Author: Cassandra

Cthulhu Fluxx

Have you gotten the impression that I really like Fluxx? Not yet? Maybe you should check out my other five Fluxx posts! I’ve written about Firefly Fluxx, Chemistry Fluxx, Doctor Who Fluxx, Jumanji Fluxx and Eco Fluxx.

Oh, and one more! The basic, core mechanics of Fluxx, which you can find here. Like I outlined in that post, there are four types of cards that all Fluxx decks have in common: New Rules (yellow), which are fairly self-explanatory, Keepers (green), which you (shocker) get to keep in front of you, Actions (blue), which are discarded upon being played, and Goals (pink), which go in the middle like New Rules and list the Keepers (or occasionally Creepers) you need to win the game. Creepers are black cards, and they’re like Keepers, but bad – if you draw one, you immediately have to play it and redraw, and you can’t win with one in front of you unless the Goal says otherwise. Not every Fluxx deck has these, nor do they all have Surprise cards (purple), which can be played any time, even when it’s not your turn.

Cthulhu Fluxx has all of the above, but also Ungoals (red) — if the criteria is met while the Ungoal is in play, the game ends and nobody wins. That is, unless you’re playing with the Meta Rule, Cult Clash, in which case the player with the greatest number of Doom points on the table wins… unless someone has the Secret Cultist, in which case they win, and if there’s a tie the player with the most Keepers or Creepers mentioned in the Ungoal claims the victory.

“Hold up. What are Doom points?” You see, aside from the Ungoals and the Eldritch Horror-themed cards, Doom points are what make Cthulhu Fluxx unique. They’re little upright hourglass symbols on certain Keepers and Creepers, including Cthulhu himself, who actually has three. These are important, not just for Cult Clash, but for cards like the Ungoal The Dunwich Horror, which ends the game if, 1) the total Doom count for the table is 6 or more, and 2) someone has Yog-Sothoth in play. “Six?!” you might be asking, “Cthulhu puts you halfway to that all by himself!” True, true, but there are also Anti-Doom cards like the Cat, which have a sideways hourglass and subtract Doom from your total. The other special classes of cards are Investigator Keepers, identified by a magnifying glass, and Attachable Creepers, which attach themselves to Keepers in play like the parasites they are. (I.e. Nightmares, which attach to an Investigator and stay with it until both are discarded… unless you have the Dreamer in front of you, in which case you can detach and discard those.)

I’ve yet to play a Fluxx I didn’t love, but this one I especially enjoy because of the additional mechanics that set it apart. Well, and the Cat. So what are you waiting for? Come investigate Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know and lose your sanity over a game of Cthulhu Fluxx!

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Munchkin – The Basics

I just recently realized, despite the several different variations of Munchkin explored on this blog (Legends, Oz, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Shakespeare) I’ve never properly covered the basic mechanics here. So guess what we’re talking about this week!

There are two decks: Door cards and Treasure. Officially, every player starts with two cards from each, but we usually play the quick start, which is 4. Door cards come in a lot of variety, namely monsters (which you fight), curses, single use combat modifiers, races and classes (ex: elf, thief), and some miscellaneous cards that let you ignore certain rules, such as Super Munchkin, which lets you have 2 classes.

Treasure cards are either Go Up A Level cards (you’ll need some sort of token to keep track) or items, which can be subdivided into equipment and one-shots. Equipment are things that provide combat bonuses for as long as you have them equipped, such as Scary False Teeth (+1 bonus) or the Boots of Butt-Kicking (+2 bonus). There are certain limitations, of course, such as you can only hold 2 hands’ worth of weaponry at a time. Some of these are also limited by sex, race, or class. For instance, the Hammer of Kneecapping (+4 bonus) is usable only by dwarves, and the Very Holy Book (+3 bonus) can only be used by clerics. Can’t use an item you have? Don’t worry! You can play it tapped sideways, which doesn’t give you the bonus, true, but it also doesn’t count towards the hand limit. This goes for the one-shot items, too, which is the difference between single use Door cards and single use Treasure cards – since items all have some value listed, they can be tapped; they can also be sold for 1 level every 1000 gold, no change if you go over.

Your actual turn looks like this: first, if you have cards you’d like to play before starting your turn proper, now is the time to do so. You don’t want to walk into a potential combat underequipped. Next, you kick open the door, flipping the top card of the door deck face-up. If it’s a monster, you fight it (we’ll come back to that), if it’s a curse, you take the penalties as written on the card, and if it’s pretty much anything else, you read the card out loud to the table (we may be backstabbing munchkins, but we’re courteous backstabbing munchkins) and then put it in your hand to be played when you so choose. Finally, if you didn’t fight a monster this turn, you have a choice: loot the room, or look for trouble. If you loot the room, you draw the top card of the Door deck — face down this time — and proceed to the “avoiding charity” part of gameplay; to look for trouble, you play a monster from your hand and fight it.

“Why would you voluntarily go looking for trouble?” you might ask. For two good reasons, my friends: 1, defeated monsters leave treasure behind! We do crazy things for treasure. And 2, you go up a level each time you defeat a monster. Not only is the goal of the game to reach level 10 first, but that last level can only be achieved through combat, and sometimes the deck is taking too long to bring that about by itself. “Ah, ok, treasure and levels, that seems reasonable,” you say, “So how does combat work?” I’m glad that you asked. Each monster has a level from 1-20, sometimes with extra rules depending on the opponent. I.e. Filthy Geats are usually a Level 11, but are at a -3 against Bards. For you to win the combat, the sum of your level and all your various combat bonuses must be higher than the monster’s total level; monsters win ties unless your class is Warrior. At this point, all players, yourself included, are free to play additional modifiers that affect the combat, on either the player or the monster as indicated by the cards they’re using. If you suddenly find yourself losing a fight, ask for help! You’re allowed to recruit one other player to your fight by offering them treasure. If they agree, their total combat strength is now added to your own.

If you can’t feasibly win a combat, either because you drew a level 20 on your first door-kicking of the game or because your friends really don’t want you to win this one, you have to roll to run away. With a 5 or a 6, you succeed, and escape unscathed but without treasure or level rewards; if you fail, you suffer the Bad Stuff as outlined on each monster’s card. Hopefully you just lose a level. (If it kills you, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the game! …it just means you lose all your cards and items, except your race and class. Ouch.) If, on the other hand, you win the combat, congratulations! Go up a level, draw the specified number of Treasure cards — straight into your hand if you fought alone, or face up if you won with help, and divvy up the loot as agreed.

I mentioned “avoiding charity” — at the end of your turn, if you have more than 5 cards in hand, you have to give the excess to the lowest level player at the table (split as evenly as possible if there’s a tie) or discard some if you are the lowest level player. As such, there’s a certain frantic rush to play or tap as many cards as possible.

And that’s the basics of Munchkin! Like I described it in the Munchkin Legends post: kick open the door, fight a monster, loot the room and stab your best buddy in the back.

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Sardines

I’m not advertising oily fish, I promise. Sardines is a game!

It takes almost no preparation to play Sardines… just some friends (the more the better!) and a place you’d be able to play Hide & Seek in. In fact, let’s talk about Hide & Seek for a moment. There are many variations, but the basic idea is that most of the group runs off and finds places to hide, while one or two stay behind and count to a predetermined number before setting off to search for everyone else. Once they’ve found everyone, the round is over.

Sardines is a lot like that, but in reverse. One person goes and hides, and once they’ve had some time to find a good spot, everyone else goes looking for them. You don’t want to search in a pack, however, because once you find the person, you hide with them, until the last person finds the whole group. Depending on where you’re hiding, this can lead to being packed in pretty tightly (like sardines) especially if your spot is a closet or something otherwise unsuited for the number of people.

It’s fun and easy to teach, with plenty of hushed giggling to go around!

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Overflow MSI Pics

Ok, so we took a lot of pictures at MSI, but I could only fit so many into last week’s post without it being ridiculous. So now that I’ve got the excited rambling out of the way, here are some more photos!

Though the first one is actually a video of the Tesla coil activating; fair warning, it’s accompanied by a loud and obnoxious noise.

Information board on Frank Hawk and the Mystery Ship
Quote: "It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science." Carl Sagan (1934-1996), astronomer and astrophysicist.
The front gardens of the Fairy Castle, with intricate archways leading inside and a silver carriage partially blocked from view by a tiny apple tree.
Poster of Marvel comic variant cover of "America" #1, with plaque beneath, which says "America Chavez is a queer-identified Latin-American Super Hero, co-created by Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta in 2011. She joined the Young Avengers in 2013 in an acclaimed run by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jamie McKelvie (who also rendered this image). In 2017 she starred in a solo title, 'America,' by Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones -- making her the first queer Latinx character in the Marvel Universe to have her own series."
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The Museum of Science and… Super Heroes?

Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry is both expansive and entertaining, full of different wonders to learn about and explore.

On our most recent trip, we started with the upper level balcony area, learning about the science of storms through a variety of interactive displays. Some were physical, like the tornado tube and the controlled flame in the wildfire section, which you could, adjust the fuel and mist content for to see how it altered the live thermal readings. Others were purely hypothetical, such as a simulation about how scientists study lightning by launching rockets to draw it to them.

The next section, Chemistry, had its own fascinating facts, and what may have been my favorite of the permanent displays — a large table with the periodic table projected on it, and pucks with which we could select elements, and then combine them off to the side, unlocking intriguing facts about each new compound. I also particularly enjoyed the firework simulator, which shows you how different chemical compounds burn different colors, and then lets you choose a few (and patterns for them) to light up the virtual sky! Meanwhile, the coolest part of Taking Flight (presented in partnership with Boeing and United Airlines) was either the actual retired plane you could tour… or the lesson on the various signals ground crews use to help the plane park safely. I feel like there should be an obvious answer here….

There are a plethora of other amazing exhibits, like Genetics (they have baby chicks!) and Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, which is the single most intricate dollhouse I’ve ever seen, full of fun tiny Easter eggs like Cinderella’s slippers and the golden harp, and of course the many areas we didn’t even get to this trip, but none of that is actually why we were at MSI this fall. No, our trip was prompted by something a little more… Marvel-ous.

That’s right! Through October 24th, 2021, the Museum of Science and Industry has partnered with Marvel to bring forth a superhero-themed exhibit, showcasing the evolution of the super hero genre and its many iconic characters! Do I sound like I’m advertising this? Yes, I suppose I do. But y’know what? This was awesome. The way they had everything laid out combined history, some statuary photo ops, framed comic book panels (many of which were the original art), and a variety of the very same costumes worn in the movies, which had me geeking out at every turn. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t read the comics! (And now kinda wants to!) It was just… wow.

All in all, MSI is one huge hub of geeky, nerdy glory, with so much variety it’s 99% guaranteed to have something for everyone, and if you’re in the area I highly encourage you to check out Universe of Super Heroes while it’s available.

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We’re All Chums Here

Well, I hope we are. Though there is a certain amount of “hey, stop stealing my stuff!” Why? Well, Chums is a SimplyFun take on Go Fish!

I’ll admit I haven’t really played Go Fish recently to compare the two, but Chums works like this: you start with five cards (seven for 2 players), and on your turn you pick a card you already have, let’s say number 8, and ask one of the other players, “[Person], do you have any 8s?” If they do, they have to give you all their 8s, and you get to ask again. Once someone says no, you have to draw the top card of the deck. If that card is the most recent card you asked for, you show it to the table and get to ask again anyways; if it’s not, your turn is over, and play moves to the next person. Once you collect all four of a set, you place it face up on the table in front of you — when someone no longer has any cards in hand, or when the deck runs out, the game ends immediately and whoever has the most face-up sets wins.

Where Crazy Ates is mostly the luck of the draw, Chums has that strategic element, trying to remember which other players have what; there’s been many a time where one of us has asked another for something they didn’t have, only for the next player to turn around and ask for that card.

As a bonus, every number (1-12) has its own colorful species of fish! I used to make a point of collecting 4s and 10s, because I liked the lionfish and pufferfish illustrations best.

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Apples and Pumpkins and Sunflowers, Oh My!

For anyone in the west Chicago suburbs (or passing through), let me tell you about this awesome gem called Kuipers Family Farm. As I recall, we first found Kuipers as a way to go out with friends while social distancing — specifically in the orchard, so I’ll start with that.

There are somewhere around 40 different types of apples available, which you can pay to pick 1/4 peck paper bag of, per person. (The picture below is about 3 of those, for reference, including the full bag.) Each week has a different selection of apples to pick, depending on what’s in season, which means you can feasibly come back 3 or 4 times over autumn and get new flavors every time. Which are available is visible both on the board outside the orchard and on their website, which also offers a “Notify Me” option for when specific types are in harvest. Both of these have a 1-5 rating scale, giving each apple a score for its popularity raw, in baking, and for applesauce. There’s also a policy I’m rather fond of: you’re welcome to taste test the apples as you pick, so long as you finish the whole apple. This lets you go “wow, that one is really good!” and use your limited space accordingly.

I’d give you directions from the orchard to the sunflower area, but honestly between the train looping it and the seven acres of flowers… you can’t miss it. Now, seven acres might sound a little excessive, I admit, but according to the website there are over 20 different varieties of sunflower there. So if you’re up for a bit of a hike, wander through the various paths in the fields, stop for photo ops at the random tractors scattered throughout, and when a specific sunflower catches your eye, take note of where it is, because admission to the sunflower area comes with 1 bloom included — that is to say, you get to take home one flower of your choice, or more if you pay a little extra.

Kuipers also has a pumpkin farm. Unfortunately, I’ve never done that part of the experience, so I can’t tell you much more than the website says — they’ve got a ton of fall activities, from a corn maze to pig races and a petting zoo, to, of course, picking your own pumpkins. What I can tell you is that the Orchard Store, which is kind of in the middle of everything, is a magical little experience and you will leave with some sort of food. Like apple cider donuts. Or mint chocolate fudge. Mmm. *cough* Anyways, since I don’t have any pumpkin photos for you, have another sunflower pic!

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Pixel Art

Yes, I have fallen prey to the hypnosis of color-by-number apps. While I realize there are probably several options along this vein, I’m going to be talking about the one I use, aptly titled Pixel Art.

The basic concept seems fairly self-explanatory — an image is divided into squares, numbered by color, and you fill it in accordingly. You don’t have to use the colors in order, or all of one color at once… in fact, it’s often easiest to start with the highest numbers, as they tend to be the least prevalent. When you select a color on the number bar, it shows how much of that color you’ve completed so far, and marks all pixels of that color with a dark grey to set them apart from the blank white of other unfilled cells. You can choose between tapping these individually to color them, or dragging your finger across several, which is quicker but risks hitting other numbers, too. If that happens the pixel will remain a paler version of that color (number still visible) until you hit it with the correct one. The page of the palette before colors 1-10 has two “Boosters”: the Color Wand, which colors multiple neighboring cells of the same color with one tap, and Color Splash, which colors everything in a set radius with one tap, regardless of color. Honestly, though, I don’t really see the point in those.

There are a couple different menus, all comprehensively organized. First there’s the main one, at the bottom of the page, sorted into Library, Daily, My Works, and Create. Yes, there’s an option to create art for this — don’t ask me how that works, I’ve never done it. Daily is fairly self-explanatory: there’s a new image there every day, like an all-year advent calendar of coloring. My Works has a second menu near the top, split into, again, “My Works,” which shows everything you’ve colored at least one pixel on, and “In Progress,” which shows only the images you haven’t completed yet. As you can imagine, In Progress is super useful for when you’ve got multiple pictures going on at once, especially the more detailed ones that can take a while to complete.

The most complicated tab is Library, which has a 4-tab menu of its own. First off, Event. Currently, there’s a “Desert World” event going on. What the event is changes regularly, but they each have thematically appropriate art, and the more of those you complete by the end of the event, the more rewards you get, including Bonus images, which is the third tab from the left — pretty much, the more event art you complete, the more bonus ones you collect. The tab between those is New, which is also fairly self-explanatory. New art appears at the top of the page, and the more you scroll down, the older the stuff you’re looking at. It’s worth noting that a lot of times, these are added in clusters, hence why my screenshot has four images pertaining to Japan all completed around the same time.

The fourth and final tab in Library is Books, which, like how In Progress acts as a filter for My Works, is effectively a subset of New. These are collections of 8 images each, bound together by a category, be it Landscapes, Comfortable Clothes, or even just “Orange Color.” You unlock each next row of the collection as you work, going through seven easier images and ending on a full one. I won’t say photorealistic, necessarily, because sometimes full pictures are intricate patterns instead, but rather than being a cutout of some concept within a given space, full images take up the entire square.

Both books and individual art are sometimes locked, and while you can buy premium, you can also just watch an ad to unlock them.

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Sudoku Challenge

“Hold up, didn’t you already tell us about Sudoku?” Well, yes, sort of, but that was Hawaiian Sudoku! And, no, I’m not here to talk about the normal version, at least not exactly — I’m here to talk about the board game.

Yep! Sudoku is a competitive game now! Sudoku Challenge actually came out in like 2006, but I didn’t have a blog then, so we’re going to pretend this is a new discovery. The first thing to choose is which side of the board you’re playing — Sudoku (9×9 grid), or Zoodoku (6×6). What’s Zoodoku, you ask? Well, it’s the easier version of Sudoku, and much, much cuter, since instead of numbers, you’re placing animals.

Whichever you choose, the mechanics are the same — you start by placing the starter tiles (marked with a different backing), one in each box, no overlapping rows/columns, and placing each player’s chosen pawn at 0 on the scoring area. Players then take turns drawing a face-down tile and choosing where to place it. Just like regular Sudoku, it can’t be in the same row, column, or box as a tile of the same type. Unlike regular Sudoku, you have another goal: scoring. When you place a tile, you get 1 point for each other tile that shares a row, column, or box with it. Each tile is only counted once. If you’re feeling exceptionally masochistic, you can play Sudoku with a twist — instead of scoring one point for each other tile, you add up their values. Note that if you do this, you will run out of 40-point tokens; we used the Zoodoku tiles as stand-ins.

There are going to be times when prior placements leave spaces unable to be filled, like the empty space in the middle right of the board below, where the box needs a deer (blocked by row) and the row needs a raccoon (blocked by both column and box). If a player draws a tile they cannot place, the game ends immediately, and whoever has the most points wins.

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