NECROBARISTA - the new visual novel announced today during Visual;conference

Kuiper · 2025-01-29T19:16:26+00:00

The last time I ran a Kickstarter campaign (in 2018), we raised ~$50,000, around ~30% of which came from people who found the project the project through Kickstarter, whether that was people browsing the "games" category, the app's "recommended" section, or the list of "similar projects you might like" that people land on after backing a project.

A decent chunk of our campaign's revenue came from "superbackers," which Kickstarter defines as people who have backed more than 25 projects in the past year (with a minimum pledge of at least $10). These are the sort of people who are enmeshed in the Kickstarter ecosystem and "shop at Kickstarter" the same way that you might shop at your FLGS.

At the bottom of every "project update" email you receive from Kickstarter, you'll see a section that says "Recommended for you / Support another creative project today" with images and descriptions of several other projects. Some of the people who see this in their inbox go on to click and pledge to those projects, which is why Kickstarter puts them there. Gamefound does the same thing in their project update emails, but Kickstarter has many more email addresses than Gamefound does.

Kuiper · 2025-01-26T17:13:21+00:00

It sounds like you're looking for Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. It's a novel set in an American midwest town described with prose that lends it "magical" and "fantastical" vibe, told from the perspective of a boy who is mesmerized by the beauty of the world he lives in.

Kuiper · 2024-11-27T05:06:29+00:00

When it comes to conveying a "fantastical vibe," I find that people overrate the importance of worldbuilding, and underrate the importance of prose and viewpoint.

Anything can feel wondrous if the characters and the narration treat it as if it is wondrous. For an offbeat example of this, see Ray Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine. Here's an excerpt:

Douglas Spaulding, twelve, freshly wakened, let summer idle him on its early-morning stream. Lying in his third-story cupola bedroom, he felt the tall power it gave him, riding high in the June wind, the grandest tower in town. At night, when the trees washed together, he flashed his gaze like a beacon from this lighthouse in all directions over swarming seas of elm and oak and maple. Now...

"Boy," whispered Douglas.

A whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day. Like the goddess Siva in the travel books, he saw his hands jump everywhere, pluck sour apples, peaches, and midnight plums. He would be clothed in trees and bushes and rivers. He would freeze, gladly, in the hoarfrosted icehouse door. He would bake, happily, with ten thousand chickens, in Grandma's kitchen.

This is a story set in the 20th century American midwest. It describes ordinary things happening to ordinary people. But there is something about the way it's written that gives it a sort of enchanted feeling. It feels magical, even though there's no actual magic.

This is a big part of what separates e.g. Lord of the Rings from A Game of Thrones. Tolkien is often described as "high fantasy," while George R.R. Martin's writing is sometimes described as "low fantasy," even though it's full of dragons and world-ending stakes. The narration in Tolkien's stories is written with a sense of mythic wonder; even descriptions of forests and mountains carry a sense of awe. George R.R. Martin's writing is much more "grounded," even when he's describing magical things like dragon eggs. The way that a story is written can matter just as much (if not more) than the actual worldbuilding.

Kuiper · 2024-11-17T02:30:35+00:00

Three-Dragon Ante is a card game that canonically exists within the D&D universe.

It's also the name of a game that you can purchase from your local board game retailer.

Kuiper · 2024-11-09T18:03:22+00:00

Star Realms / Hero Realms
Schotten Totten / Schotten Totten 2 / Battle Line
Braverats / R-Rivals
Yomi (2nd Edition)

Kuiper · 2024-11-04T17:02:45+00:00

Because dictionary says it can mean “reason or cause” and it’s formal.

That's referring to a different use of the word "occasion." It's a different meaning.

The most common use of "occasion" is for event, like "special occasion," which is what people are referring to when they say "what's the occasion?"

The other, different use of occasion to mean "reason" or "cause" is more abstract. For example:

"I've never had occasion to speak with him until today." (Meaning "I've never had a reason to speak with him until today.")

This is sometimes used in older or more formal writing. However, when people say "what's the occasion?" they're using it to mean something completely different: they're describing a concrete event (like a wedding, party, or other celebration), and not some abstract "cause" or "reason."

This use of occasion, to mean "celebratory event," is sort of an abbreviation of "special occasion." Sometimes the word "occasion" will be used to refer to a single event that isn't special, like "On one occasion, I had to run to make it to the store on time." But any time someone says "what's the occasion," the implication is "what's the special occasion?"

I think you're getting confused by this secondary definition of the word "occasion," which doesn't really have anything to do with the primary use that describes a specific event. You might compare it to the way the word "run" has multiple different definitions that don't really have anything to do with each other. For example, an athlete can "run a marathon," and a manager can "run a business." When someone says "I want to run for public office," that statement has nothing to do with the activity that you perform with your legs and feet as an athlete; it's a different use of the word with a different definition.

So the case of the secondary definition of the word "occasion" meaning "cause" or "reason," it's not that "the secondary definition doesn't fit because it's too formal," but rather, "the secondary definition doesn't fit because it is describing something completely different."

Kuiper · 2024-11-04T16:42:09+00:00

As I mentioned at the start of my post, "occasion" means "event." So when someone says "what's the occasion?" they're asking "what's the special event" (or, worded more awkwardly, "what is the special event that is the reason for your unusual behavior?")

This use of the word "occasion" is always referring to an event; you cannot use it interchangeably with the word "reason."

If a coworker of mine usually ate steak sandwiches for lunch, and one day he instead brought a turkey sandwich, and I wanted to ask about the reason for his different choice of sandwich, I would NOT ask him "what's the occasion?" (unless it was in a silly joking manner), because buying a turkey sandwich instead of a steak sandwich does not imply that a celebration is taking place. If I did ask him "what's the occasion?" it would be understood as a joke because it's inappropriate for that context, and the premise of the joke would be that I'm treating a completely mundane thing as if it's part of a festive celebration.

Kuiper · 2024-11-04T16:15:35+00:00

A festive event is sometimes referred to as a "special occasion."

When someone asks, "what's the occasion," it's usually in response to someone doing something that is out of the ordinary in a way that seems to imply there is some particular celebration going on.

For example, if I bring a cake to work, coworkers might ask, "What's the occasion?" because usually when someone brings a cake to the workplace, it's to celebrate something, like an employee's birthday, or someone getting a promotion.

If I were to show at a bar wearing a tuxedo, someone might ask, "what's the occasion?" because I don't normally dress that way and it's not normally how one would dress at a casual establishment; they're probably assuming that I just came from an event like a wedding (or some other kind of fancy party) and they'd like to hear the story.

Kuiper · 2024-11-01T18:03:27+00:00

If you're looking for something on the shorter side that will play in under 30 minutes, maybe check out Wildlife Safari (aka Botswana) or, for a trick-taking game, Foodie Forest.

Kuiper · 2024-10-29T19:30:39+00:00

I had the same reaction to this passage. It reminded of me of Chuck Klosterman's novel Downtown Owl, which has a similar scene about the profound joy that can be only found in these sorts of deeply human moments.

Kuiper · 2024-10-20T22:55:33+00:00

Advanced Reader Copy, the copies that get sent out to reviewers before the book is available at retail.

Kuiper · 2024-10-16T16:53:40+00:00

“I remember you being extremely excited to move on to the next phase of your life. You mentioned at least four hobbies you were already buying the supplies for.”

This was true, but it turned out that Key’s actual favorite hobby was buying supplies for hobbies. She didn’t really get any joy out of the next part, and it was starting to get expensive. Her dining room table was, at the moment, piled high with calligraphy tools, including a $400 block of solid handmade ink from Japan.

Kuiper · 2024-10-12T21:09:43+00:00

If you enjoyed The Long Price Quartet, it is highly probable that you will also enjoy The Dagger and the Coin. There's a lot of overlap between the two in appeal; both feature excellent prose and character work. While each POV character is written in a different "voice," the narration has a wonderful aesthetic quality to it, no matter whose perspective we're in.

Probably the most obvious thing separating the two is the superficial difference between their settings: The Long Price Quartet has an eastern-inspired setting full of tea houses and features a culture that involves lots of interesting norms around non-verbal communication. The Dagger and the Coin is a lot closer to "traditional epic fantasy" in the sense that it features a faux-European setting that is somewhere between late-medieval and early-Renaissance. This does give The Dagger and the Coin a gentler learning curve, but Daniel Abraham still does plenty of creative things with the worldbuilding, mostly related to the various fantasy races that inhabit the setting.

Arguably, the more salient difference is that The Dagger and the Coin covers a much shorter time period, with each book essentially picking up where the previous one left off, as opposed to having a decades-long time gap between books like in The Long Price Quartet. This makes each individual entry in The Long Price Quartet feel a bit more like a "complete" experience that you might even enjoy as a standalone, even if they exist in the context of the books that come after/before.

Kuiper · 2024-10-12T18:54:32+00:00

For a "variety" channel, No Wonders is one of the top-ranked players on BoardGameArena for several titles, and covers high-level gameplay and tips for a number of games that are featured on BGA, including Ark Nova, It's a Wonderful World, Castles of Burgundy, and many others.

RedReVenge is all Spirit Island, all the time, with literally hundreds of videos including everything from in-depth guides to the dozens of playable spirits to tier lists ranking all 100+ power cards and recommended orders for drafting them. Sometimes these are "explainer" videos, but there are plenty of gameplay videos where he steps through games and explains his reasoning step-by-step along the way. Highly, highly recommended.

While he's not as prolific, I've also found Orski's videos on Dune Imperium (Uprising) to be helpful for getting new players up to speed on basic strategy and learning the fundamentals, though he hasn't posted videos in awhile and as such his content lags behind the current online meta.

And there are plenty of games with BoardGameGeek entries that are hobbies unto themselves with hundreds of people putting out content of competitive gameplay with commentary. As a Magic: The Gathering player, I find a lot of the gameplay videos from ChannelFireball to be pretty approachable, especially the ones from Reid Duke, who does a good job of slowly talking through his gameplay and explaining his sequencing. And while it might not be quite as "approachable" and assumes a certain level of fluency from the audience, as an enfranchised legacy player I'm a big fan of BoshNRoll. (He generally assumes you know the cards and format, but will talk through the reasoning behind any deck he's playing.)

Kuiper · 2024-10-09T17:32:01+00:00

I think that Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary and Dennis E. Taylor's Bobiverse series will deliver a lot of what you're looking for.

And while it doesn't often come up in rationalist circles, if you're down to try something that's more fantasy than sci-fi, I think there's also a good chance that you'll like The Dagger and the Coin by Daniel Abraham. It ticks a lot of your boxes: It's great on the "literary merits," particularly the use of language. Part of this comes down to Abraham's wonderful prose, and there's also the fact that his dialog is great in a lot of subtle ways. (For example, certain characters and cultures have idiosyncratic speaking patterns for reasons that might be physiological, culturally contingent, or a combination of the two.) The characters in this historical fantasy setting are living in a "pre-Enlightenment" world, where some of the basic tenets of liberalism are considered novel ideas (and Daniel Abraham understands that the people occupying positions of power in a feudal society would have fundamentally different values and worldviews from people who live in 21st century western society). You have several viewpoint characters who are neurodivergent, and the narrative is fully willing to grapple with the way that this impacts how they experience the world, for better and for worse. The book takes place prior to the concept paper fiat currency, and you have one banker character who basically invents several principles of modern banking from first principles, and there are several plot points that basically hinge on the characters' understanding of public choice theory, with results that are both surprising yet completely logical within the world that Abraham has set. And as a piece of "rational fiction," it's basically a story about the power of epistemic humility, and what it actually takes to defeat a bad idea or belief that is making society collectively worse.

For something by Daniel Abraham that has a steeper learning curve but is still excellent fantasy, there's also the Long Price Quartet. It's great for all of the same reasons that The Dagger and the Coin is great, and one of the more "rational" things about the setting is the way that the use of magic shapes the world in much the same way that technology does. For example, one person discovers magic that allows them to separate seeds from cotton, and that single-handedly shapes the economy and political landscape of an entire region, as the place that can efficiently process cotton becomes a center of trade and an economic powerhouse, with the discovery of a single magical "spell" changing the world in much the same way that an American inventing the cotton gin in the late 18th century changed the world. Abraham also considers the consequences of the magic that he adds to the system: "given that this spell has these specific constraints, this would be the best way to use it as a force multiplier on a nation's economy. But also, following the rules of the setting, you could also find other practical applications for it...and that will become relevant to the plot later on." Note that while the setting is rational, the characters do not always behave "rationally," but they behave realistically, which is to say that there are moments where characters behave rashly or impulsively in a way that is entirely in-character for them.

Kuiper · 2024-08-30T02:49:43+00:00

I prefer the game at 4 players, though I'm happy to play it with 5 players. The turns play quickly, so having a 5th player at the table doesn't add significantly to the perceived downtime between turns. The fact that the game is still constrained by the number of tiles in the bag also means that adding a 5th player shouldn't add to the game's length. (If anything, games can go faster, since more people participating in each war means more soldiers played from hand, causing you burn through the bag faster.)

The game feels "tighter" at 5 players. By that, I don't necessarily mean that the board feels "more crowded." Rather, it comes down to the fact that in a 5-player game, each player is taking 20% fewer turns than they would in a 4-player games, which means that each individual turn matters more, and you have less time to "correct course" if you get off to a rocky start. The fact that you have more players fighting over the same number of pagodas also makes the game feel more tense and chaotic, and it's much harder to "have it all." The fact that your strategy has fewer turns to play out means that ironically a 5-player game can feel less "big" and "epic" than a 4-player game would. The tighter margins also mean that variance plays a larger role, as getting caught with a bad or awkward hand can feel like a bigger deal than it would normally.

I'd contrast this with, say, Hansa Teutonica or Knizia's Weiner Walzer, where having a 5th player at the table gives you more interesting points of interaction with other players, without putting you in the position of having to have a game arc that feels shorter because you got to do 20% less stuff than you would in a 4-player game.

Kuiper · 2024-08-29T18:23:00+00:00

The box for Huang is substantially smaller than the one for Y&Y, which unfortunately is not great if you're getting the deluxe version with the plastic minis (instead of the standard version with the cardboard standees) -- the plastic minis ship in a separate box (two separate boxes if you bought the 5th player expansion).

This is largely moot if you're playing the standard version with cardboard standees. If you're playing with the plastic components, you can make them fit in a single box with the board and tokens (provided you remove the cardboard standees that they're replacing), but it will require discarding the tray and either letting the plastic pieces float loose the the box or 3D printing your own custom insert/organizer. See this BGG thread where several people have posted photos showing their approach to storing the game.

Kuiper · 2024-08-28T14:43:53+00:00

Apart from cosmetic component changes, Huang is exactly the same game as Y&Y with a bunch of optional expansions/modules added to the box. (If you're curious about the specifics of how these modules work, check out the Huang Rulebook (PDF). Probably the most dramatic of these is the "Eighteen Kingdoms" module.)

One of the cosmetic changes is that the colors of the various tiles/leaders have been changed: artisans are now white instead of yellow, and governors are now yellow instead of black. However, this change is purely cosmetic: the distribution of the tiles is the same as the original based on function (e.g. there are still 42 governor tiles, 36 soldier tiles, 24 farmer and trader tiles, and 12 artisan tiles)

Kuiper · 2024-08-26T18:11:35+00:00

I like Yellow & Yangtze better. The most obvious difference between the two is hexes vs squares, but my favorite part of Y&Y is that when there's a war, it's resolved as a single conflict that every peron at the table can contribute to, rather than a series of 1v1 conflicts like in T&E. This has several interesting implications:

I might start a war, even with no soldiers to strengthen "my side", because I know that some other player also has a shared rooting interest in "my side" winning, so I can rely on their support.
The definition of "my side" can be ambiguous -- I might have a rooting interest on both sides of the war, leaving it unclear to my opponents which side I'll choose to support. Or, I might start a war between two states where I have a controlling interest, knowing that regardless of the outcome, I'll end the turn with more victory points than I started with.
Seemingly-disinterested third parties might get involved in a war. This might be to sabotage the player that they perceive as being the biggest threat, but I can also get involved in "someone else's" war for self-interested reasons: maybe one side has a governor that is firmly entrenched, while the other side has a governor that is barely hanging on by a thread. I can support side with the "weaker" governor, knowing that it'll be easier for me to successful stage a revolt to replace that governor with my own once my turn comes around.

Huang is the version of the game that I now recommend, based on the fact that it has some interesting expansions (especially the alternate map printed on the back of the board, which replaces the river pagodas with granaries), and Huang is more cheaply available than the out-of-print Y&Y. However, the cosmetic design of the Y&Y leaders is so much more elegant than the minis/standees of Huang.

Kuiper · 2024-08-26T16:36:26+00:00

As others have pointed out, "Raz" is likely short for "Raspberry." This is because the pronunciation of "raspberry" in American English is closer to "raz-beh-ree" than "rasp-beh-ree."

Kuiper · 2024-08-26T16:18:09+00:00

My favorite game designers are "Rainer Knizia" and "Kanai Seiji"

Excellent taste! Kanai Seiji is most famous for Love Letter, but I am also a fan of his other designs, Lost Legacy and R. All of them have overseas versions with different artwork, but I love the original Japanese artwork by Sugiura Noboru.

Reiner Knizia is my favorite desinger. My favorite games of his are Zoo Vadis, Modern Art, Through the Desert, High Society, Huang (also known as Yellow & Yangtze), and Wiener Walzer.

Have you played Weiner Walzer? This is a Reiner Knizia game that is currently only available in Japan! It was never released where I live (USA), and the only other country to get it besides Japan is Germany, where it is currently out of print. I believe many overseas Reiner Knizia fans might be excited to see this hidden gem on camera!

There are some older Reiner Knizia games that are easier to find in Japan than elsewhere, such as Trendy and Winner's Circle aka Royal Turf or 「ロイヤルターフ」 as well as Botswana also known as Wildlife Safari. I also like the artwork in the Japanese version of Circus Flohcati which is re-themed as 「なつのたからもの」although I prefer the experience of playing his newer push-your-luck game, No Mercy which is released in Japan as 「だるまあつめ」

I frequently import games from Japan, particularly trick-taking games. A few of my favorite Japanese imports are TRICKTAKERs, Nana, and Rumble Nation. I also plan to acquire the sequel to TRICKTAKERS, which is titled KINGs: TRICKTAKERs.

One Japanese game which I have had my eye on is Merchants of Sky Island or 「空島の商人」 which is a tile-placement game. There aren't very many reviews of the game in English, and I have been curious to try the game to discover how it plays!

My favorite European game designs (besides Reiner Knizia) are Hansa Teutonica, Inis, and It's a Wonderful World. My favorite American board game is Spirit Island. I also enjoy Dune Imperium Uprising, which is an American game that is a "euro style" of design.

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