Congrats - Links Awakening is truly a masterpiece and yes, they really worked hard to get a whole Zelda onto the GB.

I’ve never played a 3D Zelda before so I am looking forward to OoT

In case you go the emulation route and don’t use the version on Nintendo Switch Online (or a virtual console version on older Nintendo consoles), you should also take a look at Ship Of Harkinian. They decompiled OoT and ported it to run natively on several platforms. In contrast to other versions, you can play it in wide-screen, with unlocked framerate (instead of 14-20fps of the original) and you can also enable several QoL features (everything optional). You only need to provide a ROM file, but in case you plan to go the emulation route, you’d need that anyways…

Me and my group initially wanted to get Ark Nova but two of us got to test it and both didn’t really like it. Then we found Earth and fell in love with it. It also features a huge replayability.

On the central board, 4 animals get drawn randomly. These set “milestones”. Players that fullfill their requirements can claim the card. If your’re first to claim it, you gain more points than the later players. Also two ecosystem cards are drawn randomly, that award points for specific ways that you have built your grid. All of these cards are double sided, so we usually toss a coin for each one to determine which side gets chosen. Then each player gets an island card, a climate card and an eco system card. As they’re double sided, each player gets to choose for their own, which side gets placed on their tableau (and thus, which actions they allow or which player specific bonus points are active, how many ressources they start with,…).

This setup is really variable and every game forces you to rethink and build a new strategy. Also almost every ressource in the game is worth victory points, which means, that there are tons of ways to gain (and exchange/lose) points. No two games feel the same.

Oh: And there’s no downtime, as everyone gets to participate in the other players turn and also gain ressources / activate their cards. At least after a few rounds, when everyone is able to play in parallel. In the beginning, I recommend to take turns, so that everyone can learn from your actions and also everyone is on the same page interpreting the rules, etc.

Two rounds of Earth. We both played it for the first time and in both rounds the player that thought, he’d be losing won - which was also the player that didn’t complete the grid.

Learned: Take a close look at the bonus cards. Sometimes it’s better to fulfill them partially than to go for the highest score, as that one might limit your options to score points elsewhere. (E.g. 5 cards of type x score 28 points, 6 cards score 30 points. As you can only play 16 cards, playing only 5 cards and then other cards will probably yield more points than these 2 extra points for the 6th card)

A few games of Cascadia: Those time in easy mode, to introduce some kids to this game.

And last but not least a game of Brass: Lancashire. Cool game, but you can severely f yourself if you don’t pay attention. There’s no real catch up mechanism. Start into the second age having a or better several piles of coal strategically placed on the board, having much money and being the first player to move is crucial here. Otherwise this transition will cost you your game.

Thanks!

…aaaaand they’re down :(

I haven’t played the game in English and did just learn, that its ‘federations’ in English and not alliances. TIL. This has a slightly different meaning than my localized version.

I don’t think, that the rules are badly written in this case, when checking the rule book. You can check page 8 here, which I find quite clear: https://capstone-games.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Gaia-Project-Rules-CG.0609sm2.pdf

But then, since the game is really complex, there can be confusion about the federation rules, especially following all three and keeping in mind, that these rules are independent of each other - and forgetting to evaluate all three rules when adjusting your federation when you make a change to make it compliant. See this BGG post for an example: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2120375/official-federation-faq

Fun fact: in the digital version of Gaia Project is a link in the alliance screen leading to a web page explaining all alliance rules in detail, as many players reported bugs with how the game handles alliances - but in reality it just implements the rules as written. They can get complicated and many players don’t realize they were playing wrong.

Also, it can help if you play the digital version first (official or e.g. on tabletop simulator, when it’s a scripted game). Sometimes the complexity leads to some barriers, that can be navigated easier with some help. Or it can take off some tedious tasks that are error prone.

E.g. I tried playing Gaia Project twice and was overwhelmed. Then we tried the official digital version. It’s still really complex, but the digital version just takes the burden to calculate the exchange table for the ressource types and offers you moves, that you just didn’t see because you miscalculated the costs and also makes sure you pay the right amount.

It doesn’t mean you need to plan less, as you still need to take the ressource cost of your future moves into account, but you don’t need to explain every second time you pay for a move how and why this is valid.

Yes, but

1. Begin transaction
2. Update table set x=‘oopsie’
3. Sees 42096 rows affected
4. Rollback

Can prevent a restore, whereas doing the update with auto commit guarantees a restore on (mostly) every error you make

Everyone has a production system. Some may even have a separate testing environment!

Me and my boys are soooo hyped up about the Worms boardgame.

I remember u/spirescan-bot for r/slaythespire. It uses double braces, but works this way.

Here’s a random old post from the bot about new features where users are testing these: https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/d8t92r/new_bot_features/

The bot comments don’t link to its source, but searching the bot username on Google leads to this repository, that looks good at afirst glance. Seems to be a python bot and the source code contains the URL of the Slay The Spire Wiki: https://github.com/painebenjamin/spirescanbot

On reddit, several video game subreddits had the relevant names in brackets, which got parsed and linked to a wiki,…

E.g. Hey, if you want to get [Ability] you have to talk to [Person] at [Place] and fulfill their quest line. Also you’d need to pay 5 [Ressource]

Depending on the search function of BGG, one might even link to categories, mechanisms,…

Not if this got fixed, but if you have a LAN adapter connected, the switch won’t be put into sleep mode and will be on 24/7. The display is off, the dock will not have the green light for “it’s on”,… I had my official adapter from the Wii U and just switched the Wii U to the Switch when it came out. Since I mostly play docked I didn’t realize that until I took my switch out when I went on holidays. Then it still took me a while to realize it’s always hot, even if I hadn’t played for days.

I also habe an OG switch and mine does overheat, when I have an USB-LAN adapter connected. Is this just a normal dock, or does it have some other features?