Sunday, December 22, 2019

Catan vs. Concordia; also, my newest YouTube video

So one of the best ways I can explain Concordia is that it’s Settlers of Catan on steroids. Let me explain. So a euro game is a game that focuses more on strategy than luck, often involves gathering resources and using them to construct things, and building an engine (strategic choices that build together and work together to achieve a goal).

Catan has been known as the euro game that introduced the mainstream citizen to euro gaming. It’s one of the only games people recognize when I give them a list of the types of games I play (Ticket to Ride is another one). But Catan uses dice-an element of chance-whereas Concordia uses none. The only random thing about it is what cards come up next in the queue of new cards you can grab.


So you’re probably asking the question: which game do you prefer? Catan or Concordia? If someone had a copy of both and asked you which one you’d like to play, which would you pick? I would say Concordia.

In Catan you’re waiting for a while in between turns. Turns in Concordia are really fast. Usually it’s just trading goods with the Mercator card that takes the longest. But because there are no die rolls, I can just start my turn as you’re finishing up yours.

You feel like you’ve accomplished more. In Concordia your score can go all the way up above 100, as opposed to Catan’s 10 points. Plus, in Concordia, scoring is more interesting and there are several different routes you can take to get a high score, depending on what god/s you focus on.


Although there’s no trading resources in Concordia, there’s still plenty of player interaction and not being able to trade makes the game go quicker (see above). In Catan, if someone blocked you off you were doomed. In Concordia, you can still build there, it just costs more money.

Both games take about the same amount of time to play, I’d say. But once again, in Concordia you feel like you’ve accomplished and done so much more.

In the end, I give Concordia my recommendation. The rules are super simple (and can all be learned in my eight and a half minute video above), the turns are fast, what you can do on your turn is literally spelled out for you in the cards in your hand, and there are multiple paths to victory due to the differently scoring gods. In the end, Concordia is like Catan. But better.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

A couple of links

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10111738320568381&id=10026497&anchor_composer=false Went horseback riding this weekend. That marks the second time I’ve been horseback riding.



If you want to see me making up a song on the spot you can turn to last week’s The Studio. I start at the 11:50 mark and go to the 12:19 mark. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cY8twjd5EAE

I am working on a new YouTube video on how to play Concordia. Look forward to that in the next couple of days.

Speaking of next couple of days, just two more days of regular school, then two half days of finals, and Friday starts our Christmas break!

Sunday, November 24, 2019

In which I am featured on my school’s student news broadcast

Every Friday my school has a new student news broadcast which we watch during first hour. I was interviewed and am featured in last week’s.



(I appear at the 11 minute mark.)

Sunday, October 20, 2019

The post where we play games for 2 straight days

Heather and Grandma Perazzo

Grandpa watching his grandkids

Henry made this bed for Alex.

Games!!!


My first game of Scythe!

Caverna: I had 6 workers, Alex had 2. Guess who won?

Uncles and Grandma play Quacks for the first time.


Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Organ Stop Pizza

Gilbert Temple




Johnsons and Perazzos





I love this game!


Mystic Vale was pretty darn fun.




Brothers!

2-player Caverna. I lost again. After this we wrapped up the weekend with a couple games of Viticulture with Tuscany. 

Sunday, October 6, 2019

Some notes from General Conference


Christ is the center of General Conference.  Christ is the center of the gospel and church. Christ is the center of the Temple.

Be totally committed and you won't have regrets (even if you break your jaw).

World gives hey. Deer were feed but not nourished on hey. The scriptures/gospel nourishes. Don't replace with social media,  etc. Satan is the author of procrastination. Parents, build strong relationships with your children. Spend more time with them, not less.

Spiritual thoughtlessness invites great danger in our lives. Viligence is watching continually for danger.

Come Follow Me will lessen satan's influence in our lives.

Sorrow, coupled with Jesus Christ,  holds the promise of eternal joy. If we are faithful in keeping our covenants we will return to our Heavenly home.

It's important to do what you said you will do. Causaully made commitments are easy to break.

Discipleship is not about doing things perfectly, it's about doing things intentionally.

Fasting, donating, and helping others in need is what the Church does. It helps the hungry and refugees.

Pray for greater holiness.

Repentance is a daily process.

Everyone dies. Tell your loved ones you love them today. Carnal man vs. being spiritually minded: our real authentic self is spiritual. Repentance becomes an indispensable weapon in our battle over self. Regularly daily repent.

Deception, distraction, and discouragement are tools satan uses. Don't compare yourself to others. Love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength; pray daily; read and study the Book of Mormon every day; partake of the Sacrament weekly.

Don't put your own timetable on when the Lord's blessings should come.

Yeah, they totally said the word "banana." I always wanted a random and odd word to somehow get said in a spot in a General Conference talk, and it paid off! Woot woot!

Super awesome how now keeping the Sabbath Day holy is a Temple recommend question. I was wondering if/when that was going to happen.

Guesses on next April's Conference: it will take place in the Sacred Grove in New York.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Don't let anyone know what you're working on (and why)

My mom and dad and Alex are coming to visit us later in October! I'm excited. General Conference is also coming up in October! I'm excited. October bills are also coming up! I'm not excited.

I read a recent study done in which they determined that if you let other people know your personal goals you'll be less likely to achieve them. Most people think that by telling others they'll be more accountable and therefore more motivated to get it done, but nope. By letting someone know your goal, it creates a premature sense of completeness. Hence why if I tell someone a project it doesn't get completed but if I don't tell someone it does end up getting completed. https://www.inc.com/melissa-chu/announcing-your-goals-makes-you-less-likely-to-ach.html

Played Architects of the West Kingdom on Thursday (Thursday nights a game club meets in Mesa). Super fun. I ended up winning. And yes, I still would have thought it was fun even if I lost.


Sunday, September 15, 2019

The post with many pictures

First things first--Heather beat me in a game of Alhambra. Again.


Here is a picture of a Temple.


And it rained and there was a rainbow!





And here's some pictures of Joy because Joy is cute.





And here's a picture of some poop because who doesn't love looking at pictures of poop? At any rate, Joy has been so enthralled at Henry using the potty that she feels she has to too, so we got her a little unicorn baby potty. She actually uses it, too, as evidenced by said picture.


And now some more pictures of our wonder children.






Also, I've been reading the book we're doing for our Junior English class out loud and recording them. They are now on my YouTube channel if you want to check them out.




Sunday, September 8, 2019

Game ideas I have


One of my favorite game pieces is colored dice. I love colored dice. Just the sheer amount of awesome things you can do with colored dice makes my mouth water. Well, not only do I have a whole ton of colored dice, but also a whole ton of colored meeples. The question is now: what sort of awesome game can I create using 100 colored dice and 100 colored meeples? The kind of question that makes a person like me super excited.

One really fun game I made growing up was Lost: The board game. I still love the idea of three different pieces, triangle, square, and circle, and rolling three dice and moving three pieces. In fact, 90% of that idea I want to reimplement some time. Maybe take out the Clue theme idea, and go to Victory points such as San Juan.

Found my old notes to Thousand Faces, the card game based off of Hero with A Thousand Faces. I’m teaching the hero’s journey to my Seniors the next few weeks, so I might have to dust it off.


No idea if this above video will work, but I'll put it up. Joy is getting so big!