Month: July 2017

Peter Hollens

Peter Hollens is a cappella cover artist on YouTube. I was first introduced to his work through a collaboration he did with one of my other favorite YouTubers, Whitney Avalon. As I sifted through his channel, I came across another collaboration he had done: a medley of Hobbit and Lord of the Rings drinking songs, with Hank Green. Not only am I a huge Lord of the Rings fan, but I have also seen Hank as a guest in several videos online. He was also a developer for Wizard School.

Once I saw the Hobbit Drinking Medley, I subscribed to Peter, then spent the next couple hours watching and re-watching his other Lord of the Rings and Hobbit covers. It’s safe to say I was addicted. It’s also reasonably safe to say I still am.

After hours and hours of re-watching his videos (seriously, I have to resist the urge to skip everything else I have cached on YouTube just to listen to his work) I came across his blog and Patreon page. After reading his most recent blog post, I realized just how much of a role-model he had become for me. One line in particular hit home for me: “I would argue that for any business, its not about how many supporters you have; its about how deeply you connect with each one of them.”

I have also, after those hours of re-watching his videos, determined my five favorites (because you can never ask me to pick one favorite of anything): In Dreams, Song of the Lonely Mountain, I See Fire, Epic Disney Villains Medley, and Hobbit Drinking Medley. I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do!

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You need a Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a train game, and the particular one I bring you today is in North America. You get tickets, showing you what route to make, then attempt to match train cards of the same color* and build tracks.

Ticket to RideI think this game is a good geography lesson. You get to see where the cities are in the grand scheme of things. It’s also a good lesson in building off of what you have, since you only have a limited amount of train tracks. Thus you reuse tracks a lot. I did get lucky, my three initial tickets were New York to Atlanta, New York to Dallas, and New York to Los Angeles.

At the end of the game I also unintentionally got New York to Seattle. I had 2 train cars left, which would signal the end of the game, but we each got one last turn. I had a track from New York to Los Angeles, and, because of other tickets, I also had a track from Las Vegas to Seattle. Not because I realized I could get the ticket, but because I wanted to have one large train line.

* For those who are color-blind, each color of train card also has a symbol and a different style of train car.

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Royal Toad

Royal Toad is a card game by SimplyFun. In it, the whole deck is dealt out to the players. You are, throughout the game, removing any duplicate characters you have in your hand. You get these when you draw a card from the person next to you. You win by being the last person with any cards, and that card has to be the Royal Toad.

I like how simple the game is. It has smooth, simple mechanics, but at the same time you can choose exactly which card you want to take. Thus makes it a strategy game as well as chance.Royal Toad

You cannot play this well with two people. If you do, you will always know who has the Toad, making it less fun.

Its really fun to try and figure out who has the toad. It’s kind of a bluffing game, since you’re trying not to give away the fact that you have the toad.

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World War 5

Yep, that’s right. We’re skipping 3 and 4 (we know 3 is the Giant Cockroaches from Chrononauts – same creators) and heading straight into World War 5, at which point the 6 main continents have all been divided into 3 equal parts. Each continent is a nation-state in the war, and you are trying to wipe out the other nations. You wipe them out by a) actually destroying all of their pieces or b) leaving their continent uninhabited by any of their pieces. You can’t fight a war if you don’t even have a base anymore!World War 5

This is one of the Pyramid Arcade games. Thus all of the pieces used in the game are pyramids. Each continent is a different color. I suggest strategically picking your continent, instead of picking by color. We played one game where my cousin picked Africa for the red, and my other cousin and I picked South America and Australia. That wasn’t smart for any of us because any two of us could have teamed up on the other one, but luckily for me my cousin on South America agreed to let me win if we took out her brother together.

I really appreciate that they have connectors attaching the Americas to Asia and Australia, because I know there are games where you have to go West across Africa and Europe to get to the Americas when you could logically just go East.

Once you get the hang of it, World War 5 is a great game to play whenever you have a little bit of time. It generally takes about a half hour to play, but that half hour is jam-packed with invasion, invading the invaders that are in your nation, invading your opponent’s nation while they invade yours, making obscure plans, making alliances, stabbing your allies in the back (I have a very Munchkin strategy for this game), and chasing enemy pyramids around in circles because you didn’t block off their escape route.

Or, in simpler terms, its a half hour of sheer amusement.

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Max

Max is a cooperative kids board game where you are trying to get the little critters (Chipmunk, Mouse and Bird) to the tree before Max (the cat) catches up to them. It was one of my first games and my first cooperative board game.Max

I like the aspect of choice. A lot of kids’ games, you just pick up the card and hope it goes in your favor. In Max, you get to choose which critter to move on a given turn.

I think, if you put your mind to it, it’s pretty hard to lose. I wouldn’t know, because recently my goal has been to make the cat win. Meanwhile the other player (my cousin) has been trying to get the animals to the tree. Thus, it can also be a competitive game. In the picture above, my cousin had successfully gotten the chipmunk to safety when I rolled double black, so Max ate the other two.

I think the treats and trails are cute. There are four cat treats, so if Max gets too close to the critters for your comfort, you can call him back to his starting point. There are also trails, one for each critter. When they land on their trail, they take the trail to wherever it ends. They’re effectively shortcuts. Unfortunately, Max, if he lands on it, will also take the trails.

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