Originally Written June 2000

Hera & Zeus is a two-person card game designed by Richard Borg, who won the coveted Spiel des Jahres in 1993 for Bluff. The title of the game should be a highly suggestive give-away of the concept which is being put into play: Hera and Zeus are feuding, and this time things have gotten serious – hostages have been taken, and the Gods, Demigods, and Heroes have divided their loyalties between them.

Each player receives a specialized deck: One for Hera and one for Zeus. Both decks are functionally identical, although there is a degree of customization in terms of the fluff text which surrounds each card’s functionality. (For example, Hera’s player has Artemis and their Attack 6 cards, while Zeus’ player has Apollo for their Attack 6 cards.)

Play proceeds in turns, with a set of elegantly designed mechanics guiding each player as they commit their forces to a tightly defined playing field. These forces challenge each other, with each player attempting to accomplish one of two goals: Either wiping out of the other player’s forces (by clearing all of his cards off the playing field), or rescuing their designated hostage in a Stratego-esque fashion by challenging the concealed hostage card (Zeus holds Argus hostage, while Hera holds Io).

The simple-yet-dynamic basic mechanics of the game are given an added luster through the use of special Mythology Cards which possess special powers. For example, challenging a Medusa card with anything other than an Amazon or Hero causes you to defeat yourself. Borg has crafted a set of rules which allow for a number of successful strategies – which is always a sign that a game is not only enjoyable in the short term, but is possessed of an endurance which will make it enjoyable time and time again.

My only quibble with an otherwise excellent design is the decision to print the special rules for the mythology cards on two reference cards (one for each player), rather than directly on the cards themselves. On the other hand, by keeping the cards clear of all but the most basic reference text, the package is far more attractive and appealing – and the special rules are simple and few enough that you quickly assimilate them with ease.

Hera & Zeus comes highly recommended by this reviewer.

Components: Two decks of cards; two wooden counters; two reference cards; rulebook

 Grade: A-

This review was originally written for Games Unplugged, but I can’t find any record of it actually being published. So this may be the first time anyone has had the chance to read it.

Back around the time this was written, I used to play a lot of two-player board games. My ex-girlfriend and I would play them, and I had several other friends I would also get together and play with this. I remember this one being a lot of fun and it did, as I wrote in the review, have a lot of rewarding replayability. It’s been years and years now since I took it off the shelf, but that’s largely because I don’t play two-player board games any more: My wife and I spend our one-on-one time on other activities, largely because a lot of our other social time is spent playing other board games in larger groups.

Originally Published in Games Unplugged – March 2001

The latest release of Cosmic Encounter by Avalon Hill marks roughly the third incarnation of this game (depending on how one counts such things). Originally developed by Eon Games it was subsequently distributed briefly by West End Games and Games Workshop before ending up with Mayfair Games, and then disappearing with that company’s demise a few years back.

Despite its somewhat rocky history, the game has established itself as a classic – arguably the best boardgame ever designed.

The concept: You play an alien race which is attempting to invade the home worlds of the other players and establish colonies there. You do so by sending ships from your homeworlds to attack the homeworlds of other players. You can also ally (and have other players ally with you) during these attacks. The more ships you risk on attacks, the fewer you have to defend your own planets.

The catch: Each alien race has a special power – allowing them to break the rules of the game in a specific fashion. This simple twist gives rise to a complex variety in the strategic and tactical gameplay of Cosmic Encounter – all arising out of a simple, elegant set of rules. Cosmic Encounter is easy to learn, but you will most likely never discover all of its subtleties.

The beauty: This latest version of Cosmic Encounter is simply beautiful. The gameplay, which has always been rock solid, has been coupled with some absolutely gorgeous physical design.

Some reservations: This basic set only supports four players and twenty alien powers (compared with the Mayfair version, which supported six players out of the box and forty-eight alien powers). That being said, Cosmic Encounter has always been a game which invites the possibility of expansion – not just for including more players, but also new aliens, new powers, and new rules. Indeed, the original Eon Games version had nine expansion sets, while the Mayfair Games version had two. Based on my conversations with Peter Olotke and his son at GenCon this year, it is apparent that Avalon Hill has plans to release expansion sets in the future. So keep an eye out for those.

My only other reservation as far as Cosmic Encounter goes is this: There is a large piece of plastic in this game called the Mothership which you use to transport your offensive ships. After some reflection, I concluded that this large piece of plastic is not only unnecessary – it’s cumbersome. You are far better off leaving it in the box and simply using your Carriers – which are designed for carrying your allying ships – for both attacks and allying. Doing so simplified and sped up gameplay in my experience. As complaints go, of course, this one is fairly minor.

The verdict: Cosmic Encounter is a classic, and this version could easily become its greatest incarnation. Whether you’re a new player or old, you should definitely check this one out.

Grade: A+

Authors: Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Bill Norton, and Peter Olotka
Company: Avalon Hill/Hasbro
Price: $40.00

The current edition of Cosmic Encounters is published by Fantasy Flight Games. It remains a classic. I still love the aesthetics of the Avalon Hill edition, although a haze of nostalgia and the memories of many great game nights with friends and family may be coloring that assessment, but there’s little question that the FFG version is superior, including more alien options out of the box, plus a plethora of expansions.

Truth be told, though, I haven’t played Cosmic Encounters in years. I still think it’s a ton of fun, but it seems to be pretty easily get edged out by other options these days.

If you’re a geek older than forty, one of the tough/weird adjustments you’ve had to make in your life is that there was a point where you could reasonably expect to at least sample every significant geek media release…

… and then you couldn’t.

In the ‘90s, for example, I could reasonably expect to watch every science fiction TV show and play every geeky board game.

Today you could dedicate every waking moment of your life and you still wouldn’t be able to do either of those things.

And this extends to movies, roleplaying games, video games… All of it.

At first you think, “I’m just getting old. If I was still young, I could stay on top of all this.”

But that ain’t it.

I lived through the transitions from “there are three channels on your dial” to cable television to the modern fire hydrant of content. Having a local channel become a Fox affiliate — a fourth network! whoa! — was a significant event in my life.

We talk about the “last Renaissance man” — the point at which it was no longer possible for a single person to meaningfully master all fields of human study. In the last forty years, we’ve passed a similar threshold in media.

Looking back across that watershed, an important thing to understand is that, because it was possible, there was a cultural pressure to actually do it. To be part of the geek scene, you needed to know — wanted to know! — the shibboleths.

Pre-1970ish, SF fans could read every major SF novel.

Pre-2005ish, SF fans could watch every major SF TV series.

But, like the proverbial lobster, we have been imperceptibly transitioned into a reality where that’s NOT possible. And, just like the lobster, this creates a lot of stress.

Some of it is self-imposed.

Some of it is external.

“You haven’t watched [insert show here]? I guess you’re not a real fan!”

The scene then fractures.

I can’t learn all of those shibboleths, so I’m going to focus on one specific slice of geek media and learn THOSE shibboleths: So anime becomes its own, increasingly separate fandom. And then there’s so much anime that it, too, fractures into sub-fandoms.

When this fracturing takes the form of excluding rather than focusing, it can turn toxic. This is usually draped in conspiracy rhetoric and/or bigotry: Women or black people or story gamers are trying to steal our fandom!

Now we’re starting to see the emergence of mega-franchises producing so much content that it’s not just a matter of not having time to read every science fiction novel; it’s that you only really have time to engage with this ONE, all-consuming media tentpole. (And maybe squeeze a few other things in around the edges.)

This creates a bizarre paradox: We have a prolificacy of media vast beyond the bounds of comprehension; a cornucopia that would stagger the imagination of, say, an SF fan in the ‘50s.

But, simultaneously, the consumption of any single individual person is increasingly homogenous.

In the late 2010’s, how many people had 50% or 80% or 100% of their trips to the cinema be exclusively MCU films?

There are antecedents to this. From 1990-ish, for example, Star Trek and Star Wars both produced enough tie-in fiction that if you fully engaged with it you would probably read little or nothing else. There was a time when you could casually read every Marvel comic… and then you couldn’t.

It’s just becoming more common.

And this creates an interesting challenge for the megacorps driving these mega-franchises. You can push more and more of the all-in-one, all-consuming fandom… but only up to a certain point.

Once you exceed a fan’s capacity to consume everything — to learn every shibboleth — then the fandom will either radically schism (possibly toxically so) or, worse yet (for the megacorp, anyway), abandon the franchise entirely.

Dungeons & Dragons is an interesting case study here.

Pre-1984, or thereabouts, you could buy and read every single official release for the game. Starting in 1984, the number of modules being published each year was becoming onerous, but pre-1989 even a moderately devoted fan could still easily engage the major releases.

After 1989, on the other hand, AD&D 2^nd Edition’s release schedule became a firehose of content. (Even ignoring the 300+ tie-in novels and video games and comic books.) No one could keep up with it, so the fanbase schismed along natural fault lines (“I’m only going to buy Dark Sun books!”) or dropped out.

D&D 3^rd Edition and 4^th Edition tried to maintain a more sustainable pace of releases so that fans could at least afford to purchase the books, but the TYPE of material they primarily released (PC options) couldn’t be brought to the table fast enough, so fans would, once again, become saturated and then drop out. (This is the fatal flaw to using a supplement treadmill to support an RPG line.)

D&D 5^th Edition, on the other hand, initially dialed back the pace of releases and focused more heavily on adventure material (which is more consumable; you play the adventure and then you need a new adventure). The result is that even casual fans didn’t feel disconnected from the shibboleths or incapable of consuming the content: “Strahd” and “Dragon Heist” and “Auril” and “Baldur’s Gate” were all recognizable references to the vast majority of the fandom.

In the last couple of years, however, the pace of D&D 5^th Edition releases has increased, the shibboleths are beginning to slip, and there are clear signs that the fanbase is fracturing. (Which is probably not great news going into a new edition.)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is having a similar problem: Yes, the slip in quality (precipitated by a brain drain of all the major creators) is a contributing factor, but the more fundamental systemic problem is that the amount of material being released increased to a point where even people who wanted to keep up with it all couldn’t. The result? Fans, particularly casual fans, started checking out.

And, as the MCU demonstrates, the more you create the impression that “everything is important” and that a fan needs to “watch everything” in order to keep up, the more dramatic your crash will be the instant you pass the threshold at which fans can no longer do that: They won’t just dramatically scale back their engagement. They’ll drop out completely.

So if you’re running a mega-franchise, what’s the solution?

It basically boils down to releasing material at a pace that your audience can consume it.

That sounds simple, but it’s shockingly easier to succumb to temptation, ramp up your release schedule, and break the whole thing. Partly because modern capitalism / greed demands perpetual growth. Partly because your loudest and most hardcore fans will happily consume FAR MORE than the majority of your audience, and if you heed their call they’ll be all that’s left in the burnt out husk of a once vibrant community. And partly because creating stuff is fun, and as your resources grow the allure of creating even more stuff — stuff you couldn’t have dreamed of creating just a few years ago! — can prove overwhelming. There’s also likely more and more people involved in the mega-franchise as it grows, and it will become increasingly difficult for that not to fuel an exponential pattern of growth.

Now, let’s flip it around: You’re a fan of a mega-franchise and it’s growing past your capacity to “keep up.” What can you do?

Broadly speaking, you’ll either need to let the franchise go or you’ll have to figure out how to change the way you engage with the franchise so that the “consume all” credo of collectorism doesn’t rob your joy.

That might be identifying some subset of the franchise (creators, characters, specific settings, etc.) that you’re most interested in. (Although be warned that the worst mega-franchises will make this difficult by constantly disrupting every segment of the fandom with “events.”) It might be withdrawing from new releases and just enjoying the stuff you love. (Were you really enjoying everything the mega-franchise was offering? Or were you buying some of that stuff just out of a sense of obligation?) Or it might be finding some new way of engaging with your fandom, perhaps by creating fan art or fan-fiction or Youtube videos, in a way that makes you more than just a passive consumer and gives you greater power to make your fandom what you want it to be.

And, of course, the best time to start figuring this out is BEFORE the franchise has become all-consuming in your life and knocked out all of your other interests and hobbies.

Bedlam in Neverwinter is a D&D-themed escape room board game for 2-6 players.

Which is a lot of stuff for designers George Feledichuk, David “Duvey” Rudow, and Leo Taylor to cram into one box.

If you’re not familiar with the escape room board game genre, the basic format is a box filled with hidden cards and sealed containers or envelopes. Players are presented with a series of puzzles, and the solution to each puzzle will indicate which card to draw or sealed box to open in order to find the next puzzle.

In the case of Bedlam in Neverwinter, this primarily takes the form of a card deck and map boards. Each card has a three-digit number on the back. The map boards, on the other hand, depict different locations that the players can explore, each labeled with a three-digit number which indicates which card to draw when you go there. In addition to advancing the narrative of the story, each card may also include instructions (to draw additional cards, for example) or a puzzle (the solution of which will be a three-digit number indicating which card to draw).

If you’re not familiar with D&D, then… Wait. Really?

In any case, D&D is a fantasy roleplaying game in which players create characters by selecting their race, class, and ability scores. The actions taken by these characters are resolved by rolling a 20-sided die, adding a bonus from a relevant ability score, and comparing the result to a target number. There’s also a combat system in which damage is tracked and characters die if they lose all of their hit points.

All of these elements are also found in Bedlam in Neverwinter, albeit in a heavily modified form: Players will create their characters by selecting from a familiar range of races and classes, each of which will grant them proficiency in one of the six ability scores. Each class also has a unique, themed skill/power and will gain additional abilities as they level up at the end of each adventure.

Various cards will require either solo checks (which the current player rolls) or group checks (everyone rolls and at least half the group must succeed). Each check has one or two ability scores associated with it, and if you have a matching ability score you add +1d6 to your d20 roll.

Combat is resolved via round-robin skill checks against the monster’s target number. Weapons and other items can be equipped, granting additional bonuses if your attack roll is high enough. (For example, if you roll 17+ with a Sword of Sharpness, you deal +1 damage.)

And that’s basically it: Bedlam in Neverwinter consists of three adventures, each with a separate deck of cards and map boards. As you play through each deck, you’ll discover and overcome puzzles and monsters. The box states that each adventure takes about 90 minutes, but our experience was closer to 2 hours. (But we did have an ultra-excited 7-year-old playing with us, which may have prolonged things a bit.)

IMPRESSIONS

There will be ONE MINOR SPOILER in the discussion that follows. It will have no impact or insight into the puzzles or other hidden secrets of the game, but ye have been warned.

My overall takeaway from Bedlam in Neverwinter is that it’s an extremely easy game. The box lists a difficulty of 4 out of 5, but at no point did the group I was playing with feel remotely challenged: The puzzles were all trivially dispatched and the combat never once made us feel in danger for our lives.

As a result, it really felt more like an activity than a game. I mentioned that we played it with a fairly young child, and that may be an ideal use case: A pleasant way to pass some time with your friends and/or family. We certainly enjoyed it as such.

The biggest question I have about the game is why, if it’s called Bedlam in Neverwinter, is the entire story set in Icewind Dale? It’s quite baffling, honestly. My best guess — and it’s just a wild guess — is that somebody said, “Don’t we have a movie coming out in 2023 that’s set in Neverwinter?” and a few references to Neverwinter were shoved in and a new title pasted on the cover.

(I’m not going to get more specific than this because, again, I’m trying to avoid spoilers. But it’s very confusing.)

Bedlam in Neverwinter’s biggest flaw, however, is the map boards. As I mentioned before, the idea is that you put a map board on the table and then each player chooses where they want to explore, places their miniature there, and reads the associated card describing what they find. Unfortunately, the illustrations on the map boards don’t match the card descriptions. The first sentence on a card will be something like, “This body appears to have been…” and you’ll look back to the map board in confusion because there’s no body there.

The first few times this happens, you may think you’ve made a mistake, but you haven’t. The bigger problem, however, is that this failure is so pervasive that selecting map board locations is basically just random noise. Other decisions make this even worse. For example, there’s one map where a clearly Dexterity-based activity is depicted. So you send the Dexterity-proficient character and… ha! ha! Nope! The skill check here is a Charisma-based check where you encourage the most dexterous character in your group to do the activity. (The most dexterous character does not actually contribute to the check in any way.)

I’m not certain if this sort of thing was a deliberate bait-and-switch or just more bad design, but either way what could have been — and arguably should have been — the most significant interactive element in the game is needlessly rendered meaningless.

Which, ultimately, brings us back to what I said before: The game basically plays itself, but the activities along the way are a pleasant way of passing the time.

You’ll want to keep in mind, though, that like other escape room board games, Bedlam in Neverwinter is not designed to be replayed: You’ll play this once and then never again. (Unlike some games of its type, however, Bedlam in Neverwinter is not destructive, so you could reseal the envelopes and pass it along to someone else easily enough.) You’ll want to keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to grab a copy.

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Go to Part 1

STINK

Stink was the heir to House Greygloom, but Stink was naughty. Stink’s father – Lord Baleen of the Tinfoil Ilses – was naughty, too, and as punishment Stink became the ward of House Snark. The Snarks were nice to him and, looking back on that, Stink is pretty sure he didn’t deserve it. Stupid, stupid, Stink. He abandoned his brother by another mother, abandoned his sister by the same daddy, and abandoned his oaths. He deserves to be Stink. He did terrible things. Turned on his friends. He killed… those boys. Now the pretty lady is asking him to do nice things, but that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing Stink is good at. He doesn’t have the balls for it.

SULKWELL TUBBY

“I know who yer daddy is.” – Sulkwell Tubby

But Sulkwell wishes he didn’t know his. Randy Tubby was Lil Finger’s frat brother, and he’s the sort of guy who heard the saying that, “The true path to the Porcelain Throne lies through books,” and thought it meant that the only place worth using a book was the privy. Sulkwell ended up thinking the same thing, but only because the privy was the only place he could read without being tormented by his father and his brothers. As soon as he turned eighteen, Sulkwell got the hell out of there… and it was definitely his own idea, he’ll swear to it. Josh Frost is best friend in the whole world.

LIL FINGER

Lil Finger is the sort of fellow who believes that the best pickup lines are all Yo Momma jokes. He could never understand why this hadn’t worked with Waitin Snark, and with all the logic of a werewolf in heat he concluded that it was because he was fated to fall in love with her daughter, Sanserif. Oddly, however, the Yo Momma pickup lines aren’t working on her, either. He thinks the problem might be that he has a wife, but the Yo Auntie jokes aren’t working, either. Women are weird.

BERRY OF TART

When she was a young maiden, Berry of Tart dreamed of becoming the Iron Chef, a title which she had significantly misunderstood. How, exactly, she wrought such miraculous pastries while using nothing but a sword is one of the great mysteries of the age. Her blueberry tart, which became known as the Sapphire Isle, was particularly spectacular. Although she was eventually named the Queen of Tarts, Berry was never able to claim the title of Iron Chef due to rank misogyny.

DAVE ONION

Dave Onion, captain of the black-sailed Unsinkable II (don’t ask what happened to Unsinkable I), delivered Tijuana Bibles and whiskey to Lord Canceled’s men during Bobby’s Rebellion, helping to keep their morale up and their resolve stiff. (Tijuana is the name of Lil Finger’s brothel in Jester’s Landing.) When the war came to an end, Lord Canceled had Onion knighted, but also sentenced him to have his nipples cut off as punishment for his past crimes as a smuggler of pornography. Sir Dave was fine with this. Male nipples are useless, and he has no time for useless things. Plus, the scars are bad*ss.