Author Archives: Arachne Jericho

d20-7 Looking for Lunch Boxes to Store Games In

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Two days ago I received my Double Decktet from The Game Crafter. The quality was quite satisfactory, without any die-cut errors. The stickers for the suit chips were alright, not as misaligned as some I’ve seen on BoardGameGeek. I am really very happy with this set, although I wish the suit chips were smaller, they do fit into the My Little Pony lunchbox neatly.

I also found the cards compact enough to fit in a copy of the Vanessa Tarot to play Gnostica and Zarcana with. There’s little room in the box for rules, but I figure that I can use my Kindle Paperwhite for bought books (like the revised and expanded Decktet Book) and my iPad for the various game system wikis (such as the Decktet Wiki, Icehouse Games wiki, and the Piecepack wiki).

I can actually fit in a few more things, so I’ve been thinking about what to fit. I need some Ice Dice (I have the die face images to make my own with), the World War 5 map, player shields (for RAMbots and possibly other games), and so on. As well as a score track bandana of some sort; not sure where to get one, exactly, but it’s necessary for one of the Decktet games.

I went looking for the Doctor Who metal lunchbox, but it wasn’t available from my local game store (which had them in stock two weeks ago; I guess I should have picked it up then). I wanted to put non-game-system card games in there, like Bohnanza, No Mercy, Fairy Tale, etc. Extra points if I can fit in both Race for the Galaxy plus expansions and Smash Up plus expansions.

Instead I picked up a Star Trek (Classic) lunch box, which is likely to be roomier than the Doctor Who box by just a little bit. I plan to stock it full of card games temporarily, but then move the card games to the Doctor Who lunchbox and store tile-based games in the Star Trek box. I’m thinking Dragons of Kir (along with my second chessboard bandana), flat chess pieces (for me to craft somehow, probably using wooden circles bought from Michael’s or something) along with Knightmare Chess, Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers along with another score track bandana or some such, and so on.

I love this idea of packing as many games as possible into a small space. I’m aware that carrying three lunch boxes is a bit of a drag, but still.

So excited. This will be awesome. I’ll see about posting pictures, glorious pictures, when I’m done packing the Star Trek box.

Hm. Just had another thought. What if I used a lunchbox to pack in as many exclusively two-player games as possible? Like the Kosmos 2-player line? SO EXCITE.

d20-3 Update on the Box of Game Systems

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Partially exploded from my metal lunchbox: 6 full icehouse stashes, 5×5 Volcano grid, 4 Martian Coasters, JCD color piecepack from Blue Panther, Crown Royal bag, chessboard bandana, various dice, decktet.

Soon to be added: professionally printed double decktet and 60 decktet suit coins.

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Everything packed up inside. I think there’s enough room for the coming new stuff.

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All closed up and ready to go. Rules are on my Kindle Paperwhite.

d20-18 I can’t write and I’m not worth anything

By Posted in Writing Tagged , 1 Comment

Maybe I should get rid of this category on the d20. I haven’t been able to “write write”, that is, write fiction. I lost a friend through my own fault (what does it matter if I blame myself? It still happened, it was still my fault, and I learned nothing, and I’m a base creature who learns nothing from her experiences, so why should I be alive? And so on), and so far it’s tanked my desire to do anything of the nature I had been doing up until that loss.

On the other hand, I can blog. Kinda. That’s been coming back gradually, though I doubt I’m ever going to do change logs again. It just hurts too damn much. In fact, I think I’m going to cry for a while after this entry.

If blogging comes back gradually, then maybe the writing of fiction can too. If it does, it’s going to come back irrevocably changed; there’s no way I can write a jaunty little romance tinged with sadness. I’m going to open a vein all the way, instead, and spill it on the paper. Or the screen. You know what I mean.

It’s a shame. I have an iPad I enjoy writing on (at least, the writing I can do right now) and I wish I could fill its days with something.

Of course, I have a tendency to do the exact opposite of what I say I can’t do. It’s a quirk of mine that I guess people don’t understand. I don’t really understand it myself.

How did I ever get away from my parents?

d20-17 Life on a Boat

By Posted in Spontaneous Tagged , 2 Comments

Mother’s Day has come and gone, and I spent the weekend conscious and at a friend’s place. We watched Tipping the Velvet and Doctor Who “Crimson Horror” and “Nightmare in Silver”. I talked a bit about my parents; it was the usual horror show.

We ate a lot of sheep cheese and goat cheese. There was no halloumi so I suggested (thank you, Mark Spoils) slicing up a normal goat cheese log, dipping it in egg and then rolling it in ground-up walnuts, and pan-frying it. With a honey goat cheese log, this experiment resulted in absolute deliciousness. As for the sheep cheese, I brought along some very solid sheep cheeses from Town & Country. All of these paired well with the Blue Diamond artisan gluten-free vegan nut crackers.

I felt safe with two other people in the place. I didn’t take any Xanax even! (I actually left the bottle at home because I didn’t want to be tempted.)

We were going to play games, but all we managed to play with me in such a state was Settlers of Catan, using the two-player variant (along with the Catan event cards) in Traders & Barbarians. I’m so happy that the two-player worked out! I worried that it might not; but the trade tokens were the perfect addition, as well as the dummy players that took up good spaces on the board.

I’ve just showered and feel pretty good, except for the part where I forgot to pack another morning’s worth of meds, which may mean I go home early today. Or not; I have been able to survive single days with late meds, so hopefully that’s also today. I honestly look forwards more to going home than to anything else at this point… save the new job position. Which unfortunately won’t be for several more weeks.

All in all, life is pretty good. I’m going to work shortly. Thank gods there isn’t a long extended ferry ride (but on the other hand, there isn’t a long extended ferry ride).

Rewatch: Puella Magi Madoka Magica 1×01: I First Met Her in a Dream… or Something

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Spoilers abound. I recommend this series highly; you can watch it online for free, officially and all that, at Crunchyroll. There are only 12 episodes, and it’s quite an experience.

These rewatch posts will spoil everything in PMMM front, sideways, backways, and seventeen ways from Sunday. I highly recommend watching the series in full, first.

You have been warned!

Continue reading →

D20-12 Puella Magi Madoka Magica: An Introduction to the Rewatch

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Puella Magi Madoka Magica is something of an occasional obsession of mine; there are weeks when I don’t think about it at all, and then there is that one day where I watch episodes 10 – 12 and cry myself to sleep. Months without listening to the soundtrack, then suddenly “Credens Justitiam” is on loop while I’m driving. It usually happens when there’s about to be a big change in my life, which is rather fitting considering the themes of the series.

I’m not an expert or anything like that, but PMMM just affects me so much. The emotional turmoil that it rises inside me is probably compounded by my first series watch being the time my best friend and I started drifting apart. There were times when “Inevitabilis” (the piano version of Homura’s original theme, “Puella in somnio”) was the musical thread I hung onto as things fell apart between us. Again, very reflective of the themes of the work.

That was then, and this is now. I am going to rewatch PMMM this week, and see where this leads me.

D20-14 Mark Does Stuff: A Review

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Mark Oshiro is neither a reviewer nor a recapper; what he does can basically be called descriptive experiencing, which is to say, as he experiences something (a book or a series, a movie or a television show), he writes about it. The present tense is important here. Normally we read of things having been fully experienced and then written about—reviews, recaps, the like. Mark instead shares his journey with his audience; it’s not all about the destination.

At the same time, Mark does not limit himself to live-blogging his entertainment; he actually writes quite thoughtful pieces on each episode or chapter he reads. That they can be lists makes them no less significant; that they can be screamed sometimes in all-caps makes them no less thoughtful; and they are always, always entertaining. If you’ve read Harry Potter or watched Battlestar Galactica, reading Mark’s work is like re-experiencing them again with fresh eyes. Watching his relatively new feature, videos where you get to see his reactions, is both entertaining and endearing in his eternal unpreparedness.

This is not to say that Mark only shares his glee and wonder at new worlds; he also critiques problematic elements in the works he experiences, from Rowling’s unfortunate implications about the overweight to the troubling nature of Mako’s relationship with Korra and Asami. As an addresser of social injustices, it’s not uncommon for anonymous users to, for instance, have Mark’s TVTropes page removed, or for rabid fans to flee back to their forums decrying Mark as a reverse-racist. Their loss. Mark is indomitable, despite being unprepared for everything under the sun.

Mark is not just a commentator on entertainment; he’s also a community builder. With the effort of various moderators, he’s managed to create a community where it’s safe to express disappointment when creators get things wrong, or to express joy when they get things right. You’ll often find us hanging out on Mark Spoils. Join us for the gifs; stay for the nuns.

For more information on what Mark does, as well as a selection of what he’s written, check out his Hugo nomination post.

Mark reactions courtesy of Mark Reacts.

D20-7 Game Systems in a My Little Pony Lunchbox

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For the first time in a while, I find myself speechless on the topic of games. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed them—I have, greatly, and more so in the past few months than in a long, long time.

Right now I’m enjoying myself in one of the island’s quaint cafes, with an iced Mango Ceylon (which isn’t a half-bad blend, even if it turns out to be Republic of Tea, which does turn out decent blends some of the time). My iPad is before me, sitting actually vertically in the Logictech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, and IA Writer is giving me the three-line focus mode that I am starting to love dearly.

(Really, it’s as though only seeing the last three lines in black, rather than a faded grey, is giving me permission to ram straight ahead and edit later instead of worrying over previously written words; good for first drafts of just about anything. Most of my blog posts are really just first drafts anyways, so this should help with the blogination. I wish more editors had this kind of mode. Although a side effect is that this parenthetical is going on for far longer than it should.)

So anyways, I’m getting interested in game systems again—that is, gaming materials that allow you to play more than one game with them. A great game system allows for many interesting games. A regular deck of cards is a great example, whether it’s a Western deck of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds; or a tarock deck of cups, swords, batons, coins, and major arcana; or a hanafuda deck of seasons and flowers. Dominoes are another example, with both Western and Eastern flavors.

Often what can be thought of as a single game system (like a deck of 52 standard Western cards) can be combined with copies of itself to fuel more games. Such game systems can even only be partially used—consider a Pinochele deck, which consists of two Western decks but only the 9s to Kings plus Aces.

Game systems can take on a variety of shapes and forms. The chess set can be considered a game system with the many, many variants that can be played using the pieces. And there are numerous modern games out there, such as the esteemed Lost Cities, that can be implemented with one of the simplest game systems around: a deck of cards with six suits, numbered 1 to 15.

With a good game system, or even set of game systems—there’s no rule against combining different ones—one can have a small box of more games than one could play in a year, playing one game every day. I bought a My Little Pony lunchbox with this in mind.

The game systems I have in mind are more modern ones. I’m thinking of fitting the following into the box:

  • Piecepack set, the base set only
  • Pyramids, perhaps 15 per color
  • Chessboard bandana, folding purposes
  • Decktet, two extended packs plus suit chips

and maybe a few other odds and ends of games, plus Penny Gems for markers. Or maybe even full out suit chips.

My iPad will carry the rules, though it won’t be packed with the games.

And now I need to return to reading the Decktet book. I have the Decktet loaded into CardWarden, and have been enjoying the solitaire game Adaman.

Whether I enjoy myself with the Box O’ Gaming, I’ll need to tell you over the next few weeks. For now it’s just fun to gather the needed components (such as temporarily printing out my own extended decktet).

Hm. I really need to find a nice place to play some Agricola. I wish I had my game stuff with me, but it’s all at home and it’s way too nice to head home just yet.

iPad Caving

By Posted in Spare Bits Tagged 1 Comment

So, I caved and finally bought an iPad. I have numerous devices now, which isn’t a bad idea given that I’m thinking of spinning up creating ebooks again. I augmented the iPad with a Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, which is pretty darn neat, although I always turn off the keyboard when I’m entering in account information (so that I don’t allow people to sniff that particular information—Bluetooth has issues with security in that sense).

I actually have been using my iPad for quite a few things that I used to use my Asus Transformer for. I’m not fond of the insecurity of the iPad keyboard, but I can (with care) live with that. But it turns out I can read IntenseDebate comments using Safari on the iPad (even though I can’t do it using Chrome on the Asus or the Nexus, nor Safari on the iPhone. No idea what’s going on there), which gives it a leg up on the Android devices.

However: the Android devices are definitely better at being smart. Being able to access the entire system as a file system is much better than being stuck with the iOS jail—and I have no desire to jailbreak my iOS devices given the way that Apple tends to react to such things.

Something nice about the Logitech keyboard: it’s big enough to type on, yet thin enough to be a good cover, and also short enough so that I can sit in my car and type away after pulling my seat back. I wasn’t able to do so with the Asus Transformer.

The other reason I caved and got an iPad was because of all the boardgames available on it. From Ghost Stories to Yggdrasil to Small World, they’re only available on the iPad. Universal games are much better on the iPad too. And Amazon Instant Video is available for iOS when it’s not for non-Kindle Android devices. So I guess I’m pretty happy thus far. IAWriter is much better than Write on the Android, as far as Dropbox integration and the ability for “middle scroll” and focus mode goes.

All in all, pretty damn happy with my iPad. But walled gardens, like the App Store, whether it’s Apple or Amazon, have a tendency to cramp style.

Cons thus far with the iPad: no access to Mantano Reader, which is the best ebook app I’ve ever seen. Totally get it if you have an Android device.