[Movies] Cube (1997)

The irony is not lost on me that my appreciation for the psychological horror movie Cube never translated into an appreciation for the Saw movies. At the same time, I've only seen that first Cube movie - I never got around to watching the others. But it remains one of the stranger movies that I've enjoyed over the years despite my general dislike for most horror flicks.

But Cube is more than just a horror movie. If anything, it's a ridiculously intelligent one - or at least one with a rather intelligent mathematical puzzle at its core. With a title like Cube, you should have already figured out that math would somehow be involved. But the way to integrated into the story worked our rather well.

Come to think of it, I was first introduced to his movie by one of my math professors in college. I forget precisely what year this happened, but I remember it being a sort of extra credit assignment to watch it and write about what we noticed in terms of the math in the movie. But let's not get too far ahead of the plot just yet.

[TV] The Strain: Season 1

It was Tobie who first called my attention to The Strain, which was one of the rare instances of him seeking out a particular book outside of comics or RPG books. It's not that Tobie doesn't like books - it's just not his primary focus. Anyway, the fact that the book involved Guillermo Del Toro was an interesting motivator to begin with plus the little story about how it had been a TV pilot that didn't get picked up and so now it was a book series.

Of course I doubt any of us were truly surprised when it was announced that The Strain was being adapted into a TV series. So yes, they didn't want to make a TV show about it before, but because it gathered a decent enough following as a book, it suddenly became a property worth investing in. There's a heck of a lot of irony at work here.

This all just goes to show that Hollywood truly is afraid of "new" ideas, even from established creatives like Del Toro. As much as possible, they're only willing to hedge their bets with "safer" investments such as remakes and reboots of existing material. And so when The Strain managed to get itself turned into a book series (and later a comic book series), well, then I guess it became fair game for the studios. Because reasons.

[Games] Dominare

The AEG release of Love Letter introduced us to the world of Tempest, the pseudo Ventian city-state full of intrigue that is the setting for many of their games. Each game is unique in terms of its play style, but share connections in terms of the narrative behind the game. I've found this to be a rater clever innovation to add more character to the game while obviously leveraging the brand to push more sales.

Dominare is the second Tempest game that we had a chance to play thanks to a friend. Our very first game convinced us to find a copy of the board game for our own collection given how compelling it was.

The game is highly strategic in nature and it certainly provides an interesting degree of challenge for players. And as a bit of a side bonus, it was nice to see the different Love Letter characters in this game, even if their functions here were rather different.

[Comics] Batgirl: Year One

ComiXology sales have been obvious lures to pick up various comic book titles, especially various mini-series. I don't seriously follow too many on-going titles outside of the Transformers comics, so it's a lot easier for me to get into short story arcs with a definite beginning and end. And while some are just okay, others are real gems that I'm glad that I was finally able to "get my hands on," even if just in a virtual sense.

Batgirl: Year One is a somewhat older title that was part of the larger effort to update and align the origin stories of various DC characters after the Crisis on Inifnite Earths event that pretty much overhauled the known DC universe. And if anything, this was a rather vivid retelling of that tale in a way that nicely touched on various aspects of her original origin story (or even stories), but also made sure to add a more modern spin to things.

The story is pretty much timeless and it's a brilliant read even after all this time. The action was pretty vivid and the writing was quite compelling - resulting in a rather delightful comic book experience.

[Movies] Neighbors (2014)

Tobie used to tease me all the time about Zac Efron. I'm pretty sure that I didn't actually have a crush on him, but then he figured I liked pretty boys or something. But then Zac Efron started really growing up and it became rather difficult to ignore his physique. On the flipside, I could always tease him about his like for Seth Rogen, and that's something that always works as long as he doesn't get too skinny.

Then along came Neighbors, a movie that front bills both actors. So I guess you could say that it was a movie perfectly crafted for both of us. And based on the initial trailers, it actually seemed rather funny.

The movie is pretty funny and wasn't quite as stupid as I expected to be. To be fair, there was still a fair amount of stupid, but it was appropriate for the movie and it still worked out for the most part. But I suppose it was balanced out with various other elements that were in play.

For the record, I think we all have to acknowledge that Zac Efron has gotten scarily sexy over the years. Seth Rogen described the whole situation pretty well in this Conan appearance.

[TV] Please Like Me: Season 2

There's something about the unique charm that Please Like Me brings to the table that had me and Tobie enjoying the first season so much. The main issue with the series was its brevity - beyond that it was quite the phenomenal piece of work that maintained a somewhat light tone despite the narrative decision to tackle some pretty heavy subject matter.

This second season of Please Like Me continues with that distinct tone and builds on what had been accomplished in the first series and added even more depth of story through its different characters.  And while it had more episodes to work with in this season compared to the last one, it still wasn't all that much by conventional standards.

Normally I'd same something about how this works as a family story, but perhaps that's not quite a perfect way of explaining things. And while most of the primary cast are all related to Josh in one way or another, I don't think the story necessarily works around a classic family dynamic. If anything, the show is pretty unconventional in terms of how it approaches each character and tells their respective stories. Ultimately, they all live very human lives with some pretty typical challenges.

[Movies] Scream (1996)

Horror movies hardly need to be stupid. If anything, some of the best horror movies don't rely on mere jump scares and ridiculously gory deaths. Instead they're clever and try to get into your head and play upon your expectations. And while this particular movie gets mocked a few times and has triggered some pretty crazy parodies, I still appreciate what they tried to accomplish here.

The first Scream movie was pretty novel in how it celebrated horror movie tropes but at the same time attempted to surpass them. It's easy to forget about this movie given all the bad sequels and copycat movies that would follow it. But really, I think it deserves revisiting. You can forget all the other Scream movies and just go back and enjoy this one for all that it's worth. And that's not exactly chump change.

I think this movie most shook me up because of how it so precisely followed many classic horror movie tropes, thus priming me to expect the shocking or scary moments, but then deliver it a beat early or several beats late. Just when you think you're ready for it, you find out that you're not. And that's part of the quirky cleverness of this movie.

[TV] Defiance: Season 2

I recognize that I've been too generous with many TV shows. If I start a show and somewhat like it, I try to finish the season in order to give it a decent chance to mature a bit and generally prove itself. But then once I've finished a season, I'm more likely to watch the next one out of sheer habit. And thus the vicious cycle goes on and on until I've reached this point where I seem to be flooded with a lot of bad TV choices.

I should have quit Defiance after the first season, but when the new episodes started appearing I figured it might not be too bad to at least check them out and see how things were shaping up. Maybe things were going to get better. And that is some pretty bad logic.

I admit this need to give TV more of a chance all stems from a bit of trauma involving the second season of LOST. I was ready to give up on the show early into that season but given how much Tobie loves the series, I pressed on. I honestly felt like I had underestimated the series somehow and thus I didn't want to make that same mistake again.

But then again, very few shows are like LOST.

[Transformers] Takara Masterpiece Soundblaster (MP-13B)

In the Transformers world, repaints, retools, and redecos are inevitable. It's a cost-saving measure that helps the likes of Hasbro and Takara to remain profitable by creating multiple characters using a single toy mold. Ever since Generation 1, this always seems to happen and there are certain relationships that are defined by their retools and redecos. For example, characters like Sideswipe and Red Alert will always share the same mold in the same what that Bumblebee will always result in a Cliffjumper figure as well.

As a Soundwave fan, the black Soundblaster repaint/redeco is inevitable, and it has resulted in some interesting releases over the years. I've actually done my best to include these black redecos as part of my Soundwave collection since it almost seems traditional in that sense. And in this case, the release of Takara Transformers Masterpiece Soundwave meant that a Soundblaster was going to come out sooner or later.

And here he is. And he came with Ratbat.

[Books] Doctor Who: Corpse Marker (Monster Collection Edition)

We're coming up to the last few books in the Doctor Who: Monster Collection and this leaves us with the somewhat less-known monsters, especially for those who us a little late to the Doctor Who dance program. If anything, I figured these books would be a nice bridge for current fans to get into Classic Doctor Who stories in time, provided one has access to them.

Corpse Marker brings us the dreaded robots that had been seen in the episode, "The Robots of Death" together with the Fourth Doctor. Beyond featuring similar robots, this story was actually positioned as a direct sequel to that episode. It was certainly an interesting direction to take (somewhat similar to Scales of Injustice). But beyond just being a sequel story, it actually takes place very shortly after the episode itself.

The book certainly tried to capture the feel of a true Doctor Who television adventure and I could totally see the progression from each act of the story to the other. The final reveal as a whole was a little underwhelming though and things ended somewhat abruptly for me.

[Movies] The Book of Life (2014)

Guillermo Del Toro is one of the more interesting figures in the movie making industry given his unique artistic vision and clear passion for what he creates. And while he predominantly deals in the realms of horror, he has demonstrated interesting range with big summer blockbuster flicks like Pacific Rim among others.

So when news broke out that Del Toro was behind the animated feature project The Book of Life, I was both surprised and excited. Here was something rather new from Del Toro (although you could argue his Hellboy movies had similar sensibilities in some ways) and the early looks at the movie looked pretty stunning.

And this was a movie that was centered around the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos), a rather interesting take on the need to remember the dead. My first exposure to this aspect of Mexican culture was actually through the classic LucasArts adventure game, Grim Fandango. The game literally took you to a weird afterlife with the skeletal protagonist Manny Calavera. But that could hardly prepare me for the visual feast that this movie turned out to be.

[TV] Transparent: Season 1

Since the formation of Amazon Studios, I've been rather lukewarm about the efforts. The first batch of shows didn't really excite me and we didn't even consider gambling on any of the shows. With this second batch of pilots, we actually went as far watching the pilot for The After and felt terribly disappointed.

But then came Transparent along and seriously, this is some of the best television that I've seen in a while - and it doesn't actually "air" on a television network! And I'm saying this not just because I'm gay and that I'm potentially more open to shows with strong LGBT themes at their core. I'm saying this because it's a damn good show.

Like many good shows, it has a pretty solid center. And that center is not just the fact that it's about a transgender woman's struggle to fully own her identity. The center of this show is a family - a perfectly normal family that has its share of joys and complications. And the way that they deal with things individually or together is really where the stories come forth.

[Movies] Gremlins (1984)

Okay, so while I'm totally horrible and trying to stick with watching horror movies, I have a bit more of a tolerance for horror comedy movies. This is not to say that I don't still fall prey to little jump-scares and other such surprise moments in these comedic movies. I'm a big of a loser that way. But hey, this still counts as part of my efforts to review more horror movies in line with the coming Halloween holiday.

Gremlins is one of those classic 1980's movie franchises that kinda only really made sense during the time. I mean seriously, could you think of selling a movie like this to modern movie audiences? I highly doubt that it would manage to get very far.

But for one reason or another this movie had a bit of a charm all on its own. It celebrated a lot of the tropes of other horror movies and stories of a somewhat scary nature and brought things all together into, well, this. It had a cute protagonist of sorts and of course totally nutty antagonists that made the most of the practical effects department behind this movie.

And it was campily glorious.

[TV] Falling Skies: Season 4

When it comes to Falling Skies, there are three important questions that have to be asked. (1) How did this show get a fourth season? (2) Why did I watch all four seasons? (3) How did it get a fifth and (thankfully) final season? I really don't know how to answer any of these questions, but it's a little too late now. And with the confirmation that the show will end with the fifth season, the somewhat obsessive part of my personality is arguing that I should still watch that season once it comes out. I feel so torn.

Falling Skies isn't necessarily a terrible show, but as it has dragged on it's hard to really see much in terms of redeeming qualities either. If anything it just sort of wanders forward, with the overall meta-plot being a little thin.

And it's such a shame since the core premise of the show was interesting enough - following the human resistance in the middle of an alien invasion. And the focus on a single bad of rebel fighters was decent enough for narrative purposes, it also kept the scope of the show rather limited. And given some of the bigger plot points, it was harder and harder to appreciate just how much this one band of fighters was supposedly responsible for.

[Blog Action Day] Inequality

This year's Blog Action Day topic is Inequality, which feels like one of the bigger topics that this little blogging "event" is trying to tackle. There are quite a number of different forms of inequality out there that continue to plague the global society at large.

In many ways, I feel that a lot of our issues related to inequality largely stem from the decision to put your own needs before all others and the willingness to embrace different labels, categories and stereotypes that enable one to see themselves in a more positive light versus others outside your own group or segment.

Income Inequality - is an economic reality that shows government policies do not fully support sufficient job creation and instead focus on niche interests of controlling powers and groups. It means that we remain primarily focused on making ends meet and are unable to reach out to others and find ways to help uplift them from their bleaker economic realities. This is not necessarily a call for increased government welfare programs or donation drives but instead a more intelligent look at our employment issues and to determine more effective strategies for dealing with poverty and unfair business practices that favor the rich.

Gender Inequality - this now has many aspects ranging from the earlier women's empowerment movement and of course the LGBT rights movement as well. Recent events remind us how women are not safe on the internet and abuse and harassment remain far too common. LGBT rights are still in dispute throughout the world ranging from those simply fighting for their legal right to be recognized to more "advanced" battles related to same-sex marriage. And again we continue to see the need to limit people into "acceptable" stereotypes and other definitions of "normal" behavior as a basis for hate speech, discrimination and other challenges of inequality.

Change begins with each of us thinking beyond ourselves and learning to truly keep an open mind. Defeating inequality starts with giving up assumptions and preconceptions about other people and trying to find mutual ground in order to work together to find solutions to our problems. Discrimination and unfair treatment won't go away until we learn to see people as precisely that - people. We are more than our assertions and biases.

[Games] Caverna: The Cave Farmers

It feels like we've had this total explosion of worker placement games in terms of our collection here at the Sietch. I guess Tobie has been rather enamored by the game mechanic and so he has been exploring more and more games that follows that pattern. And I can't really complain - the joys of worker placement games is all around the sort of weight that every action now has as you try to get to victory over your competitors.

Caverna: The Cave Farmers was one of those games that I had no idea about until Tobie was pretty much ordering the game. He had managed to reserve a copy for us over at Paradigm Infinitum right before our last trip to Singapore. And so when he showed the game to me, I didn't really know how to react to the game.

But there's a lot to love about this game - and this goes beyond the fact that it contains a ridiculous number of wooden figures ("animal meeple" is a lovely misnomer that we've embraced). It's a fairly complex game that provides a generous number of paths to success that provides players with many different options every time they sit down to play.

[Books] Interfaced

An interesting topic that seems to be cropping up more and more in recent science fiction novels involves the concept of the "post-human" - either through genetic manipulation or technological augmentation. It's quite the interesting thought puzzle that requires one to better define what it means to be human and thus also determine when someone stops being human.

Interfaced is one such post-human story presented as a bit of a mystery thriller. And the build-up for this particular story was rather interesting since it was presented in a highly personal fashion.

A few years back we might have argued that this could be slated more as a "cyberpunk" story, only because of the angle of integrating technology into a human. But that genre had a totally different feel and the more widely-used term now seems to be "post-human" more than any other. This is neither here nor there - they're all interesting stories that try to figure out the future of humanity. And that's where science fiction ultimately shines - when it tries to project our future and speculate how life might change.

[Movies] Chef (2014)

The feel-good movie related to food and/or cooking has sort of become a safe movie genre over the years. And while there aren't a whole lot of movies like this, it seems one is bound to come out every few years and it hits that sweet spot (pun not intended) of a movie that appeals to a wider audience, rakes in decent money but never really gains tremendous popularity.

Chef is the latest movie to sort of fulfill this niche, and one that actually tried to avoid having a romantic comedy as its core narrative framework. Let's face it, we've seen too many movies about people in the food industry falling in love with one another. And it's refreshing to encounter a movie that tried to go in a different direction to a limited extent.

This is also the movie that tries to be timely by tackling current technology. In this case, the movie centers around social media for the most part - in particular Twitter. And a lot of times I feel that we tend to stumble around how to handle technology and its effects on human interaction, but in this case the involvement of Twitter wasn't too far off the mark.

And I'll admit, I rather enjoyed the whole thing.

[Pink News] Quezon City Comes Out to Support the LGBT Community

So I've been pretty stoked about the fact that the Quezon City's City Council has pretty much passed an Anti-Discrimination Ordinance meant to protect members of the LGBT community. Extending beyond the context of the workplace, the Gender Fair City Ordinance is a pretty comprehensive city ordinance that offers a variety of ways to extend greater protections for LGBTs along with accompanying programs to educate people about the SOGIE concepts. It's a lot to tackle all at once, but for the most part it sounds pretty good.

But beyond the ordinance itself, which has largely been associated with members of the Council alone, it was nice to have Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista release comments not just in support of the ordinance, but also in support of same-sex marriage and greater LGBT rights. He's one of the few (if not the only) city mayor who has come out in support of LGBT rights in such a clear and definitive manner. In addition, these statements come backed by action in the form of the ordinance and the fact that the QC LGBT Pride March is actually one of the many events listed as part of Quezon City's 75th anniversary.

Under Mayor Herbert Bautista, Quezon City has suddenly become the only city government to publicly support LGBT rights. And if they keep this up, I totally see this as a serious effort by the city as a whole to make members of the LGBT community feel truly welcome and safe. And now I have even more reasons to be happy to be living in Quezon City. And I can see this as a key reason for more folks to find a home here - something that we've never really had up until this point. In the US they run annual lists for the top ten best cities for LGBT individuals but thus far we haven't really had any options around here.

And all the more I want to support the QC LGBT Pride March this year. Beyond the formation of the QC Pride Council last year and the city council wins now, there's certainly a lot to celebrate.

[Movies] Puppet Master (1989)

Well it's October, and that means it's also Halloween month. And as much as I'm not quite a big fan of horror movies, I have to admit that I've still seen a number of them over the years. More specifically, I had a weird period in my life when I happened to watch a lot of the strange creations of the direct-to-video group Full Moon Features, which seemed to specialize in cheesy, campy horror flicks.

Puppet Master was one of the Full Moon movies that I enjoyed a bit more than the others. Maybe it was the fun use of stop motion animation or perhaps the uniqueness of the different characters, but I totally enjoyed the franchise. Sure, it probably helped that these movies are far from great and thus not actually all that scary. But they certainly had a bit of entertaining charm that is unique to such movies.

Weird fact - I had actually first watched these movies on LaserDisc. No kidding. And while we never bought any discs, we did borrow a number of them from video rental places, and this is how we eventually ended up watching all these different Full Moon productions.

[TV] The Fall: Series 1

The 2013 season for US network television was a little underwhelming for me and the few shows that I was starting to enjoy (like Almost Human) naturally got cancelled due to poor ratings. More and more I feel that I should be investing more time in the stuff showing in other countries other than the US since the quality tends to be pretty impressive.

Case in point, take the Irish-British crime drama The Fall, which features the one and only Gillian Anderson. As much as it has been quite the delight to catch her limited participation in shows like Hannibal, it was nice to have her as lead again. And man, this show really played to many of her strengths.

It still amazes me how focused television narratives are over there. I mean on the one hand you have US networks creating these large-scale stories that can go as far as 24 episodes and then some. But then here you have 3-6 episode stories that just have so much more meat in them and in the end the results kind of blow you away.

And that's what this show did for me - it totally blew me away.

[Games] Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

Ever since we picked up Lords of Waterdeep, I feel like a lot of our more recent board game purchases have included a significant number of worker placement games. And this isn't a bad thing at all - worker placement is a fascinating game dynamic that really makes you think about each and every move you make in order to get the maximum benefit.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island is a little different since it's actually a cooperative game that utilizes the worker placement mechanic to some extent. Usually worker placement forces you to compete for slots in order to gain victory. This game uses the mechanic to stress how limited your movement options are and again it's important to make the most of every move.

The game is rather brutal in terms of difficulty, which seems to be somewhat common among cooperative play games. And yet the design is compelling enough to make defeat a relatively fulfilling experience in the end.

[Books] Battletech: Mercenary's Star

William H Keith, Jr. is one of the primary architects of the Battletech fictional universe, at least from my perspective. He had the privilege of pretty much kicking off the universe. And he didn't just write a single book, he created a fairly long arc and of course a rather memorable mercenary company. And now that I think about it, a few other Battletech authors who followed in his footsteps and crafted stories around their own mercenary groups.

Mercernary's Star is the first direct sequel novel in the Battletech book universe and it continues the story of the the Gray Death Legion. After barely surviving the events in Decision at Thunder Rift, we now join Grayson Carlyle and his newly formed Gray Death Legion mercenary company on their first contract mission.

I have to admit that this book came together a lot better than the first one. As much as that is to be expected from any second effort at writing a story in the same universe with a similar character set, I think it needs to be noted that the progression between the two novels was rather significant and I feel like Keith had a better understanding of what he wanted to accomplish here. And while still not necessarily a perfect fictional experience, it's still quite the engaging adventure.

[Movies] Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

I really like the Muppets. I cant totally explain why, but I do. And I'm a bit of a sucker for the various Muppet movies, so you can imagine how happy I was when the franchise found new life with its 2011 revival with the movie, The Muppets. And I have to admit that it wasn't a totally amazing movie - but I was still glad to see them back in circulation.

And so now we have Muppets Most Wanted acting as the sequel to that movie - but really all Muppet movies since The Muppet Movie back in 1979, but that's besides the point. And it's nice to see that the whole 2011 experiment is sort of paying off - at least in terms of additional movies going forward. Or so we hope.

And while the "first" movie just sort of came out as okay for me, I have to admit that I rather enjoyed this movie more. And it's rare for that to happen with any sequel - even a self-aware sequel that goes as far as to state that sequels tend to be bad. Maybe that just put me in the right mindset to be appreciate and fun the movie could generate, or something like that.

But I still had a lot of fun with it.

[TV] Please Like Me: Season 1

I found about this show on a porn forum.

I thought I'd just come right out with that fact. And it's totally true - I first heard about this on a forum primarily designed to support peer-to-peer porn sharing. But in truth I find a lot of porn boring these days, and so I end up focused more on the other sections dedicated to more general entertainment. And then I end up with this.

Please Like Me hails from Australia, which is not exactly a country that I know a heck of a lot about from an entertainment perspective. If you were to ask me how many Australian TV shows or movies I've seen in my life, I think the only ready answer I have is the fact that I've seen Bootmen and of course The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. So that's not much to go on.

So I don't know how I could have learned of this show apart from it getting adapted into a US series or some silly thing like that. And thus I'm glad that my porn forum peers made sure to share this show with the group - it's an absolute delight. And I'm sure that Josh would approve of the slightly funny story of how I got into the show.

[Movies] Superman Unbound (2013)

I have never that big of a Superman fan. Sure he's a bit of a classic character and DC seems to have invested a lot into his continued development. But at the same time he always seemed too perfect - a character with way too many powers and a near-perfect sense of right and wrong. That last bit alone is what really makes him feel more impossible than anything else - I can totally believe an alien having different powers than humans!

Superman Unbound is the latest DC Universe Animated Original Movie dedicated to this character after Superman vs. the Elite that had come out the year prior. It wasn't totally bad, admittedly, and it had some pretty compelling moments. Then again, I think I just appreciate Brainiac stories because of my affinity for robots or something.

It did feature a somewhat unusual voice casting choice for Superman in the form of Matt Bomer. I can't quite say it was good or bad, but it was certainly interesting - or at the very least unique. But was it Superman? I'm not 100% sure about that particular point.

[TV] Under the Dome: Season 1

I have a decent amount of respect for Stephen King as an author. He's quite the prolific writer and has managed to come up with quite a number of unforgettable stories that have shaped the thriller / horror fiction landscape in many ways. But when his creative works get adapted into movies and TV shows, results are pretty diverse. Things get a little worse when he seems to write specifically for the visual entertainment industry - as if things get muddy for some reason.

I didn't really have high expectations for Under the Dome when the television announcement was announced, but I did want to give the show a decent chance. Beyond the potential for a Stephen King story, Brian K. Vaughan was also attached to the project. And as someone who loves Y: The Last Man and Saga, I figured that if anyone could make something of book in terms of a TV series, then the end result might be a lot of fun.

But in the end things just felt a little confused and jumbled up and I don't know how I managed to avoid reading the synopsis of the book while watching this first season in order to avoid potential spoilers. Not that this really mattered though - the end result wasn't exactly all that faithful to the original work, it seems.

[Games] Shadows Over Camelot: The Card Game

Shadows Over Camelot has proven to be one of the most insidious games we've ever played. As much as the core mechanic has it as a cooperative game where the knights work together to save Camelot, the random element of a traitor among the players is really what changes things.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Shadows Over Camelot: The Card Game. I've seen a few board games adapted into card games and the end result has rarely been all that compelling. Sure they can have some of the elements of the original game, but in the long run the games were just okay.

It wasn't until we got a chance to play this card game at Ludo that I had finally encountered a card game that almost perfectly adapted the feel of the original board game in a new medium. And thus the game remains pretty brilliant.