Game Review: Race to the Treasure!

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Created by: Peaceable Kingdom
Players: 2-4
Ages: 4+
Additional: No Reading Required
Facebook | Peaceable Kingdom | Buy From Official Store

Race to Treasure is made by a company called Peaceable Kingdom. They are focused on creating co-operative games that are Eco-friendly. Their games are 100% green. Seriously check out their site for all their information.

Play with heart & soul!

We create games & gifts that inspire cooperation and cultivate kindness.
What we believe | Cooperative Play | Green Commitment

This game is easy. Play time isn't log, setup is quick, learning how to play is simple. No reading required!

Very kid friendly. I highly recommend it for children 8 and under. It was bought with the idea a 5 year old would be able to play it without any issues. After doing a trial run, it meets those expectation.

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Setup:
4 keys and 1 Goblin snack need to be placed on the board.
Roll dice until you've placed all keys and goblin snack on board.
Shuffle tiles and form draw pile.

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Basic Rules:
Draw tile cards to build a road to keys, based on group decisions.
After collecting 3 keys build road to treasure chest.
If goblin card is drawn, goblin moves closer to treasure.
If you need to, build road towards goblin snack (if goblin is getting to close or might beat you). Once acquired can be used at any time during game, to knock goblin back one space.
Beat Goblin to treasure chest to win.

All in all it's not a bad game. Not sure how many times I can stress that this is the kid friendly co-op game that forces on "strategy, math grid concepts, shared decision making, cooperation" according to their website.

Anyone in their preteens is probably going to find this too easy but in our household it was bought to include a little one that most of our games go over her head. She's doomed where she only gets to roll dice, pass out cards, hold cards, or move pieces were we ask her to. No longer! With that in mind, this is perfect.

Working on bringing more gamers into the board game/tabletop world.

    BoardGameGeek | Wiki

Movie Review: Brooklyn

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Brooklyn (2015)

Directer: John Crowley
Producer: Amanda Posey, Finola Dwyer
Based on: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures (United States), 20th Century Fox (International), Lionsgate (United Kingdom)
Release dates: 26 January 2015 (Sundance), 6 November 2015
Running time: 112 minutes
Country: Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom
Language: English
Rating: PG-13

Trailer

An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a romance with a local. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within. (Source)

This is a story about a woman in a different time and traveling between two different worlds. Trying to not only find her way but decide who she is and who she wants to be, which are two very different things.

Eilis leaves Ireland looking towards America and New York City as not only an escape her for small little life, but as a new hope of everything she might dream or of accomplish.
Everything is in place for her, a home, a job, a new life to build, a new world to explore.

She leaves behind an older sister and her mother, her sister now expected to care for her mother as she ages. Something that does bring tension to their relationship but is never really forced on Eilis, in the sense that's it's expected of her instead.

Homesickness plagues Eilis for months on end as she experiences her first winter in America, which is most colder and more extreme than she's used to. Making the world seem much less welcoming.

The only comfort she has are the girls in her boarding house, who are only occasionally friendly. However, she must still form a relationship with them. She has to live with them and they have been there longer and know more. They aren't always nasty or rude, just usually.
They do provide insight to subjects she's has no knowledge of. Such as eating spaghetti (which you see in the trailer).

Tragedy strikes back home in Ireland. Eilis must go away to be there.
Once there, she struggles with the reality that she left behind not being what she might have imagined for herself. Things begin to fall in place and she's left to decided which life is for her. As well as what she values more, the person she is or who she wanted to be.

The pace of this movie is fairly slow, however being in the time frame of almost 65 years ago, there's a bit of build up to explaining and showing insight into the lives of women during that time. What is expected of them, what sort of behaviour and manners they are held to, because it's all very different.
There's a large struggle of being independent. Not only as a women during those times, but simply as someone trying to make a new life for themselves, somewhere where the culture is different. You have to rely on those around you to show you the way. To teach you how life is different.

That said, I became upset and resentful of the main character at times. She comes off as quiet and timid, while she is such a clever intelligent women. I think part of branching out on her own, made her more comfortable. Not only with who she is, but openly expressing it.
Something she struggles to do when she has to return to Ireland. She sort of reverts backwards, sidetracking herself as she deliberates decisions for her future.

I quiet liked the movie, not for reasons of enjoyment. But as food for thought. It's a story that makes you think about yourself. Establishing that you have more power than you think.
Embrace yourself.

Recommend: Strong independent female role,  History, Romance, Personal development

IMDb | Wikipedia | Rotten Tomatoes

Game Review: Joking Hazard

Being I have always stated this as a review blog to better my writing, I once again feel the liberty to branch out. I have done movie reviews,TV reviews, and would now like to add to the occasionally [tabletop] gaming review genre.
Tabletop games are a love of mine, mostly board games and card games. Not so much miniatures or even RP games.
Gaming is something I enjoy, not as regularly as I'd like, but when I get the chance I jump at it.

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Created by: Cyanide And Happiness
Players: 3 or More
Ages: 18+ Adult Content

Facebook | Kickstarter | Cyanide And Happiness
Buy From Official Store

This was a wonderful gift from my loving boyfriend. Who backed it through Kickstarter and received a Red Box version (see edited picture below). Which also includes two additional card packs, Blast from the Past and Kickstarter Thank You Pack.
It was funded back in on February 2016, he was hoping it would be a birthday present. (Which is actually arrived around early October, earlier than their Nov '16 estimated date, even after some delays.)

If you're easily offended and/or can't handle a few swear words or two, please turn back. Do not pass go, do not collect some humour along the way.

Joking Hazard's plays style and concept are fairly easy. The idea, you are making a comic strip. The catch is, it's in parts.
Each round there are players and a judge. The judge decides who wins that round, by choosing their favourite punchline, based on whatever the heck they decided. (Funniest, crudest, best reference.)

Basic Rules
Gather 3 or more human being and have everyone draw 7 cards. Place the rst in a draw pile, face down. Pick the first judge through nonviolent means.

The deck plays first, by flipping the top card off the draw pile. This is the starter panel.

The judge plays second, by placing a card from their hand on either side of the starter panel, creating a two panel setup.

Everyone else plays third. Each player plays a card, face down, at the end of the setup to create the punchline. The judge shuffles the punchlines and puts them face up one at a time, and then picks their favourite. the winning player then takes their card back for score keeping.

Everyone draws another card, you should always have 7.
Judge changes and so on. The first player to whatever score you want to play wins.

Example:

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It's a very open ended game where you're encouraged to adjust the rules to your liking and even suggest other ways to play the game.
There are also Red Panel cards, with suggested play of becoming a bonus round!
Some other suggested play examples include, Jerk mode, Marathon, Neverending Story.
Along with a list of "Suggested Drinking Rules" with, Drinking Wagering, Ultimate Sacrifice, Bottoms Up, Learn 2 Read, Decked Over, No One Cares.

The first time we played we already established some 'house rules'.
First, not one single draw pile. We make multiple piles all over the table and you can pick any number of cards from any of them. There's just too many to try and create one pile.

Second, there are red bordered cards that normally launch you into a different play style, we ignored that and played two cards instead. Allowing for split play.
Meaning, of the two cards played if the judge only liked one from each player, each player gets 1 point instead of 2 points.

While this is a fun games, it feels rather limited after a few plays. Which is why it fell on only a 3 star rating. Even after about the 20 rounds we played, it was a pretty simply standard kind of game.

The cards themselves are hilarious, the typical Cyanide And Happiness we know and love. I've no doubt seen all of them and hope to see more hilarious inappropriateness from this game.

Despite the rating, I will be playing it again. Hoping to try some of the other modes or even create my own! Mwahah!

"Joking Hazard was made possible by the 63,758 people who backed us on Kickstarter. If you're one of them, thank you so much. You brought this game to life!"

    BoardGameGeek | Wiki

This is what my box looks likes. It's originally NSFW (Not Safe For Work) but I edited it so that it's cleaned up... It's still pretty obvious what it says.