Games, Movies, Plays
Feb. 15th, 2015 01:43 pmDave and I went to Oxtord for our tenth anniversary last weekend, and visited the board game cafe, Thirsty Meeples, while we were there (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aloysius_bear has all the news...). We only got a chance to play one game - Epic Resort - but it was quite fun. It combined deck building, worker placement and resource allocation, all of which are things I like in games, with a fun theme of building a resort for weary adventures to recharge their batteries after dungeon crawling. It was necessary to balance the number and type of attractions, tourists and heroes at your resort to gain points and resources, and defend against monster attacks. It took a little while to get through all the rules, but they were laid out in a useful step-by-step guide for each turn, and there was probably more to the strategy than we picked up in one short game, but there was enough to keep me thinking, and it was well made.
Last night, we went to see Big Hero 6 at long last, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun, clever, exciting and cute. Baymax the robot was awesome in every way, and I thought the relationships were well drawn.
The weekend's entertainment was overshadowed somewhat, however, by The Nether, which we went to see on Friday night, and which was truly excellent. It asked really interesting questions about perception and reality, identity and self-worth, morality and sexual proclivities. There were only a few characters and they all had different points of view, but also all had good arguments for their views, which made the conflict complex and very much less than clear-cut. I sympathised with all of them, and found it very difficult to decide who was right, which made for really effective drama. The staging and set were amazing, and all the performances very strong. The most affecting part for me was the discussion of consequence - if you have the opportunity to do whatever you can imagine, without consequences, firstly is doing "bad things" still wrong (in a purely ethical sense), and secondly what's the point? Highly recommended.
aloysius_bear has all the news...). We only got a chance to play one game - Epic Resort - but it was quite fun. It combined deck building, worker placement and resource allocation, all of which are things I like in games, with a fun theme of building a resort for weary adventures to recharge their batteries after dungeon crawling. It was necessary to balance the number and type of attractions, tourists and heroes at your resort to gain points and resources, and defend against monster attacks. It took a little while to get through all the rules, but they were laid out in a useful step-by-step guide for each turn, and there was probably more to the strategy than we picked up in one short game, but there was enough to keep me thinking, and it was well made.Last night, we went to see Big Hero 6 at long last, and I really enjoyed it. It was fun, clever, exciting and cute. Baymax the robot was awesome in every way, and I thought the relationships were well drawn.
The weekend's entertainment was overshadowed somewhat, however, by The Nether, which we went to see on Friday night, and which was truly excellent. It asked really interesting questions about perception and reality, identity and self-worth, morality and sexual proclivities. There were only a few characters and they all had different points of view, but also all had good arguments for their views, which made the conflict complex and very much less than clear-cut. I sympathised with all of them, and found it very difficult to decide who was right, which made for really effective drama. The staging and set were amazing, and all the performances very strong. The most affecting part for me was the discussion of consequence - if you have the opportunity to do whatever you can imagine, without consequences, firstly is doing "bad things" still wrong (in a purely ethical sense), and secondly what's the point? Highly recommended.
