Author Archives: The Innocent
Book-Space! #2: The Three-Body Problem
In the second-ever episode of the Space-Biff! Book-Space!, Brock, Summer, and Dan read about physics conundrums, bad video games, and what happens when a convention of virtual reality nerds makes decisions for the rest of the world. That’s right, it’s The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015. You can listen to the discussion below or head over here for a download link.
Join us next month for a discussion of Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. And shoot your thoughts over to spacebiffbookspace@gmail.com to hear them read aloud on an actual real-life podcast!
What We Play in the Shadows
It isn’t often that the story behind a game is more interesting than the game itself. If you don’t believe me, try watching that documentary about Twilight Imperium.
Nyctophobia, though, is one of the few games that comes close. Created by Catherine Stippell as a way to include her blind uncle in the hobby — and possibly even grant him an advantage over those with functioning vision — Nyctophobia casts its players as teenagers fumbling through a darkened wood on a moonless night, navigating purely by touch as they scramble to rescue a friend who’s been bound as a vampire’s familiar.
As far as gimmicks go, donning blackout glasses is dang sexy. As a game? Well, let’s talk.
Cataclysm Is a Giant “What If?”
Every time an undergrad asks What if?, a history professor gets her tenure. Yet there’s an undeniable appeal to that question. What if Hitler had been shrewder about invading Russia? What if the United States had gone all-in on the Pacific rather than entering the European Theater? What if both Axis and Allied powers had teamed up to battle aliens? There’s no way to know, man.
Other than that last one, those are the questions at the heart of Cataclysm: A Second World War, Scott Muldoon and William Terdoslavich’s take on the devastating twentieth-century conflict. And they’re also the questions that arise approximately every two minutes while playing.
Rootin’ Around
The cats are in charge. The noble birds are swooping from their roosts. A gathering of woodland smallfolk agitate in their holes and burrows, whispering, whispering. And a winsome raccoon packs his rucksack and sets out for adventure.
Adorable and ferocious in equal measure, Cole Wehrle’s Root is Redwall by way of A Distant Plain. And it’s both a total delight and the most accessible asymmetric experience Leder Games has produced thus far.
Rainbow Flix
There’s something perfect about the eco-terrorist baddies of Mark Thomas and Pete Ruth’s SEAL Team Flix. Maybe it’s because they’re a throwback to Rainbow Six, a reminder of the tactical shooter’s spy thriller roots. Or maybe it’s because they’re threatening and preposterous in equal measure, a tightrope act between deadly serious and clowning silliness. Much like SEAL Team Flix itself, come to think of it.
Either way, ring the wedding bells and fetch the preacher, because I’m in love.
An Untimely Decapitation
Ah, the stench of the arena. The sharp bite of steel, the tang of blood, the musk of fur and man-sweat barely concealed by a splash of olive oil. Breathe it in. Breathe it, I said. Because this is serious business, this gladiator stuff. Gladiat-ing has never been for the meek.
Carthage isn’t the first game to sashay into the arena, not by a long shot. But it just might be the first arena-smasher that’s actually a deck-building game. So: thumbs up or down? Let’s find out together.
Back to the Future, Past, and Present
Some games I appreciate for their elegance. Their brightness. Their sheer go-where-nobody-has-gone-before-ness. Others I appreciate because they’re garbage. Delicious, sugary, make-you-look-like-a-tire-swing-got-wedged-around-a-telephone-pole garbage.
See where I’m going with this?
It’s Pronounced “Dragger”
It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Girl isn’t interested. The town of Stjørdal gets invaded by flesh-hungry undead. Flesh-hungry undead are the only ones who can pronounce “Stjørdal,” so by ancient tradition they now own the town. Boy, with nothing better to do with his misdirected masculinity, loads up on iron stakes and vials of holy water. It’s on.
We haven’t covered anything by prolific print-and-play designer Todd Sanders for a while, but the recent envelope printing of Todd’s solo microgame The Draugr by BoardGameGeek seems like as good a time as any to jumpstart our moldering heart. So listen up, because this one’s lean, gorgeously ugly, and arrives printed on paper you might bring groceries home in.
Sumter’s Going On Here
After spending six, seven, and eight hours respectively on the full campaigns of Churchill , Fire in the Lake, and Pericles, a bracing twenty-minute tug of war was the last thing I expected from Mark Herman. Yet here it is: Fort Sumter, a wargame more in the vein of 13 Days than Herman’s usual wheelhouse. But as an experiment in capturing the stresses of the U.S. Secession Crisis in as few minutes and moves as possible, it’s largely successful.
Introducing the Space-Biff! Book-Space!
In addition to board games, I’ve always had an abiding love for science fiction, fantasy, horror, post-apocalypsopoda, and… princess books? Yes. That’s me.
Now, in collaboration with Brock Poulsen and Somerset Winters-Thurot (no relation), comes the world’s first podcast about that very subject. Every month we’ll be reading and discussing one book — spoiler-heavy, no-holds-barred, all arguments and spats and talking points laid bare for all to witness. With your ears.
For our inaugural episode, we’re talking about The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin, the first entry in the Broken Earth series and winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016. If you’ve read The Fifth Season, you can listen to our jabbering either down below or over here.
Or read ahead and shoot your thoughts over to spacebiffbookspace@gmail.com to contribute to next month’s discussion of The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin.
