The SMALLEST of Worlds!

Since I'm sure you all care (don't you?), the next Kickstarter I've supported is Small World 2:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/daysofwonder/small-world-2-the-return

It's "2" in the sense that they're retiring the existing iPad app and replacing it wholesale. But, for those of you who aren't familiar... Small World is a board game by Days of Wonder (www.daysofwonder.com/smallworld/) specifically designed at being short and... Interactive. The map is designed to specifically be too small to allow non-interaction in a standard game. You start off by choosing a race and power combination, where each race and power has both an ability (or lack thereof) and a number of armies. So, the Peace-Loving (4) Skeletons (4) have a total of 8 armies, while the Swamp (4) Kobolds (11) have 15. You come onto the board (if your active race has no territories) through any edge space; and you have to pay 1 army to claim a territory, plus extras depending on terrain features (mountains are +1) and armies there (one per defending army) plus, sometimes, special powers (fortifications are +1, etcetera). If you don't *quite* have enough but are close, your last fight can roll a die with a 0-3 "bonus" to allow you to conquer it. For the defender, they lose one unit to death and the rest go back into their hand to re-deploy on their next turn. At the end of your turn, you score one per territory (plus and bonuses - like terrain bonuses for your power or whatever); and instead of taking a turn you can choose to put your race into "decline". Any in-decline races you have are removed; your active race loses all their units except one in each territory; and they're flipped over to their inactive side, where they lose all powers but still score until they're removed... And then the following turn, you pick a new race/power combo. So not overly complicated - very simple rules - but lots of potential complex interactions through power/race combinations. The big thing, though, is that it's designed to both be short (8-10 turns by default, based on number of players) and interactive (the map is intentionally cramped and encourages people to plan against the other players).

The existing iPad app has a few... Problems - the biggest ones being that it's 2-player only, and doesn't allow multiplayer except pass-and-play. Their new implementation will fix both those things, and they're offering it free to everyone who has the current version as a bonus. So yeah. Long story short... It's a good game, and the Kickstarter's a good idea, so I'm supporting it.

In other Kickstarter news, this one is about to succeed in a handful of hours:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1544851629/throw-trucks-with-your-mind?ref=thanks

Apparently, they're amused by the possibility of using the brain-scanner-headband-controllers to do interesting things, and want to encourage you to throw things in the environment at your friends and neighbours. I mean, it's nifty, but I think it's unlikely that I'm going to support it - just not really enough interest for me. Interesting as a concept, though, and I'm glad they  succeeded.

In Weight Watchers news... I need to get active and eat more fruits and veggies! Tracking things every day makes that far more obvious than it was. It's like, intellectually, I already knew that, and I'm being silly on some level by saying this; but looking at the glaring holes on the tracker for things I'm doing (and not doing) make it more obvious than it otherwise might have been, y'know? So I need to get into the habit of buying more fruit, and actually eating it; and eating more things like salads when I have the opportunity. Fruit being the big one, I suspect. I mean, hell - buying a bunch of bananas and just making a habit of eating one when I get home, or something similar, is probably a good idea. And I like apples and oranges (even if I have a tendency to shy away from oranges because of the effort involved in peeling them).