The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
[4th or so watch]
[#32 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
Continuing my chronological James Bond rewatch — you know, the one I last touched on in 2020 and that’s been going since 2012. Will I complete it before they manage to release a new Bond film? At this point, maybe.
(I also put "four or so" for my watch count last time I saw TMwtGG, but I now think I probably overestimated that.)
Friday, 21 March 2025
Games
Dark Tomb: Crypts of Aurelian
I backed the latest instalment of this series of games on Kickstarter, choosing all three editions so far as my reward. They're pocket-sized dungeon crawlers, presented in a neat little tin containing a stack of different types of gameplay cards, a d20, and a variety of cubes to track stats, etc. The presentation is gorgeous by being simple and compact, but also tactile and detailed. Like, I'm sure there are ways this could have been rendered as just a deck of cards, but the die and cubes add something.
It's a 1-5 player game; really 1-4 with a five-player mode. There are three levels, and listed playtime is 15–40 minutes (presumably meant to depend on how many levels you play). I played for 90 minutes... which, in fairness, was five levels' worth: level one once, and level two four times, as I kept failing. It's a fun game, but that was a bit frustrating. Having a couple of attempts, ok, fair enough — if it were too much of a walkover, it's not a game you'd return to (and the game is designed to be replayable, with a choice of characters and each level having a randomised map) — but not making significant headway after four playthroughs... ugh. Either I need to entirely reassess my strategy (possible), or the game isn't that well balanced for one player (maybe this a bit too).
The enemies do have reduced hit points with fewer players, but there's no other compensation for difficulty. To complete a level, you have to reveal the whole map (it starts mostly hidden) and kill all the enemies; on the game's turn, the enemies move towards the nearest player. So, with one player, you've got to get to every hidden square yourself, while all the enemies converge on you. Even with two, you could head in two different directions — I feel a 'divide and conquer' approach would work well with a map where you begin in the middle, like the second level here. Of course, as a single player, there's really nothing to stop me running multiple characters, so I might try that next time.
I backed the latest instalment of this series of games on Kickstarter, choosing all three editions so far as my reward. They're pocket-sized dungeon crawlers, presented in a neat little tin containing a stack of different types of gameplay cards, a d20, and a variety of cubes to track stats, etc. The presentation is gorgeous by being simple and compact, but also tactile and detailed. Like, I'm sure there are ways this could have been rendered as just a deck of cards, but the die and cubes add something.
It's a 1-5 player game; really 1-4 with a five-player mode. There are three levels, and listed playtime is 15–40 minutes (presumably meant to depend on how many levels you play). I played for 90 minutes... which, in fairness, was five levels' worth: level one once, and level two four times, as I kept failing. It's a fun game, but that was a bit frustrating. Having a couple of attempts, ok, fair enough — if it were too much of a walkover, it's not a game you'd return to (and the game is designed to be replayable, with a choice of characters and each level having a randomised map) — but not making significant headway after four playthroughs... ugh. Either I need to entirely reassess my strategy (possible), or the game isn't that well balanced for one player (maybe this a bit too).
The enemies do have reduced hit points with fewer players, but there's no other compensation for difficulty. To complete a level, you have to reveal the whole map (it starts mostly hidden) and kill all the enemies; on the game's turn, the enemies move towards the nearest player. So, with one player, you've got to get to every hidden square yourself, while all the enemies converge on you. Even with two, you could head in two different directions — I feel a 'divide and conquer' approach would work well with a map where you begin in the middle, like the second level here. Of course, as a single player, there's really nothing to stop me running multiple characters, so I might try that next time.
Videos
Critical Role
2x95 Blessing in Disguise [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]
2x95 Blessing in Disguise [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]
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