#ecology board games

[othmeralia]

Let's play a game!

This board game is Ecology: The Game of Man and Nature.

The object of the game is to lead a population through four ages of Civilization, Hunting, Agricultural, Industrial, and Atomic, to reach an ideal Environmental Age.

Urban Systems, Inc. was a consulting and research firm, whose president, Richard H. Rosen, was an ecologist and environmental engineer. While teaching undergraduate air pollution classes at Harvard, Rosen produced a number of anti-pollution board games for educational purposes.

There are a few more photos on our digital collection site, so please click here to check them out!

Image citation: Science History Institute. Ecology: The Game of Man and Nature. Photograph, 2022. Science History Institute. Philadelphia.

[littlealienproducts]

Artist Spotlight: MontroseBiology

Based on Oregon, MontroseBiology crafts ecology-themed table top games that blend education, art and entertainment. A delight for ecology and game enthusiasts alike, the games also serve as valuable tools for understanding awareness about appreciating and protecting our natural world.

[emiett]

My friend's board game Kickstarter is launching tomorrow! Check out his video (feat. me hee hee hoo hoo)

[theguardianace]

i hate going back to school i hate being so homesick it hurts

[willknightauthor]

Board Game Rec: Daybreak

I found Daybreak via Simon Clark, and it really does deliver. You can tell the people designing it understood the science, but it's not overly complicated. It's extremely well designed to teach, very tactile and visually appealing, with lots of cards and other design features to remind you how things work.

Gameplay wise, it's basically cooperative solitaire. You each have 5 active policies, which are on top of other policy stacks which power them. You can place new policy cards in front or behind. There are also collective policies and crises with similar rules. All gameplay revolves around the effects of these policies and crises, so the core rules are very simple, while the gameplay itself has lots of depth.

It's very realistic, and produced a lot of darkly humorous moments among us. The first time we played I was the US and I got a policy that allowed me to shut down my coal power. I got excited and did it without thinking, then realized later I no longer produced enough electricity to support my population. Rolling blackouts sent community after community into turmoil, completely destabilizing the country. While everyone else was doing great I was collapsing. Eventually environmental disasters drove me into collapse.

I narrated how American refugees flooded the rest of the world and supported Fascist movements that destroyed the world. The whole time we played I kept making jokes about how I caved to dogmatic degrowthers, and that's why the world collapsed.

The global crises are also very real. Fosil fuel lobbying hamstrings your efforts, drought and forest fires destroy your resources, and eco-fascist movements threaten your political stability. The game itself is made out of 100% biodegradable, low water-consumption materials. The thematic cohesion goes to the level of manufacturing.

The visual design is odd in a sometimes funny way. It's one of those products that feels like it came straight from design school following textbook principles. Everything is clean, clear, simple, and colorful. The visual appeal is nice, but a bit weird in the context of rapid climate collapse. (I guess if you win, it fits.) The "communities in crisis" pieces in particular are weird, because they're the stereotypical multicultural kumbaya icons, but they represent social collapse--literally the opposite of everyone living in harmony.

The cool thing is that every card is linked via a QR code to a page on their site where they explain the science, economics, and sociology of the idea behind the card. The whole thing is a giant educational tool. They really did integrate every avenue of design into one coherent whole. And it's actually fun to play!

[utopians]

PSYCHO NYMPH EXILE // A SACRED AND TERRIBLE AIR

transcripts in alt text and under the cut

[image 1: black text on white background reading, "They evacuate people through the night cities, trying to outstrip perceived horizons of disintegration. These relocation attempts break down as matter ceases to perform. Fuel is water and water is air. Walls are soft. Push a truck until the wheels slough off. Sit on the couch and watch people with a little more energy take your food."]

[image 2: black text on a sepia background reading, "Then, when the stars bend under the destruction falling from above, many can no longer take the phrase “the end of the world” entirely seriously. The panic has cooled. In the strange indifference of the evacuation, whole families stay behind in Vaasa. There they play board games, in their houses, in their spacious apartments. They love vitamin-rich food, and when the pale is only a few days away, it’s always signalled by the same beautiful event. Fruits go mouldy. It grows vigorously on them. Children listen to oranges crackling on the table. Spores sprout from the pulp, apples are hairy with it. If you try to touch them, they crack open. No one knows why it’s like that. But few can muster the energy to be afraid of that time, and that's why I say it's beautiful."]

[image 3: black text on a white background reading, "Vellus and Isidol loot a mansion, kicking through walls like sand. The owner is looking for them with a flashlight, listening for the vibration of their hearts transmitted through the hollow surfaces, hunting for ghosts. They run, bending the taffy bars of the fence.

They scored a jacket and some dehydrated fruit. They curl up together in a funicular stranded on a rusty rail, cozy metal box with ashen windows, seat cushions for pillows.]

[image 4: black text on a sepia background reading, "Nothing seems to stop future ecologically-oriented projects there either. In the very last months, when the pale is creeping across the ocean towards Vaasa, lobby groups against light pollution see their grand dream come true. Industrial and commercial buildings turn off artificial lighting at the end of the working day, and street lamps are shielded with special filters. As the first and last big city in the history of the world, Vaasa completely eliminates light pollution. This isn’t just a measure against bomb raids – it also saves birds who might otherwise get lost in the city's maze of lights, and harbour seals whose mating rhythms are disrupted when the day is too long. You may laugh at this, but in the evening, when the big world in the distance swells into a bloody maelstrom, families come out into the street in Vaasa and are insignificant together. Only distant explosions disturb the deep peace of the winter night, its flawless starry sky. Everyone watches, heads tilted back."]

[image 5: black text on a white background reading, "The sun shines like a sick moon.

Holding hands, feeling her thin and brittle wrist. Rubbing her palm nervously, like you always did, leaves flakes now, ashen thumbprints.

Vellus and Isidol are becoming part of the dust storm."]

[image 6: black text on a sepia background that reads, "Like everyone else, she can't do anything in this extended stay, where one’s sense of the present slowly drifts away. But whereas the others dissolve into their memories, she simply disappears. It’s as if her life had never happened. The past is not awaiting her return. She just wanders around the rooms, adjusts her grandmother's lace doily and bedspreads, arranges the curtains on the rails. And thus, tastefully, she refuses to indulge in those ecstasies which visit the human spirit when the world is disintegrating. Nothing leaves her hands, and nothing returns.

When Katla finally sinks into the pale, Ann-Margret Lund turns, without the slightest pleasure, into a protein mass."]

[glitteringcrab]

Morty Prime's personality regression

Some fans (and I'm among those fans) feel like it seems Morty Prime's character development has regressed after Unmortiricken (S7E5).

Like he's more docile... less challenging of Rick... more accepting of Rick's shit...

There are a few possible explanations for this:

1. Morty sub-consciously trying his hardest not to act like Evil Morty

2. Evil Morty planting in Morty Prime's head the poisonous idea that Rick C-137 might commit suicide if Morty Prime is not there to emotionally support him

3. Rick C-137 is not so much a jerk these days. He hasn't messed with Morty with any Vats of Acid, hasn't created a robot version of himself. The worse thing he did was the Valhalla thing.

4. Morty Prime being more understanding of Rick C-137's mental state and finding more patience to deal with him.

But... at the same time, some of Morty's behaviors seemed so out of character that we fans (and I was among those faaaaans) built a whole theory that Morty Prime had been replaced by Evil Morty post Unmortricken....! ("Freaky Mortys Theory", for anyone interested. There are tags with it)

I think if we look a bit deeper in this season's Morty Prime (and the previous seasons) we'll notice some... interesting things.

Let's compare Morty Prime's and Evil Morty's capabilities and personality characteristics across the seasons, shall we?

Charisma

Evil Morty got himself elected:

Morty Prime convincing (little pieces of himself) as Marta:

Morty Prime rallying the trapped Mortys:

Gosh, they even do the same gestures

A "healthy" Morty Prime, no longer burdened by his awkwardness can climb the social ladder really fast:

And of course, the attribute slider:

Intelligence (probably one of Evil Morty's defining characteristics - "you're like an evil Morty, a clever one" as Rick Prime put it)

I'd have to put screenshots of every single scene Evil Morty is in, so let's dig in straight to Morty Prime instead lol

See above attribute slider.

See above Morty managing to become a Stock Broker, totally something a moron could do

Morty Prime casually disarming neutrino bombs, totally something a moron could do

Morty Prime beating Rick at a board game (and Rick freaking mind blowing him over it, the giant 8-year-old)

Suddenly being able to do math, which meant that he always could do math, he just wasn't really motivated to try:

And mind you, this was in Season 7 post Unmorticken, during the time we felt that Morty Prime's personality had regressed, and it was one of the "clues" we fans used as "proof" that this was really Evil Morty.

Of course, Morty Prime has A LOT (like, A LOT) of dumb moments as well. But the capability of intelligence is definitely there.

Manipulation

All of Evil Morty, where to even start lol

Let's head for Morty Prime instead.

Morty Prime presenting himself as super ecologically sensitive to Planetina. I mean, he definitely was on board with ecological activism etc, but he also wouldn't visit random forest fires to help. The liar. Planetina somehow fell for that.

"I'm your little brother, you have to take care of me!" was Morty Prime trying his hand at manipulation with Summer. And this was in Season 7 post Unmortricken, during Morty Prime's "regressed" phase.

The "trickle down effect" with Tricia seeing him ripped by the attribute slider was pretty clever, and manipulative (not maliciously, but still). This was ALSO in Season 7 post Unmortricken, during Morty Prime's "regressed" phase.

"Why would I be friends with a witch" was very fast thinking on Morty's part:

Again, this was in Season 7 post Unmortricken, in Morty Prime's "regressed" phase.

Physical abilities

Lookit Evil Morty flying:

And now look at Mort Prime performing Evil Morty's flying kick, which he definitely couldn't do before Unmortricken:

This was one of the "clues" we fans interpreted as "proof" that this was really Evil Morty, but since that theory has been jossed, the next obvious conclusion is that Morty Prime has been training.

And this was in Season 7 post Unmortricken as well, where we fans have been complaining about Morty Prime's personality regressing.

Extreme self harm as a step to freedom

I'm a hundred percent sure Evil Morty orchestrated his own assassination attempt and willingly walked towards the person who'd shoot him:

And, as another fan pointed (check out the tags!), Morty Prime did this:

Even the other guy, who was trying to kill Morty in that scene, is disturbed lol

Murder

Evil Morty probably has the biggest body count out of anyone, along with Rick C-137... But Morty Prime can get... trigger happy as well.

Shooting Rick C-137 in a fit of rage:

Getting really happy in the "trigger-happy" part during the Purging episode:

(thankfully, it was not played as a joke)

The Death Crystals deserve a special mention. So many people dead, just so he could grow old with his crush ("and people call me Evil Morty") and somehow it's played as a joke:

All those poor dudes in the Narnia dimension:

Desensitization to murder

It seems that any amount of murder is small potatoes to Evil Morty:

In "Mort: Ragnarick" Morty Prime complains about being desensitized to murder, and then Rick makes him kill people repeatedly (which Morty does obediently), during an episode where he has one of the highest body counts:

Most of the people he keeps killing are immortal Viking ghosts who literally live to die (lol) but Morty still is the one committing the murder, and he even tells Rick not to kill the Vatican guards (who die for real) every time, which I think Rick actually agreed with, thankfully...

Needless cruelty

There was no need for this, Evil Morty!!!! It served zero rational purpose!

Oh, you're gonna think. Morty Prime is not like that. Sure, he kills people, but he never draws it out.

Think again:

"Careful, Ethan. Your s'more is burning."

Ethan simply dumped Morty's sister!! That's not good enough reason to turn him into a deformed monster, Ethan was just being an immature teenager!

...Not to mention Morty Prime literally tried to roofie Jessica (not exactly cruel, but... quite evil).

Morty (!!!) suggesting they use brainwashed clones to solve the spaghetti shortage, and holding his hands behind his back while he did it, freaking Evil Morty style (also EVIL).

Okay, I'm gonna stop here and say that I don't mean to stretch things. We've known Morty Prime for 7 seasons and the amount of times he has been manipulative, trigger-happy or evil can each be counted on one hand, while those same characteristics are pretty much defining of Evil Morty. The potential exists in Morty Prime, but it becomes reality in its most extreme form in Evil Morty.

In addition, there are some differences between the two:

Evil Morty has patience, single-minded focus and the ability to come up with incredibly convoluted schemes (it's... almost like he spent unimaginable amounts of time trapped as a prisoner in his own body, unable to act, unable to do anything but wait and plan), while it also seems he is devoid of empathy (cough), forgiveness, or the desire for connection (I will probably make separate posts for the those two).

POINT 1: I suspect that their differences can be accounted for if the theory that they grew up differently is true; one in the safety of his home and family, the other in the uncertain and hostile environment of the Citadel.

Morty Prime never had to be manipulative, because he could always just ask to get what he needed. His more violent tendencies get suppressed by the humane examples his (non-Rick) family members set. He tries to do the right, moral thing 99% of the time because he grew up learning the virtues of kindness and compassion, and did not get brainwashed by a hundred different versions of his nihilistic grandpa into discarding universes and people like single-use coffee cups.

I suspect that Morty Prime and Evil Morty might be WAY too similar, and it's just that Evil Morty's brain is in constant overdrive survival mode, while Morty Prime is in normal kid mode.

I suspect that the parallel between Morty Prime and Evil Morty is meant to be a story of "nature vs nurture" and the effects of long-term abuse and neglect can have on a child.

POINT 2: I suspect that the series' climax might revolve around a revelation that Rick was wrong all along:

That Morty Prime (and any Morty) is just as clever as any Rick, and he doesn't get to show his brilliance because he's just a young child who can do stuff like waste time playing videogames and date girls and hung around with his family instead of honing every skill he has into a deadly weapon just so he can survive.

I feel like this is a revelation that has been building up for a while:

(and poor Morty doesn't react in this scene during Rick's admittance, because of course it doesn't concern him: he is just an idiot, he is not "intelligent in a different way" like Bigfoot is)

POINT 3: While it may be true that Morty Prime has been more... docile and patient and forgiving of Rick post Unmortricken, the way I see it, he's also physically training, is becoming more manipulative and we have more proof that he's actually really smart.

...So, I wouldn't call his personality change a "regression"...

...more like... a shift... towards higher forgiveness and tolerance and towards cultivating his capabilities.

Which, if Rick C-137 screws up and does something to betray Morty Prime's unconditional love, would bode really badly.

[demi-shoggoth]

2024 Reading Log, pt 2

006. Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell. I honestly thought that this book was going to be about something else. With the subtitle “how poisonous plants, sinister shovels and grim gardens have inspired mystery writers”, I thought it was going to be about, you know, that. True crime themed to gardens, discussions of poisonous plants, that sort of thing. The book is actually about the mystery books that have gardening as a theme. And while the author’s dedication to not spoiling anything (seriously, anything, even 150 year old stories like The Moonstone or “Rappacini’s Daughter”) is admirable in its own way, this leaves the book feeling like endless buildup without any payoff. Big fans of murder mysteries might enjoy this—especially the last chapter, which interviews writers about their gardens—but I found it more boring than anything else, and finished it only because it was very short.

007. Antimony, Gold and Jupiter’s Wolf by Peter Wothers. This book is about how the elements got their names, and most of it deals with the early modern period, as alchemy transitioned to chemistry and then into the 19th century, when chemistry was a real science, but things like atomic theory were not yet understood. The book goes into fascinating detail, and has a lot of quotes from primary sources, as scientists then were just like scientists now, that is, opinionated and bickering with each other over their preferred explanations. And names! Many of the splits between elements and their symbols (like Na for sodium) are due to compromise attempts to appease two different factions with their preferred names. A book covering arcane minutia of history always has the risk of feeling like a slog, but this is a fast and fun read.

008. Doctor Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs by Nathan T Barling and Michael O’Sullivan, illustrations by Mark P Witton. This book is an odd concept, but one that I was immediately on board with—a D&D book written by paleontologists with the intention of bringing accurate and interesting stats for prehistoric reptiles to the game. The fact that it’s mostly illustrated by Mark Witton definitely clinched my backing that Kickstarter. And this book is a lot of fun. So much so, that I read it all in a single sitting. I don’t know how accurate the stats are (like, a Hatzegopteryx has a higher CR than titanosaurs or T. rexes), but they seem like they’d be fun in play, and the writing does a good job of combining fantasy fun with actual education. Even for someone not running a 5e game, the stuff on how to run animals as not killing machines, and the mutation tables, could be useful. There are multiple types of playable dinosaurs, all of which seem like they’d work well at the table and avoid typical stereotypes, and a lot of in-jokes and pop culture references (like the cursed staff of unspared expense, which looks like Hammond’s cane in the Jurassic Park movie).

009. Romaine Wasn’t Built in a Day by Judith Tschann. I’m a sucker for books about etymology. And this one, on food etymology, is a pretty breezy read. I had fun with it, and it even busted some misconceptions that I had, etymologically speaking. Like, there’s no evidence that “bloody” as an explicative originated from “God’s blood”? Wild. Etymology books tend to be written in a sort of stream-of-consciousness style, where talking about one word may lead down a garden path to the next one. The book also has a couple of little matching quizzes, which is something I haven’t seen in a book since like the 90s.

010. The Lives of Octopuses and their Relatives by Danna Staaf. I was previously a little disappointed in The Lives of Beetles, another book in this series, but I knew I liked Staaf, who wrote the excellent book Squid Empire about cephalopod evolution and paleontology. I’m pleased to report that this book is also excellent. Staaf takes the “lives” part seriously, and the book is arranged by ecology, looking at different marine habitats, the challenges that they pose to living things, and the cephalopods that live there. Cuttlefish get slightly short shrift in this book compared to squids and octopuses, but that’s about the biggest complaint I had. I like how the species profiles cover more obscure taxa, and information about the best studied (like Pacific giant octopus and Humboldt squid) is kept to the chapters.

[sillygoblinantics]

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for!!!

Gobbo’s Semi-Complete Pokémon Retrospective!!!

Pt. 4 (the finale?)

The reason I’m writing this began when I first watched @agramuglia’s streams watching Lily orchard’s pokemon retrospective on YouTube. Many things I learned about the games and many things stated by Lily I loathed, but Anthony was only able to get up to 8/9 generations. So I thought I’d take it upon myself to power through her gen 9 segment. I lost my mind over it and multiple times did she make uncomfortable innuendos and made points that didn’t make sense. You can read my thoughts on her gen nine segment in my post ““Jock Imoen”” as I will be focusing on everything Lily failed to notice here.

Gen IX

Let’s get this out of the way as I know this is a big part of these games.

The glitches: yes they’re a big and many people find them ridiculously funny or obnoxiously deplorable, but many who don’t know is that they’ve been apart of the franchise for a while and can still be used to the players’ advantage as a quick rich strategy or for silly shenanigans like invisibike (see below image)

But main reason for this as well as the complete exclusion of interiors of homes was due in part to a running problem in both animation and game industry across the globe: rushed deadlines and of course the toxic and deadly Crunchtime. You can find many concepts and fully modeled spaces that we never got to see in the region of Paldea. This also includes Legends Arceus with an early cut intro scene that has our trainer beginning in their room in current day Sinnoh, some data miners (shoutout to y’all working hard and finding this stuff! You’re amazing!) found a completely modeled room that resembled the bedroom from the gen four house!

And I’m aware that there needs to be voice acting but honestly that takes away from the fun of imagining the characters’ voices based on the way they talk in the dialogue! It’s fun and meant to be fun for the children audience!

☆*.｡˚✧₊⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★。˚✧⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★

The world of Paldea

Region

Paldea is based on Spain but also Portugal (I still somehow struggle spelling this countries name I’m sorry TwT) and the Iberian peninsula! So while incorporating Spanish the game also has Portuguese in it! And because how Spain is geographically next to France, the inclusion to the academy teaching French or in Pokémon terms Kalosian. (Which was our hint for legends ZA and was for two years!!!) it’s a gorgeous region and on point to the real world places and towns they pull from.

Pokémon

We once again get new regional variants of old pokemon but we also get what has to be my favorite addition into the biology and ecology of the pokemon world: convergent evolutions! Pokemon that either evolved from the same ancestor but splitting off around a different point in time or pokemon who evolved in a way to resemble something or another pokemon to stay safe.

Wooper and cloddsire

Toadscool and toadscruel

Wigglett and wugtrio

We also got new evolutions for old pokemon! The gen two normal psychic giraffe: girafarig finally getting an evolution that combines the two heads in a balance union of strength but also astronaut giraffe hehe. We also got the beyond metal and gruesome revenant of an ape, Annihilape the ghost fighting type powerhouse of an evolution of Primape! And the king of the chess board evolution of Bisharp, Kingambit.

In both dlcs we get a new split evolution and third evolution of said split of applin, dipplin and hydrapple. And (forgot the name of the one building dragon)

We also get SO MANY GOOD BOIS IN GEN NINE! But not every good boi 😔… we get three new dog pokemon all good and each unique in their own respected way… I STILL DONT HAVE SHINY GREAVARD YET BUT I GOT THE OTHER TWO— sorry… got side tracked.

Something I will mention is a personal gripe over the exclusion of a specific fruit bearded pokemon from getting a new regional variant, tropius. Who if I had the chance to would make them vary based on where they can be caught by having new fruit or veggie being grown in place of the bananas! Which I did for my pokemon comic with Ripley’s tropius, Dionysus by giving him a beard of grapes! Maybe we’ll get more for tropius in generation 10!

Before I move on I’d like to to go over the game exclusive pokemon, something never mentioned or addressed how to obtain in Lily orchard’s video: let’s get this out of the way now by talking about the two forms of Paldean Tauros. In Scarlet; the past, primal, untamed gives us the fire fighting form of Tauros matching thematically with its game. In Violet; the future, technical and controlled (for the most part) gives us the water fighting form of Tauros (who can swim and his tail acts as a lil rudder to move him x3)

Lily leaves out one of the new pokemon of Paldea too, Charcadet a small fiery in the most literal sense charcoal knight who has game exclusive evolutions. Who need specific pokemon materials to obtain evolutionary items sets of armor. Lily fails to explain this so her audience is left not knowing that ceruledge is exclusive to violet while the psychic/fire evolution Armarouge, so the speculation of how she got it is left in the air and most likely not mentioned because she got it from someone else most likely lolo. So yeah.

☆*.｡˚✧₊⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★。˚✧⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★

Gimmicks!

I nearly forgot to mention the most impactful connective addition to these games! Union circles! A feature meant to let players connect with friends (given in range without Nintendo online or via the internet with Nintendo online) which allows for many fun shenanigans to take place especially during battles or cutscenes, but is expanded on with the indigo disk via the synchromode which…

☆*.｡˚✧₊⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★。˚✧⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★

Treasure

The three arc or side plots if we look at them through a tv sitcom or series structure. I’m talking about the ABC Plot system. Where the A plot is the main storyline and B and C follow different stories where by the third act we come together to face or wrap up the stories of B and C. We see this in Arven’s Titan quest, Nemona’s victory road, and Penny’s Starfall mission. Arven is the A plot as we learn that he’s trying to get to area zero to confront his parent(s) and needs two more people to join the journey that fill a specific role which is where Nemona and Penny come in! You will cry if you haven’t played yet so keep that in mind and be sure to take the classes as they provide more context into the layers these characters have! Enjoy this clip btw

Let’s head to the smallest addition and slice into the rural side of the Japanese region of the Pokémon world: Kitikami

☆*.｡˚✧₊⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★。˚✧⁎⁺˳✧༚˚✧₊⁺˳✧༚★

But this sadly or luckily has to be split into another part as I’ve been going on for a while here but I hope you enjoyed it! So the last LAST FINAL part! Will be about the DLCs and epilogue so stay tuned for the intro of the bestest girl that is ogerpon!

[henrykathman]

The Amateur's Guide to Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley

In this video, I return to the world of Moominvalley to analyze the hotly anticipated game Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley and its relationship with the original Moomin stories, Tove Jansson, and the philosophies it connects with.

Special Thanks to Kiki from Transparency for looking at the script. You can follow her Moomin Stuff at @marsmombestmom

Disclosure: My copy of the game was provided to me by Hyper Games and Raw Fury. While I think objectivity is overrated, the opinions in this video have not been influenced by the developers and are a reflection of my own thoughts on this game and the Moomins.

Work Cited Page

Bletchly, Rachael. “How Moomin Author Built a Brand Worth £700m and Why Brits Still Love Them.” The Mirror, Reach PLC, 4 Jan. 2021, www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/how-moomin-creator-built-brand-23260983. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Dymel-Trzebiatowska, Hanna. “Moomins Take the Floor. Finnish Trolls in Contemporary Mass Social (Media) Events.” Children’s Literature in Education, Aug. 2022, pp. 1–16. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-022-09497-6 Link

Ellis, Rowan. “Why Is Cottagecore so Gay?” Rowan Ellis, YouTube, 30 July 2020, youtu.be/5odKiL7jRW0.

Kramer, Ash. “Philosophical Materialism: Vital Materialism.” Philosophical Materialism: A Study of Early Modern Literature and Contemporary Theory, The Alliance for Networking Visual Culture, scalar.usc.edu/works/material_philosophy/vital-materialism#:~:text=Frequently gendered female, vital materialism. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Meereboer, Arwen Dagmar. "Moomins and Complicity with Matter: Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea as an Intervention in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things by Jane Bennett." SATS 23.1 (2022): 17-32. https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/180011/meereboer_arwen.pdf?sequence=2

O’Connell, Joe. “The Melancholy Promise of Heidi, Girl of the Alps.” Beyond Ghibli, YouTube, 20 Sept. 2018, youtu.be/_DFPoZN-FoI. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

O’Luanaigh, Robin. “Co-Opting Cottagecore: Pastoral Aesthetics in Reactionary and Extremist Movements.” Global Network on Extremism and Technology, The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 19 May 2023, gnet-research.org/2023/05/19/co-opting-cottagecore-pastoral-aesthetics-in-reactionary-and-extremist-movements/.

Peter Marten. “Moomin Characters Ltd Keeps a National Treasure in the Family.” This Is Finland, the Finland Promotion Board , Apr. 2010, finland.fi/business-innovation/moomin-characters-ltd-keeps-a-national-treasure-in-the-family. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

Samson, Anna. “How the Moomins Became an Anti-Fascist Symbol.” Huck Magazine, TCO London, 22 Sept. 2021, www.huckmag.com/article/how-the-moomins-became-an-anti-fascist-symbol.

[bellshazes]

i am very curious about your academic history! uni or informal or personal interest or otherwise. i've seen you mention a number of disciplines from time to time, v cool to see medieval studies be among them. always awe-inspiring to see someone use their wealth of lit knowledge to help create incredibly provocative posts about minecraft youtubers. your experience with philosophy is one i'd love to know more about.

(if you're comfortable with sharing it! otherwise, feel free to ignore this ask :P)

this is a very lovely ask and i don't mind to share at all because it's really just... a hodgepodge. it took me twelve years to graduate college. i flunked out my junior year and tried in fits to go back and chip away at my last requirements only when i got reimbursement through my job. i concentrated my courses on medieval culture/literature, french, and general linguistics (these often overlapped). i didn't study any actual theory in my courses until i took my final 2 humanities ones. which in fact i took and blogged through right here.

taking that theater of the absurd class (as Last Life happened!) connected me to academic game studies, which was easy pickings since i spent about a decade teaching arkham horror (and occasional other pinch hits for e.g. catan) at game conventions. so i have a lot of friends from those cons who enjoy and have the vocabulary to dissect games' mechanics and feel and the social dynamics of them. i love rehashing the difference between game mastering a co-op board game vs. an official strategy tournament vs. casual improv games vs. casual competitive vs. asymmetric, and then rehashing the player pov of each of those and more, and people who can argue back.

i'm very lucky to have friends who also think of philosophy not as being walled off from daily life but a practice of examining the world and our relationships within it. we sit and argue for the sake of tearing a concept apart, like "what differentiates art from craft?" or "does the platonic ideal suck or is it romantic?" or "what are you most afraid of?". do this for at least 5 years and you'll end up with complex opinions and perspectives. in my early 20s, biking from my restaurant job to free museums and writing about local art history kept me alive.i'm lucky my very bizarre career path since has led me to jobs where taxonomical flexibility and philosophy are necessary skills.

i think everything is worth taking seriously, even the most unserious parts of life, and i think you can take play seriously while also remaining playful in your examination. i think all your experiences build on themselves by virtue of aging, if you allow yourself to play with them. i think that there are a thousand silver threads between each thing and every every every other thing in the world and universe and imagination and drawing those lines of juxtaposition illuminate the edges of a negative space that is dynamic as it pulls and is pushed by all of its interrelationships, even the most obscure thinnest threads. i wouldn't have worked all that out without talking with the same people again and again.

at a work conference last year i was introduced to gregory bateson, whose ecology of mind makes me feel like i just stepped off the tallest rollercoaster in the world. i'm still not sure that i've got a good enough understanding of pedagogy of the oppressed (which i discovered via um les mis fanfic?) but i reread the second chapter even more often than i revisit quine's the ways of paradox. for good advice on how to be an amateur, tampopo lays it out the best. i lead with being a college dropout because i want to emphasize i'm no master of anything, just a lover of many, but that i think a critical amateurism, a love that drives learning and development and communion with others is just about the best most life-giving thing there is.

[wowstrawberrycow]

Questions from the question game!

- Do you believe in love at first sight?

- What’s a story you always want to tell, but never get to?

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I am of the belief that nothing is truly impossible across the board. Even if you can't prove it or disprove it, it could be real to someone either in their imagination or to their own life experience. So, going by this logic yes I believe Love at first sight could be real to someone. In a very literal sense, love at first sight could be a subconscious phenomenon that starts as a small interest and leads to a happily ever after. Though that does beg the question of how you define what true love feels like upon seeing??? First you literally have to look at someone anyway and say "hey, I want that." Then you go for it and the one that lands is the one for you. no hate to the poly people. You count too with the same principal. If you think of it in a literal sense it happens daily. Plus, the Disney princess in me absolutely will throw a bitch fit if I say no to this question. 🤣 Am I making any sense here at all??

What’s a story you always want to tell, but never get to?

Ok so, for y'all who have been following me for a while, y'all know my style is typically cute and fun. My shippy fanfiction and Rps are typically emotional or very cute/sweet in nature. But…. What I really want is to write a cryptic cosmic horror story that will be confusing and disturb all who lay their eyes upon it. For all the adorableness that I have created I can 100% say, yes, I do in fact have a mind for horror too. I have an OC named Dave. He's been sent to the most ecologically diverse island in the world to do government research on plant life. His main goal is to discover the ways to sustainably use plants to cleanse the water without chemicals. There was a new species of algae discovered on this tropical island that may be the answer. however upon arrival he is treated to a ghostly dirty city with hardly anyone walking the streets. it's a waste land. he was assigned a small apparent crawling with spy tech and his only communication with his employer is a cell phone he revived via entry of the island. his apartment is raided, he hand cuffed and blind folded before being knocked out. He wakes up in a paradise in the center of the island where the diversity is rich and lush. scientists of this region all were strange possibly religious symptoms on their lab coats and indoctrinated him into their cult against his will!! This has technological black magic, creature cults, secret world government plots and Eldritch gods!!! I want Dave's mind to completely unravel into total utter madness as he attempts to solve these mysteries!!! His sanity will not longer be with him by the end! laughs maniacally

The duality of my brain is a funny thing 💕 On one side you have purest sugary sweetness and the other side is well. that up there!🌈

[runningdoggames]

I’m super excited to announce that my new solo journaling game, Field Season, is out! Find it here: https://runningdog.itch.io/field-season This game is a submission to the Firelights Jam hosted by  Fari RPGs (René-Pier Deshaies), so if you like this system I definitely encourage you to check out other entries!

It’s summer, and you’re on your own in the backcountry. It is as beautiful as it is remote, and while you’re grateful that you stumbled across this listing on the ecology job board, you can’t help wishing for a nice, simple list of GPS coordinates. Who knows why Dr. Olson decided to note down site locations using cryptic landmark descriptions instead of the standard LAT-LON? They must have had their reasons. Whatever those are, the end result is you - the seasonal worker - hitting the trails to hunt down and retrieve their equipment. 

This position has the independence and challenge you love about this kind of work. It will be the first time you’ve ever worked a job like this solo, but you’re ready.

What will you discover out there this season? And how will it change you?

[chrisairgames]

A Year in Retrospect

The social media diaspora began a year ago, and I've been neglecting Tumblr. Trying to come back, slowly, so here's what I've been up to since November 2022.

Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones

From November to February 1st, 2022, I worked on my Zine Month campaign, a Kickstarter for my first ttrpg zine, a Sleeper Crew Adventure for Mothership RPG called Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones.

I was blown away by the immense show of support. The crowd-funding allowed me to pay for even more art, better and bigger maps, development and editing, and professional layout. I got to make the zine into the amazing package I'd dreamed up.

The zines were sent off to the fulfillment center last Friday! A ton of my ttrpg work time was spent on what's in these boxes, and it's pretty scary to see it go off into a truck. That does mean the zines will be available at retailers soon, though, which just feels nuts to me.

The Unseen City

I also wrote The Unseen City, the first 3pp setting and adventure for Cloud Empress, the ecological science fantasy RPG, the successful Mothership hack from Worlds by Watt.

I go into depth about how this 20pg zine turned evolved from the "Pamphlet Duet" I originally conceived in my most recent newsletter. A lot of struggles, gained some killer art from HodagRPG, and all for a game I'm really quite happy with. I do plan to return to writing more adventures for The Unseen City as well!

Mitosis, Escape from STAR Station

Last year, RV Games published my Mothership pamphlet series The Cerdo Cycle (that was my last Tumblr post!). Shortly after the campaign, Violet asked me to write a giant 8x16 inch pamphlet adventure for RV Games' upcoming in-universe Mothership board game, Mitosis.

I wrote Escape from STAR Station, a gonzo adventure about a Prison Break amidst two warring factions: Cyberviral Pirate Goons & STARS Staff Brainiacs. Both sides are infected by experiments with the Mitosis board game microorganisms. It's a crazy lil adventure with awesome art by Sigmacastell. You can pick up an abridged print-at-home version for free on my itch page, even.

5 Million Worlds RPG

For the One-Page Game Jam this past summer, I submitted a pocketzine Space Adventure hack of Mothership, called 5MW RPG: Avatar Basics.

In this little A4/US Letter space, I've designed two main pulls away from sci-fi horror to space adventure. The first are Push Tables. Similar to the end of act in a Star Trek episode, these tables push the conflict in new and unexpected directions.

The second is a switch from Stress into Limit. Limit is your PC's XP, used to improve Stats/Saves, build towards projects, etc. Notably, instead of a Panic Table, 5MW has two tables: a Break Down table (similar to Panic), and a Limit Break table (like in FF).

When characters are in the shit, and they have to roll a Limit Check, the players can decide whether to spend their XP and do some cool shit to overcome the circumstances, or accept the Break Down. Good ol' @christiansorrell even did a TikTok video discussing the game, if you wanna check that out.

I'm very excited to continue to pursue creating a player's handbook, 5MW RPG: Avatar Primer. If you download the game on itch, I'll keep y'all apprised of substantial updates. Next up is developing the chargen, and reconfiguring the pocketzine as an A6 booklet: 5MW RPG: Avatar Basics+.

Outer Rim Uprising

I was extremely honored to join 11 other designers to create pieces of the Outer Rim Uprising Megabundle, spearheaded by our intrepid leader, Iko of The Lost Bay Studio.

Several months of brainstorming and collaboration went into this 20+ piece bundle. I contributed two pieces for this bundle. The first is a 12pg adventure module Rusted to the Core. Androids aboard an aerostat station floating in a gas giant's clouds have gone on strike. Can the PCs resolve the issues before the Rust overtakes the station?

The second is the more "experimental" Bones on the Ground. Bones is a bifold adventure into an android museum-prison, paired with three diegetic fliers supporting the ARA, the Android Rights Association (or Android Rebel Alliance, depending on who you ask!). Pieces of the three flyers contain clues for PCs who join the ARA to better succeed when they begin their museum infiltration.

A Buncha Spaceship Deckplans

So I have ADHD, and experience bouts of summer mania. Spaceshiptember rolled around, and I thought, "Hey it'd be no problemo to write 30 deckplans and release them this month, while I'm also trying to print BioCryo, promote ORU, starting a newsletter, and finishing up The Unseen City." Totally sane decision, right?

Well, I got through half the month. And I sketched out a third week's worth of ships on paper too. One of those sketches caught Adam STATION's eye, even, and he asked me to join An Infinity of Ships to turn it into a micro-adventure!

As long as this quick-n-dirty zine remains unfinished, it'll be free on itch.io. Again, if you'd like, follow along and I'll send out dev updates when new pages are added!

the dying tides

Another Jam entry, this time for The Lost Bay Studio's system agnostic fantasy setting + coloring book, SKYREALMS.

I made the dying tides as a short, lightweight fantasy adventure to venture among wavebros and squidillies. The art is based on my 4 yo daughter's paintings. Since she loved coloring the SKYREALMS books so much, I figured it was a poetic homage to the kind and mysterious heart of this game.

An Interactive Terminal Network

Last but not least, I smashed my skull against Twine on and off for six months to create a unified Interactive Terminal Network for my Mothership adventure, Bio-Drones & Cryo Clones.

The terminal is absolutely free to play on itch.io. Though passwords that can be found in the zine lock off a few areas. That said, I'm sure many folk could dig out the passwords without the zine. I don't know how to do that stuff. The fact that I even MADE this thing is a miracle to me, hahaha.

Goal for 2023

Talk about this stuff as it's happening so I don't infodump on people like this, haha.

What I'm working on now:

Twisting Unseen

Untitled Liminal Horror adventure

Provisional sketches, for the artist/layout designer.

Also, if you made it this far, thanks.

-Chris Air

[siegecraft]

time for a new intro post—hi, I’m C. J. Linton! You can call me CJ or Case.

I’m a game designer, editor, voluntary forever GM, and the business director of Sly Robot Games with Dominique Dickey (@domsdickey). Our games include:

Tomorrow on Revelation III, about surviving and resisting capitalism on a heavily stratified space station.

Plant Girl Game, about a family of plant children working together with their community to prevent ecological disaster.

The Prince of Nothing Good (upcoming!), a heist about a notorious thief pulling together his crew for one last job in a fantastical and hostile city.

I’ve also written Bring Down the House, which is about ghosts trying to dispose of their home’s latest occupants, and Those of Us Who Know Better, about trans superheroes whose powers come at a price.

I do a lot of things outside of tabletop roleplaying games that I also talk about on here, including:

Dramaturgy and new play development. (My dramaturgy pretty significantly informs my game development and editing practices.) I’m currently working with two playwrights, one working on a sort of adaptation of "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett that is also an ecological problem play and one working on a very Jewish journalism-y Superman play.

Bookbinding and other handcraft sundries. I am a small part of the sustainable bookbinding, needlework, and papermaking operation run by my partner, Amethyst Alchemist. I make a lot of book cloth, bind a lot of books, and occasionally cross stitch pieces for the front covers.

Fiction, board games, video games, and other writing/media, especially science fiction and cyberpunk, engine building games, critique, and my own work. I am a proponent of a generous but more honest ecosystem of media criticism, and I speak transparently about works that didn’t work for me.  

and I'd love to be doing more editing and dramaturgy, so feel free to get in touch about that.

In most other places, I am @NearFutures: itch.io, Bluesky, Cohost, Twitter. and this is my website, which I am trying to be better about keeping up to date.

[permian-tropos]

whoa i am intrigued by what you said about steban thinking kim and harry are together when talking about suzerainty! can you post the fayde excerpt of that? i want to devour this information but cannot find it

what I posted basically was the excerpt, here is the link so you can noodle around (x) and here is an extended version of that particular path of conversation

STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "... but then my issue with these historical cube-pushers is that they offer the *illusion* of subjectivity even as they reinscribe the logic of colonialism itself..."

STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "... though I'd love to hear your take on it."

YOU - "For me, games are mostly about spending time with a partner."

[variable check to see if Kim likes you, and to see if you lost the Suzerainty match]

KIM KITSURAGI - "He's only saying that because he *likes* getting thrashed like a schoolboy."

STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Listen, this is a forward-thinking group. It's entirely your business, of course."

STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Anyway, we also enjoy a good board game every once in a while. The other week Ulixes and I tried this new one where everyone is competing to manage their own Zone of Ecological Catastrophe. You should see the components."

ECHO MAKER - "The irradiated waste tokens have this great metallic ochre sheen."