Assorted reviews
Sep. 3rd, 2018 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackSome Russian litrpg book
This reversed the premise of many litrpg books in that it imagined, what if someone found rpg mechanics applying in real life -- able to see people's stats, able to level up, etc.
It was pretty interesting reading about his random slice of life living in contemporary Russia, putting his life back together after his girlfriend left, befriending the guys who hang around his building, learning to see meaning in life again, getting a job as a sales rep.
I'd hoped to see more interesting levelling up, but although it does reasonably well, there's not that much there before the end of the book.
Disney's Atlantis
This is another of Disney's "we produced lots of really interesting animated movies lots of people just didn't notice" like Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch.
Loosely Jules Verne-y, the film is set in 1914. Milo Thatch is a young employee of a museum, frustrated that he mostly keeps the boiler running, when he really wants to search for the city of Atlantis. Eventually he gets his chance, there's a lot of adventure, things go wrong, etc, etc.
There's definitely things that could be improved, but a lot is really impressive. The plot is quite dramatic, without being obvious right from the start. There's quite a diversity of characters -- there's not an equal gender balance, but there's quite a lot of characters, and they manage 30-40% non-male, instead of exactly one love interest. And the characters are all varied and interesting in character and background. And a lot of the film is about what the Atlanteans want, not about them being passive recipients to the exploration expedition's decisions.
I didn't know this beforehand, but apparently lots of the cast were famous and the film pioneered various animation things.
Azul
Liv wanted this game for ages, and I thought I'd like it too even though I wasn't as sure, but it's really good. By a well-known designer, it's really beautiful, easy to play, but hard to win.
Based on Portuguese tiles, in turn inspired by Islamic Iberian art, all the pieces are gorgeous. Each round you have twenty tiles of five colours, distributed between five kilns, and you take it in turns to take all tiles of one colour/design from one kiln, moving the rest into an empty area in the middle of the table. Or, you can take all tiles of one colour/design from the centre.
The tiles you take go on in one of five rows in your staging area, with lengths from one to five. Any excess score negative. At the end of each turn, each complete row is discarded, with one tile being moved to the same row on your 5x5 wall. Each row of your wall can only have one tile of each colour, once that colour is present you can't put any more tiles of that colour into that row in your staging area.
And you get points for forming various lines on your wall.
But there's a lot of strategy in prioritising choosing the tiles that help you place on your wall where you'll get points, but not getting stuck with tiles you can't place.
And it's surprisingly quick to play even when you think.
This reversed the premise of many litrpg books in that it imagined, what if someone found rpg mechanics applying in real life -- able to see people's stats, able to level up, etc.
It was pretty interesting reading about his random slice of life living in contemporary Russia, putting his life back together after his girlfriend left, befriending the guys who hang around his building, learning to see meaning in life again, getting a job as a sales rep.
I'd hoped to see more interesting levelling up, but although it does reasonably well, there's not that much there before the end of the book.
Disney's Atlantis
This is another of Disney's "we produced lots of really interesting animated movies lots of people just didn't notice" like Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch.
Loosely Jules Verne-y, the film is set in 1914. Milo Thatch is a young employee of a museum, frustrated that he mostly keeps the boiler running, when he really wants to search for the city of Atlantis. Eventually he gets his chance, there's a lot of adventure, things go wrong, etc, etc.
There's definitely things that could be improved, but a lot is really impressive. The plot is quite dramatic, without being obvious right from the start. There's quite a diversity of characters -- there's not an equal gender balance, but there's quite a lot of characters, and they manage 30-40% non-male, instead of exactly one love interest. And the characters are all varied and interesting in character and background. And a lot of the film is about what the Atlanteans want, not about them being passive recipients to the exploration expedition's decisions.
I didn't know this beforehand, but apparently lots of the cast were famous and the film pioneered various animation things.
Azul
Liv wanted this game for ages, and I thought I'd like it too even though I wasn't as sure, but it's really good. By a well-known designer, it's really beautiful, easy to play, but hard to win.
Based on Portuguese tiles, in turn inspired by Islamic Iberian art, all the pieces are gorgeous. Each round you have twenty tiles of five colours, distributed between five kilns, and you take it in turns to take all tiles of one colour/design from one kiln, moving the rest into an empty area in the middle of the table. Or, you can take all tiles of one colour/design from the centre.
The tiles you take go on in one of five rows in your staging area, with lengths from one to five. Any excess score negative. At the end of each turn, each complete row is discarded, with one tile being moved to the same row on your 5x5 wall. Each row of your wall can only have one tile of each colour, once that colour is present you can't put any more tiles of that colour into that row in your staging area.
And you get points for forming various lines on your wall.
But there's a lot of strategy in prioritising choosing the tiles that help you place on your wall where you'll get points, but not getting stuck with tiles you can't place.
And it's surprisingly quick to play even when you think.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-03 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-04 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-09-05 01:59 pm (UTC)