a flip-and-draw game for 2 to 99 players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 30 minutes to play. It retails for €25 and is available directly from the publisher, but may also be found through other game stores and online retailers. The game has a spy theme with things like laser traps and guard dogs, but done in a cartoony style so it's family-friendly (or at least comparable to other kid's media that has spies and villains). The number of players is limited only by the number of game sheets and making sure everyone can see the cards on the table, but is in theory unlimited. Spyworld was designed by Frédéric Morard and published by Don't Panic Games, with illustrations by Emanuele Arnaldi.

Spyworld components. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu

Spyworld Components

Here's what comes in the box: - 108 Planning cards - 9 Agent cards - 9 Mission cards - 5 Gadget cards - 6 Lair boards (double-sided) - Game Sheets pad

A pristine lair, ready for your personalized touch. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The game sheet is broken down into several sections. On the left is a scoring sheet and a budget tracker. The main central portion of the sheet is a grid for your lair, where you'll be drawing traps and sentries and walls. On the right is a section for your agent, tracking the training that you give your agent as well as any gadgets you obtain. The sheet is perforated so that you can tear off the agent portion—you'll see why in the How to Play section. (If you run out of sheets, you can download the PDF to print more, but you'll have to perforate them yourself.) The game sheets have several tracks that are little dotted circles. Like many other roll-and-write games, you circle things as you earn them, and then cross them out (or color in the circle) when you've used them. The only complaint I had was that in some of the sections, the background color is a little dark, so it can be hard to see the circled outlines.

Lair boards give each game a slightly different flavor. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The Lair boards are large cards that are basically player aid cards, with the rules for the particular level that you're playing. They're double-sided and there are two different versions, giving you four total lairs to use, from the introductory Superyacht to the Volcano Lair. Each one shows you the effects of the various traps and sentries, along with some particular rules that apply to that lair. With three copies of each one, you can spread these around the table, though if you have a lot of players they may need to pass them around to share.

Three types of sentries: dogs, guards, and robots. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The planning cards are the core component that drives the game. The back of each one has a number from 1 to 5, and is either red (with horizontal arrows) or blue (with vertical arrows), indicating a row or column in the lair. The front of the card is where you'll find the various traps and sentries that you can put into your lair, as well as valuable secrets to stash in your lair—each of these has a little icon at the top showing what you draw in your lair for that item. There are also some cards that will train your agent or give you gadgets. The illustrations have some fun details—for instance, the guard dogs have lasers strapped to their backs (though I can't tell if the sharks have frickin' lasers on their heads).

A few of the agent cards. Recognize anyone? Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The agent cards feature a variety of secret agents, and there are some fun references to classic spies from movies and videogames, like "Jamie" who's seen wearing a tux and playing poker, or "Lopin IV" who's seen cracking a safe. These aren't used in the introductory game, but give players asymmetric abilities for their agents.

How to Play Spyworld

You can download a copy of the rulebook here. The Goal The goal of the game is to have the most money by protecting the secrets you've stashed in your lair and stealing secrets from your rival's lair (plus a few other bonuses).

Main area setup. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Setup Choose the level of lair you will be playing, and set out the lair boards turned to the appropriate side. Shuffle the planning cards and make three equal decks, placed in a central area where everyone can see them. Shuffle the mission cards and draw 3 at random, placing them face-up. Set out the five gadget cards as a reference (one side is a basic side and one side is the expert side). Give each player a game sheet and pencil. If you're playing the Superyacht lair, do not use agent cards. Otherwise, deal agent cards to each player. (Depending on the number of players, you can either deal 2 to each player for them to choose, deal 1 at random to each player, or set them all out and everyone secretly selects one and writes it down.) Gameplay The bulk of the game is the planning phase, where players will add features to their lair and train their agents based on the planning cards, and is followed by the lair exploration phase.

This round players have three options: a guard dog in Row 1, $4 for movement training, or a giant saw in Column 5. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Planning Phase Each round, you flip over the top card of each deck, creating three pairs (the front of the flipped card, with the back of the next card from the deck). Everyone simultaneously chooses one of the three sets to use for planning. Note that you may also pass and just add $1 to your budget instead. The various cards that may appear in the planning deck are: lair upgrades, walls, agent training, and gadgets.

Some classic traps: lasers, giant saws, and sharks! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Lair Upgrades are traps, sentries, and secrets. Each one will take up one square of your grid and has a little icon to draw. The card back indicates the row or column you may draw the item in. Traps and sentries will stop agents unless they have the right training to get past them. Secrets will give you an immediate small amount to add to your budget, but are also worth money to whoever has them at the end of the game. (Note that you're not allowed to put sharks or robots—the strongest trap and sentry—in the grayed out squares near your lair entrance.)

Don't forget to put up some walls, or your lair is just one big atrium! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Walls help keep those pesky agents out of your secret lair, or route them toward your devious traps. When you choose to add a wall, you pick a square in the indicated row or column, and then draw one wall on any side of that square. (Note that while you can completely wall off a secret, you will not get bonus points for it yourself at the end of the game.)

Each card gives you 3 to 5 points of training in one of the three skills. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Agent Training is how you level up your agent so it can infiltrate somebody else's lair. In this case, the number on the back of the card indicates how much of your budget you must spend. The agent training card indicates which type of training—Movement, Stealth, and Combat—and how many points of it you will get. Movement is spent to move around in the lair, stealth is needed for traps, and combat is needed for sentries; in the advanced game traps cost movement and stealth, and sentries cost combat and stealth, so everything gets more expensive.

The gadget card itself is generic—the gadget you get is based on the back of the paired card. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Gadgets are one-time-use gizmos that can give you an edge. If a gadget card turns up, the number on the back of the card indicates which of the five gadgets is available—refer to the gadget cards to see what they do. It's free—you just circle the corresponding gadget on your sheet. You can only have each gadget once.

Five different gadgets to try—but if you get too many of them, there's a penalty! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Below your lair grid, there is a section for bonus actions. Each round, you only pick one of the three actions to perform. However, if you spend a bonus action (and cross out the corresponding number of dollars from your budget), you may take an additional different action from the three options. You may even spend two bonus actions in one round to do all three. You're limited to five bonus actions for the whole game. If you don't like the row/column paired with the back of a card, you can spend money to change it! In the Superyacht rules, you can spend $2 to change a row to a column or vice versa (but the number doesn't change). In the advanced lairs, you can't change whether it's a row or column, but you can spend $2 per step that you increase or decrease the number. For gadgets, there are also rules for spending money to change which gadget you have access to. Once everyone has chosen an option and marked their sheet, flip the next three cards and repeat. You are allowed to look at what your neighbors are doing during this time—get a sense of what obstacles you may be facing!—but you won't know whose lair you'll be infiltrating until later.

Completing a mission will give you either an immediate budget bonus or an end-game bonus. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu There are always three missions for the game: these have specific requirements to fulfill, and it's a race to complete them first. Multiple players can complete the mission if it happens on the same turn, but then it is flipped face-down and can no longer be claimed on a future turn. If you complete a mission, you may choose between taking an immediate bonus that goes into your budget, or a bigger bonus that's written in the Mission lines of your scoring area. The planning phase ends immediately if somebody has completely filled in their lair grid, or if the planning decks are down to the last card in each deck. (Since you always need a card back, you don't flip the last card in the deck.) Now it's time for the lair exploration phase!

Welcome to my lair! Unfortunately, I ran out of time to put more walls in the top half. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu Lair Exploration Phase Time to infiltrate! Tear off your agent section from your sheet. Based on the current three card backs that are visible on the decks, you will pass your lair either to the right or the left. (More red cards: pass to the left; more blue cards: pass to the right.) Now, you will use your agent to explore the lair that was passed to you, trying to access their secrets, drawing a path through the lair.

My lair, after a rival agent came in and stole most of my secrets! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu You start at the arrow at the bottom center, and each step that you move spends 1 movement point. To enter a space with a trap or a sentry, you must spend the required movement, stealth, and combat points. If you don't have enough, you simply can't enter that space. Once a trap or sentry has been neutralized, you can pass through that space again without paying the extra cost (other than regular movement). Everyone explores until they get stuck or choose to stop. You do not have to get back to the entrance. At the bottom of your agent sheet, write down the total number of rooms you entered, the total number of sentries you neutralized, and the total value of all the secrets you stole. On your opponent's lair sheet, write down the total number of traps you triggered, and the total value of secrets left in the lair that you didn't steal, and then pass the lair back. Game End Time to score! Using the scoring area at the top left of your sheet, you add up your total wealth: - Remaining budget - Trapper: $10 bonus to the player(s) who had the most traps triggered in their lair - Value of remaining secrets in your lair that weren't stolen - Gadget Lover: $20 penalty to the player(s) who had the most gadgets - Explorer: $5 bonus to the agent(s) who explored the most rooms - Brutal: $20 bonus to the agent(s) who neutralized the most sentries - Value of secrets your agent stole - Bonuses earned for completing missions The richest player wins! (There aren't any tiebreaker rules.) You can also compare your score against the chart to see where you rank, from the Town Ruler up to the World Overlord.

Spyworld is GeekDad Approved!

Why You Should Play Spyworld

The flip-and-fill structure of Spyworld reminds me of another favorite from this genre, Welcome To, which also gives players a choice of three options each round, pairing a card front with a card back. But instead of putting house numbers in a neighborhood, you get to do something a bit more thrilling: tricking out your secret lair! Everyone I've played with has had fun filling up their grid with shark pits and giant saws and robot sentries, building walls to thwart pesky intruders. But that's not all—you also have to prepare to infiltrate a lair, so you have to balance the building with training up your own agent. That's usually the trickier portion of the game. It's more fun to draw little dogs and lasers in the grid than it is to circle a few spaces in movement, stealth, and combat, but if you spend all of your turns just stacking up your defenses, your own agent is going to be stuck in the entryway. And that has happened on multiple occasions, where somebody can't get past the first couple of traps or guards and doesn't manage to steal anything at all. On the other hand, if you just max out your agent's training, you risk letting your enemy breeze through your entire compound, which could give them some bonus points, particularly if they steal your secrets.

Stash secrets for big bucks—but those big bucks might get stolen. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu The secrets are also a fun risk/reward option: putting secrets in your lair gives you an immediate budget bonus, which is pretty handy. You'll need that to buy agent training, and to manipulate the row/column option. It's also worth end-game points, either to you or to your rival. So you do have to be careful where you put them in your lair, and figure out how to protect them. Is it better to scatter your secrets all over the lair, hoping that your rival can't get to all of them (and that you'll have the opportunity to put some walls or traps in between them)? Or is it better to group them together, but try to make it impossible to reach the group? Since the order that the cards appear is randomized, there are no guarantees that you'll be able to place security measures where they're needed, and there have definitely been times when I've put in a secret with plans to build some walls to make it harder to get, but then those numbers just didn't come up later. The missions can also push you in a particular direction, and it's not always the most optimal. If you're racing to have 4 guards in your lair, you might pass up the opportunity for some cheap training, or a wall that you could really use. If the mission is all about getting stealth training, you might blow your budget on that and then undertrain in some of the other skills. And then, assuming you manage to complete a mission before anyone else gets it, you still have to decide: a little bit of spending money now, or a lot more money for the end of the game?

Dr. Bad has a lot of secrets stored up if you can get past the line of traps and sentries. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu So far I've mostly been playing the introductory superyacht lair because I've been teaching it to new players, but I haven't gotten tired of the basic game yet! The full game using the other lairs adds some new wrinkles: traps and sentries get a bit harder, but you make up for it (a little) with the agents, which also add some asymmetry to the game. The lairs themselves also have special rules: at the tropical island, you can always spend money to turn a planning card into a shark; the volcano lair has a crater in the center that's just an impassable obstacle. I like the fact that you can see what your neighbors are up to during the game, but you don't know which lair you're going to be facing until the planning phase is over.

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Kickstarter Tabletop Alert: 'Stonespine Architects: Invasion'

It's time to put your dungeon-building skills to the test—how will they stand up to actual heroes?

What Is Stonespine Architects: Invasion?

Stonespine Architects: Invasion is an expansion for Stonespine Architects, a dungeon-building game for 1 to 5 players, ages 10 and up, and takes about 60 to 90 minutes* to play. It's currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $41 for the retail edition of the expansion. Note that this is an expansion and requires the base game, which is also available through this Kickstarter in case you missed it the first time around. There's also an option to get a larger collector's edition box (with or without the base game included). Stonespine Architects: Invasion was designed by Jordy Adan and published by Thunderworks Games, with illustrations by Damien Mammoliti, Lucas Ribeiro, and Diego Sá. *My experience says it's likely to run longer than an hour and half, especially with a full player count—more on that later. New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

Stonespine Architects: Invasion Components

Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. Here's what comes in the box: - Market board - 6 Guardian boards - 12 Level markers (2 per guardian) - 7 Guardian meeples - 16 Minion meeples - 63 Guardian tokens - 6 Guardian reference cards - 12 Hero cards - 90 Hero figures (30 each in black, purple, and red) - 4 Invasion dice - 4 Health tokens - 51 Rubble tokens - 18 Secret Passage tokens - 50 XP cubes - 4 Trophy tokens - 20 Demerit tokens - 4 Goal cards - 6 Challenge cards - 5 Invasion reference cards - Scorepad Kickstarter backers will also receive a mini-expansion included in the expansion that adds 6 more hero cards to the mix. The big addition to the game is the guardians. Each of the 6 guardians has a number of different components: a big meeple (or two) for the guardian itself, some little minion meeples (they're all the same but color-coded to match the guardians), and a variety of hex-shaped tokens that vary from guardian to guardian. The guardian boards have two tracks of hex-shaped holes that you'll use to level up, and each board is double-sided, with a different set of abilities for a variant version of the guardian. The hapless heroes who will (presumably) die in your dungeon come in three flavors: strength (red), magic (purple), and dexterity (black). There are multiple cards for each one, so each game can have a different mix of heroes to defeat. The invasion dice are custom six-sided dice. Two of them have heroes on all six faces, and two of them only have heroes on three faces.  

How to Play Stonespine Architects: Invasion

You can download a copy of the rulebook here. I won't explain the base gameplay here, and will focus on what's new in Invasion. For the base game, refer to my original review. The Goal The objective of the game is to score the most points by building a dungeon that meets your blueprints, challenges, and goal, as well as defeating the heroes that enter the dungeon. Setup There are some new goals and challenges mixed into the decks, and a few old challenges that should be removed from the base game. Set up the game as usual, and then add the following. Place the market board nearby, with a supply of XP cubes, secret passages, and rubble tokens. Fill the market board with XP and secret passages as indicated. Shuffle each of the hero types and draw one of each type, placing them next to supplies of hero meeples. Place invasion dice and health markers nearby. Sort the trophy tokens and demerit tokens by year and place them in stacks. In reverse turn order, each player chooses a guardian and takes all the components associated with that guardian. Each guardian has two versions, and the reference card indicates which of the components will be needed. Place minions next to the level tracks where indicated, and place the level markers at the bottom of each track. Some guardians will have additional setup indicated on their reference cards. Everyone places their doorway marker lying down at their entrance, indicating that the dungeon is closed. Gameplay The game takes four "years," and each year has these phases: Construction, Improvement, Preparation, Invasion, and Cleanup. Preparation and Invasion are the new phases in the expansion. The Construction phase is the same: players will pick and pass cards, adding them to their dungeons until everyone has added a row of 4 cards. Improvement is when you spend money to buy things from the market. In addition to the original market cards (where you can get monsters, traps, etc.), there's now a new market board with three more options: - XP - the earlier you buy, the more XP you get for $4. - Remove Rubble - some of the heroes will add rubble to your dungeon, covering up other features, and you can spend $3 per rubble removed. - Secret Passage - sometimes the original market will include secret passages, but this market board always has four available each year, in increasing prices from $5 to $8. Every time you gain 5 XP, you must level up your guardian, spending the XP and moving one of your level markers up. If you reach a minion, you add it to your supply. If you reach a lightning bolt, you immediately activate the lightning bolt power shown at the bottom of your guardian board. If you reach an open lock icon (with a letter in it), you have unlocked the corresponding ability at the bottom of the board. During the Preparation phase, everyone simultaneously places their guardian meeple and any minions from their supply into their dungeon. These meeples do not count toward the limit of 4 features per room. Once ready, stand your doorway up to indicate that your dungeon is open. When all dungeons are open, it's time for the Invasion phase. The player with highest priority rolls the dice shown on the trophy token for the current year, and everyone gains hero meeples based on the roll. If there are multiple heroes, players may choose the order that they enter the dungeon, through your entrance location. When a hero enters, they first check if there is a defeated hero in the chamber. If so, then they ignore everything in that room and continue to a connected room. If they enter a space with a guardian, then they are defeated and you leave them in the room. Otherwise, they take 1 damage from each monster and trap, and 2 damage from each minion in the room. If the hero has health left, they continue. When a hero continues, you may choose which room they go to next if there are multiple options, but they cannot enter the same chamber twice. If there are no more rooms to enter and they haven't been defeated, then they escape, and you place them next to your doorway and close your dungeon. Any remaining heroes that haven't entered your dungeon are returned to the supply. Once everyone is done with the heroes from the wave, players decide if they want to welcome another wave of heroes. If your dungeon is still open, you can leave it open, or lay your doorway down to close it. If there's anyone with an open dungeon, the process repeats: roll the dice again, get more heroes, and trace their paths through the dungeons. If all the dungeons have been closed, then the heroes level up: roll dice shown on the trophy token, and add health to the corresponding heroes. The player who defeated the most heroes without any escaped heroes gains the trophy token for that year—if everyone had escaped heroes, nobody gets the trophy. (Ties are broken by priority order.) Each player with an escaped hero takes a demerit token for that year. Everyone counts up all the heroes in their dungeon (including the escaped ones) and gains that much XP. (Remember: you must level up as you gain XP, except in Year 4 you may choose to keep it toward final scoring instead.) Finally, you do the Cleanup phase: in addition to the regular cleanup, return all heroes to the supply, remove your guardian and minions from the dungeon and place them back in your supply, and refill the market board. Game End The game ends after the fourth year. You still score all the same things from the base game (goal, blueprint, challenges, and path), and then add the following: - Trophy tokens - Demerit tokens - Leftover XP (1 point each) - Guardian bonuses: if one or both of your level markers reached the very top of the track, you will score bonus points as indicated at the top of the track. The highest score wins, with ties broken by priority order! Solo Mode The solo mode is played like the base game's solo mode against the automated player Jael. You use the back side of the new market board, which has spaces that indicate what Jael will try to purchase if he has at least the same amount of gold as you. Jael defeats a set number of heroes based on the year, so that's the threshold you need to beat to earn the trophy. You win the game by scoring more points than Jael.

Why You Should Play Stonespine Architects: Invasion

The Stonespine Architects base game is excellent and was even one of our 2024 Game of the Year finalists. I love the puzzle of building out your dungeon, trying to match requirements on your blueprints and challenges, while also trying to balance how much gold you earn each round so that you can buy extras from the market. Once you're done building your dungeon, you score points for it—but although the rulebook's flavor text mentions heroes being challenged by your dungeons, the base game does not actually feature any heroes charging into your dungeon to face the various monsters and traps that you've carefully arranged. ... until now! In Stonespine Architects: Invasion, the heroes have finally shown up, entering your dungeon in ever-increasing waves as they throw themselves into your dungeon with abandon. (I mean, really, don't they know not to split the party?) Each round, the some heroes level up, becoming more powerful for the next time. But the players themselves have also gotten an upgrade: now each player is a powerful dungeon guardian with unique abilities and dangerous minions, and the more hapless heroes lose themselves in your maze, the more experience you gain. This expansion reminds me a little bit of another title from Thunderworks Games: Roll Player, the first game set in the world of Ulos (that now includes several other titles such as Cartographers and Emerald Skulls). In Roll Player, the whole game is about creating an RPG character: you place dice into your character board to determine your strength, dexterity, and so on. Your character doesn't actually do anything in the game—it's all about the design. In the Monsters and Minions expansion, though, you can fight minions over the course of the game, and it ends with a big combat against the boss monster. Narratively, both of these expansions can feel a little strange: why am I fighting while I'm still filling out my character sheet? How come heroes are exploring my dungeon when it's not actually completed? Mechanically, the expansions add a layer of gameplay that makes the whole endeavor even more satisfying. You actually get to use your character for something; you find out how many heroes you can take down with your dungeon design. It feels like you've progressed from a classroom exercise ("Design a dungeon to these specifications") to the practical application ("Leeeerooooy Jeeeenkinnnnns!"). Thematically, it's a little bit like Boss Monster, but writ large. There's a press-your-luck element involved in the hero invasions, because you can decide after each wave whether you want to risk another wave. You can look at your dungeon and determine which heroes would survive and which ones would die at any given point, but you won't know which heroes are coming until the dice are rolled. In later rounds, some of the dice have a 50% chance of being blank—do you like those odds? Escaped heroes will give you demerits: maybe it's worth risking that in the earlier rounds because leveling up  quickly might make up for the lost points. Demerits get more and more costly as the game progresses, so you'll have to be careful! The heroes who break into your dungeon aren't very smart, but they make up for it by being quite annoying. There are three general types, with different versions of each one. The strength hero has the most health but has a specific vulnerability; the dexterity hero is weakest but will reduce certain features in your dungeon to rubble; the magic hero has middling health but the ability to ignore certain chambers. Figuring out how to build your dungeon to address the three different heroes is key to gaining XP. The guardians all have different abilities, which means you need to adapt your strategy to take advantage of your strengths. (Plus, there are two versions of each guardian for even more variety.) The Stone Dragon is all about gathering a hoard of treasure chests and victory point stars in the center of its dungeon. The Artificer Gorgon gets bonus damage to certain traps. The Giant Troll can move around during the invasion phase, but with a trade-off of turning a lot of its dungeon to rubble. Each guardian also has different ways to score bonus points, but only if you level up enough! So far I've only used the simpler side of the guardians, recommended for new players, but I've looked through their powers and I'm excited to give them all a try eventually. Stonespine Architects gave you the mission to build a dungeon; Invasion puts that dungeon to the test. It feels like a logical continuation of the theme, and I really enjoy the added depth. The one drawback is that it does make the game quite a bit longer. I mentioned at the top of the review that the box says "60 to 90 minutes," but in my estimation it's likely to take much longer. Although the dungeon building is simultaneous, the market phase is done in turns (based on who has the most gold), which means it has always been a game that takes a little longer for each additional player. And, of course, if you had a plan for the market but then somebody bought what you wanted, you have to make a new decision on the spot. Invasion adds an entire new phase to the game, and it's arguably one of the most prone to analysis paralysis. In the first round, you're going to admit at most 4 heroes into your dungeon (or 5 if you're just going for the extra XP along with a demerit), because only 1 hero can be defeated per room. It's pretty easy to see if you could handle another single hero in an additional wave. But by round four, your dungeon could handle up to 16 heroes, and each one might have multiple paths they could take through your dungeon. On top of that, you could have 4 heroes in a wave, so you're deciding not only how they move through the dungeon, but the order that they'll enter. Because of their different abilities, the locations where each hero dies will impact the next hero's survival. When it comes time to decide whether to admit another wave of heroes, everyone is scrambling to calculate how far each of the three hero types would make it through their dungeon, then how many of each one they could handle, and then deciding whether they like the odds. Maybe you could handle 2 more heroes, but what if the dice give you 4 heroes instead? The decisions can get quite complex, and if you allow everyone to math out all the possibilities before progressing, it can really slow down the game. I don't know if it makes sense to set a timer for deciding on additional waves. That said, if you like the dungeon building aspect of Stonespine Architects, I think the extra time needed for Invasion is worth it. It really immerses you in the theme, and as long as you're planning for it to be a big game, it's a very engaging experience! For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Stonespine Architects: Invasion Kickstarter page! Click here to see all our tabletop game reviews.

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