Wavelength

Today's review is of the 2019 release, Wavelength. For 2-12 players, it takes 45 minutes.

Overview

This party game is straightforward. There are two teams, and on your team's turn, the spectrum is secretly spun and revealed to one of you ('the Psychic'), who then covers it and has to get his teammate's to guess where the spectrum's bullseye is by providing a simple clue. To guide you, there is a card with topical binaries on it: "hot—cold," for example. Based on your clue, your team will move a pointer to where they believe the spectrum is located. Then the other team gets to guess if the spectrum is actually to the right or left of the dial. The spectrum is revealed, and points awarded: your team can gain up to 4 points (by hitting the bullseye), and the other team can get one if you missed the bullseye and they guessed the direction it lay. Teams alternate (as does the Psychic role); first to 10 points wins! 

Example with spectrum revealed; image from here

Review

Great example of a simple concept done well. Unless the spectrum is all the way to the right or left, thinking of a clue that is "sorta" to one side is really hard. This party game is a lot of fun; said one participant, "the joy is in the discussion." It is amazing the differences of opinion that emerge, but how they can balance out and offer surprising results (the team we played hit the bullseye several times).

Rating: A

The Reading Life (C.S. Lewis)

For C.S. Lewis, noted author of Mere Christianity, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other works, reading was an unsurpassed passion. He was known to have read widely and with retention, able to recite breathtaking amounts from memory. The point of The Reading Life is to create a "collection [that] brings together fun, whimsical, and wise selections from Lewis's lifetime of writing that would be of interest to those who share this passion." (from the editors, David Downing and Michael Maudlin) In his life, Lewis wrote on this topic often, and this work collects his thoughts on why we read, marks of a "True Reader," why children's stories are not just for children, the case for reading old books, and more.

Lewis is a gifted writer, and I greatly enjoyed this little volume. His insights, always delivered with eloquence (and often with wit), help articulate the value of reading in ways few have matched. Select thoughts are below.

Why do we read? 

"We seek an enlargement of our being. We want to be more than ourselves. Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself . . . [we] are saturated with, and limited by, our own psychology." "Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is 'I have got out.' Or from another point of view, 'I have got in'; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside." "Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality . . . in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself."

On children's stories

I am almost inclined to set it up as canon that a children's story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children's story. 

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty. 

On fantasy

[Fantasy] stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his readh and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despire real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.

The value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by 'the veil of familiarity.'

On reading old books

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books.

Rating: A

Amulet Volume 3: The Cloud Searchers (Kazu Kibuishi)

After healing Emily and Navin's mom in the last volume, but with their transport disabled, the heroes ponder their next move as they are pursued by the Elf King's son and an assassin. They learn they must travel to Cielis, the fabled and long-lost city, to enlist the help of the Guardian Council. But the problem is, nobody has seen it since the region was attacked by the Elf-king long ago. Some say it was destroyed; others say it lives on, well-hidden. Whatever the case, time is running out, and the land's survival depends on the team's success. Can they prevail?

The series remains consistent: outstanding art with a typical fantasy plot/characters and mixed messaging. But it is an enjoyable and fast read, so I press on.

Rating: A-

The Secular Creed (Rebecca McLaughlin)

In The Secular Creed, Rebecca McLaughlin engages five contemporary slogans: Black Lives Matter, Love Is Love, Gay Rights are Civil Rights, Women's Rights are Human Rights, and Transgender Women are Women. In each, her goal is neither to destroy nor affirm them, but examine "each claim through the lens of Scripture and in light of culture," with her aim being "to disentangle ideas Christians can and must affirm from ideas Christians cannot and must not embrace." And the first step, for the Christian, is humility and repentance, recognizing "that the tangling of ideas in the secular creed has been driven not only by the sin in the world out there, but also by the sin in the church in here." 

This is a solid introduction to these charged and divisive topics. McLaughlin writes with firsthand experience (in one area in particular) and her compassion radiates throughout. At the same time, she does a good job presenting and standing by her Biblical convictions. Across these five areas, some themes come up consistently:

1) There is a Christian worldview underpinning any claim to rights. If there is no God, and this material world is all there is, any talk of rights is . . . bizarre (as several prominent atheists have noted). Regardless of our stated convictions, we would all do well to examine the underlying beliefs behind statements we make. What truths do you hold to be self-evident . . . and why?

2)  The Church, throughout history, has often failed to do what it ought in loving others, recognizing their needs, and living out the Gospel. That doesn't make the Bible or Christ wrong . . . it makes Christians who misinterpret and/or misbehave wrong. 

3) Contemporary society bundles ideas together (or over-simplifies them), and we need to stand against that. In any given hot-button topic, we need to learn to appreciate nuance, separate topics appropriately, and clearly affirm, reject, or explain as needed.

4) Jesus and His self-sacrificing, unrelenting love humbles and overcomes those on both sides of these (and any) arguments. We all need humility as we navigate these spaces, looking to Him.

Overall, as I said, this is a solid introduction. It is short (107 pages), and thus a cursory treatment, sometimes more focused on disentangling ideas than debating the ideas themselves. And though she tries to be fair, in places I felt she wasn't fleshing out the opposing viewpoint enough (perhaps due to brevity; she is compassionate and doesn't strike me as someone who would knowingly do this). Overall, this is an important read for Christians and non alike.

Rating: A-

Phantastes (George MacDonald)

Anodos, a 21-year-old, investigates his late father's desk looking for his effects and planning to assume the role of head of house. An encounter there will lead him to Fairy Land, where he will have bizarre encounters and adventures (involving vast forests, knights, living trees, faeries, and things brought to life from stone) over the next 21 days (that seem to him to be 21 years) that will change him forever. Indeed, it helps him "begin the duties of my new position, somewhat instructed, I hoped, by the adventures that had befallen me in Fairy Land. Could I translate the experiences of my travels there, into common life? That was the question."

George MacDonald played a large role in C.S. Lewis's life, and so I read this with great anticipation. He is clearly a gifted author; I found his prose (and poetry, infused throughout) to be either hauntingly beautiful and profound or confusing and hard to follow. Great messages, certainly, but my feeble mind couldn't always follow. He looks at a few themes: beauty and brokenness, longing, striving, failing, reflection and art's value, and (ultimately) true love. Select quotes follow.

"How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near?"

"As in all the sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy."

". . . art rescues nature from the weary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading injustice of our anxious everyday life, and, appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart, reveals Nature in some degree as she really is, and as she represents hereself to the ey of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets the true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices therein without questioning."

"But words are vain; reject them all—

They utter but a feeble part:

Hear thou the depths from which they call,

The voiceless longings of my heart."

"Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, "I am what I am, nothing more.""

"All a man has to do, is to better what he can. And if he will settle it with himself, that even renown and success are in themselves of no great value, and be content to be defeated, if so be that the fault is not his; and so go to his work with a cool brain and a strong will, he will get it done; and fare none the worse in the end, that he was not burdened with provision and precaution." 

"If I cannot be noble myself, I will be a servant to his nobleness."

"I knew now, that is is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest the soul of another . . ."

"Be thy heart a well of love, my child,

Flowing, and free, and sure;

For a cistern of love, though undefiled, 

Keeps not the spirit pure."

Rating: B

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (Howard Pyle)

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights is the first of an Arthurian quadrilogy by American author and illustrator Howard Pyle. Written in 1903, it largely follows Malory's account but expounds upon it a good deal. In this first volume, we have the following stories:

• The Book of King Arthur 
• how he became king, 
• got Excalibur, 
• married Guinevere, 
• and established the Round Table
• The Book of Three Worthies
• The story of Merlin
• How he was bewitched and ultimately defeated by Vivien
• The story of Sir Pellias
• How he quested for the Queen's honor (arguing that she was the most beautiful in the world, and would fight anyone who said otherwise)
• The story of Sir Gawaine
• How he, to help Arthur, married an old woman who was not what she seemed

Pyle's version differs from Malory's in three main ways:

- it presents Arthur and his court in a better light. The unacknowledged sins I mentioned in Malory's version are much diminished or omitted; here, the court is more of an idealistic model of virtue. There is still pride and a "might makes right" mentality, but it is softened. And, at the end of major story divisions, Pyle often injects a moral.

- it fleshes out the stories. In Malory, you're given little-to-no backstory or explanation for why things happen. In Pyle, you get more: more description, dialogue, character development, and so on. 

- it features more of King Arthur. Older versions of the legend feature surprisingly little of the main character, relegating him to the background after his introduction, and featuring him as present, but often a spectator, until the tragic end. Here, though, Arthur plays a more central and active role.

The language is archaic but easy enough to follow. Pyle's illustrations are great (though my version, from Esprios, had poor renderings of them). (See example of his art below.) I liked how he filled out the stories and improved upon the presentation of virtue. It did get repetitive, and it ended rather abruptly. Overall, it was decent.

image from here

For some reason, only this first book is widely available; the other three are much harder to come by. I'm not sure why, but I have them, and I look forward to reading them.

Rating: A-

Trapwords

Today's review is of the 2018 release, Trapwords. For 4–8 people, it takes 45 minutes.

Overview

Trapwords is a party game with two teams. Each team has an explorer who starts the game on the first room tile (game length is adjustable based on how many tiles the group wants to play). On your team's turn, one player is shown a word their team must guess. Then the other team is shown the word, and gets to write down a number of words (equal to the number of the tile the explorer is on) that player cannot say. The player does not know what the words are. The player then tries to give his team enough clues so they can guess, and if he uses a word on the other teams' sheet of forbidden words, he loses the round. If his team guesses correctly, though, the explorer advances to the next room tile. First to make it to the end of the dungeon wins!

game in progress; image from here

Trapwords also has secret cards place next to some room tiles at setup. Those cards are given to the first team who makes it to that tile, and are generally (perhaps always) some sort of 'curse' to make it harder for them on their next turn. The final tile features a 'boss' who must be overcome (an additional restriction making it harder to win). The rulebook is available here.

Review

This game is simply Taboo where your opponents (instead of the game card itself) dictate what words cannot be said and don't tell you what those are, and also adds a few twists. And it is a lot of fun. Not knowing what words to avoid is a huge challenge and encourages great creativity. And there is a level of psychology here, too—have your opponents chosen 'obvious' words for you to avoid, or have they instead picked unexpected options to trip you up? You won't know unless you say a trap word.

Since the other team is picking the words, there are a few rules about word choices: you can't choose generic/vague words ("object," "thing," etc.), inside jokes or foreign languages aren't allowed, and so on. There is a judgment call here, in other words, and you should thus play the game with people 'all in' on having fun and not so competitive that they will get bogged down in the nuances that may arise. That caveat aside, this is a winner, and forces you to draw on your vocabulary skills.

Rating: A

The Death of King Arthur (Malory and Ackroyd)

Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory is one of the foundational works in Arthurian studies; many subsequent writers based their versions on his. The Death of King Arthur, today's review, is an abridged retelling by Peter Ackroyd. His goal is to present a loose translation focused on clarity and simplicity, yet conveying "the majesty and pathos of the great original."

The Death of King Arthur has the following stories:

- The Tale of King Arthur (his origins, aid by Merlin, getting the sword, marriage to Guinevere, etc.)

- The Adventures of Sir Lancelot du Lake

- Tristram and Isolde

- The Adventure of the Holy Grail

- Lancelot and Guinevere

- The Death of Arthur

I read the unabridged Keith Baines translation (linked above) ten years ago; I found this version better. Ackroyd does well to abbreviate the extremely repetitive original, maintaining familiar plot lines (knight goes out on adventure, bizarre things happen, etc.) and the essence of the tales without getting too boring. It is still repetitive, mind you, just more bearable. My remarks on Baines' work hold true here—see the above link if interested—but I will highlight one aspect: morality.

The morality of the knights is bizarre (yet sadly common to man): they all hold to Christ in word, but their deeds say otherwise. I think that comes through more strongly in this version (at least, I noticed it more): There is certainly a code of honor, but generally regarding fights (not killing a wounded man, for example). They will spill blood and sleep around without remorse, and live by a 'might makes right' code that declares innocence if victorious in battle. They will generally charge into a conflict siding with the weaker party without first figuring out the situation; they will defend a damsel in distress yet often are deceived by witches (yet somehow can be held more culpable for being deceived than other outright sins they commit). It is weird world they live in, yet we are no different.

As Ackroyd presents in the introduction, "the story of Arthur is accompanied by sensations of loss and transitoriness, as well as a note of resignation." It also reflects "a time of great violence and uncertainty" yet "is suffused with the imperatives and rituals of the chivalric code, the important testament of military virtue." Ultimately, I think the tale is worthy of reflection, as it grants not only insights into  Medieval ideals but also reflects the hypocrisy of man (in all agse). We think ourselves honorable and may even seem to strive our righteousness, yet commit (and ignore) blatant sins.

Rating: A- 

Trekking Through History

Today's review is of the 2022 release, Trekking Through History. For 2–4 players, it takes 30–60 minutes.

Overview

You and your opponents each have a time machine, able to go back and forth throughout history to visit events, people, and locations across the millenia. You have three days (rounds), with a unique itinerary for each, and will earn points along the way through varied means (see below). If you have the most points at the end of the game, you win!

game in progress; image from here

On your turn, you will select an available card (one of six or a wildcard) and gain the benefits on the card itself and the slot it is in (tokens of different colors and/or time crystals). Take the card, take the tokens, and place the former in your chronology and the latter on your itinerary. Advance your turn token (a clock on a wheel with 12 hours) forward by the cost on the card and shift/draw the remaining cards to fill the slots.

- Your chronology: each card has a year on it, and your chronology must be in time order, with each card chosen occurring after the one prior. You can break your chronology to start a new one (and you will have to, several times, during the game), but you get more points if your 'chronology stack' of cards is larger. If you break a chronology, set that stack aside and start a new one; the stacks are scored at game's end.

- Your itinerary: Each round, you get a unique itinerary that lays out points for collecting tokens of certain color(s). Some itineraries want you to 'go wide' and get many colors; others reward you for focusing on one or two. 

- Card cost: You have only twelve hours per day. Cards can vary in cost from 1–5 hours. You can reduce a card cost by spending one or more time crystals (but the cost is always at least 1 hour). When you pay for a card, advance your turn token on the wheel. Then the player with the token next on the wheel takes their turn. Through clever planning and frugal spending, it is possible for a player to take several turns in a row, and the turn order is always changing based on the costs people pay.

Finally, you can earn points by ending your day exactly on 12 o'clock (exceeding it is fine but with no bonus). Once every player has concluded day one, new itineraries are drawn for each, a new deck of cards is selected for the board, and the next round begins. Repeat this for day three, and the highest points at the end is the victor.

Review

This is a solid game. I like the varying turn order concept based on card cost; that was interesting. The unique itineraries were cool, too. The multiple ways to earn points made it feel like 'point salad,' and strategy was difficult to discern. There is a sizable luck component with the cards available on your turn dictating your options. The official website (linked in the introduction) says it was "designed with both families and gamers in mind," and I see that—it is accessible and mildly strategic. I like it, and wouldn't turn down a game, but probably won't own it.

Rating: B+

Aside: this game is from the same company who did Trekking the World. I re-read my review of that after posting this, and had the same rating and conclusion. Solid 'point salad' games for a light experience.

So Begins 2024

image from here

Happy New Year! As is my custom, this post lays out goals for the year. The goals themselves are in italics, with explanation where needed in regular font.

Spiritual

Largely the same as years past. In a nutshell:

- Be disciplined in prayer. 

- Be intentional/consistent in meeting with others.

- Serve well in the various roles.

I have to find a way to have good prayer times when the home is noisy and distracting.

Meeting with others is important. Vulnerable, honest discussions with each other helps us grow, grants true fellowship, and points us to Christ. I did that a little in 2023 and want to do it more this year.

Serving well in various roles is principally with church, but also includes work responsibilities. And part of this is finite capacity: how we serve others must be done in a sustainable way, or we invariably crash.

Nutritional/Fitness

I am [still] fit fat. I work out a lot but eat poorly (and excessively). Continuing high amounts of activity, but improving nutrition, and lowering the weight (to 185 lbs) are the goals. 

- Get (and keep) weight under 185 lbs.

- Complete 240 workouts (run, bike, gym, hikes, etc.).

- Eat less overall, and more fruit/vegetables.

Reading

Reading lists are fun. I have a three-fold reading focus this year (outside of my numerical goal).

- Read 50 books.

- Continue chipping away at my American Reading List.

- Revisit King Arthur.

- Find good books on the science/study of humor.

I've done 50 books the last few years, and this should be easily reached.

My American Reading List is 200 books; I've read about 60 so far. I anticipate reading 10–15 more this year.

I focused on King Arthur 10 years ago, when we lived in England. In the final months of 2023, I was feeling strangely drawn back into that realm . . . there are a few notable Arthurian works I never read, and I want to tackle them this year.

Finally, I dabbled in humor last year, but didn't find much material. I will continue the search this year.

Stuff

I've documented my struggles with materialism several times on this blog. It's good to own less. 

- Minimize everything in the home.

- Buy less/budget better.

I get stressed with all the clutter around the house. I want to find a way to minimize it and keep it out of sight.

We did a lot of home improvement in 2023, which was hard on the budget. Need to save in 2024.

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The goals above are not earth-shaking . . . I should be able to hit all of these. To 2024!