Christmas 2021

Santa was very good to me this year. And my kids. It was kind of weird to only have adults in the house this year for Christmas, but it was also fun in its own way. Either way, for the first time in 35 years of marriage, I got the motherload of presents. Usually it's one of my kids or my husband, but not this year.

I got socks, thread, Astronomy Fluxx, a Munchkin Booty expansion deck, and a Nintendo Switch of my very own. Now I don't have to use my son's Switch all the time. I can use my own. This makes me very happy. This isn't a family Switch, although I'm happy to share. It's all mine.

That sounds just a little selfish so let me give you some context. I've been going through some pretty heavy therapy for the last few years. I realized one of the reasons I get extremely territorial over things like my closet space or my dresser or my pillow is because I never really had anything that was just mine. Except my underwear and even then...

I've always shared my room. I had eight siblings so my own bedroom wasn't going to happen, not in a five bedroom two bath house. I lived on my own for only a few months before I got married, and yes, I shared a bedroom with a roommate for those months. Then I shared with my husband and we added eight children over the years. One thing they never tell you is that when you have kids, you share everything with them, whether you want to or not.

My husband told me that I had most of the house as mine, but public rooms like the kitchen and living room don't count. Those belong to the whole family. He's had workshops and office space and currently has a shed that is just his. Me? I had no space except a tiny corner of our bedroom that was just mine.

When I got my own sewing room last August, I was beyond thrilled. For the first time ever I had a space that was just mine. I could choose to share it, and I do when my kids want to do some sewing, but it is primarily MINE. I can go in there and close the door with the Do Not Disturb sign on it and no one disturbs me, except by standing in the hallway outside the door whispering, "Do you think she really means it or can we go in anyway?" They'll learn.

Anyway, back to the Switch. MY Switch.

Ownership is a powerful thing. Everyone needs at least one space that is theirs and theirs alone. Everyone needs things that are only theirs, that they can share if they want but if they choose not to, that's fine, too, because they have ownership of that thing. It's a boundary thing, and respecting other people's boundaries plays in to it, too. Something I'm learning. Finally.

I started a blog to review Switch games, so if that ever takes off, I can maybe write the Switch off as a taxable expense item. Right?

So go check out my game reviews at Grammer's Games. There are some fun ones on there, and I have a whole list of new ones to review.

And Merry Christmas! I hope you had a lovely day filled with surprises, laughter, fun, and loved ones. I know I did.

Game Review - Cookie Clicker

This is why my post is late, one of the reasons anyway. My family's been hit with the flu. I've been procrastinating because I'm dealing with other issues. The weekend got away from me. I forgot I didn't have anything scheduled to post today. Yeah, lots of excuses. And then I got distracted by Cookie Clicker.

It's a dumb idle game. You basically click to bake cookies which lets you save up to buy grandmas to make cookies for you, which lets you save up to buy more stuff to make more cookies. When I hit almost 2 billion cookies per second, I had to quit. It had been running on  my computer for over 80 hours straight and was slowing the processor down, especially since I'm trying to pull together some presentations for FyreCon this weekend. Photoshop does NOT like sharing processor power with anything.

But the game is amusing. Try it out HERE.

Or go play the other game that's got me distracted - Word Cookies. Make words with letter shaped cookies. Good for building vocabulary and frustrating yourself. If you like games like Boggle, you'll probably enjoy it. My only tip is to play it with data and wifi off on your phone. Otherwise the ads gets really creepy and annoying really fast.

I think I have cookies on my brain...

Game Review - The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis

This game was a blast to play back in the 90s. The zoombinis are cute little cartoon guys that you have to help. They're trying to escape the evil fleens and reach zoombiniville, a utopia for zoombinis. To get them there, you have to get them through nine different challenges, including making pizzas for Arlo the Pizza Troll.

Great news! Zoombinis are back and native for tablets. Desktop versions are supposed to release very soon. I backed the kickstarter for this last spring and I'm very glad. The game is every bit as much fun as I remember.

Since I'm doing research into educational games, among other things, I have to tack on the educational value review. The game teaches logical thinking, set theory, computational thinking, if-then statements, arrays, and a host of other things along the same lines. But it does it implicitly, as part of the game. Nowhere does it beat you over the head with the educational values. In fact, it goes too far to the other extreme. My son and I were discussing this and decided that the decorative loading screens could be easily changed to an explanatory and/or trivia screen that would make the learning a little more explicit. It wouldn't take much, just a very short paragraph pointing out the if-then structure of the allergic cliffs puzzle. It could even be presented as game hints.

There is a lot of educational value buried in this game. It's one of the absolute best logic games I've ever played. It's cute, it's fun, it ranges from easy to extremely challenging. It has a couple of minor things that bug me, but overall, it's an A+ game, well worth playing.

Go check it out.

Game Reviews - Ticket to Ride Europe and Tales of the Arabian Nights

I attended SpoCon last weekend, a great SF/F convention in Spokane WA. It was their first year in a hotel. Things were a little crazy. I ended up not attending many panels, partly because few of them interested me and partly because things were so spread out and the rooms for the panels were tiny it was hard to get a seat. I still had a great time.

I ended up hanging out in their game garden with my daughter. They had stacks of games to try, everything from cards to dice to board games to ones hard to classify. I found two new favorites that are now part of my personal game collection.

Tales of the Arabian Nights is a complicated storytelling game crossed with a board game. Don't let that scare you off. It's a lot of fun to play. Every turn you have an encounter. Based on where you are, which card you draw, and your dice rolls, you look up different story bits from the Book of Tales. Choose your reaction and all sorts of fun things happen to you. My first mission was to trade in three cities. Ha! I ended up insane, on a pilgrimage, and diseased. I had to buy the game so I could play more. This game is not about strategy or winning, it's about telling stories and having fun. It's a bit pricey, but well worth the money. I'd suggest this is for people with patience and good reading skills, probably age 10+.

Ticket to Ride Europe is an interesting strategy game. You and up to four of your friends are building railroads through Europe. You get points for the length of each segment you build as well as finishing specific routes between cities. My daughter begged me to play with her. I gave in and ended up liking it enough to buy it. Another pricey game, but again, more than worth the price. Even my 8yo figured it out although the cards were a little hard for her to read. Plus, bonus, they learn pre-WWI European geography. A game lasts around an hour.


(I apologize for only giving Amazon links. If you have a specialty game store in your area, see if they carry either of these. You get a great game to play and they make a bit of money. Win-win, in my opinion.)