Something I have hoped to do for a while is play some solo games and do some write-ups on them. I have to start somewhere, and today, I am going to take a look at a wallet sized solo card game called Food Chain Island by Button Shy Games. I recently backed a Kickstarter for another solo game by this same group, and one of the pledge options was to get copies of some of their other, previous titles, so I figured, why not.
The game itself consists of 18 cards, a rule book, and a card wallet to hold it all together. The pre printed cards are nice quality and the wallet container holds everything nicely. Each card has some cutesy animal art on it that is nicely designed.
The cards consist of 16 animal cards with various values and abilities, and 2 special cards that are set aside for play as sort of wild cards. Basic gameplay starts off by shuffling the 16 animal cards, which is harder than it sounds, because somehow shuffling so few cards is a bit tricky. You then place the cards out in a 4×4 grid shape, though there are some alternative layouts suggested by the instructions.
The object is to end up with only one animal remaining by having animals eat each other. Animals can only eat animals that are adjacent to each other, that have a lower number value. There is some extra trickiness here because there are also special effects that activate upon eating an animal, which can be positive or negative. This leads to some strategy though on choosing which animal to eat next. Because you may find you have an animal stranded where it can’t reach other animals, or effects that mean you can’t make a move afterwards.
I played several games of this before writing about it and only actually won my first game on the round I was taking photos of gameplay. Though I think part of my issue was I kept forgetting about the two bonus cards. These cards can be played anytime and kind of feel like they exist solely to help players get out of “stuck” situations. I would propose one way to “hard mode” the game would be to not use the special cards at all.
Overall it’s a fun little card game. The art is fun, the game itself has some planning and strategy involved which is good.
Welcome to Blaugust. A sort of, celebration of blogging, created by bloggers, and set during the month of August. I first participated last year on Blogging Intensifies, I set a goal to blog daily over there, and I accomplished that goal. It was, a little grueling to be honest. this year, I’m participating here, on Lameazoid.com. And I have no plan or real intention to post daily.
The main reason for switching which of my two blogs I am using is well, frankly, a lot of the other Blaugust Blogs seem to be gamer style blogs, so Lameazoid just, fits better than random tech and music shit. I’ve also been posting here on Lameazoid more lately, so it seems easier. I think technically I can sort of combine the two for posting credit but this isn’t anything hard and official. It’s all honor system and the point is more just to blog.
I don’t have any real plan, other than maybe post some toy reviews and maybe be mildly more diligent with the “What I’ve been playing” posts that literally no one reads. Also I use the term “reviews” lightly. My current strategy is more just, rambling discussion about the stuff I buy and do. It’s way less “formal review” and just “Hey, I think this thing is neat, and there are some iffy parts.”
Anyway, you can find more information on Blaugust here. A list of participating blogs here, be sure to check them out. And if you want, my own 2023 Blaugust series on [Blogging Intensifies] is here.
I just want to put out front here, Aerith, is not my favorite Final Fantasy VII character. In fact, she is probably on the bottom, by quite a bit. Like, I have a few favorites (Yuffie, Cait Sith, Cid) and everyone else is a bit below that in a plane, and then there is Aerith.
But considering I plan to get everyone else from this line, it would be lame to leave out Aerith. Especially because, though I dislike her, she is, very much, central to the plot. I mean, aside from Cloud and Sephiroth, you could remove almost any other character from the plot and offload their plot elements to someone else or just remove them. Except for Aerith. Because her name sounds like Earth and she is a mako manifestation of the planet’s spirit or whatever.
I mostly just find her boring. This isn’t an Aerith thing, it’s an “RPG Healer type” thing.
The figure is at least nice. The articulation in the legs is hindered slightly less than I expected given the long rubber skirt. The skirt is flexible enough and the slit down one side really help. She can actually sort of do a kneeling pose. And this need isn’t for some weird dirty reason, she literally kneels and prays in the game, it’s part of her deal, she lives in an abandoned church even.
It probably would have been too much to ask for a cloth skirt, and probably would have looked out of place anyway. It’s kind of an eternal problem for action figures in general.
Of the three of these I have so far, Aerith makes out the best for accessories. She has a weapon like Cloud, and an extra face like Tifa, and more alternate hands than both. Maybe they were trying to make up for her limited hip articulation. I do have one issue with her accessories though, the face/hair front on mine tends to fall off. It’s not super loose, but it’s loose enough to be annoying.
She also has articulation on her pony tail, which I had wished Tifa had, so that’s also a plus. Honestly, despite that I am not a fan of the character, she is probably the best figure of the three I have, aside from the limitations that come from a plastic/rubber skirt piece.
And now for the final season of Star Trek Discovery. I have a whole mess of notes to make sense of, and a lot of them are more just, about the series in general. So let’s see where we boldly go on this one.
Actually, it turns out it’s not that much. I kind of had a hard time caring enough to finish this series and season and the whole series has felt a bit downhill for a while.
After feeling a bit more like Star Trek for the last few seasons, Discovery seems like its fully embraces its Not Trekiness. It feels a lot more like Star Wars for some reason (again). They even picked up that Sith girl from Ahsoka. Ok, not really, they just told ok her hair and style.
Is this the end? Well, actually, it is, I guess.
They also pulled Tilly back, though she doesn’t really feel like she does a lot this season. The cast on this show has been so weird all around, and I wonder if it’s something behind the scenes happening or what. The Bridge Crew is almost entirely new people, and the few remaining old characters, Tilly and Saru mostly, feel like they have been shoved off to the back burner the way the old Bridge Crew were.
Owosekun and Detmer get their leave “explained” and “acknowledged” but neither even appears in the episode where it happens.
We do get a new First Officer, again, and Adira is more interesting again, without Grey, except the writers completely forgot they were a Trill. It really has not come up at all since Season 3, and it amounted to, knowing where the Federation is, and suddenly knowing how to play the cello. I mean, why don’t we get to see that more? It’s little things like, “Let’s show this character playing cello” that make Star Trek interesting. This whole series really is just ‘The Michael Burnham Show.” Adira being an Ensign is fine, they are inexperienced in Starfleet. Adira being and acting like a know nothing after having many lifetimes of memories, is a whole new annoyance.
The Progenitor from Star Trek TNG
Just to wrap up the Adira thing, they did go back to Grey again, on Trill. And they broke up. It kind of felt like their story was going there, as I mentioned in the Season 4 write-up. I am surprised they didn’t just do it back then, but I guess they didn’t have time with the Burnham show going on.
As for the new First Officer, he is a disgraced captain, whom Burnham decides will be her new bestie. The whole setup is honestly kind of weird, they meet up on Not Tatooine and ride together on some Not Speeder Bikes and then he gets in trouble for screwing up and letting the bad guys get away. It’s kind of forgivable because he is probably the most interesting character in the season. It’s kind of a shame that the rest of the old regulars all seem to have been dumped with not a lot of characterization while this guy swoops in and gets to be interesting.
Back to the core plot.
It’s another MacGuffin Hunt chase. And it’s very literal this time. Find a thing, solve a puzzle, find the next thing, repeat.
In general, I actually really really really hate this specific plot device in everything, not just here. Indiana Jones, for example, uses it. My main problems are, traps and puzzles which survived hundreds of thousands of years undisturbed. I could go with it for 1 or 2 parts of these puzzle chains, but half a dozen?
Plus, anyone could stumble upon the middle section of a puzzle chain, or even the end, but generally speaking, only the last step actually matters.
The puzzle chain leads to quite a bit more surface level action, which is part of why this all feels more like Star Trek again.
They did do a little nod back to the Mirror Universe, though it really leans into the whole “how did this all survive hundreds of years? At least they are consistent with the Mirror Universe references. No mirror people, but they find the abandoned Mirror Universe Enterprise and pull it through the wormhole. It’s basically an excuse to reuse the Strange New Worlds sets.
Also the Federation is going to be really confused when Burnham shows up with yet another 23rd century star ship in nearly perfect condition.
They also found logs that implied the Mirror Universe Terrans from the ISS Enterprise managed to escape to the Prime Universe. Which feels odd because Georgiou had an ENTIRE plot around having to leave, due to some universe sync issues.
The puzzle chain is following through the path of these Romulan Scientists in search of Progenitors Technology. The Progenitors were in an episode of TNG where the crew, along with some others, discovered this species called The Progenitors, whom had essentially created all life in the universe. It was partly used as an explanation as to why all the aliens look “more or less like humans.”
There is also a nod towards Deep Space Nine with the Breen being the main antagonists.
I kind of wish they had brought back and explained what happened with the Klingons. Even just maybe putting one of the puzzle steps on a Klingon planet would have been nice. Actually, a fun idea may have been to revisit the Time Crystal planet, and basically, because time is wonky there, they have to kill time and wait for the clue to be deposited first.
Now I am just making up fan fiction.
The Breen plotline is just, kind of weak. Some sort of Breen Prince or something falls in love with a human girl, who just happens to have connections to Book. The Breen Prince kills some Breen and now they are hunting him down as a traitor, so the Breen dude wants the Progenitor tech to trade for his life.
But then he dies, and the Breen just sort of, decide to follow his human girlfriend. I think maybe she was his wife by that point.
Anyway, Burnham managed to solve the puzzle of course and gets the opportunity to turn down becoming a literal God level Mary Sue.
But not before we get the most ridiculous Spore Drive moment in all of the series. Oh the Spore Drive. The magic mushrooms that can always save the day. The Breen have this massive ship, and the Discovery needs to stop it, and apparently, despite never coming up once before, the ship can suddenly separate off the saucer section. And they do this sort of, Spore Drive Magic, using the two halves, to transport the giant ship away. It’s neat to watch, I guess, but it kind of breaks an already broken magic plot device in an annoying way.
Speaking of random out of the blue never mentioned plot device. Saru is doing some side plot stuff involving the Breen, and he needs to get somewhere fast, and the Federation suddenly has this thing called the Pathway Drive. It’s never explained or anything, but it’s basically just “The writers hate that Warp Travel is slow”, much like the Spore Drive.
Another thing that I mostly just want to gripe about, the Progenitor puzzle “make the shape out of the one between the many” really, REALLY felt like it was trying to hard to echo “The Needs of the Many” line.
Also, why don’t shuttles get cute names anymore. It’s just “Disco #5”
