On the gaming front, April looks kind of bleak because my Wednesday opponent will be forced to pause due to planned eye surgery. Keeping my fingers crossed, but odds are that he'll laugh about this in early May. I've already got non-gaming related plans to keep me occupied, even though I'd rather be playing with him. Whatever. Everything's going to be alright...
What I played
That's 28 total plays from 14 different games, none of which were new to me.
There was a new expansion though, and first-for-me ways to play previously known games.
ftf / Online live
9 Dune: Imperium (11 all-time) - This was one of the new ways to play a game, namely playing online via the app while we talked on the phone.
It was nice to go back to vanilla base game after plays with one or both expansions. We both got the app on day 1 and tried our hands against the tutorial and AI opponents, primarily to learn the UI. They're doing a nice job of fitting all the necessary info on the tablet screen. I still struggle with using options on agent turns though. A few times I ended my turn even though I had options such as troop deployment. I guess I'd prefer an 'Are you sure?' prompt in those situations.
Anyway, 3p game with one AI opponent. It went reasonably quickly and I lost, only partly due to misclicks. The AI has a knack for having the right intrigue cards at the right time, especially to bolster their force in important battles. Who knows, perhaps I'll even learn a trick or two watching the AI play.
8 Heat: Pedal to the Metal (4 all-time) - This one almost happened with the new expansion, Heat: Heavy Rain. However, we decided to refresh ourselves with regards to the rules and try all the circuits in the base game. Sadly that play didn't really count because I mishandled the stress cards which we only discovered late in the game. The rules are fresh in our minds now though.
I almost considered getting a copy for myself in a recent sale because I quite like the smooth bot integration. It was sold out temporarily so money was saved. I ended up using the coupon for a preorder of Dune: Imperium – Uprising, for whenever the German edition will be released. The initial date of late March was moved to... June or something?
N/A Res Arcana (6 all-time) - This one was another first for me. The game had intrigued me because I expected some sort of CCG combo feel from it in a small game. Sadly my usual opponent didn't want to play because his first impression from an earlier play was negative. Thus I only played it solo using these rules: Res Arcana Solo Variant
Strangely enough he mentioned that the base game and both expansions were on sale. I thought about getting the second expansion for completist reasons but wanted to try it opposed at least once. He agreed because he wondered if his early impression was correct. The answer to that question seemed to be 'No' because he ended up ordering the whole game (and a copy of exp 2 for me). I'm not planning to get rid of my copy anymore either because it was fun to play this opposed although I'll wait with my rating until I played a few more games that way.
Online asynch
9 Obsession x4 (27 all-time) - I finished another 2p base game over which I apparently lost my opponent. The extended plus expansions 2p pair got expanded by another player which adds to the experience: Courtships are much more difficult to win which sometimes feels a bit luck-driven with regards to which of the Fairchilds' preference will be revealed next. The market moves much faster, too, which is a positive.
8 Talon x2 (14 all-time) - I incompetently won scenario 11 playing the Talon, now I'm proving my incompetence as the Earth player. The latter is still ongoing, so it's fresh in my mind that I failed to consider the Wave Motion gun's front-only shooting arc twice. Once I managed to roll a 1 at range 2, the magic 1-in-6 chance to miss. That's 30 points of damage not happening at opportune moments/shield arcs. Sigh.
We've opened talks about the follow-up game. I wanted to like my opponent's suggestion of Unconditional Surrender! World War 2 in Europe - the thought of having full rules enforcement really appealed to me because I keep second-guessing my Vassal logs for games with big rulesets. Then I started leafing through the living rulebook and reread the suggested programmed learning path presented in the playbook and decided that this was a bit too much for me right now...
7 The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire (6 all-time) - This is our second play of Malaya. The first one ended all too quick, in the first Propaganda round, so we kept our sides and went at it again. Turns out that the game will last longer if the British side doesn't fall for the trap of triggering a lot of (admittedly good) events but instead performs operations as well. I didn't manage to cut into the Brits' Political Will at all in the first Propaganda and thus am behind the clock considerably. I don't expect to win this one...
Solo gaming / Online
8 Star Realms x6 (196 all-time) - One 6-0 Arena win vs five losses running the gamut of 0-2 to 4-2. I cherish the rare wins...
9 Obsession (27 all-time) - Another try with the Asquith family vs. the Crawleys. I'm getting closer (133-138) but still haven't won. Any hints at how I shall approach this matchup?
I like the solo experience but setup is rather tedious. On the other hand, I do have a table where I could leave the game set up, ready for a restart. However, that table is situated right next to my home office desk and I suspect that productivity will suffer from that move...
N/A Res Arcana (6 all-time) - This one was a rules refresher solo run using the rules mentioned above (Res Arcana Solo Variant). I don't know why, but I'm struggling with these solo runs, probably because I'm overthinking them. I could just hammer out a game because nobody will get hurt if I lose so I should just try stuff to see what happens, but I'll contemplate correct moves even though I don't have a lot of experience to base judgement on. Can I get a switch in my head to (sometimes) gete rid of second thoughts, please?
Family gaming
8 Cabanga! x2 (7 all-time) - Fascinating how far the spread of games can run. One play took two hands, one took six.
6 Dorfromantik: The Board Game x2 (7 all-time) - The family decided that the first play didn't really count because we only achieved 133 VPs. Initially they didn't even want to count! The sequence of goal tiles was more constructive in the second try with a promising 212. We're slowly finding our way through this, though it remains to be seen how many plays we'll manage once the weather improves.
8 Zug um Zug: Deutschland x2 (31 all-time) - I split the two games vs youngest while we played locally using tow iPads. She's finally beginning to hold her own though she still gets angry when you build a route she also had planned to use...
7 Ku-Ka-König (7 all-time) - Ha, eldest daughter didn't win as I pipped her by one point for the win.
7 Love Letter (16 all-time) and 7 UNO (38 all-time) - Yep, we managed a few more plays over the Easter weekend...
When we met with family on Easter Sunday, the weather was quite nice so the semi-regular big round of Just One didn't happen. Instead a round of Mini Kubb was played on the grass. We ran into some impressive thunderstorms on the way home though, and Easter Monday's weather was tailor-made for some family gaming...
8 (16 all-time) - This one was the inaugural play including the Extra Salt expansion. It consists of only a dozen cards but introduces a few things to do with your swimmers even if you don't want to use their steal ability. Sure, it heals the Eurogamer's heart, but I felt that the game didn't need this. In fact, being able to at least partially be able to disrupt the pile of cards an opponent collected is a feature and not a bug.
Notable viewing / reading
The month began with a French theme. First off was Staatsfeinde - Mord auf höchster Ebene (French: Une affaire d'état), a recent political thriller detailing an accidental investigation by regular French police into domestic affair around a weapons deal with rebels in Kongo in exchange for French hostages. Sadly the plot was credible and the end felt as depressing as it was believable. Politics suck.
Next up was the first season of Capitaine Sissako, a female police officer in Grenoble who's tasked to investigate a possible murder within the French Biathlon national team. The backdrop of the snowy French Alps conjur a certain claustrophobic feel of Die purpurnen Flüsse / Les rivières pourpres / The Crimson Rivers, the year 2000 movie starring Jean Reno, but it's lacking the mysticism and is much more grounded in reality. A mini-series of four episodes, it managed to keep my attention and left me interested in a second season.
Pretty much everybody probably knows La La Land because a handful of Oscars usually generate enough interest. For me, it was a new one and I even convinced my wife to join me. I could have done without the opening scene on the highway bridge, but after that the movie managed to tell a moving story which we both enjoyed. It's movies like this that help to restore a little faith in my wife with regards to my recommendations. A faith which still suffers from being severly tested by watching Burn After Reading fifteen years ago.
As a birthday present, I invited my Wednesday ftf buddy to watch Dune 2 on an Imax screen. Sadly the Bochum Imax is one of the older Imax screens which meant that the sound system was (too) loud but the screen wasn't as large as I expected. Mental note: Watch Dune Messiah at the Imax in Düsseldorf - I remember that one as being much bigger from last year's screening of Top Gun 2.
Anyway, the movie... I'm torn. I appreciate that Dune 1's story was easier to tell, which is probably why Dune 2 didn't manage to engage me as much as its predecessor. The scenery was beautiful though, I love the costumes for Jessica/Lady Fenring/Princess Irulan, I was glad that the final battle for Arrakeen didn't take as long as I feared it would, I'm definitely going to get the Blue-Ray to watch it again at home... Still I'm torn. It's at least very good though.
Perhaps I'm still soured by the fact that we expected the ride to Bochum to be much quicker and being quite surprised by the fact that nobody told the heavy traffic that it wasn't supposed to happen due to the Easter holidays. Plus we'd planned to have dinner in a bar & grill right next to the cinema which then didn't show up at all on the Ruhrpark mall map, only to discover later that it was really right next to the cinema entrance. Whatever. As stated above, my next Imax visit will be in Düsseldorf.
Live music
Still no live show this year yet. What's worse is the lack of desire to attend Roadburn due to a combination of a lack of pull from this year's lineup and feeling underwhelmed by the mood and the overregulation last year. Roadburn has been my haven for almost twenty years. Sad...
Listening to the pre-release singles for the new Pearl Jam album, I contemplated hunting for tickets. Predictably there's few non-festival shows, and ticket prices started at EUR175. Now tickets in the bleachers are also available for only EUR127 but sorry, that's still to much even though especially the second single, Running, sounds promising. Looking forward to April 19 and the full album release.
Music I liked
Last month, I lived in the past some more, tackling the full catalogue of three more bands to create deezer playlists to conveniently have their stuff available to listen to either via headphones or in the car.
First off, I picked all-time faves Neurosis which are not necessarily a playlist band, what with their long songs which are much improved by sitting down and immersing oneself in the music. I haven't listened to a few of their albums in quite a while though, so I welcomed the trigger.
Sadly two albums are missing on deezer, namely the dark-darker-darkest-yet more darker Through Silver In Blood and the slightly more positive follow-up, Times Of Grace. I wonder why because the album after ToG, A Sun That Never Sets, was also released on Relapse so the label can't be the issue.
Anyway, I substituted a few cuts from live albums and all was well. Almost. The beautiful cover of Joy Division's Day Of The Lord was missing from The Word As Law. That's licensing reasons at work for sure.
Bottom line: Still love their music, even though didn't exactly improve my mood.
Another band which took me back to the early 90s are the Melvins. For them, my favourite album is the first one I got, Bullhead. My favourite period ranges from Bullhead through the next couple of albums, i.e. the solo albums, Lysol, and Houdini. Of course, Lysol is missing on deezer...
My journey through their catalogue took me as far as I was able to stand it, so the last album to be reflected on the playlist was Stag. I tried the trilogy and the early Ipecac stuff, but I felt that already starting with Stoner Witch, but latest with Stag, the balance of song vs weirdness was tilting too much to the wrong side. Great band though, and I'll definitely give Tarantula Heart a listen once it's out.
The third playlist was for German punk band Turbostaat. Here it was fascinating to observe how they maintained their incredibly high standard with regards to lyrics while their music matured. There's so much to like on their earlier albums but they evolved their style while they remained instantly recognizable.
Luckily their whole catalogue is available but deezer individualised the band page layout making some albums hard to find. I finished off my week with Turbostaat by listening to their live album, Nachtbrot, several times. They did a good job capturing the energy of both, the band and the audience.
I've complained about deezer for a couple of times already now but there's more. The search algorithm is working against you if your tastes go beyond mainstream, e.g. you'll search for a band using the exact name but the algorithm will offer a long list of closely related names because you surely couldn't have searched for this obscure band, could you?
And they're incapable of separating the catalogue of artists with identical names even though their catalogue is separated by 20+ years and their genres are separated by miles. Case in point: Their current recommendations for new music. I'll tolerate/ignore their recommendations for new episodes of kids dramas Bibi und Tina and Paw Patrol. Except for few flashbacks, my kids grew out of that stuff years ago.
However, on just the current list they're offering up new music by Sophia, Sleep, Blessings, Gentleman, Genesis, All, Burn, Nothing. They were all nothing short of terrible. Period.
On the other hand, there's good stuff to discover on these lists as well.
Incubus re-recorded their Morning View album? Why? But it's nice to know anyway.
New releases by Kamasi Washington, Harvestman (that's Neurosis guitarist/vocalist Steve von Till), Manon Meurt, Sons of Alpha Centauri, Samavayo, Boris, Dödsrit, Pallbearer? Nice.
I almost thought they tricked me once again, offering this song by Bala, a collaboration with Tanxugueiras. I thought it was those two Spanish ladies-you-definitely-don't-want-to-have-against-you whose 2021 album Maleza didn't find its way onto my best-of-the-year list but which I keep returning to regularly anyway. Then I heard the start of the song and felt let down. I stayed with it though and was rewarded!
Lastly there was a cool discovery, too: The song Lucky by Varg2TM feat. Eartheater and Earth (no, not the godfathers of Drone around Dylan Carlson, but whatever...). This is quite beautiful and may need further exploration.
I hear you asking why I won't switch streaming services if I'm not happy with what I have. Well, they were my first because of a free two year trial period by my mobile service provider. Then I found a cheap family subscription plan which is providing the whole family with all their music (and more) needs. And I don't like the alternatives either: Spotify's CEO, amazon as a whole, apple is already earning enough off me for hardware... I'll stay for the time being.
Back to new stuff.
I'm still undecided on the new IDLES, Tangk. I appreciate progression, but I miss the storm-the-Bastille appeal of their earlier records.
I feel charmed by Office Dog's Spiel album which sports a certain Modest Mouse or Shudder To Think vibe. In fact it supports that cautious approach to spring's better weather - kind of like a 'it sure looks nice outside but I don't trust that wall of clouds' feel that has you stay home, drink a cup of tea, and watch those clouds approaching from the safety of your comfy chair.
Same kind-of DC feel: Glitterer's Rationale album. In contrast, it's a bit more catchy and positive.
This one's darker but still catchy: Bokassa - All Out Of Dreams. This one rocks and leaves you searching for the closest moshpit.
Grin's hate they display on Hush is a bit too much for me right now. I may need to revisit this next November.
A post-punk band's mood isn't great to begin with, but tragically this album's bass player took his own life shortly after it was recorded. This puts a certain spin on a few songs. Heatwave 3000 is great, too...
Oops, the album is Burnout Codes by Heave Blood And Die.
This is post-what? There's post-punk, there's post-hardcore, there's some dark-punk Turbostaat guitars, there's Quicksand's force, there's some Nine Inch Nails industrial in a song as well. Impressive. It's Lysistrata Veil Artifice.
What else...
I enjoyed Midnight's Black Metal'n'roll meets Motörhead on Hellish Expectations but doubt that it will keep my attention for too long.
Judas Priest's Invincible Shield is impressive from a 75 year old's point of view, but they never really grabbed me.
How do you call Turnstile's brand of hardcore? Modern? Doesn't sound right, but it kind of is. Shoreline are in line as well on To Figure Out, and Shooting Daggers are as well on Love & Rage.
Doodseskader's Year Two was interesting but tiring, just as they were when I saw them live opening for Brutus a year ago.
Profiler's mix of Deftones melancholy and Limp Bizkit's aggressiveness sounded interesting on paper but was as annoying as Limp Bizkit in practice.
Album of the month? I'm drawing a blank right now, but I'm looking forward to the new Bala and I really liked this riff off the new Harvestman, so I'll leave you to chill out to this one...
