Blog Archives
Satchel of Holding
There’s undoubted utility to a bag of holding, but I always imagine everything jumbling together like loose chicken parts. Magical tomes next to tavern dinners next to razor implements, sloshing around to produce a pulpy slurry.
Designed by Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, and Shawn Stankewich — best known for Point Salad and Verdant, although my course of choice would be the excellent TEN — Satchel Quest might be the first game to really understand the problem. This is a bag-builder only slightly in the vein of The Quacks of Quedlinburg, featuring hints of that title’s press-your-luck gameplay, but really emphasizing the disorderly nature of a magical burlap sack where one’s potatoes are stored beside mana crystals and radioactive artifacts. For example, you’ve decided to hold not only an entire arsenal in your satchel, but also a whole bunch of monsters.
If that sounds like a bad packing decision — and I’m saying this as someone who grew up schlepping a half-dozen hardbacks on any given weekend trip — then rest assured there’s a reason for all those odds and ends.
Repentants
Gosh, it’s been a while since I thought about March of the Ants. Tim Eisner and Ryan Swisher’s eusocial civilization game is now ten years old, which in board game years represents the better part of a century. As befits the game’s diminutive nature, this has always been the smaller, faster, and scuttlier cousin to fare like Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy, Clash of Cultures, and Twilight Imperium. With the recent release of the Evolved Edition, it seemed like a good time to take a second look.
I’m glad I did. Not only is this new edition an improvement on the original in pretty much every regard, it has swiftly become a jumping-off point for my eleven-year-old into the expansive world of 4X games. And the ants! There’s nothing quite like slapping a big old butt onto your custom subspecies.
Ants in the Pants
Sometimes, usually while showering, I think about how the eusociality of the insect order Hymenoptera — ants, wasps, bees, and so forth — is very possibly the pinnacle of feminism.
But enough about that. Let’s talk about March of the Ants. Who doesn’t love ants?
