Midterm Report

image from here

The days are slow, but the years fly by.  We're halfway through 2024.  Each year, I set and present my goals for the year in January. Today, I remind myself of the goals and look at how it's going.

Spiritual
- Be disciplined in prayer.
- Be intentional/consistent in meeting with others.
- Serve well in the various roles.

Going pretty well. Serving well is a complete judgment call, but I'm trying. I have been able to meet with others, which is such a joy and blessing. Prayer discipline is solid (in frequency) but oscillates (in quality).

Nutritional/Fitness
- Get (and keep) weight under 185 lbs.
- Complete 240 workouts (run, bike, gym, soccer, hikes, etc.).
- Eat more fruits/vegetables.

Going pretty well. My weight has remained steady this year . . . but (still) at 12 lbs above my goal. Workouts are going well—though my biking mileage (414) is less than my target (500), the number of workouts is fine (160 so far). I still eat too much junk.

Reading
- Read 50 books.
- Continue chipping away at my American Reading List.
- Revisit King Arthur.
- Find good books on the science/study of humor.

Going well here on all fronts save the last (which I haven't yet explored). I've enjoyed revisiting King Arthur more than I thought I would, and have read 34 books so far this year.

Stuff
- Minimize everything in the home.
- Buy less/budget better.

Going okay. We have spurts of minimization, but need to address some long-standing messes. I've been generally more disciplined with buying less stuff, but still not where I should be.

Overall

Things are progressing. Not an 'A' year, but not terrible.

Grade: B+

Lorcana TCG

Today's review is of the 2023 release, Lorcana Trading Card Game. For 2-6 players, this collectible game takes 20+ minutes.

Overview

You are an Illumineer, charged with gathering lore. To do so, you will need to wisely build your deck, wield magical ink to deploy characters, items, locations, and use action or song cards. The first to 20 lore wins!

Cards have one of six ink types in Lorcana. These types do not matter during game play, but affect deck construction: you can have cards of only up to two different ink types in your deck.

A Lorcana turn is straightforward. After setup (shuffling your decks and drawing 7 cards), the first player takes a turn (minus drawing a card), and play continues clockwise thereafter.

Each turn has two phases:

- Beginning Phase: Ready your exerted characters/ink, Set (check for effects that happen now), and Draw (draw a card)

- Main Phase: you may put one eligible card* in your hand  facedown into your inkwell, or play cards (pay their cost by exerting that much ink), use item/location/character abilities, quest** or challenge***, and more! Note: characters cannot quest, challenge, or use abilities that require exerting (tapping) the turn they come into play.

*an eligible card is any card in your hand that has an inkwell icon around its cost. In the below examples, Captain Hook can be played as an inkwell card but Simba cannot. Once a card is played in the inkwell, it cannot be used as anything other than ink.

**a character can quest by exerting. When it does, you gain lore equal to the value printed on the card. In the above examples, Captain Hook gains one lore by questing but Simba gains three.

***a character can challenge one of your opponents' exerted characters (that's important). To do so, exert your character and announce the target character. Each deals damage equal to its power (first number to the right of the name) to the other, in the form of -1 counters. If the counters exceed its defense (second number), it is banished (discarded).

For more information, see the quick start rules, these how to play videos, or the comprehensive rules from the official site.

Review

I was excited to find some starter decks on discount, as this game has proven popular and highly regarded since its release last year. This is a solid, if simple, offering. What I liked:

- that color only matters in deck construction; once the game begins, your ink can be used to pay any cost.

- the inkwell concept: using cards from your hand facedown as a resource is not new, but having only certain cards be eligible is. Generally, the most powerful cards cannot be used as resources, so it forces smart deck construction and balanced power levels.

- being able to challenge only exerted characters. That forces interesting choices on your turn: do you exert a character and expose it to potential attacks next turn? Or keep it safe?

- the theme of gathering lore and telling stories.

- the art and familiar characters.

I was underwhelmed by:

- its similarity to Magic: the Gathering. It is a simplified form with the aforementioned twists.

- the inability to play cards or use abilities on your opponents' turn (in Magic parlance, play instants). That reduced the interaction. It is possible to play this game with no interaction at all, and just race to 20 lore.

- how elements from the same Disney movie were distributed across colors. There seems to be little rhyme or reason here; you can have the villains team up with the good guys and really do anything you want. You can create a thematic consistency ("I want a Robin Hood deck"), but it's really anything goes. And that's both cool and weird.

In the end, I enjoyed playing this, and may make a few cheap thematic decks. But I doubt this will hit my table often; nor do I plan to collect it.

Rating: A-

Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck)

Just above Monterey, California, lies Tortilla Flat. Shortly after World War I, Danny inherits two houses there, where he and his friends wile away the hours in drink, idle chatter, and women. Almost none of them work, but find ways to barter, scavenge, swindle, or scheme—even from each other—to meet their needs. But in the end, will it last, and does it satisfy?

I was attracted to this work because Steinbeck loosely bases its structure on the Arthurian tales. But ever so loosely . . . here, flashes of gallantry and charity exist, but are oft subsumed by the gang's overriding self-absorption. Danny is the anti-Arthur, in a way, leading a band of ragtag ne'er-do-wells in endless self-indulgence and debauchery. The tale meandered but was humorous (it was satirical in places). I think the point was showing the pointlessness of such living . . . or maybe it was a lens into Depression-era society in Steinbeck's area of origin. I enjoyed it well enough, but not as much as I hoped.

Rating: B

On Sports Card Collecting

Various '90s baseball cards; image from here

I thought it might pass them by, but I was wrong: my boys are into collecting sports cards. It started a few months ago, when they started paying attention to (and obsessing over) professional football. Then basketball. Now baseball. Along with that has come an interest in sports cards. This post recaps my own memories of the hobby and where it stands today.

Collecting in the Junk Wax Era

I started collecting baseball cards in the late '80s. My friends and I would eagerly get packs of Topps, Donruss, and other brands of cards. It seemed like sports card stores were everywhere, and the industry was booming. Our dads told us to keep our cards (and in good condition), telling cautionary tales of the cards they once had (and destroyed or threw out) and their present value. Everyone kept their cards; and they are worth almost nothing, even thirty years later.

It turns out I was collecting in the 'junk wax era' (generally accepted as 1986-1993). During this timeframe, the big brands produced a ton of product (in wax-paper packs), flooding the market and rendering many cards nearly valueless (even today). A quick eBay search reveals you can gobble up complete sets from this era for $15-25 today. But then (as now), I don't care; collecting was fun. Trading was, too, unless you got hoodwinked (I recall getting ripped off by a friend for a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card . . . not cool).

I collected mostly baseball (which was the industry focus back then), but some basketball, football, and even soccer cards. In this era, I remember Topps (1987-91 in particular), Donruss (1988-92), Score (1988-89), and Fleer (1988-92) as the main brands. Then things got fancy; Upper Deck (1989-91), Stadium Club (1991-92), Fleer Ultra (1991-94), and other premium products entered the market. These were of better stock/finish than the main brands, and had that higher-quality look and feel. The hobby was getting expensive.

I don't remember much else, outside of collecting every Cal Ripken Jr. card I could get a hand on, seeking desirable cards (generally rookies), and spending hours looking over statistics on the card backs. (In those pre-Internet days, baseball cards were a primary source of information for such things.) I also recall large (500+ card) sets, a 'series 2' release for some sets (released after trades happened during the season, to account for changing players or rookies), and various oddities (like a 1989 Billy Ripken card being valuable because of an obscenity, initially unnoticed by the card publisher, on the bottom of his bat).

Collecting Today

Though the bubble burst on sports card collecting, it is an industry that still exists with a smaller, if dedicated, fanbase. Many card makers went out of business or were bought out by others. Topps is still around; Donruss is, too, (under their own name or their owner, Panini's). And there are a score of others (though not Score; they sold out to Panini in 1998). The other differences as I see them:

- there are now a lot of 'specialty' sets; it's not just "Topps 2023 baseball," for example, but they have variations (Topps Chrome and others). It is very hard for me to determine which, if any, are the 'basic' set.

- sets seem smaller. They no longer include every (or nearly every) player on a team.

- there are a lot of inserts in packs, from autographed cards, special versions, or even game memorabilia (my son got a card with a small piece of a game-worn jersey in it). It feels 'ritzier' than the old days.

- they routinely publish retired players in various sets (in the eighties, only current/active players were in sets for the most part).

- the Internet age makes tracking down single cards easy (and often a cheaper route than buying packs).

I may add reference sites to this post as I come across them; I've linked to a few above. The general rule for collecting today applies across eras: be responsible. I have been tempted to buy a few old sets (okay . . . I *did* buy a few old sets) because they are so cheap and bring back fond memories. But any hobby like this can balloon fast and create unhealthy obsession. 

Trading Card Database: a nice site that catalogs sets throughout the years

Cardboard Connection: lots of information about card sets, including checklists

Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

Lennie is strong but a simpleton; George is small but intelligent (if uneducated). The pair are an inseparable, if odd, duo working as migrant ranch workers in Depression-era California. Their dream is to own a small plot of land some day and (for Lennie) keep rabbits. But things don't always work out as planned.

This novella was a short, if powerful, picture of loneliness, the need for community, and the importance of dreams. And it seems the way forward for all of those things is empathy and love towards our broken neighbors.

Rating: A-

The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro)

In post-Arthurian Britain, an uneasy peace exists between the Saxons and Britons who share the land. And a mist overshadows all, brought on by the dragon Querig, making people forget much of what has come before. 

Axl and Beatrice, an elderly Briton couple, set out determined to visit their long-forgotten son.

Sir Wistan, a Saxon warrior, encounters Edwin, a boy with promise.

Sir Gawain and his horse, Horace, roam the land. 

Their paths will cross and merge as they seek to free the land of its forgetful curse. But are some memories worth saving? 

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This book is haunting. It's poignant, reflective, confusing, and intriguing. While I'm not quite sure of all the author intends to say, it is a powerful look at memory, pain, healing, and touches on reconciliation. Worth your time.

Rating: A-

Redeeming Vision (Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt)

Redeeming Vision is exactly what its subtitle states: "a Christian guide to looking at and learning from art." Here, Weichbrodt teaches us "how to look" in part one by providing tools and techniques for approaching art. She then applies it in parts two and three with walking us through example artworks and showing how we can use each to "love the Lord your God" and "love your neighbor as yourself." An outline follows.

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Part One: How to Look

• The toolbox: how we look closely; our tools for visual analysis, "which is a crucial part of engaging with artworks." Here, she covers:
• formal elements (line, shape, form, color, value, space, texture)
• formal principles (unity, balance, movement, rhythm, emphasis, contrast)
• style (representational to abstract, along this spectrum: naturalism-idealism-stylization-abstraction)
• The archive: how we interpret, which includes historical context of an artwork. This is "a way of understanding how we make meaning. Our archive is our mental collection of other things we have seen . . . that help us make sense of new images and well as new experiences and people."
• The frame: an artwork's physical context, "which can play a significant role in our experience of the artwork."

Part Two: Love the Lord Your God

Here, she considers "three different responses to artworks that can cultivate our commitment to God [by comfessing our idols], awe at his transcendence, and gratitude for his presence." She demonstrates that "we can learn from a whole range of visual langauges, from representational to nonobjective art."

• Confessing our idols
• Wondering at God's transcendence (abstract art)
• Delighting in God's presence (representational art)

Part Three: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Here, she demonstrates that artwork can help us grow in love for our neighbor by developing the areas listed below.

• Growing in Curiosity: portraiture
• Sharing our space: landscape
• Allowing for complexity: art of the everyday
• Learning to lament: the art of history
• Redeeming vision

Ultimately, the goal is to be "willing to be changed by what we see, acknowledging the power of artworks as cultural liturgies and seeking to purposefully build new liturgies that reiterate the story we are truly a part of: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration."

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This is an excellent resource and wonderful introduction to art that I have been seeking for some time. Not only is her part one outstanding, giving the vocabulary to better describe what we see, but her parts two and three are thought-provoking and helpful, guiding us to be more aware and analytical in our approach. Ultimately, she achieves her goal of equipping us to have 'redeeming vision.' Highly recommended.

I conclude with one comment: her analysis assumes a deep intentionality in each artwork: in other words, she looks at many facets of a piece assuming the artist was quite intentional about each, in both form and message. Is that true? It may be. I hope it is. Sometimes, though, I scratched my head and asked "is that the only interpretation? Could the artist have meant something very different or been unaware of that angle? And if so, is that, in and of itself, meaningful?" I don't always know the answers . . . but I'm thankful this book has given me the tools to both see better and ask better questions.

Rating: A

Battleground Fantasy Warfare

Today's review is of the 2005 release, Battleground Fantasy Warfare. For two players, it takes 60+ minutes.

Overview

Amass your units, place them strategically, give them orders wisely, and may the dice be in your favor! You win if you destroy all of your opponent's units first.

In this game, you first create an army (my term; I don't have the official rulebook). An army consists of units, each of which gets their own card with:

- an overhead view of the beings in it

- attributes to include health, strength, damage, movement, and courage

- a space for recording that unit's standing order (given by you at the start of the game, and can be changed throughout for a cost)

- special abilities (if any), often shown on the back of the card along with that unit's cost to include in your army (we played a 2000-pt game, and most of my units cost 170 or 270 points).

After choosing your army, you set it up on the table and give each unit a standing order (close [on enemy units], hold, and so on). 

On your turn, you (simplistically):

- spend command actions (you get four per turn) and move your units (up to their movement speed, depending on their orders or other factors). Command actions can be used to change a unit's standing orders, draw a command card, or other things.

- perform any ranged attacks

- perform any courage checks

- combat

- perform any post-combat checks

For combat, you roll a number of dice equal to your participating unit's dice number, subtracting your attack value from your opponent's defense value to determine the number of dice that hit (in this game, you want lower numbers). Then you take the number of dice that hit and roll them again, subtracting your damage value from your opponent's toughness value to determine how much damage the opposing unit receives. Throughout, one command card can be used (per side) to provide various modifications. When the dust clears, decrement the opposing unit's health by the amount of damage it received (the cards can be written on with an erasable marker). Then it attacks back. Combat proceeds across all engaged units in this manner until all possible battles have been fought. Destroyed units are removed and your opponent takes their turn. Play continues until one side's units are defeated.

game in progress; image is mine

Review

I like this game; it is an economic alternative to miniatures wargaming. The rules seemed straightforward enough (though having an experienced friend both guide me through it and provide a helpful summary sheet made a world of difference). The company still produces decks for various factions, giving lots of options for all sorts of armies. The art is not the best, and the game takes a long time: set aside more than an hour for this one. That said, this is a solid offering overall.

Rating: B+

Revival of the CCG?

Card backs from select CCGs; image from herehere

Readers of this blog know I love tabletop games for many reasons. But a subset—collectible card games—I hold dear more than others (I reflect on their attributes and fond memories in other posts).

After the initial CCG boom in the nineties (trying to capitalize on Magic's success), the market crashed. Industry stalwarts Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! remain popular CCGs, but new games fizzle and those that do catch on last just a few years before fading away. But are the tides changing?

Today, I look at 'recent' (2019-present) trends in the CCG world, and some thoughts on what may be their revival. I'll separate them into store-based (meaning they are available in typical game stores, be they brick-and-mortar or online) and kick-started (meaning they are available only in kickstarter or equivalent campaigns). I will *not* be including Living Card Games here.

Store-based

These new kids on the block are not to be ignored:

- Flesh and Blood (2019): designed by a former Magic pro, this fantasy/sci-fi game emphasizes playing in-peron (vs. online). It is highly-regarded and the first 'recent' CCG that I recall seeing in game stores outside of the usual suspects.

- One Piece (2022): based on a Japanese manga series

- Disney Lorcana (2023): this Disney/Ravensburger collaboration that is proving quite popular; their products abound even in retail stores like Target

- Star Wars Unlimited (2024): the latest in a line of Star Wars collectible games; this one is by Fantasy Flight.

- Union Arena (2024; forthcoming): this anime-focused release has some buzz around it.

Kick-started

An increasingly popular release mechanism for all tabletop games, kick-started CCG offerings have been exploding (anecdotally . . . this is my impression). Searching for trading card games (synomous with CCG) on Kickstarter yields 539 results. While some of these aren't 'pure' CCGs, many are, and those numbers are shocking. Here are five of the most popular:

- Metazoo (2020): 5300 backers raised over $1.8M to bring this to life. Largely considered a Pokemon rip-off, this started strong but shut down in early 2024.

- Kryptik (2022): 1300 backers raised $873K to bring this to life. I was given sample cards from a game store when buying another game. The art looks cool.

- Sorcery: The Contested Realm (2023): ~6500 backers raised $3.5M to bring this to life. It has echoes of Magic: the Gathering and seeks to reclaim the 'old school fantasy art' feel. I own some of this; the game enjoys a grassroots community and appears well-supported.

- Neverrift (2024): 900+ backers raised $212K to bring this to life. It is billed a cross between chess and Magic: the Gathering.

- Warlord: Saga of the Storm (2024): 1700 backers raised ~$600K to bring this dead CCG back to life. It just closed.

Thoughts

Do the above releases mean the CCG world is in a revival? Yes and no. On the one hand, the sheer number of projects on Kickstarter indicates a sustained interest in this type of game. On the other, the number of backers (from 900-6500 in the above examples) show that these won't be nearly popular enough to go mainstream. They will be enjoyed in small pockets around the globe . . . just like many tabletop games.

What this does show, I believe, is that the features of a collectible game are well-loved and people want to see games that enable customization (here, of card decks). With small player bases and limited print runs, I suspect these games will be enjoyed for drafting, re-drafting or cubes (using products like Dragon Shield cube shells to re-create randomized packs), and constructed experiences (I just used a lot of terms that may be unfamiliar; see here for an explanation). There will be few if any expansions to make the games 'living;' those that exist will be kick-started and take a while (Sorcery has an Arthurian-themed expansion in the works, due out this year).

Ultimately, I think the future will show that CCGs are back in a muted way: they will enjoy limited edition runs and be held dear by small communities, enjoyed for what they are, but not produce the never-ending run of new cards that make Magic, Pokemon, and a few others both exciting and embarrasingly expensive to enjoy. Perhaps this new approach will make the 'barrier of entry' lower to this genre. Time will tell.

Causes, Evils, and Cures of Heart and Church Divisions (Burroughs and Baxter)

The title says it all. In this book, Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) and Richard Baxter (1615-1691) lay out the causes, evils, and cures of heart and church divisions. Note: it is unclear to me exactly who authored what, and whether Francis Asbury (1745-1816, who authored the introduction) abridged either's material. And apparently the version I read (ISBN 9798841093633) was first published in 1849. 

The first section is the causes of divisions, separated into 'distempers' and practices.

- The distempers that divide: pride, self-love, envy, passion, rigidness, rashness, wilfulness, unconstancy, a spirit of jealousy, and a spirit of contention

- The practices that divide: associating with whisperers, needless disputes, not keeping within the bounds God has set, propagating evil reports, an inordinate cleaving to some so as denying due respect to others, because men cannot join in all things with others they will join in nothing, to commend and countenance what we care not for, in opposition to what we dislike, and revenge.

The second is the evils of divisions, both the good they hinder and the sinfulness of them. 

- For the good they hinder: the quiet, comfort, and sweetness of our spirits, the freedom of a man's spirit, the sweetness of Christian converse and communion, our time, our prayers, use of our gifts, and our graces.

The third section is the cures of divisions, separated into seven joining principles, considerations, and six directions, which are too lengthy to reproduce here.

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The content is outstanding; the writing is hard to follow. Very long sentences combined with archaic speech made it hard for me to get through this 107-page volume. That said, I wanted to get through it because there is so much meat; so much insight and value. We are beset today with divisions, whereas Scripture is clear in calling for unity. This books is a welcome reminder that it is (regrettably) common, but offers pointers on why it matters and how to strive for unity. Highly recommended; put in the work to get through this. 

Rating: A