
We’re continuing our exploration of Moria in the Lord of the Rings card game. Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 7:30pm CST / 5:30pm PST, voice chat over Discord, gameplay on DragnCards.
We’re continuing our exploration of Moria in the Lord of the Rings card game. Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 7:30pm CST / 5:30pm PST, voice chat over Discord, gameplay on DragnCards.
Psychonauts 2 (2021) is the long-awaited sequel to the initially commercial unsuccessful but critically praised game, Psyhonauts (2005). With nearly 16 years between the two, each presents very different approaches to level design, gameplay accessibility, and platformer combat. The second is clearly an echo of the first, but much of the in-game mechanics have been updated for 2021 sensibilities for how encounters should work and with much more attention, for example, to more options for in-game items for health recovery for combat planning and anticipation by the player.
Let’s consider the following questions in regard to Psychonauts 2:
We’ll meet at the usual time: Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 7:30pm CST / 5:30pm PST.
We’re continuing to play the Lord of the Rings card game this week; gameplay on Dragncards, voice chat on Discord. 8:30pm EST, 7:30pm CST, 5:30pm PST.
For February, the game we’ll discuss is Disco Elysium. Personally, I’ve been thinking most about how an RPG behaves with no combat (but with tons of non-combat stat checks). But I imagine that we’ll also have a lot to say about the narrative of the game.
We’ll meet at the usual time: Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 7:30pm CST / 5:30pm PST.
We’ve been enjoying talking about the Lord of the Rings card game recently, and we think that Dragncards should let us play together online, so we’re going to try that out. The regular time: Thursday at 8:30pm EST / 7:30pm CST / 5:30pm PST.
I’m going to continue on with my symposium series about what I call the cooperative adventure card game. This time around, I’m hoping to zoom in on The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, though with the usual call outs to other such games, in particular Fantasy Flight’s other cooperative LCGs.
I want to see if we can describe the relationship among the storyworld (Tolkien’s Quenta), the individual narrative of the player’s session, and the particular mechanics that scenarios like “A Shadow of the Past” (the first scenario of The Black Riders saga expansion) lay atop the more basic mechanics of the game.
One of the very first decisions the player must make as they set out on the long journey of the saga expansions is how many characters to commit to the quest, given that there’s a Nazgul in the staging area and more lurking in the Encounter Deck. That choice is a complex one, and if things go to plan Thursday night we may spend the whole time just on what it means from a practomimetic point of view — and of course what the implications of our description are for Flip Flop Solitaire, jazz, and Milton.
We’ll meet Thursday at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT, voice chat over Discord.
We launch once more into the void on Thursday at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT, with voice chat over Discord, to continue our exploration of space through the clockwork universe of Outer Wilds.
Zombies, Run! (2012) is an exemplar of an often-ignored genre of games named exergaming. Created by combining “exercise” with “gaming,” the portmanteau describes a classification of experiences using forms of gamification to encourage exercise and other health-related activities. In the case of Zombies, Run! (2012), the explicit activity is running. (The title includes the word run, after all.)
What sets Zombies, Run! (2012) apart from other applications used to gamify exercise is the narrative framing of the player within the role of a person who is called “Runner 5” by other characters. As the player runs, short episodic audio narratives are played matching the length of the exercise activity. In order to hear more of the overall story, the player must keep running (or, in more recent versions, use simulated running while doing other activities).
Throughout a running session, and mixed in among the audio episodes, is the player told they are acquiring different materials and items. This can be something as simple as a bra or plot-centric documents. Once the session is over, these acquired materials are then used as part of a base-building mini-game in which the materials are used to expand a base and improve the lives of the characters referenced in the ongoing audio story.
Yet, both the material acquisition and base building never quite connect to the player-character dynamic. Players can ignore the base-building and even turn off the signaling of gathering materials, if wanted. The only fixed requirement for progression is the starting of an audio episode before the next unlocks in order.
To help drive discussion, lets start with the following sets of questions:
We’ll meet Thursday at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT, voice chat over Discord.
In this month’s Symposium we’ll be discussing Bowser’s Fury. Some topics I’d like to hit on:
We’ll meet Thursday at 8:30 EDT / 7:30 CDT / 5:30 PDT, voice chat over Discord.
“Cooperative Adventure Card Game” (CACG) is my term for the genre that includes the LCGs I’ve been bringing to my last few symposia. What is it, though? Clearly the genre comprises not only The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Arkham Horror: The Card Game, and Marvel Champions: The Card Game, but also other games like Legendary: Marvel and the re-skins of Legendary, as well as several other games such as Sentinels of the Multiverse. Interestingly, the category should probably also include competitive games for which designers have provided cooperative and/or solo modes: most interestingly, Middle-earth Collectible Card Game had such a mode starting in 1996.
So how do we distinguish, and why should we distinguish, among them? Should we bring cooperative board games — especially dungeon crawlers playable in coop mode like Gloomhaven, Descent (when played via app), and very interestingly, Descent‘s transmedia-franchise re-skin, Star Wars: Imperial Assault, some of which make extensive use of cards, into the conversation?
I can think of three topics I’d like to consider off the bat, and I’ll probably think of more by Thursday.
We’ll convene the discussion on Discord at 8:30 Eastern/5:30 Pacific, with a Twitch stream to have a look at some cards if it seems worthwhile.