I know you’re thinking the same thing I am: “About f-ing time!” You won’t even have to fake an illness to take the day off to play because your boss will be spending the day playing Death by Scrolling and won’t notice you’re gone. Coming soon to Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation. We’re working as fast as we can.
Who doesn’t enjoy a good history lesson? I know I do. Oh please let there be a test at the end. Let me take you back to 2018. We had just released Thimbleweed Park, finished all the ports, done an update, and I am thinking about something new. I was regularly going to Daniel Cook’s Seattle prototyping meet-up and trying to come with a new game to show every two weeks. It was my personal game jam. I created a lot of odd games, one was a huge multi-screen breakout game, the other was a narrative game about someone being lost in a cave. The cave was procedurally generated and there was literately no way out. It also included a procedural swearing engine. I was also working on a little top down pixel art rpg game, but is was missing something. I went dinner with some other game designers at PAX that year and buried in a conversation someone said something to how they try and come up with wacky ideas for their new games. The next morning I woke thinking about the screen always scrolling, never stopping and the player needs to keep up. I hurriedly made those changes but it still didn’t feel right. Trying to aim and run while the screen scrolled felt like cognitive overload. I switched it so the firing and targeting was all automatic and the player just had to run, avoid enemies, and grab things for upgrades. There was a frantic energy to the game. The perfect party or steaming game. I finished up the prototype and took it to the prototyping meet-up and it was a big hit. Lots of laughing as the death was narrowly avoided and the screen never stopped moving. I was feeling pretty good about the game and decided to move it from a prototype to a real game. I knew I needed an artist but didn’t have the money to afford one. By pure coincidence I was talking to a new steam-like platform just coming on a scene about Thimbleweed Park and figured I’d ask about this game. I put together a quick video and a pitch email. You can see the video below. To my surprise they said yes, gave me some money and I was off. Side note: I recently did an interview for Death by Scrolling and they wanted to know if I was inspired to make Death by Scrolling after playing Vampire Survivors. Except for the auto-fire this game isn’t much like Vampire Survivors and I have to been working on it since 2018. So… I love Vampire Survivors, but no. I worked on the game for about 9 months and really struggled with progression. The core game was still a lot of fun but everything I put onto it to make it a deeper game wasn’t working. It was round this time that the possibility to make Return to Monkey Island came up and it seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I was struggling with the game I called simply called “Runner” and it made sense to returned the money I had taken and move to Return to Monkey Island. I took all the engine improvements Derek and I had made and built Delores in prep for Return to Monkey Island all based on the Runner engine (but without the tile rendering). «INSERT MAKING RETURN TO MONKEY ISLAND MONTAGE HERE» Return to Monkey Island wrapped and I was once again thinking about something new. I had the idea of taking the pixel art tile engine from Runner and making an old school Zelda game (the only Zelda games I like). I hired an artist, brought on Elissa as a designer and we were off. A year into the game it became obvious that making an open world RPG was a lot of work and we didn’t have the resources (money) for that. I thought about Runner, dug up the video and sent it to Elissa and said “What if we made this? We could have it done in a less than a year.” She loved it and her epiphany was to forget about deep progression and just make it like an arcade game. In and out quickly and retain all the frantic fun of the original. As I was thinking about the game’s name Elissa died from the scrolling and the text “Death by Scrolling” appeared and she said that should be the name of the game. Perfect. A quick name change and Death by Scrolling was (re-)born. The theme of the game being about stuck in purgatory and purgatory being taken over by investment bankers and corporations for profit took hold and provided a nice framework for narration. A lot came together at the end and it all just made sense. It’s a game about greed and the never ending grind in life and death for more and more. The absurdity of social media even make an appearance when you die. The game is mirror into the world we live (and die) in. Death by Scrolling What was the original name of Death by Scrolling? What city was the prototype meet-up in? Who did I bring on to help with design? What game did I make between the prototype and Return to Monkey Island.
As many of you have probably heard by now, the game company EA is intended to be sold to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, a firm managed by Jared Kushner (Donald Trump’s son-in-law), and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. This would involve the company going private and taking on a considerable amount of debt, making even harsher monetization, budget cuts, AI slop and layoffs likely. EAs portfolio includes games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and The Sims, and I own games of all three of these franchises. All of these have been dead to me for a while now, meaning I was done with any new Mass Effect game after Andromeda (even though I liked it!), not interested in playing Veilguard, and The Sims 5 (Project Renee) was cancelled, meaning Sims 4 is their "forever game" just receiving updates. However, I still enjoyed playing The Sims 3 or 4 every now and then, eyeing some add-ons, watched Sims YouTubers such as Plumbella . The Sims Creator community is generally rather diverse and left leaning, often doing fundraisers for marginalized groups as well, so it came as a shock to them that the company that sponsored them as a partner and whose game they were promoting was sold off to these genuinely horrible people. Not only would supporting EA now pour money into the Trump regime semi-directly, but it would also support Saudi Arabia, where gay and trans people are still being killed, among many other human rights violations. How does that fit together with the wholesome, cute, and safe image these creators created? A lot could be said about how a conversation about EA partnerships has been boiling under the surface already: The company has been genuinely awful for a while, especially around the state of the game, the buggy releases and the pricing. In my view, the role some creators adopted of making it their funny channel persona to roast EA and talk about what a shitty game it is and go "ha, EA, am I right?" was on thin ice already. It's one thing to say that and play the pirated version while not sponsored by them, but another to say that while playing the legit version and being paid by EA to do so. Good for EA I guess to even sponsor people who absolutely shit on the state of the game, but still. Now the situation has dramatically changed for the worse, and creators feel the need to come out with statements about how they feel and what they are going to do. And my god, has it all been embarrassing as hell! There are a lot of people in the world who cannot choose who to work for, who have to make ends meet, have no rainy day fund and have next to no power to leave an unethical company to work elsewhere. I'm not going to yell at abused, below-minimum wage workers because they have to work for Nestle or Amazon or fast fashion. YouTube Creators and influencers in general do not belong to that group , especially people who are paid to sit at home and play a game . They can most definitely find other sponsors and find other games to play. Many already do, as The Sims is seen as part of the Cozy Gaming niche, meaning they often already play Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Coral Island and many more. Not to mention that Sims competitors exist and more seem to come: InZOI exists 1 , Paralives is coming out, others are announced and there are smaller indie games on Steam that each fulfill different aspects of The Sims, like letting you build houses, custom designs, controlling a population, etc. Of course it will be a change, rocky for some, some subscribers lost; but it would be a small fraction of their subscriber count because the fanbase is similarly outraged and has values that go directly against this sale. They too are worried that the base game is going to get modified to be less progressive and inclusive, undoing a lot that EA has added over the past few years, like disability and illness items, trans options like top surgery scars or more pronouns, better skin tone selection and hair options, and more. So the response by some, particularly the creator lilsimsie , has been so pathetic. Why is she puppy-eyeing into the camera, saying: " This also raises the moral dilemma of: Do we want to continue playing and supporting a game that is owned by such awful people? [...] This is where I have been really struggling. Sims is my entire life, it's my livelihood, it's my hobby, it's my name! My last name is Sims. [...] But where does this leave me? I don't know. I'm going to keep playing the Sims. I'm going to keep talking bad about the Sims and about EA when I need to. Again, this is my jooob, sooo... it puts me in a really tough spot." Content creators are one of the groups that have it the easiest in switching employment in that sense - change products, brands, or niches and escape. Is that not the damn point so many of them try to make? For years now, I have witnessed them say how great it is that they're their own boss 2 , then use it! At least EA is not the platform you publish on, it is just one sponsor, and one game. People every day have to make really hard decisions, some have to give up other things, and you can't even ask these people to stop streaming a game when the funds go to these awful regimes. You could make the argument that the PIF has held 10% of EA before, and the fact that they are investing widely in the gaming industry the last couple years, making avoiding harmful support like that difficult. However, I believe you can't " There is no ethical consumption under capitalism " yourself out of everything, because while many of us cannot give up employment or buying unethical food or having to rely on clothes produced in bad conditions, just not uploading yourself playing a game is so easy and such a luxury problem to have; it's not a need, not to mention that a 10% share vs. a jump into private equity and ownership is a big change that deserves reevaluation. No one asks any of the creators to immediately drop content creation altogether and get a corporate job: they could simply pivot. They could stop being part of the EA Creator fund. They could have the same energy they did for Hogwarts Legacy and its boycott. It's so embarrassing to sit there raising funds for a trans charity and then not give a fuck about them being killed in Saudi Arabia because it would require to play a game that doesn't have your last name (why even mention that and leave that in, oh my god!), going: " You guys I am just so conflicted and confused 🥺 I'm just a smol bean playing a game ." Just so that we are clear: Human Rights Watch says, crediting Reprieve, that Saudi authorities have executed at least 241 people this year in total already. And people like lilsimsie make more off of all their online revenue than we ever will, so get up off your knees for this one. After that disastrous statement video (where she spent more time talking about feared ingame effects than the actual obvious politics) from a week ago, she has already uploaded 7 more Sims videos. You'd think that if all of this was weighing on her so heavily, she would at least take a break, but no. So no sympathy from me, at all. "I will just wait and see. " Wait and see for what, exactly? How bad it will be? You can already see how bad it is politically, and otherwise, does that mean it's fine that you promote that until they censor the game in a way that makes it less fun for you? This is the person that is praised in the Sims community for "standing up against EA" over this, so you can only imagine the rest of them. Applauded for doing nothing, and saying nothing. The impact it would have if the literal #1 Sims YouTuber quit that shit! But she doesn't use her power, at all. It's going to be interesting 6-9 months for the Sims creators and their fans; that's how long they have until the first effects of the deal are supposedly showing up. And I'm still waiting on Plumbella . Reply via email Published 07 Oct, 2025 Which also has some concerns, but it deserves to be mentioned still. ↩ Never mind that they are still beholden to the platform's opaque algorithm, vague rules, automatic bans, changes of ownership, payout conditions etc. with no warning, no benefits and no recourse, potentially losing all their content and that month's money in seconds... but they don't wanna hear that and get really upset when you say that. ↩ Which also has some concerns, but it deserves to be mentioned still. ↩ Never mind that they are still beholden to the platform's opaque algorithm, vague rules, automatic bans, changes of ownership, payout conditions etc. with no warning, no benefits and no recourse, potentially losing all their content and that month's money in seconds... but they don't wanna hear that and get really upset when you say that. ↩
I bought a MacBook Pro 14-inch November 2024 M4 Pro with 24GB RAM in June of this year. It is my first and only Mac. I found out pretty fast that this thing is pretty powerful. It can run VMs (I use Parallels) smoothly, play games in said VM, play YouTube while playing modded Minecraft, and most important to why I got it, great for emulation. I wanted a laptop that would be able to handle emulation of Gamecube, Wii, and Switch games, and be portable to bring to people's houses, and that's what I got. Here is my line-up for emulators: Note: Ryujinx does not have a safe official website anymore, it seems Nintendo has taken over the domain. Do not blindly trust any random site that shows up offering a download of the software when you search for it. This meets all of my emulation needs. I've noticed I haven't been able to connect real Wii remotes to Dolphin because of Bluetooth changes on modern Macs, but Nintendo Switch Pro controllers with motion control seem to connect and work excellently in my experience thus far. A while ago, I ran a Mario Party get-together with friends, we played Mario Party... 7, I think, off of my laptop connected via HDMI to the TV. I told people to bring controllers since I only had two that I knew worked. I basically brute-forced the controller compatibility, testing several ones brought and barely meeting the requirement of four working. The ones that worked were: Once these were connected via Bluetooth, it was easy to configure their settings and map buttons to how players want them in the emulator. Fun gaming and snacks ensued. Dolphin in particular is amazing in terms of settings. You can configure controllers however you want very easily, and use a pass-through bluetooth adapter and connect real Wii remotes!! One major thing that annoyed me was that I didn't get a 1TB MacBook. I regret it because ROMs can get large. I ended up offloading them onto a personal cloud drive, which the emulators can still see and read normally. The actual data (saves, preferences) are still on my Mac. I think overall, this MacBook does an excellent job of emulating. However, if you want to play Wii games specifically, a computer running Windows of similar power would be more suitable because of Bluetooth and emulator compatibility. Keep in mind Ryujinx is no longer developed, and there are better alternatives now that I haven't found run on Mac as far as I can tell. Try it out yourself on a computer you have laying around, and get into some retro games, or hold a mario party with your friends! Subscribe via email or RSS Azahar , for 3DS games Cemu , for Wii U Dolphin , for Wii and Gamecube games OpenEmu , for various mainly retro forms Ryujinx , for Switch Xbox Series X (my preferred one) Two Switch Pros DualShock 4 (PS4)
Hi again autumn, how have you been? Not well? Well me neither but I’ve been told that’s part of life and we’ve got to accept it and move on. Last month I ran a feature on card games on this blog, producing nine lovely articles ranging from Flemish trick taking traditions to card game mini games and how to properly play patience—both old and new. I don’t know about you but I thoroughly enjoyed myself writing these and might do something similar again in the future. As for the solutions to the last Name Those Card Games Quiz , here you go: Previous month: August 2025 . Still almost nothing. I’m struggling to steal a few minutes of time here and there to do so. The intentions are there: I bought six books last month. So far, these efforts resulted in finishing a few chapters in Sebastiaan Chabot’s Olifantenpaadjes : a weird Dutch novel about a divorced family reliving their happy memories during summer holidays in France. I don’t think it’s been translated yet and I can’t yet judge whether it should be. Next month, perhaps. See the codex logbook : as part of the card game feature I dove into Sierra On-Line’s rich Hoyle Card Games history and tried my hand (ha!) at a few handheld card games but couldn’t quite find anything that matches my favourite version: the 2002 PC edition. Clubhouse Games proved to be all right but cumbersome, 18 Classic Card Games remarkably includes Klaverjassen but its execution is below sub-par, Ultimate Card Games is all right for a change, which cannot be said for the 2000 Hoyle Card Games Game Boy Color version. I think I’m finished with digital trick taking for now. CodeWeavers finally allows me to play PC-only games on my MacBook and Wizordum runs wonderfully on it so far. The demo was good so now I’m halfway through episode 2 and feeling the boomer shooter (or throwback retro shooter or whatever you want to call the subgenre) itch again. The result is more frantic research on the best pistol and rocket launcher types, the weirdest GZDoom ports, and the coolest Nightdive Studios remasters. Did you know they’re remastering both Outlaws and Blood ? Nightdive are my new heroes. If you want to dive into the genre then let KIRK COLLECTS guide you. He releases monthly FPS news overview videos called “State of the Boom” and the last one revealed more exciting stuff is coming our way ( Boltgun 2 , Darkenstein 3D , …) next to an already awesome release month ( Forgive Me Father 2 , Beyond Sunset , …): The Blood part is at . But yeah, that Deus Ex remaster is looking ridiculously bad. I feel zero urge to play anything else besides the GOTY version in the original Unreal engine. What a shame. Related topics: / metapost / By Wouter Groeneveld on 4 October 2025. Reply via email . French Quarter Ticket To Ride Railroad Ink Kurt Katala from Hardcore Gaming 101 completely destroys Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind . I needed that to avoid buying the recent Limited Run collection. Lothar Serra Mari over at fabulous.systems explains how 86Box now supports SafeDisc copy protection for CUE/BIN image files. Dave Rupert answers why anybody would start a website in 2025. Because of that creative urge, perhaps? There are still ample corners in the vast space of the internet left for you to carve out. Matthew M. Conroy creates weird noisy videos involving pixel-to-noise algorithms on self-portraits. Weird, but in a good way? Mike Green creates stunning kitless fountain pens . I especially love the green dragon variant. Someone made a website categorizing all moai appearances in video games . I have no idea why developers keep on modelling these. Moby Games keeps a list of games with Dopefish appearances . The Dopefish is more dope than moai statues. Alexander Petros challenges website designers who are afraid of hard page reloads . Chris Borge 3D-printed his own woodworking lathe (YouTube video)! Rockwell Schrock shared a very cool discovery on , a Westwood chat client that came with the 1995 Monopoly CD-ROM. Simon Vandevelde created bladofpapier.be ; a site visualizing Flemish regions that prefer to say scissors-stone-paper or paper-stone-scissors. Isn’t the English expression rock-paper-scissors? I’m confused. Robert Lützner is getting into retro gaming . Welcome to the family! It’s never too late to join the party. There’s yet another list over at ResetEra: the essential RPGs list . Joel will be relieved to hear that Chrono Trigger takes the first spot. Chris Were shares 50 games that influenced him . The list starts of very strong with Deus Ex and Duke Nukem 3D . Same here! Emojis Are Shit . Drew hit the nail on the head here. Hidde de Vries shared the slides of his Creativity cannot be computed talk. Laura shares why she buys physical media —and media in general (YouTube video). Rakhim’s idea of Benjamin Button reviewing macOS is just amazing. Rock Paper Shotgun published an interview with the creators of Dread Delusion that convinced me to put the game on my radar. There seem to be popping up more and more AI protection alternatives inspired by Anubis such as Nepenthes . I’m still a bit hesitant to install yet another complex software layer though. I’ve been thinking about relying on anonymous email forward services such as https://addy.io/ . It’s on the list. https://nerdvpn.de/ offers hosted alternative frontends to corporate social media sites such as Reddit. You can self-host these as well. I thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the 2025 proceedings of the Association of Computational Heresy . Finally an academic treatise done right. This one is worth a second mention: PCjs machines emulates original IBM PCs right in your browser! https://solosleuth.com/rankings contains rankings for solo board games. Unsurprisingly, Mage Knight is still number one. I’ve been told that I need to dig through the official Against the Storm wiki if I want to survive the more challenging storms. So far I’ve only played 30 minutes so we’ll take that into future consideration. Romm is a powerful self-hosted video game ROM manager that enables easy browsing of your game collection.
It's October. This is significant because it is my favorite time of year. In Central Texas, it's still not all that pleasant during the day, but we have had a few crisp mornings and the evenings are just begging for a walk around the neighborhood. There is an annual pumpkin patch in my area, and I will be taking my engagement photos with my now betrothed on October 24th. Needless to say, I'm so excited for both of us to enjoy our favorite month. D&D is going to be soon, and I'm planning on making a hard apple cider cheese dip with pretzels for our spooky session. We already pre-paid for the Oktoberfest beer dinner at BJ's , which involves a ton of food and Oktoberfest beer. Needless to say, the beer around here is phenomenal. And, of course, attending Oktoberfest itself on the 4th , this Saturday. This is not to mention the actual holiday of Halloween, my favorite holiday, and our annual re-watch of Over The Garden Wall . Happy spooky season 🎃
I couldn’t resist creating a third quiz to complete the trilogy. Did you manage to identify all the card from quiz one and quiz two ? Again, congrats! Here’s the solution for quiz two in case you were wondering: The final Puzzling Photo is waiting for you, yet again upping the ante except for the obvious few: Name those card games quiz three. You know what to do. The rules remained the same: each of the seven cards belong to another card game. Try to identify them all! The first hint from quiz one remains relevant: all cards have the same dimensions as a standard deck of cards. This time, I’ve included two red herrings that come from a game that doesn’t really include card play but merely uses the cards to support the core mechanics. Have fun! As always, the solutions will appear in the next post. I’d love it if others would continue to create these quizzes. That way, I can be the one guessing. This article is part nine—the last part for now—in a series on trick taking and card games . Be sure to dip a toe in the other posts! Related topics: / card games / By Wouter Groeneveld on 30 September 2025. Reply via email .
I am very much enjoying my newly-resurrected hobby of Airsoft. Running around in the woods, firing small plastic pellets at other people, in pursuit of a contrived-to-be-fun mission, turns out to be, well, fun. I have also had to accept that, for some other players, part of that fun comes from making videos of their game days, and uploading them to YouTube. They often have quite impressive setups, with multiple cameras - head, rear-facing from barrel of weapon, and scope cam - and clearly put time, money, and effort into doing this. Great! Just like someone taking photos on their holidays, or when out and about, I can see the fun in it. It is the “non-consensually publishing it online for the world to see” aspect which bugs me a bit. In the handful of games that I have played, no-one has ever asked about consent of other participants. There has been no “put on this purple lanyard if you don’t want to be included in the public version of the video” rule, which I’ve seen work pretty well at conferences I have attended (even if it is opt-out rather than consent). I could, I suppose, ask each person that I see with a camera “would you mind not including me in anything you upload, please?”. And, since everyone with whom I’ve spoken at games, so far anyway, has been perfectly pleasant and friendly, I’d be hopeful that they would at least consider my request. I have not done this. The impression I get is that this is just seen as part and parcel of the hobby: by running around in the woods of northern Newbury on a Sunday morning, I need to accept that I may well appear on YouTube, for the world to see. I don’t love it, but it is not a big enough deal for me to make a fuss. I occasionally see people saying “well, if you don’t want to be in photos published online, don’t be in public spaces”. This is nonsense, for a number of reasons. Clearly, one should be able to exist in society, including going outside one’s own home, without needing to accept this kind of thing. In any case, here, the issue is somewhat different, since it is a private site, where people engage in private activity (a hobby). But then I’ve seen the same at (private) conferences, with people saying “Of course I’m free to take photos of identifiable individuals without their consent and publish them online”. Publishing someone’s photo online, without their consent, without another strong justification, just because they happen to be in view of one’s camera lens, feels wrong to me. This isn’t about what is legal (although, in some cases, claims of legality may be poorly conceived), but around my own perceptions of a private life, and a dislike for the fact that, just because one can publish such things, that one should .
Given the extensive history behind a simple pack of standard playing cards, it should not surprise you that cards can be seen as a mirror of society: that’s essentially why the court cards have kings, queens, and jacks in them. In as early as 1377 , Johannes of Rheinfelden wrote De moribus et disciplina humanae conversationis, id est ludus cartularum ; a treatise on card play in Europe. It is the oldest surviving description of medieval card play. In essence, when you play a game of Whist, you’re playing with the remains of the medieval European feudal system. That sounds a bit ominous so let’s skip the grim history lesson and instead focus on what philosophy can tell us about card play. Would they be able to offer interesting insights on why humans like to play and why we should (not) keep on doing it? Arthur Schopenhauer detested card games or any form of leisure activity. According to him, the clear lack of an intellectual deed would distract us from pondering the real questions of life. Schopenhauer thinks that by playing cards, you’re merely fulfilling a basic instinct-level need instead of enjoying higher intellectual pleasures (from Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life ): Dancing, the theatre, society, card‑playing, games of chance, horses, women, drinking, travelling, and so on… are not enough to ward off boredom where intellectual pleasures are rendered impossible by lack of intellectual needs. […] Thus a peculiar characteristic of the Philistine is a dull, dry seriousness akin to that of animals. In The Wisdom of Life, and Other Essays , he scoffs at us players, declaring us “bankrupt of thought”: Hence, in all countries the chief occupation of society is card‑playing, and it is the gauge of its value, and an outward sign that it is bankrupt in thought. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another’s money. Idiots! That’s certainly an original way of putting it. Schopenhauer is well-known for being the grumpy old depressive philosopher who bashes on anything he can think of, except for music and walking with his dog. Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal in cards, and try to win another’s money. Idiots! I guess he failed to see that just having fun is what makes living bearable. Criticising play in general is a common recurring theme in philosophy: play is said to distract from the very essence of thinking. In On Consolation , Seneca the Younger criticises Gaius Caesar for gambling to distract his grief after losing his sister Drusilla. According to Seneca, that’s evidence of moral failure. Speaking of which, Michel de Montaigne also seems to categorize card play as a stern morality exercise. In Of the Art of Conference , he notes that even in casual play sessions together with his wife and daughter, one has to stay honest by treating these small actions of integrity—by not cheating and following suit, I guess?—the same as the bigger stakes in life. In another of his essays, Of Drunkenness , he directly compares life to a game of chance where chance can easily mess up any plans we prepared. We, just like the card drawn from the deck, are at the mercy of Lady Luck. Maybe many philosophers dislike games of chance because they do not want to admit that much of our life’s experiences is left to chance 1 . Perhaps that’s why you gotta roll with the cards you’re dealt . Fifty years later, Blaise Pascal acknowledged Montaigne’s idea. He wrote extensively on wagering and views the human condition as one of uncertainty. We must make decisions with incomplete information—and live with the consequences that come with them. Doesn’t that sound like making a move in any game? On the very other end of the spectrum, we find Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens directly opposing Schopenhauer’s negative opinion on play. In the thick tome, Huizinga explores the very nature of play as a fundamental element of our human culture. Play is essential to keep our sanity/ Play is what makes us human. Huizinga briefly mentions card gaming as an example of a game with a clear set of rules defining boundaries and structure. Within that boundary, players can foster their skills. Huizinga seems to discard Schopenhauer’s bankruptcy idea completely. Play—including card play—is an essential part that embodies order, freedom, creativity, and even has a social and psychological function. Culture develops through play. Of course, Huizinga extensively studied play as part of his academic research meaning it would be a bit silly if he were to discard the subject as superfluous. In 1958, Roger Caillois built on top of Huizinga’s ideas in Les jeux et les hommes , investigating and categorizing games into different systems. Card games fall under games of chance but also contain a competitive aspect. The interesting Caillois notes is that some cultures handle dealing with chance differently: some celebrate it and embrace their fate, while others desperately try to master it (and usually fail). Guess which category our Western society falls under. It doesn’t take a big stretch to connect Caillois’ card play with the art of living. How do we live in relation to chance? Do we embrace it or try to resist and shape it? Life, just like card games, is not about winning, but about playing well. The act of playing cards can embody the act of living: we must navigate uncertainty, play and work within a set of constraints, read others and try to adapt to their moves, and perhaps above all find meaning in playing the game for the sake of playing the game. In the end, everybody wins, right? Or was it the house that always wins? I forgot. This article is part eight in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for more! Note that I’m interchanging the words luck and chance here even though depending on your interpretation, they are not the same. ↩︎ Related topics: / card games / philosophy / By Wouter Groeneveld on 29 September 2025. Reply via email .
I am a little low on energy at the moment, so I don't have much to say - I'll let most of the pictures speak for themselves. :) My copy of the Internet Phone Book arrived. It's sooooo worth it! Definitely grab a copy if you can! It's a joy to hold and explore. Also went to Noris Force Con with my wife. Also played a lot of analogue games again; Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness, and newly also X-Wing (don't like that one, but my wife loves it). We're currently trying out the Arkham Horror LCG too, so far it's pretty good. I think if I wasn't already playing other games in the universe (like the Arkham Horror boardgames, Eldritch Horror, Mansions of Madness, Call of Cthulhu PnP...) I would think it is horribly hard and unfair and would probably return it. You just have to get used to the fact that in the entire, I'd say "H. P. Lovecraft table games franchise" (?) by FFG and others, you really aren't meant to be the hero that is equally balanced to the scenario or monsters, you are supposed to feel small, helpless, and like everything is working out by sheer luck, coincidence, and some quick thinking. It aims to induce horror by feeling overrun with monsters and bad things happening all the time that make you yell "nooooo!". Some stuff just feels unfair and it is intentional, because otherwise, how do you transfer movie horror to card or board games? By now I have accepted it as normal to have an absolutely banger dice roll and still get 2 face-down damage cards, and curse the creators of the game. We also went to Die vegane Fleischerei . They're opening more stores, and I had previously already ordered from them once or twice. They have a nice offering of different plant meats and vegan cheeses :) Reply via email Published 28 Sep, 2025
Did you manage to identify all the card from quiz one ? Congratulations—in that case you won’t mind me revealing the solution. Click on the spoiler text below to reveal the answer: That was (mostly) easy enough, wasn’t it? The next Puzzling Photo, waiting for you below, won’t be a walk in the park, unless of course you’ve played most of these games recently: Name those card games quiz two. You know what to do. The rules remained the same: each card belongs to another card game. Try to identify them all! The first hint from quiz one remains relevant: all cards have the same dimensions as a standard deck of cards. This time, most of the games do come with a board and other components besides cards. As always, the solutions will appear in one of the upcoming posts on trick taking and card games ! This article is part seven in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for the next part! Related topics: / card games / By Wouter Groeneveld on 26 September 2025. Reply via email .
Instead of a traditional review of a new Pi product, I thought I'd split things up on my blog, and write two separate posts; this one about hacking in an eGPU on the Pi 500+, for a massive uplift in gaming performance and local LLMs, and a separate post about the Pi 500+'s new mechanical keyboard . The Raspberry Pi 500+ was announced today, sells for $200, and adds on the following over what was present in the regular Pi 500:
Instead of a traditional review of a new Pi product, I thought I'd split things up on my blog, and write two separate posts; this one about the Pi 500+'s new mechanical keyboard, and a separate post about hacking in an eGPU on the Pi 500+ , for a massive uplift in gaming performance and local LLMs. The Raspberry Pi 500+ was announced today, sells for $200, and adds on the following over what was present in the regular Pi 500:
If you’re not in the mood for a traditional trick taking session , don’t worry: card and board games have evolved greatly since seventeenth century Whist. After both Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan —two board game pioneers that helped reinvigorate interest in tabletop gaming—the industry slowly but surely exploded, with over seven thousand yearly new releases in 2024, making it almost impossible to play them all. Trick taking morphed from a set of rules played with a standard deck of cards into a gaming mechanic incorporated by sprawling board games. It might not be as often employed as worker placement or set collection but there’s more than enough stuff waiting to be played for us trick taking enthusiasts. I’ve only begun to dip a toe into these modern variants myself. The wanted list keeps on growing. In this post, I’d like to categorize and highlight a few standouts. Pick a category below and explore the recommendations to get a sense of what modern trick taking games can do: Solo trick taking —as mentioned in the article on patience card games , For Northwood! is a popular trick taker that’s designed to be played only by yourself. Although Park Life: People can be played with more people, according to the community reviews, on Board Game Geek, its solo mode is better. And then there are trick takers such as the Lord of the Rings trick taking games that do include a solo and two-player variant but are still best played with three or more. Two-player only — Sail is another refreshing take on the genre. In the pirate-themed game, you’re navigating the boat together, avoiding obstacles as you try to race to the finish. The diagonal direction of the boat is dictated by the person winning the trick. The upcoming Legacy variant is of course pre-ordered here. Claim is another two-player focused trick taking game that has at least one edition for sale in a store near you. Cooperative trick taking —this category was ruled by The Crew before The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game rushed for the crown (or ring?). In The Fellowship , each participant plays as a character trying to fulfil specific goals: Frodo has to win at least four of the five ring cards with The One Ring card being the only trump in the game, Sam has to win the least amount of tricks, and so forth. It feels like a small campaign game and the artwork is immaculate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, The Two Towers is due to release soon. Asymmetric gameplay – TRICKTAKERs takes the genre for a unique spin. Characters have unique abilities that can turn a typical trick taking session on its head pretty quickly. This is probably the most involved trick taker that I wouldn’t recommend to newcomers of the genre; coming in at a weight of out of 5 on BGG. Trumps that trump the trump suit — Skull King can technically be played with two to eight players but as always it’s best enjoyed with four (or five). The pirate-themed game introduced bidding as well as trick taking: each round, you’re dealt one, two, three, … cards, and you’ll have to predict how many tricks you’ll win. The black flag suit is your usual trump here but then there are pirates that mess up this formula, trumping the trump unless it’s the Skull King himself—who himself can’t be beaten except with a mermaid? It’s a fun and chaotic take on the classic formula without completely altering it. Dice tricks — Nosoku Dice proves dice and cards can be combined to provide a challenging trick-taking experience where just enough drafting and bidding is sprinkled on top to keep things interesting. This is one of those games that’s still on my wish list. Polynomial puzzling —In case you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Uwe Rosenberg would create a trick taker, there’s The Kakapo that combines Patchwork-like polynomial puzzling with classic trick taking action. On top of that, The Kakapo is a cooperative puzzle. If only it wouldn’t be so damn difficult to acquire. Heavier board gaming — Arcs is a tactical space area control board game that manages to incorporate some light trick taking as a cool way to win action spaces. Partially thanks to that aspect, Arcs has managed to stay in BGG’s The Hotness list ever since it was released in 2024. If you’re a heavy board gamer that wants to dip just a tiny toe into trick taking, this is the one for you. Hearts but different — Rebel Princess is a fun alteration on the classic Hearts in which you’re avoiding marriage proposals instead. Special rules in each of the five rounds keep you on your toes. On top of that, each player representing another princess wields unique abilities that can be triggered once per round. For instance, Mulan’s card reads “After the last card has been played in a trick, swap the card you played for another of the same suit, except the Frog”. The rules should guarantee freshness and enough differentiation from its progenitor. Treacherousness and fun — Power Vacuum cannot be won without a minimum of manipulation, deceit, and treacherousness. Everyone is trying to raise to power as the “Supreme Appliance” is dead (yes, the vacuuming machine, really) with any means necessary, including backstabbing. It reminds me a bit of our frantic Bohnanza sessions were cheating allowed as long as nobody sees it was a much-loved house rule. I have yet to get my hands on this one but it looks very promising. This article is part six in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for the next part! Related topics: / card games / boardgames / trick taking / By Wouter Groeneveld on 23 September 2025. Reply via email .
That’s a lot of games in one sentence. Tell me, what is better than a card game or a video game? Why yes, a card game inside a video game! These so-called mini games—a game within a game that acts as a gatekeeper or an amusing way to win a buck or two—are becoming more and more common in sprawling RPGs. From card-based betting in casinos popularized by the Dragon Quest series to full-blown card games playable in taverns and even card-game mechanics baked into the core of the game, the options are virtually endless. Let’s explore a few of them. As part of this trick taking and card game series, I only consider true card games as part of a mini game: this rules out Baten Kaitos , Slay The Spire , or even Blizzard’s Magic the Gathering -esque Hearthstone that have card play baked into their core. Also, in part two of our lovely card gaming adventure, we’ve already discussed Sierra On-Line’s Hoyle games : these are pure card games, not mini games inside another game. New Super Mario Bros. is an edge case: Luigi dealing cards at a casino is certainly fun to watch but that’s accessible in a separate game mode, not inside the main game. And no, Mario Bros 3’s memory “card game” does not count either. Let’s start by briefly mentioning the most popular examples: The Witcher 3’s Gwent and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’s Pazaak . The former is even getting its own physical card game released later this year. CD Projekt Red admitted they underestimated the popularity of Gwent . Some players spend even more hours chasing down NPCs that can be battled with to upgrade complete their Gwent deck than spending time on the main quest line. Who came up with the genius idea of putting a game inside a game anyway? One of the earliest examples I could find is Dragon Quest III (1988) where the player can engage in very simple “monster betting”. Its successor Dragon Quest IV (1990) introduced various playable mini games in casinos such as Poker as seen in the video still below. Since then, casinos have become a Dragon Quest —or even general JRPG—staple. Earning a quick casino buck sure sounds like a way to buy expensive equipment earlier provided you manage to crack the game’s RNG rules. There are endless examples of JRPG mini games, but not that much good card game implementations. I guess they lost their appeal once developers started putting in more complex and visually appealing alternatives. If you’re interested in an overview of mini games in JRPGs I, highly recommend the above retrospective from Gaming Broductions, although they do not focus exclusively on card games. Some more examples of later card game mini games are Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad and IX’s Tetra Master . Another often overlooked yet noteworthy game is Bug Fables ’s Spy Cards . And then there’s Xenosaga Episode I that even featured a full-fledged collectible card game including boosters and promo cards! But really, this post is just an excuse to gush about New World Computing’s Arcomage , a playable mini game in Might & Magic VII: For Blood and Honor (1999), and my favourite one, Might & Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (2000). The card game was even released as a standalone game. Fortunately for us, Tom Chen built a clone playable right in your browser called ArcoMage HD . In Arcomage, you build a tower, destroy your opponent’s tower, or collect enough resources to meet a certain goal. The victory conditions vary from tavern to tavern, and there’s even a side quest requiring you to win at least once in every tavern. The three resources are bricks (red), gems (blue), and recruits (green). Playing a card costs resources, but each round they refill depending on the amount of production you have. To defend against player’s attacks, you can also build a wall in front of your tower to absorb most of the damage. Arcomage is easy to get into: give it a try using the above link. An ongoing game of Arcomage played at the Dagger Wound Island tavern in Might & Magic VIII. When I discovered Migh & Magic VIII in 2000, I couldn’t grasp the intricate details of what made a cRPG tick—but I certainly could hire a vampire and a dragon, wreak havoc in the countryside, and then rest my weary ass by playing a few rounds of Arcomage in the nearest tavern. Provided I was still allowed in after accidentally killing all the villages by casting Armageddon —whoopsie (see my 2023 playthrough report of the game). Even though later RPGs come with more complex mini games where you have to win or buy new cards in order to gradually progress, Arcomage for me defines this post tile: Card Game Mini Game In Video Game . Gwent or Pazaak never really held my interest for longer than fifteen minutes while I could keep endlessly replaying Arcomage . It has to end someday, though: the people of Enroth are apparently waiting for me to destroy some kind of crystal tower and save their world. Oh well, one more round can’t hurt. Tavern-based card play is often added as a fan-based mod in PC RPGs. These are simple enough to find via . My favourite is Morrowind’s Thirteen Telvanni that of course includes betting as a way to built up a nice stash. Other examples include Fallout: New Vegas , Oblivion and Skyrim , and even Neverwinter Nights 2 based on Triple Triad . Mini games are not limited to the RPG genre: even Wario Land on the good old Game Boy had you play a timed memory game to win treasure or whack enemies in a simplified 2D golf game in order to unlock a passage guarding treasure. This was Wario before Wario became synonymous for wacky mini games. Card game mini games, however, are few and far between. The only occurrence I remember—my second favourite card-based mini game besides Arcomage—appears in Humongous Entertainment’s Spy Fox In Dry Cereal (1997), in the form of a one-on-one Go Fish competition in order to win a required trinket from Mr. Big Pig: Spy Fox playing Go Fish against Mr. Big Pig in the casino. Do you have any... sixes? Aha, you do! Hand them over! Screenshot taken from the Nintendo Switch port. In order to start the game, you have to shake the Jar-o-Trinkets and put one on the table. The winner takes them all, of course. You can revisit the mini game any time after you’ve procured the needed item which is a nice diversion from the main storyline. I usually don’t like required mini games, but the jazzy background music and Mr Big Pig’s funny voice acting keeps us coming back for more. He starts to sweat once he realizes we’re winning and the look on his face when handing over a card is golden. It is worth noting that I could not find a single mini game—fan mod or official—that is a trick taking game. Presumably because most trick takers require more than two opponents? Please let me know if you did encounter a digital in-game variant somewhere. This article is part five in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for the next part! Related topics: / card games / screenshots / By Wouter Groeneveld on 20 September 2025. Reply via email .
I'm a fan of a hypothesis about "mental capacity" being a finite quantity that you spend while actively using your brain and recover during rest. It may sound obvious, but history is full of many seemingly "obvious" truisms that were ultimately disproved by science (like geocentric planetary model or cold weather being the reason for common cold). I don't know of any actual research into this hypothesis, but my life experience keeps providing me with confirmations. Everdell is a beautiful board game where you juggle competing strategies in your brain, constantly trying to calculate ahead and see which one is the most probable to win. It's pretty engaging! Trouble is, when we started playing it at home I was losing to my wife all the time . Like, I lost our first 20 or so games, and not by a narrow margin. This was surprising because our general board game winning rate is normally pretty even: sometimes she wins, sometimes I do. The effect was there even when we played on weekends, when my head didn't physically hurt after an exhausting day at work. Still, I was losing… Now, imagine my (and her) surprise when I won three of our last games in a row! I haven't found some magical winning strategy, and she didn't suddenly got much worse, judging by the winning points at the end of the game. But I did notice that it's now easier for me to hold several strategies in my head and calculate further into potential future moves. The only explanation I could come up with is that now I haven't been working full time for a while, I have more mental capacity at my disposal. Keeping an eye on a child is not very complicated in itself. Especially when they don't speak yet. But it does require continuous focus and keeps you in a state of tension, because it is your child and not some computer stuff belonging to your employer! What I discovered during my kid's early months was, keeping this continuous focus was also exhausting my mental capacity. At that time I was also trying to help friends with a startup, and even though not much was required of me, I remember simply not being able to focus on anything creative even after having a few hours of child-free time. ("Hours", ha-ha!) Later I got another confirmation of that when schools were closed during the 2020 pandemic. Even though technically I didn't spend much time directly engaged in schooling activities, just the fact that our entire living turned into a never-ending problem solving exercise was enough to drop my productivity so low that I almost got fired (although working under a shitty manager at the time could have something to do with that too). But here's a somewhat contradicting example. I noticed myself, and heard anecdotally from others, that achieving something satisfying , like finding and fixing a tricky bug, or seeing a rough implementation of an idea becoming alive, seems to reinvigorate you and keep you running through the day. A day when you work hard and accomplish something often feels easier on the brain than the one when you don't seem to be able to work at all.
Coffee Talk is a game series I really love; I have already written about it previously on this blog and tried out some of the drinks in the game (I still want to follow up on that and make more, but keep procrastinating... so sorry!). Basically, it's a Visual Novel in pixel art style, lofi music and with action elements, meaning you read dialogue as the characters move in and out of the scene of your coffee bar and you get to make them hot beverages as they tell their stories. The fun is getting to know the characters, uncovering the plot twists, seeing them interact, secret and previously unseen lines of dialogue in second playthroughs, and trying to get the drinks just right according to the customer's standards. Coffee Talk Tokyo is the third installment of the series, and the first game fully developed without Mohammad Fahmi, the creator. He passed away in 2022 at the age of 32, halfway through the development of Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly. I can't even type this right now without starting to cry, but I am so happy and proud of Toge Productions for being able to finish that game and the beautiful tribute to Fahmi in it 1 . So it's definitely rough to keep this series going without his input, his creative vision, when it was his baby. I wonder how much we will have to break away from what we have known and come to expect as players to make it work. There's already more new stuff: It's no longer the coffee shop in Seattle, now it's in Tokyo, and Toge Productions has involved Chorus Worldwide in the development. Earlier this year, they released a demo that I have played, and now since the end of August, they have released a second version of the demo. I've just played that and wanted to share my thoughts so far; not really with much of a spoiler, because I won't be talking about characters or what they said. Release date is set as late 2025, so I hope it will be done soon. Reply via email Published 18 Sep, 2025 Play it multiple times and get all the achievements. Take the hints at the end with Tofu the cat seriously, and see it for yourself. ↩
Akin to many (retro) (partial) screenshot guessing quizzes out there, here’s my own. The photo below depicts my right hand holding seven mystery cards, each from another card game, and a joker as an aid to partially cover the last mystery card. Can you guess which card belongs to which game? Name those card games quiz one. Here’s a hint: all cards have the same dimensions as a standard deck of cards. All cards from this quiz are card game exclusives meaning there is no central board involved. I’ll post the solutions when the next quiz is due! This article is part four in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for the next part! Related topics: / card games / By Wouter Groeneveld on 17 September 2025. Reply via email .
This is out of the ordinary for this blog, but I feel like putting this somewhere in case it ever helps anyone. The issue with wikis and Reddit threads is that it’s all so spread out, comments don't explain much or deleted, contain broken links, and the info may be from earlier versions of the game. The game also has a Discord, where info gets lost even more easily and is walled off. I may not be able to keep this consistently updated in the future, but I can still gather the current info and the parts I mention likely won’t be changed anymore. I’m focusing on parts that are overwhelming at the start, easily missed, or never explained, or that I found confusing and no guide would help me. The Crane Game in the Merry Meadows in the third area unlocked with a seed was seriously hard for me even on easy mode. Couldn’t get anything, especially not on hard mode. The tips online didn’t work for me until I equipped Mell, who slows the speed down by 25%. This together with hard mode creates a speed that lets me intuitively time everything right. So first, equip Mell and choose hard mode for the Crane Game. Move the crane towards the waterfall on the right, but only so far as the path of the boxes goes. Pay attention to the shadow of it, which forms a little line. The second the line reaches the lower edge of the current box , push the button to lower the crane. Should be exactly 3 seconds until the new box, which is the time the crane arm needs to go down and grab. The graphics and the characters are owned by Sanrio, the game assets belong to Sunblink. Reply via email Published 17 Sep, 2025
Traditionally, the magical realm of trick taking and card gaming in general could only be experienced after gathering three other contestants willing to sit together. In part one of this series on card games, we explored some traditional Flemish variants always played with four—although Jokeren is an exception. Games that require a team such as Kwajongen or Spades simply cannot be played without inviting others to the table. And yet, that doesn’t mean that that deck of playing cards has to stay inside the cupboard if you happen to be alone. There’s only one requirement besides the deck itself: Patience . It only recently dawned to me that Patience and Solitaire mean the same thing: the former is the common name for solo tile-laying card games in Europe while the latter seems to be used the most in the USA and Canada. For me, Patience will always equal Klondike , as in 1990 a digital variant of that particular card game shipped with Windows 3.0: Playing Solitaire on Windows 3.1 with the spooky castle card backs. You can relive those nostalgic moments right here in your browser using PCjs . As visible in the Windows title bar in the above screenshot, PCjs boots an American English version of Windows 3(.1), so if you’re in Europe, you’ll have to imagine it reads Patience instead. Susan Kare designed the card faces. Her webshop at kareprints.com even has some prints still available. I urgently need to convince my wife that we have to hang a Kare Queen of Hearts prominently in the hallway, because reasons. While exploring the patience realm, I discovered that there are endless variations of the individual systematic card arranging exercise, of which undoubtedly Klondike is the most popular. The 42nd edition of Hoyle’s Offical Rules published in 1943 mentions an impressive 19 and includes classics ( Cribbage , Klondike , Forty Thieves ) as well as to me obscure ones ( Idiot’s Delight , Streets and Alleys , Rainbow ). When I was little, the neighbour of my grandparents—the same ones introducing me to card gaming—learned me how to lay down a “clock”. In The Clock , lay down twelve stacks of four cards each, and a thirteenth start pile in the centre. After flipping and removing a card from the start, you can flip the pile laying at one of the twelve hours of the same value. The objective is to simply get rid of all cards without encountering all four kings. I forgot about this game for nearly two decades. Back then, preparing The Clock tableau felt special: would I be able to make it this time? I think it felt special because I was enamoured with card games thanks to my grandparents. Thinking about The Clock now leaves me very much unimpressed: it’s not even a game. You have zero input on it, it’s a pure game of chance. Flip a card, move to the next value. Oh, tough luck, a king. Even implementing a condensed The Clock solver in Python takes less than twenty lines of code: Where are the Dutch abbreviations for the suits ( Schuppen , Klaveren , Harten , Ruiten ). Running this simply results in or . Yay, I won. Oh no, I lost. Luckily, not all Patience games are as depressingly deterministic as The Clock . While Klondike is all right, alternatives like Spider Solitaire and FreeCell have a much higher skill level meaning your decisions in placing the cards do matter. The Nintendo DS card game collection Ultimate Card Games —a quite decent one worth your time—even contains some stats for each Patience type, informing the player if it’s a more skill or more luck based game they’re engaging in. A session of Spider Solitaire in Cosmigo's Ultimate Card Games. Note the 3D-rendered table space on the top screen where the card tableau is faithfully mimicked. If you’re the kind of person that exclusively rolls on Patience, you can alternatively check out Cosmigo’s Solitaire Overload DS game boasting more than thirty tableau laying challenges. I much prefer Ultimate Card Games ’s 3D effort and trick taking inclusions but Overload is there in case you just can’t get enough. After all, who loves playing these Patience games except for bored teenagers attending computer classes that stumbled upon after aimlessly wandering through the Windows start menu 1 ? Even that is a thing of the past as Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the game should no longer be shipped with the OS. Patience card games are making a comeback thanks to the rising interest in board gaming in general. For instance, Isaludo is a free document describing ten engaging modern Patience alternatives to the worn-out Hoyle era variants. One of those, The Emissary , is the precursor to For Northwood! , a solo trick taking card game independently released and available at your local game store—once they finally manage to reprint it, that is. Yes, you’ve read that right: it’s not a tableau laying game but a trick taking one for just one person! That alone should be enough to check it out. For Northwood! is not the only “modern” solo card game originating in the standard 52-deck space. Another big hitter is the recent Regicide . You don’t need to buy anything to play the game: just parse the official rules and get going. The remarkable thing here is, again, that it is not a dry tableau lying game. In Regicide , you’re fighting back against the ancient regime, trying to overthrow the jacks, queens, and kings, by recruiting other cards acting as your army in the “tavern” (the drawing deck). Regicide ’s mechanics are as simple as they are clever, but don’t expect a walk in the park: by the time you face the first few kings, you’ll be scrambling to do enough damage and defend from incoming attacks. It’s amazing to see how much creativity sparks from a simple deck of classic playing cards. Do yourself a favour and dust off that old pack you have laying around. Skip that stupid Clock and pick up a(n imaginative) sword instead. If you find yourself wanting more, the upcoming Regicide Legacy variant will be sure to keep you busy. And then there’s the print-and-play realm where all you need is a printer, a standard deck of cards, and a pen to either make your way through a dungeon ( 52 Realms: Adventures ) or shoot your way out of a saloon ( Fliptown ). The latter, also sold as a boxed game, recently went through yet another successful Kickstarter announcing a standalone expansion called Fliptown: New Frontier . Of course I took out my wallet and pressed that pledge button. I’ll let you know in a few months if it was worth it. This article is part three in a series on trick taking and card games . Stay tuned for the next part! Smarter kids will secretly install or find and start a local multiplayer session using the Microsoft Hearts Network . Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first “network-ready” Windows where Hearts was used to showcase simultaneous network play. ↩︎ Related topics: / card games / trick taking / screenshots / By Wouter Groeneveld on 14 September 2025. Reply via email .
Gaming
Entertainment
AI
Design
Culture
Hardware
Philosophy
Books
Career
Tutorial
Python