50 Games in 50 Weeks: Cthulhu Dice
Cthulhu Dice is an odd little game. On one hand, it’s dramatically simple: each player has three sanity tokens. On your turn, choose another player, roll a die, and do whatever the die tells you (take sanity from the other player, lose sanity, etc.). If you’re targeted by another player, you get a free die roll in response. Continue until only one player has any sanity […]
The Best of Margaret St. Clair
I have no idea when or why I bought The Best of Margaret St. Clair (public library). It sat on the bottom of my to-read pile as it grew to skyscraper heights. By the time I got around to reading it, it was an orphan. As it happens, Margaret St. Clair was a science fiction writer of the mid-twentieth century, a feminist and rough equivalent to Marion Zimmer Bradley. This book collects a handful of her short stories, all of which provoked total […]
50 Games in 50 Weeks: Castellan
Castellan is an unusual building game. Each player lays out plastic towers and walls, connecting them into courtyards, limited by the pieces listed on special cards (new cards are added and old ones removed as the game progresses). As soon as you enclose a courtyard, it’s yours, and you get points based on the courtyard’s size and the number of towers around it. However, both players are connecting their pieces to the same structure, […]
Wreck-It Ralph
First off: see Wreck-it Ralph for its short film, Paperman. It is worth the admission price alone. The first question about Wreck-It Ralph is this: Does it make full use of its video game conceit? Yes and no. The writers clearly understand classic video games, and constructed a sensible shared world. I felt like I could write fanfic there. The voice actors all perfectly fit their roles, […]
Center for Puppetry Arts
A few weeks ago, I happened to have a free day in Atlanta. I drove up to Peachtree Street–the main one, not the hundred other ones scattered around Atlanta–and fired up my iPhone. I looked for interesting locations nearby. My eye fell on a dot labelled “Center for Puppetry Arts.” One long walk later, I pushed open the double doors, walked over to a ticket booth, and bought a ticket to a unique museum. As a kid, I loved the Muppets as much as anyone, and felt […]