Whalefall by Daniel Kraus came into my life via a skeet (a Bluesky post, for those who are unfamiliar with the term) by Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of Wingspan. It basically said “I put Whalefall on my holds list, then by the time it was available, I forgot why I wanted to read it. Going in blind is highly recommended for this book”. So I popped over to my library app, put the book on hold, and didn’t read a single word more about it.
Holy cow, what a great way to experience Whalefall. If you’ve liked my other book reviews, give this one a shot blind. It’s worth it.
For those who don’t heed that advice, here’s the rest of the review.
Whalefall is a scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who gets swallowed whole by a sperm whale. Bam, there it is. What a hook.
The book focuses on Jay Gardiner. Jay’s father was a local legend, the dive master. The ground he walked on was worshipped by anyone who knew anything about diving. His father, desperate to connect with his son, dragged him out on dive after dive after dive throughout the course of his childhood, and force-fed his expertise down his throat like a scuba diver foie gras. Naturally, this caused a bit of resentment between Jay and his father, and he left on less than good terms as soon as Jay was able to do so.
Jay returns to his hometown after his fathers’ death. He’s tired of local divers spitting at his feet. All they know is that Jay abandoned his father, the god of diving. Jay must be an insolent, disrespectful whelp to walk away from their hero. To prove his worth to the local diving community, and to himself, he’s taken it upon himself to recover his father’s remains from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Once he’s successfully past the waves and submerged in the icy waters, he begins his search. He quickly comes across a giant squid! It’s remarkable, squids never come up to this depth, unless, they’re being hunted. A sperm whale emerges from the darkness, and sucks both the squid, and Jay into it’s gaping maw, whole.
What follows is Jay’s fight for survival. He moves his way back and forth from the whale’s stomachs, suffers untold traumas, all while hearing the whale’s (or his fathers) voice inside his head, offering nuggets of wisdom, and urging Jay to use his knowledge to escape before his oxygen runs out.
Now, here’s the thing. I come from a landlocked province, small town boy, raised by a single mother. I have no experience with diving, no reverence for the ocean, and no real complex feelings towards a father. And yet, despite having virtually no personal connection to this tale at all, I was utterly enthralled. The story bounces back and forth from Jay’s fight for survival, to memories of his childhood.
Whalefall can be summarized as “Daddy issues inside a whale”, and that wouldn’t be an entirely unfair summary. But it really misses the absolutely thrilling nature of the story. The story of Jay’s fight for survival is gruesome, exciting, and gripping. I was so caught up in suspense that I literally almost burned my family’s dinner because I got pulled into reading ‘just one more chapter’ as the meat cooked in my frying pan. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.
Daniel Kraus has produced an absolutely enthralling tale, and one that I recommend without hesitation. I loved the detailed descriptions of what it might actually be like in the inside of a whale, from the gritty floor of squid beaks to the existence of four stomachs. It’s obvious that Kraus has done his homework, and I look forward to reading more of his novels. And, the cover is awesome. I’d hang a poster of that in my room.
When I think of Bonsai, the very first thing that comes to mind is Mr. Miyagi from the movie ‘The Karate Kid’. A Japanese Karate master, quietly pruning his little tree, and eventually the bonsai becomes a lesson for Daniel about inner peace.
Daniel: “But how do I know if my picture’s the right one?” Miyagi: “If come from inside you, always right one.” Also: “Close your eyes, concentrate. Think only tree…”
Bonsai, the Japanese art of tray planting, has a long and storied history. It’s culturally significant with thousands of years of development, but put simply, it’s the art of growing a plant in a pot, and carefully sculpting the tree as it grows to achieve a specific aesthetic. Now, I’m no arborist. Most of the plants that come into my possession end up worse for wear, which is why I turn to board games to satisfy my plant growing desires.
Designed by Rosaria Battiato, Massimo Borzì, and Martino Chiacchiera, Bonsai is a tile placement game for 1 to 4 players. Bonsai starts each player with a pot with a single wood hex buried in the dirt. A small deck of cards sits on the left side of a small board, then 3 cards are turned face up. Each turn consists of a player either taking a card from the board, potentially also taking plant tiles, depending on what slot that card was in, or to take the tiles from their supply and place them on their tree. Game play continues until the deck runs out, scores are calculated, and the player with the most points is the winner!
One of the nasty hooks of Bonsai is that at the start of each game, 3 public objectives are laid out, with 3 levels of accomplishment. These objectives are things like “have 6, 9, 12 wood tiles on your bonsai”, and the restriction is that the moment a player achieves an objective, they have to choose to either claim the achievement, or renounce it. If claimed, it’s worth end game points, but they are now ineligible for any of the higher achievements. And of course, once an objective is claimed by a player, no other player may claim the same objective.
This aspect gives Bonsai some teeth, players need to make the tough decision to renounce an objective and risk someone jumping ahead and claiming the top objective right out from under you.
Other than that, Bonsai is a tranquil game. Tiles come in and out from your supply, the cards you pull increase the number of tiles you can put out at a time, the number of tiles you can hold, and offer more endgame victory points. No one can affect your tree, nor can they steal the tiles you’ve already collected. The most interaction in the game comes from someone sniping the card you were hoping to take the next turn, or claiming an objective a turn before you were going to.
Bonsai is a short and sweet game. Barely any hard feelings between competitors, which makes it a great game for date night, or with players who are conflict averse. Bonsai isn’t complex, nor does it ask a lot of your brain. It’s a simple game, perfect to play after a long day of work, and at the end of the short game each player is treated to a beautiful and unique tree, adorned with a multitude of flowers and blossoms.
Disclaimer: A copy of Mean 13 was provided by Sticky 13 Games for review purposes.
Mean 13 is quite the departure from the games that I usually cover on this blog, as I tend to focus on mid to heavyweight euro hobby board games. Mean 13 is not that, in fact, Mean 13 doesn’t even have a BGG page! Instead, it’s a twist on bingo, designed not to test your tactical or strategic mind, but to spark laughter amongst family and friends.
In Mean 13, each player gets dealt a tableau of 13 face-up cards, numbered 1 to 13 in four different colours. Players are also dealt 8 secret ‘mean cards.’ Each round, the dealer flips over the top card of the call deck, and if any of your tableau cards match the number and colour, you flip them over. The first person to flip all their cards wins.
The mean cards can be played at any time, and have different effects, from flipping your own cards face down, swapping cards with an opponent (ideally one of your face up cards for one of their face down cards), reshuffling the call deck, or cancelling the last mean card played. And that’s the whole game. There are some variants, like removing cards numbered 9-13 to shorten the game, or playing with fewer or no mean cards if you want a more friendly version.
So yeah, it’s Bingo with a twist. It’s simple, straightforward, and anyone can play— and I don’t mean that in a bad way. What I’m really getting at is that this game is perfect for playing with people who don’t want to deal with a bunch of (or really any) complicated rules.
There are plenty of occasions where Mean 13 would shine. I played a friendly game with my (almost) 4-year-old daughter, and she had a blast matching colours and numbers. I could see this being a hit at bars and pubs, which seems to be what the developers had in mind, as the cards are plastic and waterproof. It’d also be perfect for big family gatherings, like Christmas or Thanksgiving.
If you enjoy games like Uno or Munchkin, you’ll probably have fun with Mean 13. While it might not make it to the table with my regular gaming group, I can see it finding a place in many people’s lives, on tables surrounded by friends and drinks.
Disclaimer: A copy of Kinfire Delve: Vainglory’s Grotto was provided by Incredible Dream for review purposes.
Last time I talked about Kinfire Delve, I focused on the Scorn’s Stockade box, as I arbitrarily chose that box to be my introduction to the series. This time, I’m going back to the box that was released first, Vainglory’s Grotto, and taking this dive with the self-sacrificing Khor, and the Opportunist Asha.
Nothing about the core system has changed from box to box. This is still an endurance run down a deck of cards, tackling challenges one at a time until the well deck is exhausted, then completing the final gauntlet to overcome the boss, Vainglory. The gameplay still has players choosing cards from their hand matching the colour of the challenge, getting boosts from the other players, again, matching the colour of the challenge, and rolling dice in an effort to meet or exceed the difficulty of each challenge, and taking the rewards and punishments as you succeed and fail.
What is different is the theme of the game. Scorn’s Stockade was a body horror filled dungeon, with grotesque monstrosities in chains and bars. Obelisks, towers, and other prison themes permeated the art and flavour text of the cards, while Vainglory’s Grotto is more of a macabe symphony. The nightmare of someone who’s spent too much time at the opera. The art features unsettling beauty all around, like a slender lady in a red dress with a large blue rose obscuring most of her face, with only the top of a skull peeking out, and long daggers for fingers, or the marionette, which are a pair of ballerina legs disappearing into a cloud of ethereal roses. Beauty and horror mixed to create the feeling of high culture corrupted.
Vainglory’s Grotto two characters complimented each other quite well. Khor’s ability sucked up wounds, allowing him to take potshots at challenges and purposefully fail them, knowing he could absorb the punishment, then Asha’s ability added free progress to any challenge that already had progress on it. They worked well together, and the fact they synergized so well is likely part of the reason Vainglory’s Grotto feels much easier than Scorn’s Stockade. It helps that the Vainglory herself being nearly trivial if you manage to get to the bottom of the well with no cards attached to her. And even with cards attached, they’re more of a minor inconvenience, less of a show-stopping problem.
All that said, I can tell that Vainglory’s Grotto is the ‘first’ of the series. The card effects are a bit more muted and tame when compared directly to Scorn’s Stockade. Vainglory’s Grotto feels like a rock-solid, but safe first game, where Scorn’s Stockade saw designer Kevin Wilson having more fun with the system, seeing which ways the system could stretch and flex. It is less interesting, but only when directly comparing to its follow-up. That said, the entire time I was playing Vainglory’s Grotto, I couldn’t help but see the synergies that Asha and Khor would have with Naz and Feyn. I’m so excited to mix the character pairings to see how they play off each other and create a wholly different feeling game.
If you’re coming into Kinfire Delve as a new player, this is the box to start with. As an experienced player, It’s worth coming back to. The well cards themselves are less interesting than the successor, but the characters included here are unique and fun. I’m really looking forward to mixing them with the other heroes and seeing how they fare against the other challenges. Or use Vainglory as a testing ground while playing a new hero combination for the first time, so I have a safe space to see what makes them tick!
Last week I wrote about one of my favourite cooperative games, Burgle Bros by Tim Fowers. This week, I want to talk about the follow-up, Burgle Bros. 2: Casino Capers.
Burgle Bros. 2: Casino Capers retains a lot of what made Burgle Bros great, but also directly addresses some of the criticisms. In Burgle Bros. 2: Casino Capers, there’s only 2 floors instead of the default 3. The guards now always move 3 spaces during each of their activations, and when their deck runs out, they enter ‘hunt mode’, where they target characters specifically. The is now only one safe in the game, and in order to get dice on the safe, players need to seek out the moles, then move the dice from the Owner’s Office on the first floor up to the safe on the second floor, making it valuable and necessary to have characters on both floors.
Speaking of moles, there’s 16 poker chips littering both floors that provide a variety of effects. Some of those chips will be the aforementioned moles, but some will contain crowds, giving you a space to lie low from oncoming guards. Some chips like the drunk and saleswomen only take effect when you move onto the tile without peeking first, and with either send you flying into the next tile, or hold you hostage until someone rescues you. Similarly, the prima donna and undercover tokens only trigger when you peek into the tile, and will either pull you or the guard onto the tile you just peeked at.
The characters have changed too, now, each character has 3 gear cards that require an action to be prepped, but offer different effects. Some can be used multiple times, while others have a more powerful one time use. This makes each of the characters more varied flexible, which is an amazing change to the game. I’m much more likely to use a character multiple times in a row to see what kind of situations they can get out of, instead of just picking the hacker for every game like I used to.
The real big change is how players win the game. Once the safe is revealed on the second floor, all the tiles in the X and Y axis are revealed, the moles have sent their dice to the owners’ office on the first floor, AND someone has shifted the dice from the owners’ office to the safe, then a player can spend an action to roll all the dice to try and crack the safe. Every roll does send one die back to the owners’ office, giving a reason for some players to hang out on the first floor. Once the safe is cracked, the finale begins. Burgle Bros. 2 includes 8 finales, each one giving out specific instructions on how to win the game. In one, you need to find two Prima donnas and escape without a bouncer catching sight of them. In another, the safe contained a car that you can use to blow through walls, pick up your co-conspirators, then blast out the second story window. Players don’t know how to win the game until the safe is cracked, which adds a real exciting twist to the late stages of the game.
I’m of two minds for Burgle Bros. 2. On one hand, I dig the new tiles, the new heat system, the flexibility of each character’s gear card, it’s all great improvements on the base system, which was already rock solid. What I don’t like are the poker chips littered about the board. Half of them trigger when moved onto, while the other half trigger when peeked at, and cause just a bit more mayhem than I prefer. For a game as tight as Burgle Bros, the added randomness and risk just makes my buttocks clench.
Another complaint is the bigger box. Burgle Bros. 2 has this amazingly fancy insert and comes with plastic legs that you can jam into the corners of the box to create a 3D space. That second floor is now actually above the first one! While this creates an amazing visual, it’s not terribly functional. During our plays, we found it hard to see all the tiles on the first floor, and had to be ducking often to make sure we were reading the small text correctly, which was made more difficult from the shadow of the box looming over the tiles. Eventually, we chose to go back to the way that Burgle Bros managed multiple floors, just having them side by side. I applaud the efforts of the box design, even if that aspect ultimately was a miss.
I think the conclusion is thus: If you liked Burgle Bros, you’ll probably like Burgle Bros. 2. Maybe more so, if you enjoy the flexibility of the gear cards, and enjoy the tension that the randomness of the poker chips introduces. But if that randomness gets under your skin, Burgle Bros. 2 won’t be an improvement for you. Personally, the theme is better implements in this sequel, and the variety of the finales has hooked me and keeps me reaching for Burgle Bros. 2 over its beloved predecessor. I would never turn down a game of either, but given the choice, at the moment I prefer to play Burgle Bros. 2. We’ll have to wait and see if it can manage to stand the test of time.
