Game Review – The Resistance: Avalon (Tabletop)

When it was released, The Resistance became a pretty big deal. It improved on and solidified the social-deduction genre into something that gamers really enjoyed. The game is super simple, uses minimal components, and keeps every player involved in the game until the end (no “game master” needed). Several expansions were released containing all sorts of variations on the original gameplay, and some of these were put together in an upgraded but still quite simple package in the form of The Resistance: Avalon, with the theme of the game changed from Sci-Fi to Arthurian Fantasy. This is the version that I own and have played so many times; let’s take a look at what’s good and bad about it.

As far as theme goes, I don’t care that much, especially since it doesn’t really affect the game (as evidenced by the fact that they changed it so drastically), but I do like the knights/fantasy theme slightly better if only for the artwork. I don’t rely on the theme too heavily when teaching the game (the fact that the “king” changes every round is a bit strange), but it can help draw people in who otherwise might not consider playing.

Actually playing the game is fairly simple. Most of the players are “good-guys” (knights of the round table) who don’t know who anyone else is, and a minority are “bad-guys” (minions of the evil Mordrid) who know the identity of the other bad guys. There are five “missions” in every game; if 3 succeed the good-guys win, if three fail the bad-guys win. A designated player will select a group of players to go on a mission and everyone will vote on them. If the vote fails enough times the mission will fail, but if the vote passes everyone will get two cards that say either “success” or “fail.” Good-guys must put in “success” cards while bad-guys can put in either. It only takes one “fail” card for the mission to be considered a failure (most of the time). Players move from round to round trying to identify who the bad-guys are and exclude them from the later missions.

Even on its own this is actually a pretty fun game (and it’s basically all the standard Resistance game is), but things get much more interesting when some special roles get added in. The most basic and playable is Merlin, who knows who the bad-guys are. But if you play with him, the Assassin player is also added to the game, and if the good-guys win, the Assassin gets one shot to reveal Merlin and turn the tide. Additionally for good there is Percival, who knows the identity of Merlin, and for evil there is: Mordrid, who is unknown to Merlin; Morgana, who appears to be Merlin to Percival (thus he sees two Merlins); and Oberon, who does not appear to the other evil players (and is thus a detriment to them, not an asset). There’s even a few more variations such as the Lady of the Lake, which lets you see other players’ loyalty (and only really works in larger groups).

Together (Merlin is technically in the basic game, but I like to first have a “teaching” round without him for new players) these make an excellent package with all kinds of variations for all different player counts (5-10), and I have yet to play a game that did not go over well (except with me, which I’ll get to). The mechanisms are simple, but clever enough that players always have an exciting (and sometimes stressful) time puzzling out who’s who in time for that final, critical mission. There’s a lot of different things you can read into, from how they voted, to who they chose for a mission and whether a mission they went on passed or failed, and of course, if they’re your friends, you know how they play other games and what ticks they might have. Adding in the variations just spices things up that much more.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve played this game and had a blast; it’s tense and involving without being overly complicated. But I’ve started to get a little bit sick of it. It’s been a go-to game for when we have “new” players (or players who aren’t that into the “board” part of board games), when there isn’t much time, or with large groups of people (though this happens less often), and I have played it so many times, with so many variations. Things have just gotten repetitive, and the fact that most of my games have been played with 5 or 6 players doesn’t help that fact (I have a small game group). There is a distinct pattern: first round success, second round toss-up, followed by two (or one) successes and the assassin correctly fingering Merlin. Occasionally there is an upset and we go into five rounds, or the assassin is particularly bad, but still the pattern of the bad-guys winning “cheaply” remains. Attempting to change things up just gets me “Oberon isn’t fun” or a game that doesn’t quite work properly (in small games the Lady of the Lake is too powerful, the other bad-guys make it easier for evil, and even Percival doesn’t even things out). But that’s just me personally being burned out (I am the “game guy” and I’m the one with the copy we play every time), everyone else I play with has a blast.

If you are interested in the idea of social deduction games, if you like Werewolf and the like, or if you are just looking for a small, simple, and inexpensive game for a group of friends I would recommend this game. I have gotten way more than what I paid for in enjoyment out of it over the years, and the base The Resistance game is even cheaper. If you think you’re going to play it a lot and might get burned out like me I’d recommend getting that non-Avalon version and picking up some of the expansions along the way, there are options in those to make the game identical to Avalon gameplay-wise and a whole lot more (as of right now there are no expansions for the Avalon version). I would also recommend looking into card-sleeves. The game has bridge-sized cards, which are harder to find sleeves for, but you shuffle them A LOT, and Indie Boards & Cards has a habit of printing games where you shuffle a lot on relatively poor cardstock, this being no exception. The other components are all fine (the boards are basically card stock, but you don’t interact with them much and they don’t get damaged. And the tokens are all really nicely made), but be prepared for the game as a whole to get scuffed up from round after round of play.

Review – Bic Xtra-Fun Pencils

Sometimes I’m a sucker for buying new things for the novelty, and I think that’s what Bic is counting on (except I think their target market is children) with the Xtra-Fun series of pencils. At first (and second) glance they appear to be regular #2 pencils in wacky, fun colors. But are they usable?

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For the most part these pencils are pretty standard: a “wooden” hexagonal body with general information stamped and inked into one of the facets (each pencil also appears to have a unique number stamped but not inked into it; I am unsure of its significance). The most obvious differences between them and regular pencils is the bright-colored paint on the outside with the inside dyed a different (usually mismatched) color, and that the standard metal eraser holder has been replaced with a much larger diameter plastic one. The body looks and feels at first like a regular wood pencil, but after sharpening and handling it for a bit I would say that if it isn’t a type of plastic it is a “flaked and formed” wood that uses a different process than most pencils to give it more plasticity.

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The performance of the lead is as expected, on the soft side of middle-of the road. Not much precision is possible, nor shading; it’s good for scantrons and notes. The eraser is of the white variety, and actually very decent, erasing most typical writing lines without seeming to disappear before your very eyes. In fact, the most disappointing thing about this pencil is its structural integrity. It bends very easily, and much more so than a regular pencil. Simply handling it will result in finding out how easily it bends, which is worrisome in general, but added to by the fact that when I was using these pencils I began to sharpen one, and the tip broke off every time I was just getting to a point, down until there was no more pencil to put in the sharpener. Thus, one of my pencils was rendered entirely useless, and I hadn’t really played with the plasticity of that one, so I would definitely call it a defect, and one that makes it hard to recommend these pencils, especially for children.

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I probably won’t be buying any pencils from this range again, but that would’ve still been the case had they been good pencils. But with such an easy to encounter (albeit not in the intended usage case) flaw that essentially ruins the pencil’s penciling ability, I have to say I wouldn’t be able to recommend them to anyone. The colors are also terrible but I suppose some have different (perhaps more X-treme) tastes than I, so I can’t particularly fault it there.

Blog 3-21-16 – Announcement and Update

Announcement Part:

Hello everyone. Austin Smith, writer of this Blog and other Internet things here, going to talk about something that I’ve been waiting to talk about since last September (sort of). I’m going to be part of a (art/gallery) show with several artists from my local area.

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It’ll be my first show in an actual gallery with me on the flyer and stuff. I’m including links to the other artists (Tommy, Chris), and I know they will be doing some great stuff for the show that I won’t spoil here. But I can say that I’m very happy with what I’m going to have there: including a few new books that will soon also be available on my Amazon page, stickers, bookmarks, postcards, actual work that goes on the wall, and maybe some other really cool stuff.

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If you can make it, I hope to see you there, but I know that it’s pretty far out of the way for most people, so I will be posting as much about it as I can, and trying to figure out how to get some of the cool things I made out to a wider audience.

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Blog Part:

Wow, when I made that post about being late last week I had no intention of it taking a week or more to get back up to speed, but that looks like what has happened. For this I apologize. But migraines carry with them lasting negative effects, and I’ve really only had one good, functioning day this week, and quite a bit of my work time was consumed by preparations for the show that had to be created and ordered in time to make it. Still, I wish I had been able to get more done faster, and I thank you for being patient if you were waiting for new stuff. I will catch up on everything I missed, but it might take a few days to get back to normal.

-A

Blog 11-30-15 – Thanksgiving and Artwalk

Hellooo… It’s Blog time again. I’m still sort of in a Thanksgiving vacation type thing where everyone I’m around acts like I shouldn’t be working, but I still work but a lot fewer things get done. Anyway, I’ve got a few things I feel I should keep posted about.

First of all, my Artwalk showing in Alpine went wonderfully and it was much less cold than previous years (though at one point it did get quite cold). I met a lot of great people and talked to many more I’d met in previous years. And since I’ve officially unveiled my new books at the event, I will just leave the link to my Amazon author page where they can be purchased here again.

My Thanksgiving also went well, and I hope yours did too. It’s the first time I’ve really celebrated (had dinner that wasn’t just my normal dinner with immediate family) in a few years, and the occasion was much more pleasant than when I was last celebrating it because I was able to eat foods prepared closer to how I’m used too. Anyway, enough about me that doesn’t relate to this site: I hope your Thanksgiving went as good as mine or better and that any traveling done went smoothly.

And finally, due to several factors, including the two events mentioned above, it being the cold season and several other things, I am still behind schedule in my written items. And any lead-time my previous advanced planning for this site gave me has eroded. So things will still be late and at wonky times into December. Which, while past the date when I had hoped the problem would be solved, is not past when I actually thought it would be solved. And if things go well everything will be mostly back on track for the New Year.

Thank you,

Austin Smith

I Enjoyed BBCC

This Labor Day weekend I attended the Big Bend Comic Con and had a blast. After getting things done for a month in advance, moving, and getting my books created and ordered it was great to be able to go to such an interesting and fun event. Meeting new people and seeing some old friends was a blast. I really enjoyed the event and I thank everyone who was both interested in and purchased my books.

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Me and my setup

I don’t know anything about the future of the event, but I would definitely like to attend the next convention. I’m also looking into events around the area in the near future.

I hope you had a good and restful Labor Day weekend. I know I did, and I’m ready to get back to working.