For all that BGG is huge. … It is so not.
Today I got a message from the makers of Radlands about why I wrote in my BGG comment that there were errors in the game.
OMG. There is a single card that has a very confusing combination of icon/text. Resonator says „[Destroy] an unprotected damaged card“
any damage ability in the game is against unprotected cards only unless a card states otherwise. So why mention this here?
Railgun has a more flexible power for the same cost of 2 water: „[Damage]“ (implicitly meaning deal 1 damage to any unprotected card, and if the card was already damaged it is destroyed)
Destroy abilities normally do in 1 turn what Damage abilities need 2 turns for and I doubt the math behind the balancing here because the only thing that Resonator now has on Railgun is one additional starting card. And I feel this is not that big of a deal but who am I to say this.
at the very least this should have been explained in the FAQ in the back of the rulebook because it takes a symbol and some text and makes a mix of another symbol and something else out of it.
I explained this in my answer to the best of my ability and changed my review. Maybe I was more negative than what was warranted from 1 confusing card. I think there were a couple more hitches during our games but I cannot recall them.
I mean on the one hand it is really great that they follow up on stuff like this from early comments and I guess those early comments from users on BGG can make a difference and maybe I should have been more careful in my wording. The game has barely reached backers and I could have contacted them instead of writing it in my game comment. The game is good and well done and all… and I rated it 7.5 (average rating right now is 8.6 tho so maybe my rating is considered „bad“)
The message was very friendly. I just want to add this. They really are following up on stuff. Still, it all leaves me feeling a little weird and un-anonymous. Usually, on BGG I am one of many 1000s of users and my ratings are just folded into the big mess and my tiny little piece matters very little even when I write a comment. But sometimes one gets singled out for one reason or other—usually because I wrote something nice. This is the first time I think it happened for something I wrote that wasn‘t praise.
There are some authors who I think must search for reviews and follow up on them - I’ve had a couple contact me through my blog. Hasn’t happened with boardgames yet, but we’ve got the podcast so maybe someone will get in touch.
When I wrote book reviews on goodreads, I had several authors „like“ them. I remember Mary Robinette Kowal once writing something back to me on my review (which was glowing, afaik she only reads positive reviews—better for mental health of authors). These days I do not read enough to write reviews about books.
I actually got a reply to my answer already. Guess someone is working week-ends. They repeated that they sincerely wanted to know if there was a mistake they had to address and explained that indeed there were several ways they could have worded the card and thought this was the simplest one—I might agree if they had included it in the FAQ.
They actually added that getting cards in hand at the start of the game is really powerful once you know the game a little bit and that is the reason this ability is nerfed in comparison to Railgun. (There is apparently a Camp card that gives a bonus to starting hand of 3 and does nothing else and comes into play already destroyed). I do get that cards in hand are powerful. An additional card can mean additional resources, or just a powerful event or person…
The dogs and I were walking to the park the other night and we passed a neighbour’s house. This place has an old blue pick-up. I don’t know what vintage it is but it has very rounded lines and faded paint. The back was taken off at some point and replaced with a hand made wooden platform; the kind that has gaps between the boards like a picnic table. All in all a very agricultural looking vehicle for a neighbourhood of close, single family brick homes on narrow lots. We walked back from the park and a large cat climbing tower/ scratching post/ activity tree had just been loaded in the back. I was thoroughly convinced that someone had taken the phrase cat-herding very seriously.
Paladins or Spirit Island would be self-serving, as they are both games that I would like to play but just haven’t gotten a chance lately (and I can game vicariously through others)
Well, that’s good because I think I decided on Paladins Tonight. Yesterday was spent uhm “testing” the Gloomhaven Steam app possibly until my eyes fell out of my head.
I started setting up around 4pm … now it is 9pm and I am ready to go to bed—I meant take my first turn. There was grocery shopping and dinner in between but it really took me at least something between 1 and 2 hours to set this up and learn the rules “enough” (I hate the bot in this but NOBODY will play with me)
So there was this Facebook group called “View from my window”, which collected photos taken during early Covid-19 lockdowns. I was a member, and I posted my photo, and it was nice seeing other peoples’ photos of mostly beautiful countryside and the comments on my uninspiring view.
Then there was a book published, that included a couple of hundred photos out of the million submitted (apparently only a third of which actually followed the rules and made it through moderation.)
More recently, a second volume was published, and this time I actually got contacted for permission to use my photo in the book, in exchange for a free copy. My photo was selected out of ~300,000 photos from around the world. They probably just didn’t have that many from Japan, but still, that was pretty cool. I said OK.
Today I got the link to order a copy. Now, the book itself is 32 EUR (4250 JPY), and that’s free. Unfortunately the shipping isn’t, and that’s 31.25 EUR (4150 JPY). I feel kind of deceived? Is that a reasonable shipping cost from Europe, or has profit just been rolled into the shipping cost?
I’m torn on whether or not to pay for it. On the one hand, it might be an interesting artefact for my children. On the other, I’m not that excited about seeing a couple hundred mobile phone photos from around the world in a book, and that shipping fee seems high.
So, uh, any thoughts, observations, opinions to break me out of my indecision?
That seems a bit on the high side, depending on the weight of the book. From the UK at least I’d probably be using International Tracked and Signed, which tops out at £25.35 for 2kg printed papers to Japan. Generally we pay more for things in the UK than in Europe. Plus packing materials and I suppose it’s not wildly unreasonable, but…
Tonight. Yesterday was spent uhm “testing” the 
