Recent Posts

1

Table-top Games / Re: Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on June 12, 2025, 12:55:08 »

Sunday we played Wingspan with Sandy. She was the person who gave us the game. She hadn't played in a year, and didn't remember the rules, so we explained it to her and she seemed to enjoy it. We probably should have played with the tutorial setup again, but we didn't. The Round Bonuses were tough on this game. We had the token that required an egg in each habitat to get one point, so we barely got any. Overall, I had the highest for the End-of-Round Goals, which was 12 points. This time Isaac was gone for this one and Beth won the game this time.

Final score: Beth: 73, Nathaniel: 59, Sandy: 57

Tuesday evening we played Wingspan with Mike. It was his first time playing Wingspan. Isaac started the game and we went through the tutorial setup with Mike. Even though I felt like I was doing very well, Isaac had a big lead over my score. Isaac won, I got second with Mike close behind. Beth followed.

Final score: Isaac: 97, Beth: 72, Nathaniel: 87, Mike: 84

2

Table-top Games / Saboteur

« Last post by Dragon on June 01, 2025, 22:45:20 »

Tonight we played Saboteur for the first time. It's a fun card game about digging tunnels to find gold. It's partially co-operative, but the gold diggers want to be the first to treasure so they have the best choice. There is also a chance that one or more players will be trying to keep the other gold diggers from reaching the treasure so they can keep it all for themselves. Similar to Bang!, Werewolf, or The Resistance, roles are hidden, but unlike those games, you don't necessarily have the same role for the entire game. The game is played in 3 rounds and each round the role cards get reshuffled and dealt out.

Out of 3 rounds, the gold diggers succeeded in finding the gold in the first two rounds, but the saboteurs (there happened to be two that round) managed to thwart the gold diggers in the final round. Isaac was the only player who won gold every round.

Final score: Isaac: 6, Beth: 3, Anna: 1, Grace: 1, Nathaniel: 4.

3

Table-top Games / Castles Of Mad King Ludwig

« Last post by Dragon on June 01, 2025, 19:22:56 »

It has been nearly 5 years since we played Castles Of Mad King Ludwig, even though we've brought it up in conversation several times. We all seem to like this game quite a bit but somehow it's just been left on the shelf for a while. Today we finally broke it out.

We decided to use the Secrets expansion, which is something we've probably done every time since we got it. Unfortunately, I forget to play my secret passages often times and the game is nearly over before I find a spot for one if I get any. Isaac, on the other hand, made great use of his secret passages, and ended up making great connections to his Throne Room, jumping ahead quite a bit in just one turn. So, even though I completed my moat, and I think I have the nicest looking castle, I wasn't the winner.

Final score: Isaac: 141; Nathaniel: 111; Beth: 103

4

Table-top Games / Re: Carcassonne

« Last post by Dragon on May 27, 2025, 17:12:01 »

Over the weekend we played Carcassonne twice. Janai and Austin had dropped in for a surprise visit just as we were getting started on Wingspan, but Beth suggested we play Carcassonne as an easier intro to boardgames.

Beth, Isaac, and I invited Janai's boyfriend, Austin. Janai declined but Austin surprisingly accepted our offer to join. It was Austin's first time playing. Even though I was thinking it would be easier to just use the single starting piece, Beth suggested that we use The River to introduction the rules, which actually turned out to be quite a good way to do it. Austin caught on quickly and at one point was even leading in points for the game. I managed to get slightly ahead of Austin before the end, but Isaac jumped ahead the most to win the game.

Final score: Beth: 50; Isaac: 76; Austin: 60; Nathaniel: 65.

The following day the three of us played Carcassonne again. From very early on, it felt like Isaac was attacking everything I did. If I started anything he was quick to get into it or find a way to make it hard for me to complete. At one point I even managed to get the perfect piece to merge into a field on the very next turn, but Isaac thwarted me with a useless road that he wasn't even using. Of course, it was very strategic for him and he did quite well, although it was quite frustrating for me nearly every turn.

Final score: Beth: 89; Nathaniel: 66; Isaac: 106.

5

Table-top Games / Re: Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on May 26, 2025, 18:01:41 »

This morning we played Wingspan again. This time the bonus board had goals that were much more attainable. I managed to get the max score on 3 of the rounds, while picking up 3 points in the first round, which was the highest between the 3 of us playing.

Final score: Isaac: 73; Nathaniel: 80; Beth: 78
 

6

Table-top Games / Wingspan

« Last post by Dragon on May 25, 2025, 11:08:48 »

Last night we played Wingspan. This is my son's favorite game, but we haven't played it in a few months. I'm actually surprised that I haven't mentioned this game before.

It's a game that I originally wasn't interested in because the theme didn't seem like a good one for a game and honestly it looked too pretty for me to think of it as anything beyond becoming a "shelf queen." Of course, that was before I ever played the game. The game was gifted to me by someone who was in a bird-watching family, even though they also hadn't ever played the game. After it was gifted to me, I gave it a shot and I must admit I was was pleasantly surprised by the game play.

The box is nicely organized, even providing a diagram on the edge of the inside box to assist with putting everything away. However, after playing the first time, I felt like I needed something specifically for holding the egg tokens during game play. I found a nice nest-styled-bowl online for 3d printing, and I had some yellow filament at the time so I printed a couple nice little bowls to hold the egg tokens.   

Wingspan has gotten me more interested in the subject of bird-watching, at least a little more than the nearly zero interest that I had before. I've actually been thinking recently that it might be nice to put a birdbath in the backyard.

Anyway, last night's game ended up being a tough one with not much momentum getting built up compared to previous games that we've played. The bonus score board had goals that we had randomly set up, along with the cards that were coming out, made it so we had pretty low scores on the round bonus board. The first two rounds, none of us had more than 2 and even the last round I had 0 points for the round bonus. It was still fun, and Isaac still got some good stuff together.

Final score - Beth: 75; Isaac: 84; Nathaniel: 63.

7

Blogs / AI Might Just Give Us More Garbage

« Last post by Dragon on May 11, 2025, 23:59:10 »

Recently at work we've been discussing using AI. Obviously, it's a hot topic right now, and I have successfully used it for some things at work, but in a lot of ways it's just a comical waste of time.

Earlier today, I decided to give Copilot a shot at creating an image based on an idea I wanted to print out for a Mother's Day card. I saw an image with a heart made of flowers and some random geometric shapes forming a border around the heart. The image was intended to be printed out so that a child could color the picture for their own mother.

I thought that it might look cool to have the heart made up of the same thing, so I opened up Copilot and started with a basic explanation and image. I first tried several times with no avail. At first, it seemed to get close, but eventually it moved further and further away from what I initially asked for, so I tried to get back to basics by asking for just a simple rectangle which generated a rectangle that had a bunch of rainbow colored arches inside it. Well... I wanted it more simple than that.

I tried asking for something I could make out of wood, or something a young child could cut out of paper. Over and over again, I asked for it to be more simplified and eventually got to something that was close - a rectangle that had a shadow across the corner and some other colors surrounding it. I tried asking for something without a shadow, then it gave me one with gradients and other colors. I tried asking for no gradients and no shadows. All failures in one way or another. 

The last one I got, which I'm including here as an example was hilariously wrong. Just trying to get it super simple, I just wanted a black and white rectangle, but it seems to have already gone off the deep end. Sure... it's black-and-white... it has a rectangle (square), but I never wanted background stuff - I never said it needed scenery. Worst of all, it somehow still has a gradient of white to black in the box and, of course, shadows in the scenery.

... Ok. Just one more try... How about a 2-dimensional box. 

8

Table-top Games / Re: The Crew

« Last post by Dragon on May 07, 2025, 22:49:18 »

Tonight we got The Crew out again. It had been a while and Beth had completely forgotten how to play. I hadn't remembered that I even played it with her until I noticed this post above.

This time it was me, Beth, and Mike (tampamac2002). We started on Mission 1 and worked our way up to Mission 4 before we ended for the night. Maybe we'll continue from there next time Mike comes over. 

As a side note, I found a great fan-made Mission Log on BoardGameGeek.com for this. Attached is a preview of it, but there is a full color design in addition to the low color design that I'm using. For the best quality (and most up to date version), check out the Files section for The Crew on BGG. Printing it double-sided and then tearing it in half (down the middle) makes it a nice size to fold up and have a log in the box for two different crews.

9

Table-top Games / Jaws

« Last post by Dragon on May 02, 2025, 20:11:38 »

Played on April 6th, 2025

Players: Grace (Shark) vs Nathaniel, Anna & Beth (The Crew)

Winner: The Crew

Beth, Anna, and I made haste in Scene 1 tracking Grace. Grace only had 2 turns before we got two barrels on her and moved on to Scene 2.

Going into Scene 2, we were a little confused at first about a few rules. One thing we weren't quite sure about was the selection of cards between the Crew. We ended up splitting up the cards and each taking an even stack along with our two personalized items, but since we split up the cards before we looked at our personalized items, we just split them based only on what cards were general. After getting into play more, we looked at our personalized cards and realized that we should have been comparing those too. Some other rules, such as how the shark appearance, adjacency rules, and the hooked items worked, were a little confusing, but referencing the examples in the rulebook seemed to clear them up.
 
We finished Scene 2, not as quickly as Scene 1, but Grace felt like it was pretty fast and she had no chance because we were avoiding her almost every turn and managed to wound her with at least one attack each time. So, ultimately, as The Crew, Anna, Beth, and I won the game.

We all had a fun time and I asked them all to rate the game based on that one play. Beth gave it a 3. Grace, Anna, and I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, so thumbs up overall.

10

Tyco RC / Re: Folks I am back (2025)

« Last post by Dragon on April 13, 2025, 11:49:25 »

Hi Scorcher! Glad to see someone else came back! I've been trying to keep the site alive... I'd love to see some more activity on here, other than the spammers.