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Ausgoons - Gameology Easter Sale just started https://www.gameology.com.au/ I highly rate Gladius and Steam Punk Rally Fusion.
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Apr 7, 2022 06:43
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Shout out to ibntumart, as tl;dr we finally sorted out the Secret Santa nonsense and I got a gift cert Grabbed  Then I grabbed the following on top 
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Apr 7, 2022 11:18
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Infinitum posted:
Mr Jack Pocket is delightful! One of those perfect coffee shop/pub -games. It takes so little space and is quick to teach.
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Apr 7, 2022 11:41
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Mate and I played a bunch of it during lockdown, and it's a cheeky little 5min hide and seek puzzle. Also sorry ausgoons I snagged the last copy for $13  Edit: Did some late night shopping and came across some bowls I thought might work well with Quacks. Everything fits perfectly flat in the box. Not a bad find for $5  Now to wait for the coin capsules to arrive to really bling this bad boy out. Infinitum fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 11:48
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I want to respond to this thread on BGG but I want to make sure I'm not crazy/out of line/disrespectful so I'm checking in with you folks https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2838994/im-little-weirded-out-theme-game Golem is a game that revolves around the Jewish story of the golem. There is a Jewish person who is upset that the game doesn't include the pogroms and persecution that Jewish people experienced at that time. I think there is an inherent expectation that games will be 'fun' and I think that expectation is what fueled the backlash to Puerto Rico where the players are using slaves to create resources. If I were to make game about Black cooking in the US South, I would include the recipes and the social aspects of Black cooking, but not include the lynching/murders/Jim Crow laws/sundown laws/treatment of Black people by law enforcement because while those things happened, they don't make for a 'fun' game. After the half history of Maracaibo, Pfister (in my opinion appropriately) made Uprising where you can play as an indigenous tribe fighting the European invasion. I approved of this because you got to fight for a great cause. Thoughts? Removed first edit Second edit: I still don't agree with the OP assessment or feeling weird about Jewish culture but perhaps it's made with good intent. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 14:24
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I'm a Jew and I think it's fine. As you say, in the context of black culture in America, it's not enough to simply depict black pain and suffering in a historical context (though that's often where Hollywood's focus has been)... black culture is food! Art! Music! Dance! Same with Judaism. Yes, the history of Judaism is one of constant oppression, but that doesn't have to be the defining feature of a Jewish person's identity. And using generic Jewish signifiers isn't inherently anti-semitic. edit: Like, I appreciate that the BGG poster is asking openly whether "bright yellow colors" and collecting gold is inherently insensitive to Jewish culture but I think they're acting a little too cautiously here. Jews aren't associated with collecting gold, they're associated with collecting interest! They're thinking of leprechauns. Jewmanji fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 14:37
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Mel Gibson said it's fine
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Apr 7, 2022 14:39
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Llyranor posted:Mel Gibson said it's fine Sorry, it was a custom AV a lovely anti-semite bought for me in another thread when I was criticizing him for talking about Mel Gibson's latest movie. I haven't had a chance to change it to something else.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:40
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Games should be appropriately respectful to themes/religions/races/etc that they are portraying and representing, but they don't need to cater to a players victim complex. Acknowledgement of those persecutions, perhaps in the manual, could act as a teachable moment. Further to your example of Black Cooking, if I were to make an Australian themed game I would be sure to include the Welcome to Country as part of my manual, but I wouldn't feel the need to rehash all the countless terrible horrible things colonists did to the indigenous traditional landowners via gameplay. Infinitum fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 14:42
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Jewmanji posted:Sorry, it was a custom AV a lovely anti-semite bought for me in another thread when I was criticizing him for talking about Mel Gibson's latest movie. I haven't had a chance to change it to something else. You can request a mod to blank it for you. Mayveena can queue up the change, but I don't believe IKs can autoblank AVs.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:44
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Infinitum posted:You can request a mod to blank it for you. I tried to get a mod to do that for me when someone changed my avatar to something disrespectful and they wouldn’t.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:48
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^^^ I have successfully requested a reversion to a malicious avatar change, but in that case it was someone changing my av to say I supported the SNP while I was under pre-election purdah. Mods won't do it if it's just an annoyance. Infinitum posted:the This roll and write craze is getting out of hand. Jedit fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 14:48
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You can force someone else to have an avatar? That's nuts
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Apr 7, 2022 14:49
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Llyranor posted:You can force someone else to have an avatar? That's nuts It costs double, but yes, you can buy someone else an avatar.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:52
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Mayveena posted:I tried to get a mod to do that for me when someone changed my avatar to something disrespectful and they wouldn’t. A mod will blank an av if it's racist/sexist/etc. If it's just a generic red text THIS PERSON POSTS BAD THINGS style deal they won't. They'll blank it for anti-Semitism. Just queue it up for them with that as the reason for the blank.
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Apr 7, 2022 14:54
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Jewmanji posted:Sorry, it was a custom AV a lovely anti-semite bought for me in another thread when I was criticizing him for talking about Mel Gibson's latest movie. I haven't had a chance to change it to something else. There's more faff involved than you'd think, but give me the nod and I'll put through a blanking request.
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Apr 7, 2022 15:34
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potatocubed posted:There's more faff involved than you'd think, but give me the nod and I'll put through a blanking request. That would be fantastic, thanks so much! And thanks threadmates for alerting me to this.
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Apr 7, 2022 15:36
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Done, but an admin needs to approve the request; if they don't, Gibson will return.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:00
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Mayveena posted:If I were to make game about Black cooking in the US South, I would include the recipes and the social aspects of Black cooking, but not include the lynching/murders/Jim Crow laws/sundown laws/treatment of Black people by law enforcement because while those things happened, they don't make for a 'fun' game. This treads on some delicate places. I always felt there was an important difference between naked appropriation, honest if potentially shallow featuring, and engaging with a topic. I think most board games, as entertainment products, will live in the middle. Like, Targi features the Tuareg people, and it seems respectful to my untrained eyes, but it features relatively little engagement with them as a people, outside of trade. After all, it is a very simple game. On the other hand, Manitoba features First Nations theming (specifically Cree) but features "totem pole and other imagery that is not part the cultures of Indigenous people in Manitoba". So I can understand being sensitive about it. I would say that engagement in a topic at current is mostly limited to very particular games to make a point, such as Freedom: The Underground Railroad or This Guilty Land. But should that change? I dunno, but in any case it's going to be hard to get that sort of hard nut cracked if we can't even get people to agree that representation matters. So, I can also understand picking your battles.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:15
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Magnetic North posted:This treads on some delicate places. I always felt there was an important difference between naked appropriation, honest if potentially shallow featuring, and engaging with a topic. I think most board games, as entertainment products, will live in the middle. Like, Targi features the Tuareg people, and it seems respectful to my untrained eyes, but it features relatively little engagement with them as a people, outside of trade. After all, it is a very simple game. On the other hand, Manitoba features First Nations theming (specifically Cree) but features "totem pole and other imagery that is not part the cultures of Indigenous people in Manitoba". So I can understand being sensitive about it. As I prepare for my first representation vlog  (my channel is Mayveena if anyone cares), Jewish representation is non existent as far as I can see in the top 100 games. So from a representation point of view. Golem is a breath of fresh air (assuming it makes the top 100; it's not released in the US until next week). At the same time, as I mentioned, folks do not want to participate in slavery in Puerto Rico either. And that's what the discussion in that thread comes down to really, right? One Jewish person (and my three Jewish friends who play board games but are not religious) are happy to see Jewish people in a Euro style game. The other Jewish person is upset about lack of context in the game. I'm going to side with the positive representation concept. I don't like the OP feeling weird about it. There are Jewish people and there is the Jewish religion. Not all Jewish people practice the Jewish religion so it's not a given that the game is about a story that Jewish people as people would consider sacred. At the end of the day, Euro games are abstract games that are heavily dependent on mechanics and not as much on theme. For better or worse. Still not sure that I'm going to respond because I don't want to upset the person more than they are already upset.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:28
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Infinitum posted:Games should be appropriately respectful to themes/religions/races/etc that they are portraying and representing, but they don't need to cater to a players victim complex. The greater the present or historical oppression, the greater the obligation to include it respectfully in the game or acknowledge it in the manual. Most games would (rightly) stick with the acknowledgement; it's low-cost and low-impact, but better than allowing its erasure. A current practice in the US in some circles is the "land acknowledgement," wherein a public speaker first memorializes the indigenous nations and communities on whose land the speech takes place, in just a sentence or two. It's not a full recitation of why we're there now and not they're not, and sometimes it can feel performative, but the first few times you hear one it's surprising and educational. They're also low-cost and obviously low-impact. There's no good reason not to keep doing them until enough other stuff changes, such that the communities in question can say unanimously "yeah, you know what, we're good, you can stop now." That BGG thread seems pretty reasonable and quite important to me. Like Infinitum, I feel games don't need to cater to players' victim complexes, but it feels healthy to me that people are at least asking whether Golem should revolve around gold, golems, and the Star of David. Feedback from people who think it crosses a line is critically important to everyone else, since they also have to decide for themselves whether it crosses a line for them.
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Apr 7, 2022 16:42
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homullus posted:clipped I respectfully disagree. In order to get more people of more backgrounds/cultures/races into this white rear end hobby, it would help tremendously for them to see themselves in the game. In my opinion, part of the reason that this white rear end hobby is so white is because the publishers keep publishing white people games. So if I go to hang out with my non white people friends and suggest something like Alma Mater they are going to not want to play yet another white rear end people game. We need more representation. Period. My feeling as I said previously is that I would make a Black cooking game to get more Black people into board games without all the racist bullshit that has happened to Black people. Euro games are not the place for that again in my opinion, and we don't need to continue to fill the hobby with white rear end people games because they seem to be sanitized.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:03
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Mayveena posted:Jewish representation is non existent as far as I can see in the top 100 games Android Netrunner's in the top 100. I recall at least one of the identities is Jewish, either Hayley Kaplan or Nasir Meidan, from my memory of reading one of the expansion pack backstory pamphlets which aren't readily referenceable, nor did I keep.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:04
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FirstAidKite posted:Oh. Are you saying it is not very good? My FLGS does an auction twice a year I could probably recoup some money from if I keep it all in shrink.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:15
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Mayveena posted:I respectfully disagree. In order to get more people of more backgrounds/cultures/races into this white rear end hobby, it would help tremendously for them to see themselves in the game. In my opinion, part of the reason that this white rear end hobby is so white is because the publishers keep publishing white people games. So if I go to hang out with my non white people friends and suggest something like Alma Mater they are going to not want to play yet another white rear end people game. We need more representation. Period. My feeling as I said previously is that I would make a Black cooking game to get more Black people into board games without all the racist bullshit that has happened to Black people. Euro games are not the place for that again in my opinion, and we don't need to continue to fill the hobby with white rear end people games because they seem to be sanitized. Can you tell me what I said that sounds like the opposite of what you've said? PM is fine. Because I wholeheartedly agree that we need representation. We need people from the represented community talking about how they are represented, and saying whether it crosses the line for them, so that everyone else can learn from it. That means that sometimes somebody is going to have a more extreme opinion ("all games about Jews must include people hating Jews, because that's been happening to us for thousands of years").
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Apr 7, 2022 17:16
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I might be showing my own ignorance here, but aren't golem stories generally focused around combating persecution? I can understand how that could cause some discomfort if people consider that aspect to have been sanitised. More varied representation is something I always appreciate, not everything has to be trading in the Mediterranean, but I come from a position of privilege where I am rarely represented poorly or omitted. My ignorance also tends to mean that I would totally miss things like the totem poles mentioned earlier that could be offensive to others. In other news, Unfathomable has arrived, I also missed my delivery of Canvas so I have a bunch of stuff for my next game days. I can't wait.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:18
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Viper915 posted:Are you saying it is not very good? My FLGS does an auction twice a year I could probably recoup some money from if I keep it all in shrink. No, I'm just sorry if my posting ended in you accidentally buying it
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Apr 7, 2022 17:19
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FirstAidKite posted:No, I'm just sorry if my posting ended in you accidentally buying it Thread title
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Apr 7, 2022 17:29
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homullus posted:Can you tell me what I said that sounds like the opposite of what you've said? PM is fine. Because I wholeheartedly agree that we need representation. We need people from the represented community talking about how they are represented, and saying whether it crosses the line for them, so that everyone else can learn from it. That means that sometimes somebody is going to have a more extreme opinion ("all games about Jews must include people hating Jews, because that's been happening to us for thousands of years"). Right. This is hard. Having slaves produce resources for the player in Puerto Rico is wrong, even though it's probably the most accurate representation seen in a Euro in forever. I'm unsure that having some say a given representation crosses the line and some not agreeing is good for the hobby. The issue is the way the publishers perceive it. Publishers of games in the top 100 as we have seen are very skittish. They tend to not want to publish anything 'controversial' and stay in safe themes that feature either white people or white cultural icons. If they veer away from those 'tried and true' themes and there's backlash, they are not going to be as enthusiastic to go back. My suspicion is that other publishers are very interested in the reception of Golem to see if they can publish games that feature stories of persecuted people. The person who is virulently against the game has unreasonable expectations in my opinion. They want a thematic historical game which Golem is not. Golem is a Euro made by presumably non Jewish Europeans. The other Jewish people who have spoken up have been more supportive. The real problem is that for every marginalized person that speaks up, there's a ton of marginalized people who don't. All Jewish people don't think alike, however if enough of the ones who are offended speak up, the storyline becomes 'Jewish people don't like this game' and no more games about Jewish people. That's one of the things I'm going to be taking a hard look at in my vlog. I'm interviewing two Chinese ladies who look at Asian/Chinese representation in completely different ways.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:39
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I like to rag on some Italian designers for making tonedeaf or whitewashed themes, but in this case they sought out approval (and received it, it seems) from the Rabbinate of Milan, which seems like more due diligence than I'd expect from the average euro.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:50
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PRADA SLUT posted:Thread title :\ if they didn't mean to buy it and were just trying to check shipping costs after they saw my post about it then I inadvertently caused them to lose cash on something they weren't trying to buy yet. I didn't know their store made it possible to do that since I purchased it through kickstarter.
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Apr 7, 2022 17:59
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Mayveena posted:If they veer away from those 'tried and true' themes and there's backlash, they are not going to be as enthusiastic to go back. My suspicion is that other publishers are very interested in the reception of Golem to see if they can publish games that feature stories of persecuted people. Definitely agree that the extreme opinion in that thread is the unreasonable one. I feel pretty strongly that the "right" answer is to have more Jewish gamers weigh in, though (scare quotes because it's hard to just make that happen). We are seeing this kind of debate in real time with trans representation elsewhere (cf. the in-game advertisement for Chromanticore in the video game Cyberpunk 2077). I am extremely in favor of getting off the white-rear end game train, but I'd rather not do it at Stereotype Station, and I don't trust my white-rear end self to fully appreciate on my own all the ways not-me people have been marginalized, sexualized, essentialized, and oppressed. You're in several tough spots now (on at least two websites) but really where else SHOULD somebody who is in a represented-in-a-game community talk about their concerns with representation, other than BGG? It's the place where a publisher is most likely to see those extreme opinions, but also affirming ones, and ideas for how to go forward.
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Apr 7, 2022 18:00
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FirstAidKite posted::\ if they didn't mean to buy it and were just trying to check shipping costs after they saw my post about it then I inadvertently caused them to lose cash on something they weren't trying to buy yet. I didn't know their store made it possible to do that since I purchased it through kickstarter. You bankrupted some goon w/ your thoughtless posts.
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Apr 7, 2022 18:05
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Mayveena posted:Right. This is hard. Having slaves produce resources for the player in Puerto Rico is wrong, even though it's probably the most accurate representation seen in a Euro in forever. I'm unsure that having some say a given representation crosses the line and some not agreeing is good for the hobby. The issue is the way the publishers perceive it. Publishers of games in the top 100 as we have seen are very skittish. They tend to not want to publish anything 'controversial' and stay in safe themes that feature either white people or white cultural icons. If they veer away from those 'tried and true' themes and there's backlash, they are not going to be as enthusiastic to go back. My suspicion is that other publishers are very interested in the reception of Golem to see if they can publish games that feature stories of persecuted people. Is the issue here not that they are just mashing together a whole bunch of Jewish imagery to make the game feel extra Jewish. So you’re gaining menorahs and stars of David to help you control your Golem and hopefully end up with the most stars of David at the end as they seem to be points. But there’s no sense as to why you’re summoning a Golem in the first place. This isn’t an abstract game, you’re explicitly summoning the Golem of Prague who was summoned to protect the Jewish people of the city from being killed. That’s been turned into a jolly fun time of powering up your golem, whoopsy daisy it got too powerful and killed everyone. It’s like Ganesha which just mashed together Hindu iconography, it has nothing really to do game, just using it as set dressing which not unreasonably some people considered offensive. Using someone else’s religion as set dressing for your board game is going to open you up to a lot of legitimate criticism which you can’t hand wave away with ‘it’s just a game’ because they could have just as easily used some other story as set dressing.
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Apr 7, 2022 18:09
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Mr. Squishy posted:You bankrupted some goon w/ your thoughtless posts. This is totally off topic. Please stay on topic thank you. Sigh, ignore, I'm just not getting it this morning. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Apr 7, 2022 |
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Apr 7, 2022 18:09
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Mayveena posted:This is totally off topic. Please stay on topic thank you. I dunno, I thought it was kinda funny. There's two discussion threads going on here - One about Golem, and a totally separate one about that poster accidentally buying a game when actually just trying to check the price.
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Apr 7, 2022 18:12
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Aramoro posted:Is the issue here not that they are just mashing together a whole bunch of Jewish imagery to make the game feel extra Jewish. So you’re gaining menorahs and stars of David to help you control your Golem and hopefully end up with the most stars of David at the end as they seem to be points. But there’s no sense as to why you’re summoning a Golem in the first place. This isn’t an abstract game, you’re explicitly summoning the Golem of Prague who was summoned to protect the Jewish people of the city from being killed. That’s been turned into a jolly fun time of powering up your golem, whoopsy daisy it got too powerful and killed everyone. I think using the Star of David or any other religious symbols is bad because that's bringing religion into the game and I don't think that's appropriate so I will mention that in the thread when I'm ready to do a full response. Cranio should apologize for that, it's not needed in the game although I'm sure their intent was to further identify the culture, but that's not the way to do that. So yes I agree with you regarding the use of religious symbols in frankly any Euro style game as they don't belong and can't be accurately portrayed with appropriate context.
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Apr 7, 2022 18:14
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armorer posted:I dunno, I thought it was kinda funny. There's two discussion threads going on here - One about Golem, and a totally separate one about that poster accidentally buying a game when actually just trying to check the price. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I totally didn't get it I'll edit!!!
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Apr 7, 2022 18:14
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FirstAidKite posted:I have a new "escape room in a box" arriving tomorrow called The Emerald Flame. Hoping it'll be pretty fun Well, is it pretty fun?
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Apr 7, 2022 18:21
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PerniciousKnid posted:Well, is it pretty fun? Unfortunately I have not had a chance to play it yet. I got a bonus "prequel" pack for backing it that included 2 additional puzzles and I am on the second of those 2 right now, but I haven't gotten into the box itself which would contain far more indepth puzzles. The stuff in the bonus prologue are just a postcard puzzle and a sheet of paper with some diagrams I'm supposed to decipher. I don't like playing through this stuff on my own so I have to wait until my fiancee feels up for it. She loves these things and that kind of game are the only kinds I can regularly get to the table but she has ADHD so I have to catch her at a good time where she's feeling up to tackling a puzzle game mystery box thing. Mr. Squishy posted:You bankrupted some goon w/ your thoughtless posts. It's probably not the first time lol
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Apr 7, 2022 18:40
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