I had my Christmas early thanks to an avalanche of stuff arriving all at once and me being confused about what was arriving from where and when and not being careful about what to open and…oh my…what’s this? In fact, some of the things that arrived I concluded couldn’t possibly have been from my Secret Santa because they had no way of knowing I wanted them!
So to back up from my initial post, here is most of what arrived from my Secret Santa:
I say “most” because the coolest gift didn’t arrive until after I’d figured out what was going on. Stand by!
So obviously the chicken is part of the Qt3 Secret Santa tradition. Who needs white elephants when you have honking chickens being passed around? I’m happy to join in, and I hope it’s not a spoiler to say we might be seeing this guy again in 2022.
The She-Ra and the Princess of Power seasons are sort of an inside joke, although it’s not very inside since everyone knows @ArmandoPenblade is a big fan, and it’s not very jokey since he sincerely enjoys the series, even if it seems like it might be for tween girls. But just because something is for tween girls doesn’t mean us grown-ass dudes can’t also appreciate it! I’ve seen some of She-Ra, I like the cast, and I really like the energy. Basically, the episodes are pieces of candy. Short and colorful cheery sugar rushes.
I Am A Hero is a comic book that another friend recommended. He’s one of my “recommendation friends” where we know each other well enough that he can just say the name of something and that’s all I need to know. But in this case, he explained that it was a manga that he enjoyed after he’d given up on manga (Hey, why do Japanese comic books get their own word? What’s so special that we don’t just call them comic books, the same way we call comic books from other countries “comic books”?). It seems like a zombie apocalypse thing, which is probably why he recommended it to me. In the first few pages, the main character (?) is introduced sneaking (?) into a house and doing this:
Okay, Japan, whatever. We’ll see where it goes. :)
The games that arrived were a real source of confusion for me. I knew I had put I Am A Hero on my Amazon wishlist some time ago, so when that and the chicken and the She-Ra DVD arrived, I knew they had to be from a Secret Santa. But I didn’t remember throwing any boardgames on my wish list. It’s usually just books that I plan to get from the library, but that I think I might also want to own after I’ve read them. (Spoiler: I must have put some boardgames on the list before they were available, thinking I’d pick them up down the road.)
So when I opened boxes to discover Pax Viking and Super Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up, I was totally flummoxed. Wha…? Who sent me these? How could anyone have known…? Are these press copies, because I don’t think Super-Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up is even out yet? What is happening…?
Really, my confusion was just an addled expression of absolute delight. I absolutely love Geoff Engelstein’s first Super-Skill Pinball game, 4-cade. It’s a roll-and-write game played on a dry erase board representing pinball tables, and it does some really clever things with risk/reward, flow, and theming. I ended up really liking all four tables in the original game, so I’ve been dying to see what Engelstein is going to do with the next four tables in Ramp It Up. But I didn’t think the game was available to the public yet. I couldn’t have been happier to be wrong!
And now that I’ve seen the tables first-hand, I noticed the backboards are better integrated with the tables. Each table is two dry erase boards, one for the table proper, the other for the backboard where you track your score. Previously, they were just separate boards that could sit side-by-side, or one above the other, or however you wanted to put them. But these tables use the backboard to open up new areas for the ball, or to integrate better with specific elements of the table. Pretty cool, and it makes me excited to see what new gimmicks he has in store!
The four tables this time are a racing table (pardon my bad photography, but I’m eager to play instead of take pictures):
I love a good racing table. And since @marquardson has ruined High Speed II: The Getway in Pinball FX by breaking the leaderboards, I don’t have to play Pinball FX’s awful V12 table anymore. Furthermore, since Marquardson doesn’t even have Super-Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up, he won’t be breaking any more leaderboards. Not on my watch!
A casino heist table looks promising:
Oooh, what’s going on with that pyramid of gold bars? Speaking of gold, the starter table is something about derpy gophers in a gold mine:
And then there’s the table you know you’re never going to play because you have zero interest in the theming. In Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade, that was the dancing table. Who wants to play a stupid dancing table? Well, me, because it ended up being one of my favorite tables for how it plays with risk/reward and its self-deprecating humor. You go out on the dance floor to bust some moves, but end up doing the funky chicken instead. Womp womp! Cute stuff! But now some wrestling-themed table is a shoo-in for Least Wanted:
Except that it’s specifically built to be interactive for multiple players, addressing one of the complaints about the original game: that it was strictly multiplayer solitaire without any interaction among the players other than comparing scores when it’s all over. But this wrestling table is designed to be co-operative (?), so you’re interacting with another player. I can’t work up even an iota of excitement for a wrestling-themed table, but a table built to be interactive? Even if it is about tag team wrasslin’ and it has the dopey name “Pin Pals”? Yes, please!
What’s more, I only realized as I was going through the extra boards that Ramp It Up does things a little differently because of the Pin Pals wrestling table. In the first game, there were four copies of every table to support four people playing at once (you need that “1-4 players” tag on the box). Basically, a boxed copy of Super-Skill Pinball is just a thick brick of dry-erase boards. But if you’re playing solitaire, you don’t need 3/4 of the brick, so I put the duplicate tables under the insert and never have to mess with them.
But while I was sorting all the dry erase boards to put under the insert, I noticed that Pin Pals is actually four completely separate tables, because each table has its own character!
I realize that looks like a busy mess (pinball is all about making sense of chaos), but what you’re looking at are the backboards for four completely separate Pin Pals tables, with the tables themselves offscreen at the bottom. So for the racing, casino heist, and derpy gopher tables, you get four copies of the same table in case you want to play with friends. But with Pin Pal, you get completely separate table and backboard dry erase boards for each of the characters: Bald Eagle, Abraslam Lincoln, El Avogato, and Hay Bale Hicks. Okay, now it went from some dumb wrestling thing to potentially awesome. I’m pretty sure the differences are just cosmetic, but it’s still a cool enough idea that I can get over the theming.
Pax Viking is a major departure from the other Pax games for two reasons. The first is that it wasn’t made by Phil Eklund (only one other Pax game wasn’t made by an Eklund). The second is that it’s a big game. Check it out:
The other Paxes are card-based and they don’t have a board. But this Pax has a full board. Behold:
Notice anything about that board? What kind of Viking game has all that land to the east? And where’s North America? Seems this is a game about Vikings that got turned around, left their ships behindd, and started hoofing it towards the east! Can you see the name on that circular space on the lower right? That’s India! What kind of Vikings went to pillage India?
Also, how the heck am I supposed to shuffle these cards?
I really like the Pax systems and I’m eager to see where this game goes. It’s got a solitaire mode, but now I can also join in any forum games, assuming players haven’t been scared off by my Pax Transhumanity win. Bawk, bawk!
And then the final gift arrived via email, which necessarily outed my Secret Santa. It was this png image:
I haven’t played tabletop RPGs since I was a kid. I think maybe a couple times in grad school? And frankly, I haven’t had much interest because I’m fine with the tabletop games I already play. But I realize RPGs are very different from when I played them, and here’s a big part of where I learned this:
So it means a lot to me that Randy would be willing to take me through a game to see what tabletop RPGs are like these days. It especially means a lot because I wouldn’t have thought to ask. Until I read that coupon, it didn’t really occur to me that, yeah – heck yeah! no, fuck yeah! – I want to see what tabletop RPGs are like when they’re played by someone as passionate and imaginative as Randy. I was especially excited thinking about the different rulesets, settings, and especially players. Two people came to mind immediately. And when I tentatively mentioned it to them, they both eager agreed based on me mentioning that the game would be run by Randy.
So I am thrilled to say that my main Secret Santa gift will be delivered at a time in the future. Me and @Jason_McMaster and @Telefrog will roll up characters and play a scenario of a game to be determined. At the very least, we’ll write it up for the forum to share it with you guys. This might sound silly, but it’s the game I’m most looking forward to in 2022. Yeah, yeah, Dying Light 2, Total Warwarhammer III, new Guild Wars content, Stalker 2, Starfield, I’m looking forward to all of them. But none of them has the promise of being something completely new to me. None of them has much sense of mystery or the unknown. They’re familiar quantities and I don’t doubt I’ll enjoy them. But this is something entirely different and even unprecedented for me. It’s like looking forward to a movie, but having no idea what kind of movie it even is. Honestly, I feel a little silly for how excited I am about this.
So huge thanks and a big sloppy cheery Christmas manhug to @ArmandoPenblade. I can’t wait to work out what game we’ll be playing!
-Tom