Board Game Review: Hot Tin Roof

Leo Colovini is the creator of one of my very favourite games: Clans. Hot Tin Roof has a very different feel. Instead of neolithic settlers coming together to form the first villages, players of Hot Tin Roof are moving cats around the neighbourhood, over buildings, across clothes lines and telephone wires, and through patios to collect the most fish.

I first played this game as a 'Mammoth' version at Gen Con. I thought it was cute, so I bought it as a gift for the Dork Spouse. Of course, it's a bit different when you're moving wooden cat meeples around a board, instead of adorable fluffy plush kittens on a carpet with the game board printed on it.

Still, it was a fun game, so I shall review it now. Starting, of course, with the numbers.

What is a Hero?

Most modern adventure games, including both roleplaying games and video games, tend to gravitate towards the concept of heroism. Players are often looking for a chance to be the hero, and use games to vicariously experience the thrill of being the hero.

But what does it mean to be a hero?

The concept of heroism has changed over the years. Beowulf, for example, was considered a hero not only because of his strength and courage, but also his honour, loyalty, generosity, and hospitality. Compare that with many of today's heroes. John Wayne is often considered a hero by many Americans, due in large part to his integrity, his unwillingness to compromise his ideals. The Frankish hero of Roland was idolised for his bravery; he refused to sound the call for reinforcements until his army was nearly defeated and there was no hope of rescue. The Babylonian hero Gilgamesh went in search of the secret of immortality, only to have it stolen by a snake whilst he slept.

Star Trek: Beyond

Back in October, I published my ranking of the Star Trek films. As I'm sure you know, a new Star Trek film was released almost two months ago. I really don't want this blog to turn into a movie review site, but I just have to express what I thought of the new one.

Be warned: This review contains spoilers. If you haven't seen this film and don't want it spoiled, DO NOT READ THIS ARTICLE.

In fact, I'm going to put this behind a cut just to make sure. Because

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

There. Now let's continue.

Board Game Review: Imhotep

A friend of mine recently acquired a copy of Imhotep. He brought it to game night, and I got to play it. Now I shall review it for you.

As you may remember, last time I did a board game review, I added some categories based on the Quantic Foundry board gamer motivation profile tool. I have codified those into my ratings system. Here is the new one:

Strategy: 5
Randomness: 1
Complexity: 2
Humour: None
Attractiveness: Pretty
Average Length of Gameplay: 45 minutes
Gamer Profile Ratings:
   Strategy: High
   Conflict: Medium
   Social Manipulation: Low
   Fantasy: Medium

Resources for Gamers

I recently stumbled across a fascinating twitter account. It's a bot designed to generate a new fictional map once per hour. These maps are designed to resemble the maps you'd find in the back of cheap paperback fantasy novels. It occurred to me that these maps can easily be adapted for use in original game worlds.

This started me thinking about other resources that GMs can use for their games. So here is a list of a few useful websites. Click on the images to be taken to that site!

Streaming Changeling Is a Go!

I've just finished recording a test run at twitch.tv. Ok, technically, I've recorded several test runs, but the last one was the only one that worked as I had intended, so the others have been deleted.

But the point is, it looks like we're a go for streaming our first Changeling session this coming Tuesday! That's the 23rd of August, 2016, just in case you're reading this post in the future and the date has already passed. Sorry, future boy, you missed it. But you can watch the archived video for as long as twitch.tv keeps it up!

Anyway. This session will be chargen. The group will discuss how their characters are connected, and then I will guide them through the process of creating those characters. If you're interested in watching this video, you can tune in at 6:00 PM CDT (on the off-chance that you're watching from somewhere else in the world, you can check this handy time converter to see what time that will be for you).

Board Game Review: Dead of Winter

A few years back, Wil Wheaton launched his web series Tabletop. This was very exciting to me; I like Wil Wheaton, and I like board games, so a series based on showing people new games to convince them to try them sounds like a great idea!

I'm beginning to realise, however, that the series is imperfect. I wish I had some advice on how to improve it; the one thing that I know is, in watching the show, I decided that there are some games that don't look interesting to me. Some episodes made me think that I'm just not interested in trying the games showcased in those episodes.

This can be a bad thing, because at least twice now, I've tried a game that I had previously thought I wouldn't like, only to find that I did like it. I'm not sure why that is, but with both of these games, I saw the Tabletop episode and thought, 'That just doesn't sound like it'd be very enjoyable to me.' Then when I had a chance to actually play the game, I found it was actually a lot of fun.

The first such game was Ticket to Ride. It's still not high on my list of favourite games; I doubt I'll ever feel a need to own it. But I won't be opposed to playing. The second game? That's the one I'm going to review today. That's right: Dead of Winter.