AJ 1/11/21 AJ 1/11/21

Chrono Trigger - The Earthbound

Back in the snow covered fields of Antiquity and Crono discovers the elevator to Zeal has also been turned off. It would seem the prophet does not like doing things half assed. When the portal from Pre-History was closed off, he made sure the elevator would not stay on either. Just on the off chance our heroes figured out another way to come back here. With the access to the islands in the sky cut off, the only thing to do now is to go talk to the Earthbound and as for their help.

This battle is a lot easier if you have Luminaire

These people are destitute and living in poor conditions. Not that long ago, the magic users and Earthbound lived in peace and harmony. All of that changed once the King died. I still think the Queen was not as benevolent before her corruption by Lavos as the people of Zeal want to believe. Only those who reaped the benefits of her tyrannical rule think of her as a benevolent leader. It has been a while since I last played Chrono Trigger. This time around I feel I am finding more depth to the stories presented here. For example, I never realized this era was a story about how marginalized people suffer when the privileged avert their eyes. The people of Zeal are busy sleeping in bliss, or they live in the skies where they do not have to see the Earthbound. For them, everything was fine until Lavos corrupted the Queen’s mind. It is strikingly relevant twenty five years later. I don’t know if I should commend the Square team for being omniscient or lament the fact inequality still exists two and a half decades later.

Crono and friends go into the caves and find these people living in abject poverty. Their living space reminds me of how fiends were living in the caves when we first fight Azala. At the same time there are other fiends who live in the giant stone built keep. I wonder how much discrimination was there between the two groups of reptites.

Foggy and hilly… Reminds me of Tennessee

AS Crono climbs down, he is warned of mudbeasts. Every time they are hit, their attack goes up. It is a good idea to take them out quickly or else these fights start getting dicey. To make sure I was taking care of the mudbeasts before they could do serious damage, I had to switch mu party around. Marle has too weak a physical attack to stay in the party. She was replaced with Robo. He has a strong physical attack and ability to heal, which can be upgraded to heal the whole party in one turn. Both Ayla and Crono have strong attacks. With this party, mudbeasts never became a problem.

This was also the first time I did some grinding for experience in this play through. The mudbeasts give about 10 TP per encounter. My aim at this junction was to have Crono gain the Luminaire Tech before moving on the next boss battle. This spell does Holy damage to all enemies. Usually, I have this by the time I get to this part of the game. It makes the boss battles a lot more manageable. The imp shows up with a red and a blue mudbeast. Theses are quite hard to hurt and their own techs deal some heavy damage. Without luminaire, this battle drags on. But with it, Crono need only cast it three time before they are all defeated.

With the beast gone, Crono can finally climb up to the levitating mountain. This place is covered with fog and crawling with various kinds of imps. The part makes its way through the fog and chains until we happen upon a giant crystal. Before anyone could make heads or tails of this thing, the whole place starts quaking. Giga Gaia emerges, and our friends get ready for another fight.

This creature is awe-inspiring. The sheer size of it dwarfs our party. I was glad to have switched Marle out for Robo before I got here. This battle needs an all out physical attack. Between Ayla and Robo I had gone in with the strongest physical team with added bonus of all team healing tech from Robo. This freed up Crono to use Luminaire every turn. Once the arms were destroyed, I used the physical attacks from the other members. Crono made sure arms never came back.

With Giga Gaia dead, Guru of Life is released from his prison. It is Melchior! He does not recognize us at this time since we only meet him much later in the future. Everyone gathers up in one of the caves of the Earthbound, and Schala comes by to see what has been going on.

Mammon’s Machine (the giant mech thing we saw in one of the prison cells earlier) is being used to harvest energy from Lavos, but it has been exerting its effect on the Queen through the machine at the same time. Only Schala has the ability to use the machine and she has decided to not help the prophet turn it on anymore. In an effort to do so, she and her brother escape from the palace and come to these caves.

We have not even begun to process all this information when Dalton (ugh) shows up. He pushes Melchior down and makes off with the two royal children. Melchior is ready to give in. With Schala and Janus abducted there is nothing we can do to stop Lavos. All is lost. No one can save humanity. Will there be a hero who can step up to this virtually impossible challenge? As usual, Crono raises his hand to volunteer. Melchior is grateful and a little surprised, these adventurers would help so selflessly. But now is not the time to question the motivations of our heroes. Instead, he thanks them and gives them a knife that can be used to destroy the Mammon Machine.

Even with the knife, this will be no easy task. Crono has his work cut out for him. He has to find a way back to Zeal, infiltrate the Queen’s palace and then find a way into Ocean’s Palace. Hopefully on the way there we will have an opportunity to teach Dalton the turd hamster a lesson or two.

12-27-2020

AJ 1/7/21 AJ 1/7/21

Resident Evil 2 Remake - Welcome to Raccoon City

Resident Evil 2 was the first game in the series I ever played. I still remember renting it from Blockbuster and popping the cartridge in my N64. I had no idea what it was about and how to play it. I messed around with it for a while, but after dying incessantly I decided to get some help. Over the course of the weekend, I relied heavily on the GameFAQs to beat the game before returning it (it was the late fees the big BB killed you with). I only played the Chris Redfield version and was later told completing one perspective is not enough to consider the game beaten. Around this time I decided I did not care for people gatekeeping how I played video games (it’s the mentality that has saved me lots of time and frustration over the course of twenty years).

That cheeseburger is really not appetizing

I would later learn the significance of the Resident Evil Series, and how it shaped the survival horror genre. The memes that became staples of not just of gaming culture but our popular culture. Resident Evil transcended the video games when the series came to the silver screen. For a big chunk of Resident Evil fans, the names Claire, Jill and Rebekah don’t hold as much significance as Alice. For most of us ‘that dog scene” refers to dogs jumping through the windows of the mansion. There are others for whom the phrase invokes Mila Jovovich delivering a roundhouse kick to the jaw of a mutated dog. But all of us can agree Umbrella is the most hateable of all corporations and Resident evil would be nothing if not for badass female protagonists.

I started the series with RE: Zero which I did not dislike as much as most people. I think this was mostly due to the fact I had not played RE. If I had come to Resident Evil Zero after RE, I could see myself being annoyed by the drop items everywhere mechanic. Last year I played the remaster of the original RE and came away impressed. I have already written about my experience with that one. RE 2: REmake came out in 2019 and took the gaming community by storm. Instead of playing the original RE 2 on an emulator, I decided to play this one. I still have not ruled out playing the N64 version yet, but that will have to be after the remake.

I’m going to start with Claire’s story this time

This is a modern survival horror, closer to RE 7 than RE 2. The tank controls and fixed camera angles are all gone. I can not remember how the voice acting was in the original, but it is worthy of any AAA game here. The game is one of the prettiest I have seen. It still retains the storage box and typewriter from the original. Although it does not require an ink tape to save the game itself.

We start with a shot of what looks like a rotting face, only for the camera to reveal it as a cheeseburger. A lone 18 wheeler drives into a rain soaked night while the driver listens to someone on the radio trying to convince others of his encounter with a zombie. The sleep deprived driver accidentally runs into a woman standing in the middle of the dark road. He stops to check on her but can not find a pulse. As he turns in anguish, the players see the dead woman get up in the background.

I am immediately in the fight and flight mode. Being alone at night where the visibility is compromised is a trope used effectively in the introduction of the first Resident Evil as well. It is just as effective here. The fact that I knew what was going to happen did nothing to diminish the tension the game was trying to create. As the game started, I knew I would have to play this in small doses just the way I did with the first one.

Game proper starts as we see a young woman in a red jacket riding into the night. These people really need to start travelling more during the day. The visibility is better, the driver is not tired, and most of the zombies stay out of the way. She pulls up to a gas station to make a phone call. This is Claire Redfield doing her best impression of Jennifer Lawrence. After making the phone call, Claire realizes the whole place is deserted, but there is an abandoned police car outside. She hears noises coming from inside the gas station and decides to investigate. If only she had gotten gas, turned around and went home.

The lights are turned out, because why wouldn’t they be. As she rounds the corner, Claire sees the injured clerk who only points to the back. Armed with a flashlight and a gun, Ms. Redfield makes her way to the back office. A cop is trying to hold down a struggling man. She distracts him for long enough for the man to break free and take a big bite out of the cop’s neck. Claire is starting to get an inkling of what kind of trouble she has gotten herself into. The clerk has locked the door with Claire inside. Good thing she has a gun. The zombie takes a few shots before he decides to bite the ground.

Claire is doing her best J. Law impression

Claire runs towards the back to grab a key and open the office door. The front of the store is now full of zombies. Claire makes a run for the door, only to find a man breaking through with a gun pointed in her face. He tells her to get down and shoots the zombie looming behind her. There are too many zombies to fight our way through, but the cop car is still there. They both get in and make their escape.

Now that zombies have been left behind, it is time for proper introductions. Claire’s full name is Claire Redfield, a name that will be familiar to those who have played the first RE. Chris Redfield was part of the team that was stranded at the Spencer Mansion. He made his escape with Jill Valentine. Claire has no idea where Chris has gone off to, so she is making her way to the Racoon City to find him. Leon Kennedy is also a cop. He heard about the zombie outbreak and is also trying to make his way to the RC police station to find out what is going on. Clearly the police station is the safest place with all the zombie riots going on outside. Right?

The whole city is in shambles. If it was me, I would have taken one look at the way the city was and turned the car right around. Our heroes miss yet another chance to avoid a long dangerous night full of zombie bites. There are citywide announcements urging the people to make their way to the police station where there is safety and food. Leon comes to a stop with the road blocked off by damaged cars. They are going to have to make a run for it. Before they can prep themselves. Our nameless 18 wheeler driver friend starts barreling towards them. Predictably he has been bitten and driving straight towards them. He swerves at the last possible second, but the car still blows up, with our heroes barely making out alive.

The graphics have been impressive to begin with, but this scene left me breathless. The way light of fire bounces off of the wet asphalt is amazing no matter how many times I look at it. The rain and water effects are truly remarkable here. The realistic graphics add to the discomfort. It is one thing to see the violence in blocky 32 bits of Playstation (or the 64 bits of N64), but to experience the blood and gore in high graphical fidelity is downright nauseating. I mean it as a compliment when I say the first few minutes of gameplay made my stomach churn. This will take a lot longer to finish than I originally anticipated.

12-20-2020

AJ 1/6/21 AJ 1/6/21

The Witcher -Vizima Outpost

In Vizima, the gates closed for the night and they did not open for anyone. This was a new development. The outposts of Vizima was having to deal with too many problems and only viable solution was to bunker down for the night and hope for the best. Geralt asked the guards about these problems and they told him about the beast that had recently started appearing in the wilderness around Vizima. No one knew where it had come from or how to stop it. Geralt already had a glimpse of some of the monsters on his way here. A mother and her child were caught outside while the sun set. Geralt saved the child but the mother was ripped apart by the barghests. These possessed dogs were vicious and no one in Vizima seemed to have the courage to fight them. This place was in a dire need of a competent witcher to eradicate their monster problems.

The Witcher ran into someone else who recognized him but Geralt had no recollection of where he knew her from. This was a healer named Shani. She was sympathetic to Geralt’s plight but acknowledged there was not much she could do to bring his memory back. Shani was passing through Vizima and had stopped here when she found out there was no competent healer to help the people in the village. She would head out once she had sufficiently helped the people here. She knew the child Alvin who had been the survivor of the Barghest attack just outside the town. The child himself was still in shock and had not seemed to have processed what had just happened. He no longer had any family or a place to call home. With his mother dead, Alvin was sure to have a hard time finding a stable home. Before Geralt could go, he saw Alvin in a possessed state, and utter what would be known as the Prophecy of Ithlinne. It predicted the advent of the Ice Age and death of the world as we know it. That would be a problem for another time. People of the Continent had enough on their plates without taking climate change into account.

There were drowners in the nearby river who would drag down anyone who went for a swim. As if that was not enough, the Salmandra bandits raided the village to keep the people in a constant state of fear. It must have been exhausting to be a denizen of Vizima. There was also a plague rampaging through the village, which had forced everyone into a quarantine. The businesses were failing and people starving. At least they now had a competent healer in Shani to tackle that one problem. Of all the challenges Vizima faced this one hit close to home. A plague forcing everyone into quarantine felt eerily prophetic.

With the gates closed, there was not much to do but find an inn and pass the night. The barkeep did not want the Witcher’s kind in his place of business. Even with all the problems they had, people still found time to be racist. This kind of discrimination was nothing new to a mutant like Geralt, but it was grating none the less. The barkeep refused to serve him. Even under the threat of violence he chose to close down the business instead ofserving a witcher. Too tired to engage with this man, Geralt decided to turn in for the night.

Next morning Geralt set out to find more information on the Salmandra. The fear of the bandits gripped the people too hard for them to relinquish any meaningful information. Geralt would have to gain their trust before he could get anything out of them.

Outside the gates of the outpost, Geralt saw a man writhing in pain outside one of the houses. This was the abode of Abigail, the village witch. The man had invited her wrath by soliciting sexual favors from her. Abigail was distrusted by the people due to her powers, but she could be a valuable ally to Geralt in putting a stop to all the monsters harassing the people here.

Further down the road, racism reared its ugly head once more. There was a dwarf being hassled by the people. Being unable to overcome the obstacles that they faced, the common people chose to retain control by harassing the marginalized people who lived around them. Geralt was having none of that and put an immediate stop to this display of intolerance. It turned out the dwarf also knew Geralt. This amnesia thing was quickly getting old. Zoltan, the dwarf had a hard time believing the amnesia story, but he invited Geralt for drinks anyway. Promising to meet him again soon, the Witcher made his way towards the city.

As everyone had been saying, the gates to the city were closed. The only way to gain entry into Vizima was to have a letter from the Reverend, and he was too intolerant to help a non-believer at this time. Witcher changed tactics and offered his services to put a stop to the beast killing the inhabitants of Vizima. The priest was adamant only bringing the eternal fire to all the shrines would put a stop to the rampaging beast. The only problem was, since the beast came at night, the fire also needed to be lit at night. There was no one brave enough to face the onslaught of the barghests and light up the shrines. Geralt tried explaining that lighting a few candles will do nothing to stop the monster, but the Reverend was not going to pay much attention to advice of a mutant. Geralt agreed to help for a price. If the priest was willing to part with money for a futile task then Geralt was not going to complain.

Just like Khaer Morhen, Vizima was a familiar name to me. The world of Witcher is not too big. Most the places are those Geralt would visit again in the third game. It is not just the people and places that reappear in this world, the situations also seem to repeat themselves. Needing a pass to get through closed gates, saving a dwarf from racist humans, even fighting a hobo for beer money. All of these are things I have done in the final game. I am in a perpetual state of déjà vu.

12-20-20

List of acquaintances who Geralt does not recognize keeps getting longer

AJ 1/5/21 AJ 1/5/21

Chrono Trigger - Guru of Reason

Back into the future, there are many doors sealed by mysterious force. We saw some of them last time we were here. Now, armed with the magic pendant, our friends can see what hides behind them. Most of these just have some loot. Crono and friends are running out of places to check for a way forward.

Future is still as bleak as it was before. Nothing has been fixed. Not that we were expecting things to return to normal so quickly any way. For the most part this place will stay the same regardless of what we do in the past. As I have alluded to in the past, the game follows multiple threads of reality rules of time travel. Once Lavos is defeated in the past, a brand new stream of reality will be generated. These people are doomed to be here regardless. Hopefully the one seed we got out of the stores will bring back all the flora and they will have food from that. I still think they should eat the rotten food and then use Enertron to heal themselves.

The sewers are the last place that remains unexplored in this era. It is about time we bite the bullet and go check the depths of sewage. Generally speaking, sewers levels are the most frustrating section of any game they show up in. They are bland and full of enemies that sap the players’ will to play the game. They are usually included when the developers want to pad the game by ramping up difficulty. Thankfully, this is not the case in Chrono Trigger. The sewers are refreshingly short (how many times have the words refreshing and sewers used in the same sentence?) Most of the enemy encounters must be triggered by interacting with the environment. Since this is the first time I have come here, and I have not been grinding so it stands to reason Crono is more or less at the recommended level for this place. I did not have any trouble against the enemies. The sewers serve to move the player between two unconnected pieces of land. They are similar in that way to the caves that connected the Fiendlord’s Keep to the rest of the continent in another timeline.

At the other end of the sewers Crono and friends meet Krawlie. This guy sees himself as the boss of the whole place. He is so tickled by the Crono he just cannot stop laughing. He is clearly not taking this fight seriously, a mistake he will rue for the rest of his life. This is an easy fight. Crono and the team hit hard and Krawlie is definitely not ready for the heat. With Krawlie stomped, Crono exits the sewers and finds himself on an island with a lonely building. When we go inside, it becomes clear this is a lab that has been unoccupied save for someone called unusual construct. This guy looks like the blue creatures in the Kingdom of Zeal. Yet another connection to the time of Antiquity. We must be getting closer to finding our way back to Zeal. The construct is in no mood to talk to us, but it is also not bothered by our presence. Crono starts exploring the place to see if he can find another sealed door that may get his team back to the time of Antiquity.

In the back of the lab is a door with now all-too-familiar seal on it. Crono uses the pendant to open it. This long corridor has the records of the person who was researching in this lab. This man was Balthasar, Guru of Reason. We have heard his name in Zeal also. The Magic Kingdom had gurus who served as advisors to the monarch. In an effort to consolidate power, the prophet seems to have conspired to have them removed from the kingdom. This usually translated in to these gurus leaving the kingdom or getting imprisoned. Balthasar, through his research found out about the origin of Lavos. He also figured this was a parasite that fed on planets. Once the planet could not sustain it, it would travel through space looking for the next host. While the magicians of Zeal think they are harvesting it for energy, it is Lavos that is feeding on their home. He correctly predicted the death and destruction it would bring once it wakes up. In an effort to stop the apocalypse, Balthasar built a lab here in the wilderness and dedicated his life to stopping Lavos. He figured the only way to do so was to travel back in time to an era when this parasite is at its weakest and destroy it. This would not only protect our planet, but also all the other ones Lavos would go to after destroying us.

Being isolated with the thought of impending doom took its toll on Balthasar. As he raced to build a solution to eradicate the Lavos problem, Guru of Reason started losing his sanity. Ultimately, he died working to save humanity. Before he went, Balthasar left all the records of his findings and his invention for someone worthy of wielding it. These are the notes Crono has been reading. He has been able to get in here, so he is definitely worthy of the invention. Balthasar invites him to go to the next room and take a look at his world saving invention, Wings of Time.

I did not expect that to be the front of the ship

The next room is a giant hangar with a sleek looking spaceship. Since none of our friends come from the time where spaceship is an understandable concept, they do not understand what this is, although they are in awe of the futuristic looking machine. I wonder if there would be different dialogue here if I had Robo in my party. Would he be able to explain to Crono what this thing is?

Not having any understanding of how to get into the ship, much less operating it, the team decides to go back to the lab. As they try to exit, the unusual construct comes in and announces he is the consciousness of Balthasar. Once he realized his body is wilting away, he built this body and transferred his mind to it. And then he waited for a hero to show up here and save everyone. I can only imagine how long he has been waiting by himself. That is a terrifying thought. I hope he had some podcasts to listen to or something. He teaches the adventurers how to use the ship. It is not a spaceship, but a time machine. They can use it to get back to the antiquity and put a stop to whatever has been happening in the Ocean Palace. The team christens their new time machine Epoch before heading into the past.

We are coming close to the end of the game. That is usually the time when heroes start to get traversal choices like ships, or fast travel options. Crono takes the ship to the End of Time to regroup. After that we will be going to the Antiquity. I tried to get Ayla some magic, but she was born before the advent of the magic so she can’t have any. Still, he has healing and hits really hard so we will keep her in our regular party. It is a good idea to keep her at the highest possible level because we will need her to save everyone else pretty soon.

12-27-2020

AJ 1/4/21 AJ 1/4/21

Unstable Unicorns

Today’s post is about a different kind of a game. It has been a while since I have tried a new board game. Unlike video games, my wife is actually interested in these so it is always a treat to find a good new one we can play together. Only problem is she is very, very good at board games. When we get a new board game, there is about five or ten times before she “solves” it. From then on, it is almost impossible to win against her, much to the chagrin of others. She also has no interest in playing any co-op game because she can not “crush” other players in those. As a result, we have a graveyard of games she has already mastered, and no one wants to play those anymore.

In 2019 most of my cousins realized how much fun board games can be. We had a few parties where we ended up playing some party games. The last one was a really big one with over twelve people. It was so much fun we decided make that a regular thing. A month or so later pandemic started. And here we are, socially isolating in our homes. All the games we bought in anticipation of the next gathering, sitting unopened and collecting dust. The good thing is there is no expiration date on them. Hopefully there will be a time a time when COVID is a distant memory and we will still have these games, waiting to be opened and played.

Unstable Unicorns is a card game made by Ramy Badie in 2017. The rules are fairly simple. Each player starts out with 6 cards and a baby unicorn. Whoever gets 7 (or 6 if you are playing with more people) unicorns in their stable first wins the round. There are upgrade, downgrade, and magic cards. The strategy comes from deploying these cards to put the other players at a disadvantage and negate any attacks the player is subjected to.

Box uses the space well. Makes it easy to carry around.

I bought this game on a whim a while back and forgot all about it. It is available pretty much everywhere board games are sold, and cheap enough to be in the impulse buy range. Over the Christmas break we were looking to play a new game. Something easy to learn and one that would not take too long to play. Since Unstable Unicorns was sitting at the top of the pile of board games, we chose to go with that one.

The cards come in a small box that is sturdy (unlike flimsy sleeves a whole lot of card games ship in). I like the clean sleek presentation, especially the magnetic flap that secures the cards inside, but it is still easy to open. The back of the cards are of two different colors. The main cards have a darker back while the baby unicorn and rule cards have a lighter back. The art is cute. Each unicorn card has a different unicorn that ties to the name and the effect the card has. The upgrade and downgrade cards also have a picture related to function they performed. The art is inspired by Oatmeal (and I say that as a compliment). So much so that for that longest time I thought this game was related to the Exploding Kittens card game. These cards are so much fun to look at, I ended up going through all the cards and admiring them for fifteen minutes before I even started reading the rules. The corner of each card has a color coding that lets the player know what type of card it is.

Color coded corners help in tracking cards in hand

It did not take me long to learn how to play, and even less time to teach others. There are four phases of each turn. Beginning, Draw, Play, and End. The phases really help with the rule clarity. Cards that activate at the beginning only work before the player draws from the deck. Overall vocabulary is also concise. Destroy means removing card from opponent’s stable while sacrifice is to remove a card from own stable. Same way discard mean to remove are card from hand while return means to take a card from the stable and put it back in hand. Each player draws only one card, unless they have an upgrade that allows them to draw more. They can then choose to play any of the cards in their hand. In any one turn, the player can only play one card, unless they have an upgrade or magic card that allows them to play more than one card in a single turn.

There are three types of Unicorn cards. Baby unicorn cards are the ones each player receives one of at the beginning of the game. These cards cannot be discarded. Whenever they need to be removed from the stable, they go back to the nursery. Since they cannot go into hand, their removal from the stable is permanent for the round. This means the player can not put it back in their stable in the next turn the way they would be able to with any other unicorn card. The basic unicorn cards can populate the stable, but they do not have any extra effect. They are still useful to fill the stable and complete the win condition. The magic unicorns is where the game shines. They have an effect tied to it. Most of the times this is activated every time the card enters the stable. And it can range from protection against magic to letting the player pick out more cards from the deck.

The magic card is a one-use item. The player plays the card, the effect is activated, and the card is then discarded. The Neigh card can be used to negate the effect whenever it is played. In that case, both Neigh card as well as the Magic card goes to the Dicard pile.

The upgrade cards allow the player an advantage. Most of the time the player decides if they want to activate is in their turn. The only catch is they can only be activated at the beginning of the turn. If the player draws a card, they can no longer use the upgrade card. They can also be used as many times as the player wants since they are not removed from the stable until the opponent destroys it or the player sacrifices it.

The downgrade cards do not activate when they are played either. Instead, they only come into play when the player turn starts. There are only two ways to get rid of a downgrade card. Player can either play a card that allows them to remove all the downgrades from their stable, or they can use it as a sacrifice for a different card. It is almost always a good idea to place it in another player’s stable. The only situation where I found it useful to put it in my own stable was when I had planned to sacrifice it for something on my next turn. Even in that case a card the only activates in certain situations is the way to go. The one I ended up using would only activate when there were four unicorns in my stable. Since I ended up sacrificing it well before it happened, it did not come with a penalty for me.

Once the player has put a card down, or chosen not to put anything down, they can end their turn by discarding any extra cards, so they have no more than seven in the hand. The turns continue until one person gets 7 unicorns in the stable of the deck runs out. If the deck runs out first, then whoever has the highest number of unicorns in their stable wins. Each round lasts about 30 minutes. At the beginning the players don’t know the effects on each card which adds more time. The more we played, we got more familiar with the cards and the game moved smoother.

Certain cards are removed when playing with two players to balance the game better. Those become part of the deck again when there are three or more players. In the limited number of rounds I played the game scaled well. The two player as well as three player rounds were equally fun. I would like to play with even more players to see how well it works.

There are expansion cards sold separately. These add new effects. The ones I saw came with a model of a unicorn and one card. I would like to see an expansion deck that has multiple cards. I would be more likely to buy that as opposed to single cards.

Overall, the game is short and fun. It does not require a large space to set up and play and easy to carry around. All of that makes it a good game to carry around. Not that we have anywhere to go at this time, but it would be a great choice to take on the go when that becomes a possibility. The two player setup takes a little longer because some of the cards need to be separated out, but other than a minor hassle it took almost no time for us to set up and play. I can see this becoming our next casual card game.