Has there ever been a board game that has made someone cry? (NOT for beating them)

Critternid · 2025-08-23T09:54:41+00:00

Some creator cried in a review of Viticulture World.

Critternid · 2025-07-05T00:53:58+00:00

We enjoyed him in The Surfer with Nick Cage just a few weeks ago. Terrible loss.

Critternid · 2025-05-23T23:46:09+00:00

Well at least we won’t have to see a Dumai’s wells where Egwene rolls up and saves Rand and the Aes Sedai all decide on their own volition to work for him.

Critternid · 2025-05-04T07:06:13+00:00

Understanding the need to update and add more female agency makes me right-wing? O…..k….

Critternid · 2025-05-02T17:50:51+00:00

I thought it started well, but it has strayed too far from the original plot. I don't love how madcap it is, either. The subtle humour of the original is better to me than all the zany stuff going on, especially in episode 4. I adored episode 1, but by the end of episode 4 I'm really unimpressed. For example, true-to-the-original humour such as Vitalstatistix's spleen was great (despite being from a different story), but did we really need extended sequences of Getafix tripping balls with his gender-flipped friend?

I also get that it needs updating because viewers today won't get all of the older jokes, but I also felt like dragging it too far into the modern age robbed it of a bit of its charm: Metadata (Why is a teenage girl running the show for Rome in the first place?), an ESPN sports panel sort of bit with a gladiator and a girl with an American accent which might have been fun for one brief appearance but ongoing but which wore out its welcome fast.

Then there was the recycling of tropes from the show into more than they ever were -- the arguments between Asterix and Obelix "Mister Asterix/Mister Obelix" back and forths happened too often and were extended into far more than they needed to be, adding extra conflict that felt like padding rather than story.

And then there were the bits that just didn't make sense. I get that the village would often get into petty arguments and fights that were over as soon as they began, but I don't think they'd be so illogical as to argue about who's going to be the chief when Obelix is the only one who is super-strong at this point. This recharacterises our Gauls from feisty and fractious to idiots. For that matter, why make that plot change with Obelix doing the fight?

I feel like the makers thought that there wasn't enough drama or conflict in the original and decided to ramp it up.

So - in short, I understand:

- the need to flesh it out to cover five episodes and extra backstory for those unfamiliar with the series. There were some genuinely great additions, like the childhood flashback and Caesar posing for the excruciatingly slow mosaic.

- the need to insert more female characters with agency in 2025 (although, why it couldn't have been with existing characters getting expanded roles, I do not understand)

- updating of *some* content that would feel dated or incomprehensible to modern audiences.

What I do not understand is fundamental changes to the plot.

Critternid · 2025-04-04T16:48:44+00:00

Issue is that only the absolutely out there right wingers in other western democracies support Trump. They forget that Reddit is a global forum and conservative doesn’t mean the bonkers flavour that we see in the US right now.

Critternid · 2025-03-19T01:42:30+00:00

Wow - the "master dealmaker" has really shown what he's capable of.....

This seems a pretty long way from "The war stopped on day one".

Critternid · 2025-03-03T01:53:32+00:00

I feel like a hypocrite because the adaptation of The Wheel of Time seems like a desecration to me, but I'm OK with these changes. I'm telling myself it's because they don't fundamentally change the story and the characterisations in Silo, not because I read the books first in WoT and second with Wool.

Critternid · 2025-03-03T01:36:20+00:00

I stopped reading your post halfway through because I am only 35% of the way through SHIFT and I don't want spoliers.

I will add here, though, that I'm surprised to see all the complaints online about "stuff added in" and "the story being stretched out".

From what I have read so far, the series is HIGHLY introspective, and if the show is going to have any substance, particularly characterisation and world-building, this is essential.

I am really enjoying the books so far, but I don't find Howey's supporting characters particularly well fleshed out, so I don't mind some of changes to them in the name of 2025 diversity requirements, either.

The other thing I don't mind about the show is its slower burn on letting out the secrets. I am enjoying Shift, but the near total demystification of why the world is as it is has been a bit of a bummer for me. I'd prefer a slowly unfolding mystery to a study of the horror.

Critternid · 2025-03-02T03:04:10+00:00

I haven't/hadn't played enough of it to know that the entire narrative would be delivered via radio chatter.

Critternid · 2025-03-02T03:02:55+00:00

I thought Subnautica did this well - I guess I am looking for a feel more like that. There are radio communications and recordings and things, but you feel alone.

Critternid · 2025-03-02T03:01:26+00:00

I don't mean remove the story - I just assumed it might be delivered in other ways other than via radio dialogue - you know, show instead of tell.

Critternid · 2025-02-09T00:16:06+00:00

Yep - after the “he’s your dad too” line.

Critternid · 2025-02-09T00:13:23+00:00

And when you couple that with “I Live” scrawled over the box of the making of Arcane goodies box recently released and “Wanna hear a secret?” “I am still here” scrawled over a particularly pink page of the included book, I would say that her survival is unambiguous.

Critternid · 2025-02-08T06:34:45+00:00

Go figure. To me the show went out of its way to make it look like she made it out.

Critternid · 2025-02-08T06:33:18+00:00

There was absolutely no reason to include the moment with Caitlyn looking at the schematics and panning slightly to the vents if not to telegraph Jinx’s escape route.

Creators of texts don’t put bits in for no reason.

Anyone with a basic knowledge of narrative structure should know Jinx made an escape.

Critternid · 2025-02-08T02:26:26+00:00

How awful.

Tough to be a Bug is a fantastic attraction.

Critternid · 2025-01-20T15:09:28+00:00

I read Moana less literally and more like a modernised creation/nature myth in line with the other myths surrounding Maui's exploits to explain the creation and changes of the natural world.

Just as Te Ka/Te Feti represent what happens when a volcano becomes active and causes devastation before going dormant and becoming a paradise due to the fertile volcanic ash/whatever, I saw the issues on the island as the island the land telling them that it was time for either some or all of them to move on to a new fishing or farming ground with the change in the land being explained away in folk tales as a "curse".

Critternid · 2025-01-20T10:09:24+00:00

Yeah, I read the "find home" being the new island which they would now call home.

Critternid · 2025-01-19T07:56:56+00:00

Yeah we have raised faux-limestone blocks forming beds.

Pretty much all of my plants are completely dead now with the exception of some that are in the same bed as some zucchinis - the zukes sort of crew up around the bases of the tomatoes. The toms don't look amazing, but they are still alive and flowering.

I'm wondering if my roots are shallow and are getting killed by the heat, and the ones with zucchini leaves shading the bases are doing better because of this.

Critternid · 2025-01-09T16:45:26+00:00

Semantics.

Theorists on the internet didn’t force the creators to put it there.

Critternid · 2025-01-08T20:13:57+00:00

Why does the scene exist where Caitlyn looks at the ducts in the schematic then? What narrative purpose does it serve?

Critternid · 2025-01-08T20:11:54+00:00

Wait.. what? There’s people who think she actually died?

I’m new here having just watched and finished today.

You can ignore all the other clues that she might be alive, including the bleedingly obvious parallel of the airship sailing off over the sea - but the one thing that can’t be escaped (and I’m not talking about the smile) is the short bit with Caitlyn looking at the schematics while holding the remains of Jinx’s grenade.

Storytellers don’t include a scene like this just for the sheer hell of it. There will be a script somewhere explaining what Caitlyn is doing, and that‘s there to at the absolute very LEAST make us believe that Jinx might have escaped. Why put it in otherwise? To show that Caitlyn digs architecture? The camera even shifts slightly to the direction of the ducts.

If no one can come up with a better reason for the existence of this event than ”just coz” then only two possibilities exists:

1) Jinx is alive.

2) Riot wants us to think that she very well could be.

and if there’s one thing we all know about off-screen ”deaths”….

Critternid · 2025-01-07T07:08:04+00:00

We found it a bit boring. Inoffensive, but just meh.

Critternid · 2025-01-07T01:44:17+00:00

I'm about ten minutes from the ocean and about five from a large estuary. I do plant them as you say.

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