Blog Archives
Frank in the Woodland
In Frank West and James Tomblin’s latest title, fully clothed animals travel between forest clearings and initiate battle in order to restore their chosen power structures to the woodland. Hmm… where have I heard this before? Ah, I remember — it’s Defenders of the Wild!
I kid, I kid. To be fair, Emberleaf bears only the most superficial of resemblances to Root. I wouldn’t dare invoke Foucault to describe its depiction of biopower or sexuality, for one thing. On a somewhat less onanistic spectrum, Emberleaf is an optimizer’s board game, jam-packed with sequences of actions that spool into other actions, resources that must be spent in precisely the right order, and conflicting objectives that each award their own variable numbers of victory points. It’s an intriguing, persnickety, and sometimes gummy title, either a deeply flawed masterpiece or a mess with pretensions. I’m still trying to determine which.
Rebel Yowl
As much as I appreciated the spatial puzzle of Race to the Raft, Frank West’s follow-up to The Isle of Cats, I still have yet to try the original feline-placer. Instead, I’ve jumped straight to The Isle of Cats Duel, which is, I gather, a somewhat improved version of the same game, but in duel format. Two ships enter. Both leave laden with some variable quantity of cats. Also heaps of treasure, but who cares about gold and gems when you have all these cats prowling around?
Those Darn Kittens
Speaking as someone who regularly plays games filled with questionable content, I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed stakes quite as high as those in Frank West’s Race to the Raft. The Isle of Cats has caught fire and it’s your task to herd these disoriented kittens to safety. Because they are cats, they are the opposite of ruly. My nine-year-old is invested. So invested, in fact, that I have been prohibited from playing it without her.
SPACE-BIFF! 