This themed add-on rounds out the cardboard video game and makes it more interesting, challenging and amusing by giving the NPC Heroes familiar power-ups that translate well. It makes me root for those plucky little guys, even as I orchestrate their gruesome demises. It's just a shame they insisted on the quirky Game Boy packaging that's more than twice as large as it needs to be to store some cards you're going to mix into your other box anyway.
2023 / Puzzle game demo / 1-5 players
*
Donated
I said I wouldn't buy any more cheap and nasty games based on price alone, but this envelope game combined a quirky gimmick with a minimalist footprint, so I figured it wouldn't do any harm to add it to the box of miscellaneous curiosities.
I was wrong. Of the three puzzles in this sub-Usborne adventure, one is a basic spatial puzzle and the others require telepathy or a lucky guess. This has no value.
Star Realms: Frontiers Solo Challenges
My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria – Missing Earth Ponies / Rescue Run / Crocodile Wedding
DIY roleplaying game adventures
Inspired by the one YouTube RPG playthrough we've ever collectively sat through to create her own stories from scratch, the six year old GM took our latest ponies out for another spin before making us prematurely replace them with more generically capable elemental superheroes and guiding us through encounters with monsters, creepy witches and friendly crocodiles, invariably culminating in feasts.
I've lost control forever now. I wonder whether she'll move us onto D&D or something more hardcore next? I hope she can help me understand the rules.
Sushi Go Party!
2016 / Card game / 2-8 players
*****
The equivalent of an unlocked game-of-the-year edition of the card game, this bigger box replaces the original in every way except portability, which wasn't enough to keep it from being eBayed. The new dishes are quick to learn and varied enough to reignite her interest for a while, at least. I mean, it's no Sailor Moon Monopoly or Monster High: Share or Scare.
Some Gloom of Kilforth expansions
As a Kickstarter project, all manner of extravagant and unnecessary extras are available for the photogenic RPG, now at more affordable prices since their formerly devoted backers largely moved on and I can scavenge the scraps. I don't really need to upgrade from cardboard standees to miniatures, or to buy alternate art packs where they show slightly more cleavage (which actually exist), but a bit of variety's always nice.
This puny pack isn't worth more than the couple of pounds I bid for it. Encounters with boom sticks and aliens are a bit out of place, and the alternate art card's pointless, but the versatile vagabond's helpful at least, and friendlier than the one in Stew. I later found a more worthwhile use for these when mocking up one of the sequel games on the cheap (work in progress).
Finding some mysteriously home-printed Sagas in my second-hand game box, I tracked them to a fan site and discovered other passionately and clinically crafted free resources that I've already started mixing in to give the game legs. It's enough to inspire you to come up with your own, if you're the sort of person who can be bothered with that sort of thing.
Bitter Nights ***
Another fan variant for those repetitive Night cards that simplifies it to two lists and dice rolls. Using numbered cards from The Game makes it even simpler, even if they clash with the atmosphere somewhat.