Hmmmm. I have, but I wouldn't necessarily use the term "gamer" as a catch-all for the sort of behavior we've been blessed with here. I tend to hold both self-described gamers and the usual commenters here to a higher standard of behavior (and grammar). This is the Gameological Society after all. The place is lousy…

Wow. Of all the articles to inspire furious use of excessive punctuation and barely contained jealousy(?) in the comments, I would not have pegged this one.

I really ought to catch up on KRZ, huh? I've loved everything about the game so far, and I'm currently replaying the second act as deliberately as possible, looking for things I've missed along the way. I even found a whole character arc that I've never seen before! I suppose since there's no hurry for Cardboard…

Yeah, playing good board games is definitely not the only step necessary to understand and participate in the function of government, but certain tenets and procedural quirks make a lot more sense from a game design perspective. Things like "don't let the winner of the last game rewrite all the rules" can apply…

Can we talk about how it's a lot less fun to play at joining or fighting an oppressive regime from fiction or history when all signs are pointing to a real one taking over next month? This is not to say that nobody should enjoy this game, or that there's no value in games that explore past realities. I'm just…

And don't forget that the majority of the working poor voted for Clinton. You can only say the "working class" voted for Trump if you narrow your definition "working class" to only white people, and expand it to household incomes upwards of $100K per year. Trump got the biggest margin with middle and upper-middle…

And to expand on that thought a bit, I really don't understand why people enjoy more than a few games of this type where there's no talking at all.

I suppose a lot of the fun comes from the people you're playing with. We generally have a great time with Avalon (Resistance, but set in King Arthur's court) because we know several people who like to present their evidence for why they think certain people are evil between turns (or lie about it if they are evil…

It's true. The game could have made some interesting comments on the dangers of religious beliefs influencing research (and was likely trying to), but it's lost on the player if they never realize that Hojo and his team were dead wrong about Jenova being an Ancient. Without that critical piece, the story looks more…

I blame a middling localization and a heavy reliance on the player paying attention to and understanding the plot of cut scenes with zero dialog. I only really understood the plot after reading a description of what the devs were trying to show us with some key cut scenes.

Yeah, that's about as worthwhile as it is for a Californian to argue it's "morning" right now for a New Yorker because "it's 11 AM *here* and that's morning, dammit!"

This is the age of feelings being the same as fact, after all.

Don't forget that Sephiroth wanted to destroy the world to absorb its energy and travel the cosmos with his "mom" Jenova because he incorrectly believed himself to be a god-like being. Jenova was a god-like being, but we don't know her motivations because she was basically dead for the events of FFVII.

Totally agree! After a number of years on the Bb Clarinet, I picked up the Bass Clarinet and later the Contrabass, and I had so much fun in the support role. I spent most of the time doing backbone-type work, but occasionally got to overwhelm an entire woodwind section with a solo from below. It was awesome!

Oh hey! The gnome uses a clarinet?! That's my primary musical instrument! The one I've spent the most time playing and learning, which makes it very near and dear to my heart. The clarinet is definitely my "main", in the gaming parlance. That alone makes me want to check out this game.

Gotcha. I'm VenerableMonk#3722, then.

Done! I've set up an unofficial Discord server for Gameological, but I'm still getting the hang of everything involved in managing a server. You should send me a friend request to VenerableMonk27 through Discord, and I'll hook you up with admin access for making a #MK8on8th channel.

Oh, and I would totally help with organization and getting the word out too.

I would totally join such a thing.

Yeah, that game really only works in co-op. But it's so good for co-op, even for people with low game literacy! There's only two buttons to learn!