Progress Towards Perfection

Author: Sam

  • Terraforming Mars

    Terraforming Mars

    Do you ever go into a game with really mixed feelings? It’s not rare. What about coming out the other side still with really conflicted thoughts on the game? That’s my experience with Terraforming Mars.

    Terraforming Mars is a game from Stronghold Games which sees players working to make the red planet hospitable. That makes it sound like a co-op but it’s not, although you all have the shared goal of increasing the three essential meters to reach that target (increase the oxygen level, increase the temperature, increase the amount of water on the planet) the winner at the end will be the player who has scored the most points. Points are scored in a number of ways between raising the previously mentioned meters, building forests on the surface of the planet, building cities, through a selection of awards and milestones, and through cards in your tableau.

    The way you get cards is a bit unique and not something I’ve really encountered in any other games. At the start of each round, or generation, you are given 4 cards from the deck. You can then pay 3 megacredits for each one you wish to keep, the rest get discarded. It’s kinda interesting in that it means rather than just getting new cards in your hand you have to consider the cost to play each card in your hand is basically increased by 3. I’m not entirely sure that this added much to the game but it was kinda interesting at least.

    So let’s start with the positives. The theme is awesome, I really like that practically every card in the game is grounded in some kind of real science that could be used for potentially making an alien planet hospitable. I’ve seen a lot of complaints online that the art is rubbish and though there’s little that is going to jump out at you I actually found it pretty average, certainly not problematic.

    The gameplay itself was a lot stronger than I had expected based on reviews and reading the rules. I really, really enjoyed the puzzle that it put in front of me and although there was pretty much zero player interaction this was absolutely fine with me as I was quite enjoying trying to build my own little engine. I came in expecting a solid but not very interesting euro and instead found myself really falling in love with the game.

    Sadly the discussion doesn’t end quite there as this is a game that I don’t think I will ever play again. I don’t have a problem with take-that effects in games, I own plenty of games that have a lot of that style of gameplay in them and when it’s done in the right place that’s fine. Getting two-thirds of the way into a very long game that thus far had featured zero interaction between players it really sucked when all of a sudden I got targeted with take-that cards by two consecutive players which eliminated my already struggling engine and eliminated me from the game for all intents and purposes. I certainly was grumpy about this and vocal in my dissatisfaction with the situation but despite all my wishes I remained at the table and finished the game although frankly, I was ready to pack my stuff away at that point and be done with the experience.

    I try to be a decent person to play games with. I didn’t want to be an asshole in the situation but in a game where I had already struggled for the entirety of the game and was already headed towards finishing in last place it felt like what effort I had put in immediately was wasted and the last 3 hours of my evening totally ruined. Dramatic? Perhaps, but those are my feelings and I feel them legitimate. This being my only play and having not looked through the deck of cards outside of play I can’t be certain but it feels like I kept getting a really unfortunate draw as during the entire game I only saw one card that raised my production of any resource other than plants. Whilst other players were able to have their resource production on money, steel, titanium etc all going up I was floundering with an engine that was producing plants and nothing else. So when those plants all got wiped out I was pretty pissed off, yeah.

    Is this a case of using one game of less-than-ideal card draw and being targetted by other players entirely put me off a game? Yes, totally, but I don’t want to risk spending another three hours of my time at some point for a similar experience when I have access to so many other board games that I want to play more often.

    The owner of the copy I was playing has since pointed me towards a BGG thread where the game’s designer has suggested taking them out if they cause a problem. That leads me to question why they are included in the first place? He mentions that they were included as a catch-up mechanic and something that was wanted by the publishers. If they really are meant to function as a catch-up mechanic then they seem a pretty shoddy attempt as the cost of playing a lot of the take-that cards (largely asteroids) are amongst the most expensive cards in the game.

    The one other complaint I have against the game is less about the game and more about the product. The production quality, for a game that retails at this price, is not acceptable at all. The cards are fine but certainly not the best card stock I’ve ever played with. The resource/economy cubes look very nice but were already flaking paint and had damage to the corners when we started our first play of this unpunched copy. The real gripe is the player boards though which are absolutely terrible. The flimsiest of card stock upon which you are expected to balance anywhere between 10 and 50+ resource cubes in a manner where the slightest knock is going to leave you and the other players completely unsure of where your various production values and quantities were. I’ve seen a few third-party solutions for sale but why was this a problem in the first place in a game with such a high cost and relatively little physical content inside the box?

    Would I recommend Terraforming Mars? Yes, absolutely. The game is so much better than it looks but there is definitely the potential for a really negative feel-bad experience and that is something you should be aware of. Would I pay for it? No, not full price at least.

    There may be a chance that I would come back to this game again one day and find that this was just one bad experience but why take the risk when I have a ton of games on my shelf or in my friends’ collections which I know will provide a satisfying experience without the risk? Nice idea, awesome theme, just a shame about the small number of issues which were enough to put me off entirely.

  • Reduced Sugar Diet and Intermittent Fasting

    Reduced Sugar Diet and Intermittent Fasting

    Growing up I always had a ridiculous metabolism. I was the lanky streak of nothing at school, I could eat anything I wanted and it never made a difference. Hell, there were times where I attempted to put on weight as I disliked the way I looked but I just could not do it.

    I’m a really relaxed person when it comes to body shapes. I don’t care if someone is thin or fat as long as they are happy, but the one thing that always annoyed me is people that complained about their weight as if they didn’t have some form of control over it. Yeah, there are exceptions to this but, in general, we can all control our own weight through our diet and our activities. The thing that always confused me was overweight people who were unhappy about it yet did nothing. You don’t become fat overnight so you get plenty of warning signs along the way to do something about it if you so wish. If you choose not to that is fine but don’t then moan about it.

    So over the last 18 months or so I’ve put on a decent amount of weight, particularly since I finished work in September of last year to be a stay-at-home dad for ten months (best thing I’ve ever done by the way). That has inspired some changes in my diet but perhaps the biggest inspiration has been my joint pain.

    Ever since having a very large growth spurt as a kid I have had issues with my knees. I’ve been in and out of physiotherapy, I’ve spent large periods of life wearing knee supports to try and ease the pain, I’ve spent time stood in motorway slip roads when the pain from prolonged driving has gotten too much. My GP told me “If you make it to 50 without having at least one knee replaced it would be a miracle”. The last two months especially the pain has become really bad, every car journey is painful and followed by a period of stiffness (fnar), each time I kneel down to pick up Lizzie it hurts, and every time I get up off the sofa or out of bed I strain.

    A football blogger I follow mentioned recently that he had spent the last 4 months on a sugar-free diet and was talking about all the health benefits. I did a bit of reading and discovered that one of the big benefits of cutting sugar from your diet is supposedly a reduction in joint pain for those suffering from arthritis and other similar issues. So I decided to take a shot to see if it could help kick start my metabolism and give me some relief from the pain in my knees.

    I’m 7 days in at present and so far it’s actually been pretty easy. The first two days of cutting sugar out caused some really horrible headaches but I woke up on the fourth day feeling really good. I’ve not removed sugar entirely from my diet but I’ve removed all artificially added sugars so it’s only natural sugar from fruit in my diet. There are a few items I’ve been eating this week which still contain some small amounts of added sugar with the main one being bread. I’ve switched from normal white bread to an extremely low sugar seeded bread and my daily diet is now taking in roughly 3-4% of the recommended daily allowance of sugar.

    There have been occasional cravings but mostly for sweet drinks. The desire for a cold milkshake on the hotter days was quite strong. Last night after a dinner of chicken breast in a tomato sauce with new potatoes I did have a brief craving for some kind of sweet dessert but that quickly passed.

    So in terms of food, it’s been a process of removing as much sugar from my diet as possible with an emphasis on added sugars. There’s also a bit of portion control going on in reducing the size of meals and reducing snacking during the day. This week I’ve mostly stuck to breakfast between 10 am and midday, a small snack around 3 pm and then a meal between 6-7pm.

    That leads on to the other part of this process, intermittent fasting. The goal with intermittent fasting is to reduce the period of time during the day that you take in food so that your body has longer to digest those foods and also to reduce the amount of night-time eating you do. At the minute I’m aiming to reach a point where I do all my eating for the day between 11am and 7pm. As I write this it is currently 11:26 am and I last ate at 8:39 pm last night. That means I’ve been fasting for almost 15 hours and I honestly don’t feel hungry at all as yet.

    Over the past 7 days I have fasted for 80 hours and 35 minutes with only 1 hour of eating after sunset each day. This is a big improvement as I used to be a big snack eater and would almost always have something edible to hand throughout the day from getting up at around 6 am through until going to sleep around 1 am. I was especially bad at eating my main meal of the day very late in the night, usually between 10-11 pm.

    As I see all of this as an exercise in personal control rather than a strict diet I don’t feel under any pressure at all and I think once I’m settled in properly I may consider being a little less strict on weekends to allow for some treats but for now I’m actually quite happy as I am. The one thing that is a little hard is that my two favourite foods are pasta and pizza both of which are, in general, pretty high in added sugar. I have also heard there is a good range of sugar-free ice creams available but so far a search through some of the local supermarkets has found nothing. It’s all good though as this is a good excuse to further my recent attempts at learning to cook and make more meals.

    So the big question I suppose should be how much weight have I lost in this first week? Well, the truth is that I do not have a clue. We don’t own a set of scales in the house. I feel good though and that’s what really matters. I’m happy with myself for sticking to it so far, I don’t particularly crave anything that I’ve removed from my diet. My knees so far don’t feel much better but I wouldn’t expect that to be an immediate change, it will be worth coming back in a month or two to see if that has improved.

  • The 13th Doctor

    The 13th Doctor

    So I’m a bit of an opinionated asshole. It’s quite subtle but it’s a facet of my character that you may have picked up on. I used to blog quite a lot as a way of venting my frustrations and putting my thoughts down into words. That’s something I would like to get back to doing so we find ourselves here.

    THERE’S A BLOODY FEMALE DOCTOR! THE SKY IS LITERALLY FALLING! IT’S ALL OVER!
    *cough*

    The internet went into meltdown Sunday afternoon as the BBC revealed that the 13th Doctor would be played by Jodie Whittaker. It’s a move that I personally applaud and really support but it’s pretty clear that isn’t the opinion of everybody. In fact, some folks have (rather predictably) reacted in what can at best be described as apocalyptic fashion. There are loud proclamations of never watching the show again, statements that this is all part of some ongoing gender war from “feminazis”, or that it’s POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD™!

    Let me start by quickly addressing my history with Doctor Who. I can remember watching repeats on TV as a kid and always finding the title sequence really quite scary. I’m not going to fashionably claim to have been a massive fan because in truth I wasn’t, but I did watch a fair bit. Fast forward to the return of the show in 2005, I can remember being sat in the pub where my then girlfriend worked watching Rose on the tv following a football match (I think this is correct anyway). I remember finding it mildly interesting but not being drawn to watch another episode and so I didn’t until 14th April 2007. Whilst at someone else’s house the episode Gridlock was being broadcast and I ended up watching it and quite enjoying it, this led me to go back and catch up on what I had missed since 2005.

    I became rabid and took in all that I could, then with everything seen I started seeking out classic episodes. Whilst I can’t claim to have watched every episode available I feel I’ve seen a good amount of the show’s history and by now was considering myself quite a devoted fan. I continued watching each episode as it came and continued being a very vocal fan of the show through the podcast I was hosting at the time.

    I could now stop and explain how my enjoyment of the show began to take a serious downward path during series 6 but Moffatt bashing is boring and perhaps best saved for another time. What matters is that I found myself less excited, no longer rushing to see new episodes and, instead, watching them at some point later in the week. I feel it relevant to mention this as I know I am not alone. The show’s viewership and place amongst casual fans have clearly dropped during the Moffatt period, it could be argued that this should be expected of any show after a 10+ year period but even the most ardent of Moffatt-supporters would be hard pressed to deny that he has a number of shortcomings and issues as a showrunner.

    Through series 9, in particular, I found myself really dissatisfied and pretty much done with following the show closely. Series 10 has just finished broadcasting and despite having the one truly standout episode (World Enough and Time) it was a season of very average and not particularly moving episodes (with exception to the terrible three parter in the middle). The show needs new blood and a strong injection of life.

    A new writer in Chris Chibnall is coming for series 11 and though I really enjoyed his work on Broadchurch it should also be remembered that he is responsible for Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. I am optimistic of a new writer and I like that he reportedly went in and told the BBC that the show needed radical changes if he was to take the job. I like this and it makes me want to tune in for his first series but there’s something that makes me wants to tune in even more.

    JODIE WHITTAKER

    I won’t sit here and claim to be her biggest lifelong fan but I loved her work on Broadchurch and also thought she was brilliant in both Venus (a seriously underseen British movie) and the Black Mirror episode The Entire History of You. In the three roles I just mentioned she has shown emotional depth, the ability to inhabit a role comfortably and most importantly to connect with me as a viewer.

    But it’s not her acting that matters is it? There’s only one thing that really matters in all this. She’s a woman.

    Now I don’t want to claim that every person who is against this casting is a sexist or a misogynist because that’s reductive and doesn’t really help in anyway. Do I think there is a proportion of people who are against it for those reasons? Hell yes I do. Those people are a waste of time addressing though so why even bother. Instead I want to address the folks that are against this decision for other reasons.

    Basically, I don’t get it. I genuinely do not understand why it is a problem on any level. If people were seeing her name and then expressing their disappointment based on her previous work I would be fine with that, we all have opinions on what actors we like or dislike, but that’s not what is happening here. Instead we are seeing people using her gender as the reason for their dislike and I just do not get it.

    I could sit here and type up a load of things from the canon of the show that demonstrate how this was always a possibility for The Doctor but that’s been done in plenty of other places. However I do seriously wonder how a character who is renowned for changing every facet of his appearance and personality is somehow precious to his gender. If I were to list the things that define The Doctor to me gender is not essential to any of those.

    Anyway, I want to understand why this is a problem. James McClean from BeyondKasterborous made a statement that some people may be attached to the character as a male in the same way that other viewers may be attached to the TARDIS appearing as a Police Box. I spent a bit of time considering that and though I see the point I’m not entirely sure the two things equate for me.

    What matters to me going into series 11 is that we get good writing from Chibnall and his team alongside good acting from Whittaker and whomever she gets paired with. That’s what is really going to decide whether this works or not. Until series 11 is done and we can sit back and take a critical and informed view of the product it’s pointless sitting here and shouting about it.

    It also should be noted that the above works both ways. It’s equally important that those of us who are pro-Whittaker are not already declaring it a success without seeing the finished product.

    As for statements such as “This show clearly doesn’t want me as a viewer” or “How can I identify with The Doctor anymore?” I have to be brutally honest in saying I can’t take this crap seriously. I could make a long list of female fictional characters who I consider to be good, identifiable role models where their gender isn’t particularly relevant to the things that make them such.

    I have very mixed views on how the change should be addressed on screen. I think directly addressing sexism and reactions could be a walking on eggshells type affair. There’s potential for some very strong story there but it will require a very competent writer and I think I’d prefer we end up with a more neutral approach where the show doesn’t really feel the need to address gender as important. The reason for that is that gender is not important. This shouldn’t be news to any adult but the differences between men and women (excluding the obvious physical ones) are purely social constructs and something we need to start moving beyond.

    So in summary I am hopeful. I am looking forward to the show. I am glad to see progression. I am a little happy to see upset man babies. Most of all though I just want to enjoy the show again and if that means it stars a female Doctor then I am all for that.