Summer Activities

In a bid to stop this blog devolving into a series of angry posts about Trump, Boris and Brexit, here is a round up of what I'm reading, playing and watching at the moment. In no real order, here we go:

PC Gaming

I continued to have a good time with 'Sunless Skies' after my previous post about it. However, having made it to Eleutheria and escaped without dying (brilliant change of pace there as you have to explore the new area unaided by familiar ports), I died a stupid death on my return to the Reach. I've yet to pick it up again but will have to at some point to see what the Blue Kingdom has to offer.

I picked up 'Into the Breach' in the Summer Sale and, while it is good, I think my expectations were a little high after the good press that it has received. On normal difficulty I find it much, much easier than the brilliant FTL and beat it regularly after only a handful of attempts. Will push the difficulty up to hard soon but I'm tempted to unlock and try out all of the Mech squads on normal first unless I get too bored by the lack of challenge first.

Finally, I'm giving 'Massive Chalice' another shot. The uneven difficulty and slightly oblique mechanics have put me off before but so far so good. I'm quite keen on the goofy humour and after finding ItB too easy the potential for characters to die suddenly (and even unfairly) seems refreshing and challenging.

Board Gaming

Out of the blue, a work colleague invited me to play in an eight player 'Game of Thrones' game with dragon expansion.

On top of it being a complex game in itself, I haven't seen the program or read the books so lacked any cultural context for the game. Everybody else was a hard core fan and I raised some eyebrows by calling my faction the 'Tulips' rather than the 'Tyrells' throughout.

Ultimately I had a good time though. Surrounded by other inexperienced players I quietly expanded with minimal conflict as the Starks and Lanisters wiped out the faction between them to the North. The dragon player (my work colleague) eventually won with some air strikes and a couple of canny alliances but since few people had played with the expansion this can possibly be put down to people not knowing what to expect.

Hell of a long game though. We played for nearly 6.5 hours with one short break.

Otherwise, at work I continue to have a very good time with quick lunchtime games of 'Codename Pictures' and slightly less fun with 5-10 player games of Saboteur.

Television

Not much to report here. I'm finishing up the first series of Netflix's 'Seven Deadly Sins', which I'm having an inordinately good time with despite the near constant objectification of the female characters.

Books

My reading list is threatening to bury me again after a number of impulse buys on Amazon. At my parents I'm reading a collection of A.E. Housman's Poetry and Prose which feels very high brow even if gets a bit samey and is highly dated in tone. I've also started Philip Pullman's Shadow in the North which I may drop or continue with based on mood and opportunity.

At home, I'm finishing off Kim Stanley's Robinson's Blue Mars which seems a little pointless after the energy of Red Mars and the interesting political machinations of Green Mars. As the author explores the realisation of what seems like his personal utopia the preachiness and superficiality of certain characters becomes ever more apparent. I'm also reading through Winston Churchill's The Gathering Storm for something a bit more weighty. 

Finally, a work colleague has lent me three recent-ish National Geographics which are my current lunchtime reading when I'm not socialising or drinking. They are definitely growing on me and I like the reasonable length of the longer articles although, as I generally read British publications, the editorial style is very unfamiliar.