The Plot of Summer Time Rendering (No Spoilers)

As it says, no spoilers in this section. You’ll just some synopsis of what you can see in that first episode and the theme of the show.

Shinpei is returning to his home island after going away to study in Tokyo. He hasn’t been back in two years, but when his friend passes away, one whom he’d grown up in her home after his parents died, he returned for the funeral. He didn’t plan on staying long. But on his journey there he has a bad dream that something is wrong. And when he gets there, there are a lot of things that tip him off that something isn’t as it should be. Is Ushio’s death really an accident or is there more going on?

What Doesn’t Work

I’m going to say that the end isn’t a 100% smash success for me in this series. It is still very good, but based off of where everything started and the twists and turns along the way, I’d have loved one more flashback element to it to just really flesh out the story and motivations.

I also want to say that I found the dub not completely consistent. By that I mean I think they got good voice actors doing the work for it. But how the audio comes across from some of the voice actors isn’t quite as consistent as I’d expect. It’s more of a situation where it sounds like one or two of the voice actors weren’t in a room where it was as well padded for sound as needed.

What Works

This is a time looping story, you get that right away in the show. And it uses it to great affect. It reminds me of something like Steins;Gate that way which I really enjoy that one as well. This one has some solid twists on it as well. It feels like it’s telling it’s own unique story as well.

The characters are very solid as well. I think that the main three characters, Shinpei, Ushio, and Mio are all well done. And the supporting character work is very good as well. The story does a good job of building up those supporting characters and while Shinpei and Ushio are the main characters with the most screen time, the rest feel like they impact the story a ton as well. Especially Hizaru is worked well into the story and given a lot to work with for those supporting characters.

Another aspect that I want to touch on is the mythology weaved into the story. I think that it was just great and really fleshed out the island and the superstitions there. I want to say that it gave me a Stephen King type feel in some of what it did with the mythology. Though, it did a better job of building it more and creating something that felt like there was a payoff in the end. While that payoff wasn’t 100% landed, I think it worked really well.

Who is Summer Time Rendering For?

If you like something that is a mystery, mythological, and spooky while still having emotional moments and heart to it, this is a solid show for that. I won’t way it’s a direct comparison, but there are elements of what the story does that remind me of Stranger Things. The question of who knows what is happening and who believes the kids is important to this story. And it also has that unsettling feeling that you get from Stranger Things and Steins;Gate.

My Final Thoughts on Summertime Rendering (Spoilers)

First off, I did really enjoy the show. My issues with it are minor. In particular with the voice work. I think that it was well done, it was just not mixed or recorded quite properly. Though that element of it does give it an unsettling feeling as well. The best way I can describe it is that it feels like there is too much empty space and you can just hear and feel that. Which, in a lot of the ways works with the story.

The Time Travel

Let’s talk about the story as well. The time travel is well done. I said that before and I’m sure I’ll say it again. But it works for the show. And I love how it works. The system is simple enough, Shinpei getting the power makes sense. It is the idea that this is a closed loop in some ways, while the world is still changing in others. The end is always decided but it works because you don’t really feel that until the end.

The fact that Shinpei has to die to reset the loop is great for the story as well. And when Ushio and Hiruko start traveling with him as well, that is an added element to the story. Especially with Hiruko it really ups the tension when we as the viewer start to understand that Hiruko is now so tied into the time loop.

Finally with the time travel, I like how the loop shortens every time. That means that Shinpei becomes more and more limited as to what he can change. When it stays longer, like in Steins;Gate it plays around more with the depressing and hopeless feeling aspect of it. But in Summer Time Rendering with the shortening loop you feel the stress and the tension more as more and more events become locked into place.

The Mythology

Since we’re talking about Hiroku/Haine, I think it’s great to talk about the horror and mythology that the story creates. This idea of these shadow people. Haine creating some to really save the island originally but it not just being that. That now these shadows copy people and are used to replace people is really interesting and horrifying. The tell for if they are are a shadow or not also works really well. The idea that the shadow doesn’t care about the “body” but they don’t want people to touch the shadow is great.

And the idea of Haine and how she came from this other land out of time is interesting as well. This idea that she lived in the ocean for a long time after crashing to Earth and only when she beached herself as a whale did she become a “god” so to speak. But at the same time while she is the god of the island, she is also just a little girl. And seeing those interaction with Hizuru really change how you see Hiroku/Haine.

Final Grade

I really like this type of anime or show. I don’t want to watch the likes of it all the time. But when I’m in the mood I really enjoy something that just leaves me feeling unsettled. And while it ends good with just little fragments and memories and people reconnecting, it doesn’t feel like that’s a big miss from the show. Nor does that make a ton of sense. It’s kind of like how most seasons of Stranger Things end with them “winning”.

And the journey along the way for Summer Time Rendering is just so well done. And, yes, I’m saying it again. The time travel just works so well and it sells me on the show. Another example I could give of this great and unsettling time travel is Dark. Summer Time Rendering isn’t as dark as Dark, but I think there are times it is as unsettling.

My Grade: A-

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How To Play Trekking Through History

Trekking Through History is a time travel game where you are exploring history over three days. Each day makes up one of your rounds. In each day you spend twelve time or more to gather cards and experiences and add them to your timeline. That is most of the game, whomever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner. And we’ll talk about the different ways to get points next.

Getting Points

You get points in two main ways, though there is a third that I’ll touch on briefly first. Those ways are ending your day at exactly twelve time, filling in your daily travel itinerary, and creating runs of time travelled from oldest to newest.

So we already completely covered the first. That is just ending your day with exactly twelve. Let’s talk about the itinerary next. Each day you get an itinerary that has four different columns. Each column corresponds to a different type of event that you can find in the timeline. So as you select your next event to add to your timeline, you need to get events that will give you the right tokens. You fill in tokens on your sheet from top to bottom. Some of the spots give you points for covering them. Others give you points if you complete a row. And there is one more resource we’ll talk about soon.

The other way is by creating a run for your timeline. When you grab a new card you always need it to be more recent than your previous one you grabbed. If it is, you add it to your run of cards. If it isn’t you start a new run of cards. But you keep the old run of cards as well. At the end of the game you score each of your runs of cards. If it’s a single card you lose three points, two you get zero and then it keeps going up from there.

Turn Order

The final thing I want to talk about is turn order. I talked about the twelve time that you can spend. You actually can spend over that, but you always stop at twelve on the time track. And as I mentioned, if you like it up correctly and stop right on twelve you get a bonus three points.

Each card you take, beyond having the different tokens, is going to make you spend an amount of time. There is a resource you can get, time crystals that let you reduce the time. So what does this have to do with turn order?

Well, whomever is furthest back on the clock, the time tracker, gets to go next. And if you spend time and land on a spot with someone else, you go on top of them. So then the player on top of that stack is going to go next. The time crystals allow you to reduce your time so that you are able to go multiple turns in a row.

Then, at the end of the game, whomever has the most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a pretty light game and there is a decent amount of luck to it. Especially in lower player count games the cards for the timeline don’t change that much. So it is possible that in the beginning you get a card that is way back in time, in the BCE (Before Common Era) range and then you need to jump up a long ways and create a gap. So as players you are somewhat dealing with the luck of the cards.

What Works

Firstly the simplicity of this game is great. And not only the simplicity, but one of the things I talk about with a lot of games, the speed of the game play as well. A few turns might take a bit more time. And this is because you want to get the right tokens to optimize your itinerary for the day. But for the most part, most of them are fast, and the game as a whole, three rounds, is really fast as well.

But with that simplicity of what you are doing, I really like that they add in the itinerary. If it is just a game of collecting times and putting them into your timeline in order, that is not super interesting. But the addition of the itinerary gives you that one thing to think about that keeps the game from feeling too simple. How do I get the tokens I need to hit that next big scoring objective is pretty commonly a thought in my head. So I am able to plan out my turns a little bit that way.

And the time crystals are fun as well. They are a resource that is worth a point at the end of the game. But it is almost always better to use them in the game. Why, because it helps you set-up your timeline and it helps you get more cards for that run. It’s another simple thing, but manipulating the turn order is a lot of fun with them. And it can lead to some big swings in your advantage if you do it right.

Who is Trekking Through History For?

This is going to be a game that will be light for a lot of people I’m sure. I find it light as well and I’ll talk about that more. But this is a great game for families in a ton of ways. Firstly, the game play is easy enough to play with kids. I think that even pretty young kids could start to figure it out. And easily by the time your kid is eight, this is a game that you could play.

But the other big reason that this is such a great family game is that it teaches history. Each card, on the back, is going to tell you about the historical event that the card is depicting or the person on the card. It is an amazing opportunity to play a fun game and learn.

Final Thoughts on Trekking Through History

I find Trekking Through History to be a very enjoyable game. It is easy to teach, learn, and play. And sometimes that is an important thing for a game night. Add in the history that you learn form it, and that is a great added element to what you are doing in the game. Plus the game offers just enough to be a solid game as well. There is just enough strategy in filling out the itinerary to keep me engaged and just enough manipulation of the time track with the time crystals.

I suspect a number of people would find this game too simple. And I get that, it is simple but it is a game with a very specific focus for why it was made. It is a chance to play a game and learn about history and engage as a kid and as a family. My kid is not quite old enough to play it yet. But I’m excited for the time when I can use this to help him keep learning and have a fun time doing so. There is more to this than the game Timeline, which can do the same thing, but not a ton more.

My Grade: B-
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 6

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And for a lot of reasons I think that works very well if you want something a little more focused on just getting the story going and a little less player agency at the start. I think especially if you have newer players it can work really well because they might not create the best adventuring party off the bat, or be able to as easily come up with reasons why the group would be together.

But, let’s look at turning it into a whole campaign.

So the PC’s wake up in a dungeon, no gear, no memory of what has happened, and things not looking great. A guard comes by and tells them that their pathetic plan didn’t work, that they are too lowly to have thought to defeat the grand and magnificent Azahaza and then leaves them unguarded and not chained up.

The first session is going to be about the players escaping from this dungeon. Getting out of the prison part shouldn’t be that difficult. The Druid can wild shape into a rat and get some keys, the barbarian could break down the door, whatever idea the group comes up with works. What’s trickier is actually getting out of the dungeon. And the way out is that they’ll find a machine that is set for the last day that they remember, which is 6 months in the past. The players will then need to go into the past, level up and eventually take on this mysterious Azahaza again.

The important thing is that the players remember nothing of the past six months. And when asking around, as I’m sure they will, no one should have heard of Azahaza. Create this situation where the players are back before whatever has happened hasn’t started yet or isn’t in the public eye.

The rest of the game is going to be the players trying to figure out who Azahaza is, what Azahaza’s plan was, and how to stop Azahaza before it’s too late. I’m going to say, dealers choice as to what Azahaza’s scheme is, probably something earth shattering.

One thing that I’d definitely do is that there isn’t an Azahaza at all when the players start inquiring. There’s someone who becomes Azahaza and they have a plan they’re already working on, but the reason that the NPC’s have never heard of Azahaza is that the PC’s are the ones who create the name and persona.

Finally, boss fight at the end, make it a hard fight, make Azahaza over powered, but while doing that, make is so that the PC’s will have had a chance to figure out what the attacks are or the biggest thing s to be worried about in the fight and so that they can figure out ways to combat them as well. This will make the fight tough, but also make is so the odds aren’t totally stacked against the players so it feels like an epic boss fight. And if they fail, put them back in prison and have them break free again.

I think there are some fun bits of deja vu you could throw in where you can narrate that it feels like a PC has done this before, but I wouldn’t ever give them back their memories. Just have some fun with it and with the fact that they don’t know what has happened.

So, would you run this game? Does it work well with the trope of waking up in a dungeon with no idea who you are?

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But what would happen if you lost that final fight, the world is now in shambles and everything is going to hell, or the abyss, and sometimes that means literally. Today’s campaign idea takes a look at what happens after the fact, but not to the planet but to those heroes who fought bravely and in the end failed at being able to save the world, they’re all dead, and now they are level 1 characters in the next life, the afterlife. But because the apocalypse has come to their world, this Crystalline Halls of what’s basically Valhalla are starting to crumble and there is evil seeping into a place that shouldn’t have had any.

The story that I’d run with for this game is that because the heroes were the last ones to die, they remember and no more about the actual world. So while there are massive wars between Aasimar and Demons/Devils around them, the players are going to be tasked to find some way to undo what has been done. This is going to be a game about fighting a few small skirmishes, but exploring and finding where in the Crystalline Halls the PC’s can find what they need to turn back time and win the fight against whatever being it was that destroyed the world.

I think that you have several different plot threads that you can have the players run through. The first part would be about finding where the Demons/Devils are coming through into the Crystalline Halls. This would be a stealth mission of sorts, but there can be skirmishes with lesser creatures. Then they would have to explore in the abyss to find out the weaknesses of the being that destroyed the world that they couldn’t defeat before. Finally, they’d need to find a way to turn back time, either from the abyss or in the Crystalline Halls.

That is a fairly standard, end the apocalypse, but you’re going to be running the story in a different setting. I think creating the setting is very important here, because you want the players to feel like what they are doing is because they have specific knowledge, not because they are going to be able to stop the battle that is happening in the Crystalline Halls, if they fail at their mission, they fail and everything is over, there’s no after-afterlife.

I’d even be tempted to play around with the rules of magic a little bit. Only radiant damage works in the Crystalline Halls, but healing is boosted, and as long as a spell doesn’t do necrotic or fire damage, it does radiant damage instead. Also in the Crystalline Halls, anything that brings someone back from the dead doesn’t work, same when travelling in the Abyss, because the characters are technically already dead. However, healing is doubled in the Crystalline Halls, so if you’d heal someone for 6 points of damage, you heal them for 12 instead. Just to keep the characters alive. Now, in the Abyss, healing goes back to normal and spells do their normal things.

Another thing I’d probably add in as well, is that the players at some point in time stumble across a subplot where an Aasimar has been corrupted somehow or has turned evil and they are turning other denizens of the Crystalline Halls into Devils or Demons. You could even, once the players know about this, kind of use it as a timer where if they don’t stop the Aasimar or go back in time by a certain point the Crystalline Halls will have been overrun and all will be lost. It gives a solid branching plot for the narrative, like if the players feel like they won’t be fast enough, they can branch off and solve this problem first. And I’d make it some sort of magical item that the Aasimar has on or something like that which has been corrupted, or it’s a denizen of the Abyss or Hell who is disguised and pretending to be a specific Aasimar and the players need to prove that. Give it a few options there as well and see what direction the players immediately go with. But don’t make this an easy encounter, make it something that the players are either going to have to really race against, taking more risks, or it’s a fight that they’re going to need to prepare for.

Eventually, when the players likely have taken care of it all, and are ready to head back in time to stop the apocalypse from happening, give them some knowledge of the weaknesses of the being and probably some sweet weapons. Make them powerful, really powerful, maybe even give them boons that they can call on. Then send in waves of smaller monsters plus the big being that ended the world before and have an epic fight. Let the players do epic things and let the waves of smaller monsters die and run out, so eventually it’s that big final battle.

Would you play or run a game like this? What sort of story do you have at your table now?

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***Disclaimer***
These rankings are the opinion of yours truly, and if you don’t like them, that’s okay. We all have different tastes in games and that is great. There are some games that I’ve only played as a demo, and I felt like I got enough of a feel to put them on the list, thanks GenCon for all the demos. These are living rankings so next year I’m sure that things will change, so I’ll probably be doing another one next year. Thanks to Board Game Geek for letting me enter/rate my collection and games I’ve played. Thanks to Pub Meeple for creating a tool that pulls in those games that I’ve rated and creating a ranking tool. Again, the numbers and names will be linked to Cool Stuff Inc and Amazon if you’re interested in the games.

10 – Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
I am not that much of a fan of hidden role games like Werewolf, Mafia, Secret Hitler. I don’t mind playing them, but for the most part, it feels like randomly guessing with no real information to go on. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is not like that. What makes this game seem different is that you have way more information to go on because of the role of the forensic scientist. They are handing up reports from the basement where they have their lab, unfortunately their reports are a bit generic. So you are having to guess a clue and murder weapon by the end of the game that the killer has in front of them. However, the murder has a an accomplice who is trying to help throw everyone off the trail, but without making it too obvious. Then there was a witness to the crime who wants to get people on the right track, they know who the murder is but not the clue and murder weapon, but not too obviously, because if the murder and accomplice can pin point the witness at the end of the game, they still win. The game is a ton of fun and it comes with a ton of different content. There is always a “How” and “Where” report that the forensic scientist sends up, but the rest of the reports can be the state of dress of the murder victim to being if there was noise made during the murder. It’s a really fun deduction game that has a ton of talking to it and people declaring that they couldn’t possibly be the murder. It’s a game that you generally sit down and play two or more times in a game night because it goes over so well, and it plays a large group.

9 – Clank! In! Space!
This one surprised me a little by being so high, but I do really enjoy the game. In Clank! In! Space!, you are racing around the spaceship of an evil alien overlord who has a ton of trophies in his compartments on the ship. And, as an adventurer, you want to liberate a trophy so that you can become famous. Now, you do this by building up a deck of cards that allows you to purchase better cards for the deck and move and fight things. Plus, you have to get a key code from the ship to be able to get into the trophy room. So there is a bunch going on in this game, but it’s basically a deck building game. What works well for me is that it has more going than that, and the clank mechanic. The clank mechanic is basically you making noise as you stumble around the ship trying to find your way to the treasures and this evil alien is paying attention to that. So you want to make as little noise as possible, because you make too much, he’ll get you and you’ll be out of the game. But if you don’t make much clank, you can possibly get in to the good treasure, but it also might take a lot longer and then there is a higher chance that your clank (cubes) will be drawn from a bag, the few that are put in there. The game has a nice push your luck element to go with the deck building aspect, and I basically always want to push my luck. The game also isn’t a serious game, the cards riff off of various sci-fi films, TV shows, and stories. I don’t know that this game would work with a more serious theme. It’s a bit longer of a game than some deck builders, but the rest of the game play doesn’t cause it to overstay it’s welcome.

8 – Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
Yes, 2nd Edition is important here as that is the game with the app that allows you to play through the scenario without someone having to run the scenario. This is a Lovecraftian themed game where you take on the role of investigators in the 1920’s. You’re called to a mansion or some location to investigate something strange that is going on. And whatever it is, it’s strange. Maybe it’s a town that is controlled by deep ones, maybe it’s a ritual that is meant to summon an elder god, or maybe it’s time travel plus probably everything else mentioned. With the app, there are a lot of scenarios that you can play through, and because the app knows what expansions you have for the game, it can change up how the mansion you are exploring or whatever the location is, looks and move rooms around. In the game, you are fighting monsters, investigating the case, solving puzzle, and probably going insane. It’s like a lot of Fantasy Flight Games Lovecraftian games that way, but this game has so much to it that you feel like you can play a scenario a couple of times, and even if the overall story doesn’t change, your experience with it will. And with the app, there are a lot of scenarios, some that require expansions, and some that don’t. This game really gives you a nice feeling of tension as you have to balance investigating with fighting. The game is also nice, because it offers different scenarios of differing length, so if you want to play for an hour and a half, you can do that, but if you want to play a longer game, you can do that as well. I believe that the app even lets you save, though, I haven’t used that feature yet, because we’ve always played through a scenario. This game uses the app well in that it doesn’t take over the game, but it makes the game easier to play.

7 – XenoShyft: Onslaught
The highest deck building game on the list, XenoShyft is a deck building game that has more than just the deck building aspect. It is Starship Troopers the board game where you are on a mining planet dealing with a bug infestation. But the bugs aren’t little or medium sized cockroaches, these are giant bugs who are going to destroy your base. The base has more health with more players, but with more players, you are going to be dealing with more monsters in each wave. Each player has their own side of the base to defend. However, you can aid other people. So if I am in charge of the med bay, I can heal your troops, but I only have a limited number of cards, and each player can have up to four characters to defend their base per round, and there are four bugs coming to get them each round. While this game has a deck building aspect to it, I feel like it’s also just as much a tower defense game as you watch the bugs slowly whittle away the bases hit points. This game has a good amount of pressure to it, and while it feels like it shouldn’t be impossibly hard, I don’t have a high win percentage. In whatever player count you’re playing at, you feel like you never have enough things to deal with each players side of the base. And I really like challenging cooperative games. This game as a lot of things going for it, and the cooperative nature of the deck building and being able to build up your deck and what you are getting, but then being able to sh are that with others makes this game feel unique compared to most others.

6 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
I really like my Lovecraft board games, and this one really has a lot of story to it. You take one or two characters on an adventure as you try and solve the weird things that are happening in your town. This game, I guess, could technically be consider a deck builder, but you build the deck prior to the actual game. But each investigator has a unique deck of items. So the waitress, she might have a knife or something like that, but she’s not going to be as well armed as the FBI agent. In this game, which is a living card game, you are playing as a character or two and using resources to get cards and abilities into play, discarding cards to help you make checks to fight a monster or to investigate and gather clues while you are watching the bad guys schemes also count up until the point where you might have lost the game. One of the cool things about this game is that you have the ability to upgrade your deck in between games. You get experience points that you can spend, so maybe you have a decent revolver that has four bullets, you can get a six shooter that has six bullets now to replace it, so you can use it longer (that is a made up example). Along with that, this is a living card game, what that means is that there are more scenarios that can be made, and it is just more cards that are added to your game. You can play the game multiple times, though, through a story because you have different choices you can make as a group, and you have to decide which one is better. I like this game solo and I like it two players as well. I think that the living card game aspect could be a barrier of entry for some people, but the games aren’t long and you don’t have to play more than the base game if you don’t want to. And I realized I forgot one thing, in this game, you are trying to defeat challenges with various skills, pretty normal stuff for all the Fantasy Flight Arkham games, but in this one, instead of rolling dice, you are pulling tokens from a bag that can modify your result. It’s a fun twist that works like a die roll, but if you want to play a story focused game, you can make the bag easier, less negative numbers, or if you want to change yourself, you can make it harder. That ability to scale difficulty is really fun and make plays seem different.

5 – T.I.M.E. Stories
And now for something completely different, though still story driven. In T.I.M.E. Stories you are from an agency that is worried about the time stream and what might be happening and how people can use it for evil (I suspect I’m actually a bad guy or at least my boss is). You play through different scenarios that challenge you to explore locations, find clues, and solve the mystery that is happening. To do that, your consciousness is sent back into a vessel which can and probably will die or you’ll run out of time. But the good thing is, you can be sent back again and your boss will only be somewhat mad at you. T.I.M.E. Stories is a really cool game where you get little hints, from time to time, of a story that is going on that’s larger. And all the scenarios I’ve played thus far have felt different. The first one we were trying to stop something from happening in an Asylum. The next one we were trying to rescue someone during a zombie outbreak, and the final one we were in an alternate dimension in a fantasy world. And there was way more stories and locations than that, that I haven’t played yet. This game, is so much fun, the downside is that you can’t replay it once you’ve solved it, at least not for a while. You’ll probably always generally remember the puzzles, but the scenarios aren’t too expensive, you can play with up to four people, and you get more playing time out of each scenario than you would watching a movie, or at least we have. There are red herrings in there too that make the game harder as you are racing against a clock, time track, to be able to get everything solved before time runs out, and generally you have to reset at least once. I love this game, and I have the next scenario waiting for me, just need to schedule a time to play it.

4 – Betrayal at House on the Hill
I’m going to have this game higher than a lot of people, because there are some issues with the game. Mainly, when reading through a scenario for the haunting, which is the second half of the game, the betrayer or the other group, might have some issues clearly understanding their goal. Or their goal might be super easy. But that’s just part of the game and actually feels fairly thematic when it’s easy or when it’s hard. In this game, you are a rag tag group of ghost hunters, or thrill seekers, or just there because some dared you to, or a creepy child, who are investigating a creepy haunted house. You are finding rooms, finding items in rooms, and dealing with the creepy things that are going on. Eventually, you’ll have found a number of omen cards and a roll will happen and you might have a haunt happen. If it doesn’t, you continue until the haunt does happen because someone has found an omen card and failed their roll. Then you look up a scenario based on the omen and the room it was found in, and you play through that as the second half of the game, each side with a semi secret way to win. This game just drips theme for me and while it can be a bit stressful being the betrayer figuring out what you need to do by yourself, the game generally works. Each haunt feels different, and that’s some of the reason it doesn’t always feel balanced. The fact that a haunt can happen early in the game as only a little bit of the house has been explore or late in the game after almost everything is found is fun as well. This is a really good horror themed game for me, though I know it won’t be for everyone. I’d recommend you give it a try and try to get immersed in the story and feeling of the game, versus seeing if everything is fair and balanced.

3 – Pandemic Legacy Season 1
It was going to be on the list, and I’ve loved my experience with the game. I won’t go into too much on how it works, but as a legacy game, you are finding out new bits of story, new mechanics, and tearing up things as you go along. Pandemic is a game where you are part of a team trying to cure diseases and uncover what is going on in the world because there are those diseases spreading. The game is a ton of fun, and I’ve played it through twice. The story is linear and simple, but there is enough to it that it’s compelling. It’s also compelling, because Pandemic isn’t that easy a game as a the base game, and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 isn’t that easy a game either, plus you soon have to start balancing new things against the normal win condition which is just curing all four diseases. When I played through it a second time, a few years later, I played it solo on Malts and Meeples and I certainly didn’t remember everything for the game, though, I remembered the big plot points fairly well, just not when they would come up in the game. Each character that is played has their own abilities and you can improve them as time goes on, but you can also lose them if they get stuck in too many bad situations. The game really works well, and now it’s come down in price some. If you haven’t played this game, I’d highly recommend it, because there was a reason it was #1 on Board Game Geek for a while.

2 – Blood Rage
Most of the games in my top 10 have some story driven aspect to it. This game does not. However, this game has so many cool things about it. It has a great Norse theme to it as you are a Viking clan who are fighting for control over Yggdrasil and other sections of the nine realms. You start out in each age by drafting cards that help you with your strategy. Maybe you look to upgrade your clan leader so that they are more powerful. Or maybe you make it so that you get more glory if your clan members die in battle. Maybe you focus on being strong in battle or recruiting monsters. The drafting part of the game, while quick, really helps shape how you play the game. Then you try and take over areas of the map in order to improve your abilities, such as action points so you can take more actions, how many points you get for winning a battle or how many troops you can have on the board. Once everyone is out of action points, one of the realms is lost and you start again. Blood Rage plays fairly quickly for a game with a lot of minis and a lot going on in it. And the game feels different each time you play, because the cards that you draft are going to change up your strategy, and if you go too much into one strategy in an early age, players can block you from that strategy in later ages. And if you can focus on a single strategy, it might allow you to win the game, but there isn’t a strategy that seems too much stronger, whether your are fighting or peaceful. This game is just a ton of fun to play, and I finally got a copy, because right now it’s hard to find.

1 – Gloomhaven
My #1 game matches up with Board Game Geeks #1 game overall. Gloomhaven is a massive dungeon crawl game where you and a group of adventurers go through and fight monsters trying to figure out what is happening in the city of Gloomhaven and the lands surrounding it. This game is so much fun, because it’s a massive campaign game that has some legacy style aspects to it, mainly putting stickers on cards to improve them, but you can play it again completely. The combat and movement in this game are fun as well, as you play cards, picking them based on abilities, but also number at the top of one of them, because that determines how fast you act, and possibly if you are ahead of the monsters. Plus, with that, you get experience points which allows you to put in better cards, but the higher level you get and the better cards you have in there, the harder that the monsters get as well. You also have a goal that your character is going for, both overall and in each scenario. The scenario ones help you improve your character even more, but the overall one, that one causes you to retire and unlock a new character. Then you get to pick from all the unlocked characters and join the party again as a new character. There are a ton of scenarios in the game, as I’ve been playing it with a group of three of us and it’s taken us playing almost every other week for three hours in an evening, and it’s almost been two years. The game is amazing, it’s massive, and I think it’s going to scratch the itch for ameritrash players because it is so story driven, but the combat actually has a bit of a more strategic feel because you are playing cards and modifying with more cards, so it’s less random than rolling dice. I also think that, even though Gloomhaven is a massive game, it’s pretty straight forward once you have a few core concepts down, so while it might be intimidating to start, if you have someone who knows the game well, I think that more casual gamers would be able to join in the game and have a blast. This was an easy #1 game for me and as I was sorting I knew there wasn’t a chance anything would be higher.

So there it is, my top 100 games. I know that I’ve played a game since this started or since they were ranked that would probably be on the list. So this is definitely a living list. Thanks for coming along on this ride with me.

Let me know what games in the top 10 and top 100 look cool to you. Are there any that you love as well or love more than I do? Are there any that you really want to try?

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1 Psych
Pretty easy choice for me, easier than some previous years, but Psych is just that perfect blend of parody/satire that I can really enjoy. The whole premise just works as well, someone who is hyper observant helps the police while pretending to be a psychic in a comedy format. The characters are also really good as well. They all grow and develop over time while not changing who they are as core characters.

2 Stranger Things
Creepy and classic, Stranger Things is probably a show that everyone knows about, but is so well done. It follows around different groups of people through the town of Hawkins as crazy things are going on in the town. It pulls from horror greats like Stephen King, John Carpenter, and others. It’s definitely my cup of tea as well because it takes place in the 80’s, and I’ve always just enjoyed that aesthetic.

3 Dark
While Stranger Things has that creepy classic horror vibe feel, Dark is actually just creepy and so well done. In the US it is on Netflix, and I’m not sure where it was released in it’s original German. I would say that you should watch it with sub-titles if you can because some line in English can be half as long or twice as long as it takes to say in German.  I’m always on the lookout for good Time Travel and Dark does an amazing job with it. It could be a tough show to watch for some people though because it is very thematic and deals with dark themes, as the name would imply. I’m waiting on the second season,  hard to believe it will be as good as the first, but one can hope.

4 Supernatural
This is a show that I’m not completely caught up, but the adventures and monsters that the Winchester brothers have to face off against just makes a good show. I like the horror aspects of it, the monster of the week, and the really campy nature of some seasons as well. I can’t say that I’ve loved every season of Supernatural, there have been so many and they can get a little bit repetitive, but they tend to do a good job of having enough unique episodes and evolving the show over time that it works well.  If you aren’t in for the campy or you aren’t in for the horror, the show might not be for you, because it does both at different points in times throughout the various seasons.

5 Stargate: SG1
This show almost made my list last year, and after watching the very first episode again after a long time, it reminded me of why I like it. There’s the nostalgia of it as it was the first big Sci-Fi epics that I watched. And then it goes all over the map, but they do a good job of creating an interesting story throughout most of the seasons, and there is a certain campiness that I enjoyed about it. While there are certainly better critically acclaimed Sci-Fi shows out there, SG1 is my favorites.

Another tough list to make and a lot of change. The biggest thing is that Doctor Who has fallen off of my list. There are just so many shows that putting down a list of 5 was hard to do.

Honorable Mentions:
Doctor Who
iZombie
Futurama
Eureka
The Librarians

What are some of your favorite shows? Are there any shows on the list that I have that you want to check out? Or do you have suggestions for shows that I might like based off of my top 5?

There’s a lot of media out there about time travel, and there are two directions that time travel stories usually go — the first is more lighthearted time travel stories like Back to the Future, where the whole concept is pretty goofy. The second is the heavier time-travel stories such as Primer or Dark. In the lighter stories, the way time travel works isn’t all that important, everything works out in the end, and there’s a lot of comedy or goofiness; writing time travel in that way is much simpler. But for the heavier time travel stories, you have to think a lot more about how the time travel works, so that’s the one I’m going to be focused on.

Time travel and time itself, when written well, are characters themselves in the story. Even if it is just used to send a character backward or forward in time, time is something that the characters have to interact with. Often, when you watch something like Primer or Dark, time is something that the characters are interacting with and pushing against. In both of those examples, it is actively the antagonist in the show, and while Dark has another antagonist, time itself is the larger concern in many ways for the characters. Time is actively trying to stop the characters from getting what they want, because if they get what they want, then it changes the timeline from what it should have been in the first place.

I want to delve into that more, the idea of time being a character and what sort of character time is, but that’ll come later. Right now I want to deal more with the mechanics of time travel.

There are a number of questions you need to ask yourself when thinking about time travel. For example, is it limited in the direction and distance it can go? Dark has a time loop with very specific time frames you can go to. In Primer, the characters can only go back in time. Steins;Gate has rules about how much information can go back in time. In Back to the Future, it’s a free-for-all. The level of structure the means of time travel in the story has in terms of limits and direction influences how much a character can use time travel to change things.

How much can a person actually change? I won’t go too much into examples, but different shows handle this differently. Is time basically a linear path so that the fact that you’ve jumped back in time has always happened and you therefore can’t really change anything, or is it a situation wher, each time you hop backward in time, you are causing a new timeline to branch off of the one that you started on? This will  come into play later as I talk about time as a character again.

Does your time travel send things backward or forward? In a show like Dark and the movie Primer, they are sending their whole bodies back in time. In Steins;Gate, characters are just sending information backward in time that then influences what happens in the future (though that model does change partway through Steins;Gate. Back to the Future handles it differently with the DeLorean, which travels with its characters back in time.

Do you need to worry about running into yourself? What happens if you cause a paradox? This often strays into the goofier side of things — for example, in Futurama, Fry becomes his own grandfather. But there are often more serious consequences for this, as well. For example, in Harry Potter, if the characters run into themselves while using the Time Turner, it can drive their past selves insane (if I’m remembering correctly). Some stories even explore the idea of whether a paradox caused by two versions of the same person being in the same place at the same time would cause everything to end and the universe to implode.

Final question: How easy is time to reset? Can you go further back in time than you did before to reset the timeline to what it had been before you even went back in time in the first place? In Steins;Gate, they deal with this by showing that, when someone goes back in time and takes a different action than before, there is then a divergence from the timeline that they were on, and they explore how far away from the original timeline you have to get in order to jump into a new one. Dark deals with this concept by showing that the things that have happened have already been determined to happen one way or another, no matter how the timeline is manipulated (or at least from what we can tell thus far). But can you go farther back than you were before to reset onto a new timeline and undo everything that you’ve done up to that point?

This brings us back to time as a character itself. If time is portrayed as an antagonist that is actively working against you, how do you deal with that? Time can be used basically as an omniscient power. So often you see in stories that when someone goes back in time to change something and then comes back to the future, the thing they tried to change is even worse. They figure out what might have caused that problem and they repeat it again, and it still isn’t better, and so on and so forth. To me, that’s the most interesting way to handle time, because it opens up an interesting dilemma — namely, how can you beat time? If it takes whatever you’ve done a few years in the past and changes it to something worse in the future, how can you really beat time?

I think that’s where seeing time as a character is interesting. Either time is truly omniscient and controls the outcome so that you will never get the outcome you want and you have to figure out how to get it back to the original, good-enough state, or there’s some way to actually beat it and change the timeline. But how do you beat something that has that much power/control? I think you normally have to cheat it to win. There is generally some outside factor, some twist of logic that needs to be employed to actually beat time itself; otherwise, it keeps piling on and on. So how do you cheat time? This is where seeing time as a character helps. If time is an active antagonist, what are its weaknesses that you can exploit, what are the blind spots it might have, and what won’t time be able to handle because it doesn’t make sense in the flow of time?

I don’t have answers for you as to what those should be — maybe time truly can’t be beat. I’ve written a story where there was a way to beat time, but not one that was good for the character; it changed the rules of the problem the main character wanted to solve, and that’s how they cheated time out of what it had done before and how it had messed up their life. It wasn’t a happy story, but heavier time travel stories rarely are.

What are some of your favorite time travel stories? How do the characters get around time screwing them over?

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This show lives up to its name, being a very dark show and very atmospheric. On their own, the shots of the forest surrounding Winden and the slow pacing give the viewer a feeling of always being on edge; this is then enhanced greatly by the soundtrack. Dark is a slow burn, but in the best way possible. Everything about it aesthetically builds into this, and you connect pieces and see how 2019 ties into 1986. You get to see characters as they were growing up, and then as they are now, and you see things in a different way than you often do for a TV show. There is also an idea in this show of not really knowing who people are, so as you explore more in 1986, you start to really see how the characters in 2019 became the way that they are.

Dark is a show that needs to be watched in German with subtitles though, in my opinion, in order to get the full feeling of the show. It’s too distracting when something that takes a couple of words to say in German takes five in English, or vice versa. I can watch dubbed anime most of the time because the mouths don’t really match up with the words anyway, but in this show, with the difference between German to English being more obvious, it was too jarring. And as it is a well paced show and a slow burner, there aren’t many moments that are just rushed through — because of that, you never feel like you’re rushing through reading the subtitles and missing what is happening on the screen, so I really would recommend using the subtitles.

Another thing that I’ve seen as a criticism of Dark is that it doesn’t wrap up more than a couple of the mysteries very satisfyingly. I liken this to a number of Brandon Sanderson books, in which one orverarching story is split into four or five parts. There’s almost always some payoff for each part of the story, and you feel like you’ve wrapped up that part, but it doesn’t wrap up the story as a whole. Dark is very much like that as well, and the only annoying thing about that is that I really want the next part of the story to be available now. For some, this might be annoying and might make it worth waiting for the second season to come out before watching the first (apparently, 2019 is when season two will reach Netflix, though I’m hoping it will sooner). However, if you’re looking for a new show that’s intense, creepy, and eerie, I wouldn’t bother waiting, as Dark is probably the best show I know of for that.

Overall, I loved this show. It hits the right notes for me — it’s a creepy show without being focused on jump scares or anything like that. It feels intense, it draws you in, and the characters are compelling. It’s a show where all the characters feel like they are some level of grey, where they aren’t bad, but aren’t entirely good. They also aren’t just grey for the sake of being grey, because that often just makes a character feel like a bad guy; they all have specific motivations that are tough, and they genuinely believe that they are doing the right thing or are doing something out of deep and strong emotions. Dark tugs at your heartstrings and keeps you wanting to know what will happen next.

I’d recommend Dark for most people. For some people it is going to be too intense; for some it is going to be too creepy. Kristen half-watched it because she thought it would be too creepy and scary, and I think with what it deals with, it might have been too much for her in some ways. It doesn’t go overboard on the scary or creepy aspects, but it also doesn’t let up on them. So watch the trailer before you watch the show if you are someone who isn’t sure about creepy shows, because this one is dark and intense.

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The highest compliment that I can probably give an anime is that it didn’t feel like an anime, it honestly feels like a very good TV show. In fact, it doesn’t even feel like it’s an animated show, now, that doesn’t mean that the artwork is so hyper-realistic that it is mistaken for real life, aka. Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One, but that the story is so complex and well thought out that it doesn’t seem like something for kids, it doesn’t seem like a typical anime, it seems like something you’d see on a TV show with regular actors. There is none of this confusion where it is more on the fun scale or so on the fantastical scale that you know it’s anime like I’ve run into a lot, even with more serious anime like Berserk.

Steins;Gate is a story that follows a mad scientist who accidentally invents time travel and the organization that is trying to stop him and his fellow lab members. That is the single sentence version of the plot. It crafts an interesting story as the time travel machine is developed, as they look to over come problems with it, as people they thought they could trust, they find out they can’t, and many more troubles as they first race to see how the machine works and then race to try and figure out how to stop some things that they unintentionally started or caused. The story is paced wonderfully and always leaves you wanting to watch more.

Besides the fact it doesn’t feel that much like an anime, the other thing that I loved about it was the characters. The main mad scientist, Okabe (also who calls himself Hooin Kyoma – please forgive the lack of special characters in it), is a very enjoyable character to watch. He’s over the top, talks to himself, and always believes that he’s the best thing around. But it’s not a grating, I’m better than everyone else, it’s funny a lot, makes you feel for him at other times, and you see how much of it is actually him putting on a front as he’s just an eighteen year old first year college students. All of the other lab members have their own personalities as well, and there isn’t overlap. There’s Daru, who’s character is personable, but skeevy, Mayuri who is sweet and a bit spacy, and rounding out the biggest main characters, Kurisu who has smart, slow to trust, and doesn’t put up with Okabe’s crap. Even the other characters in the show have their own personalities, and everyone seems to have been thought out well. There isn’t much overlap on traits, but they all have something that sets them apart. It’s very cool to see that depth of character development worked naturally isn’t a show.

This is an anime that I would recommend to basically anyone. While Daru does make some sexual jokes (or have jokes made about his gaming dating life), there really isn’t anything offensive in this show related to sex. However, this show does deal with dark themes, there are things that happen that are tough to watch, many times very emotional. It isn’t very gory, but there are moments that do show some gore and some violence. Everything the show deals with, though, feels like a proper part of the story and I never felt that things were handled poorly in the story. It is paced so well and everything handled so well, it’s definitely worth a quick watch, which is another nice thing, it’s not too long.

Have you seen it? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

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