13 Years of I-Love-Yous

 I thought I had already written this blog post but a quick check in the archives and even on my personal blog revealed zero posts precisely about this topic.

Tobie and I say "I love you" to one another a lot. Like a lot, a LOT. It's one of the first things we say upon waking and one of the last things we say before bed. It's practically a punctuation mark for non-existent sentences. Either of us can randomly call the other's attention just to say "I love you" and then we go back to work or whatever. We say it at the end of any phone call even if it was just to confirm a grocery item really quickly or before we part ways.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't see the point of celebrating monthsaries after your first few years together but I will never tire of telling Tobie "I love you" just about any chance I get. There are fractions of a moment that I worry that we say it too much and it might start to lose meaning. But then I just look over at Tobie and find that not saying "I love you" would be impossible. It's just something that we have to do.

Welcome to the 13th year of our different baduy moments like this. Every day includes some other reminder of why we're meant to be together and why this relationship is still one of the best things to happen to either of us. We've had our fair share of ups and downs and now we can also say that we helped each other survive a global pandemic. 

We're happily getting older together and yet unabashedly will also be the sort of couple who never stops saying I love you at random moments. And I have no intentions of stopping.

I love you, Tobie. Now and always.

Vlog Ep. 325: First Contact

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was all about our personal first contact stories with travel! It has certainly been a while since most of us have gone on longer trips and it's pretty fun to look back at our different firsts whether it's a trip with family or our first time to venture out of the country on our own.

I really feel that technology has made such a big difference to the way we travel and I can't quite imagine traveling without things like Google Maps, Google Translate, or even just organized public transportation systems. There are still a lot of adventures for all of us to experience and hopefully, this pandemic will inspire more of us to try to make first contact once we feel it's safe enough to do so. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 324: The Star Trek Deck Building Game

After a short break, #BaduyPride was back with a new tabletop game episode. In honor of First Contact Day, we decided to talk about one of the Star Trek-related games in our collection - this being the Star Trek Deck Building Game. We only have the Original Series edition of the game thus far and maybe we'll get lucky and find the Next Generation episode eventually. This is one of those out-of-print franchise curiosities that we're lucky that Tobie was able to find for us.

While not the most polished deck building game around, it still has a charm of its own. It uses different production stills as card art and managed to capture pretty much every single TOS story to some degree. The weird conceits of the game where everyone is in charge of a starship and recruiting very diverse crews from the Starbase isn't the greatest, but it works well enough to keep things going. And still play the game from time to time regardless.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 323: Talking Schitt's Creek

Today's episode of #BaduyPride is all about the surprisingly popular and award-winning Canadian sitcom, Schitt's Creek. We had a hard getting into this show, but we had heard a lot of good things about it and that helped us to get through the first few (rougher) seasons. But it did have quite the poignant ending with a lot of work put into giving all the main characters pretty solid arcs.

So in this episode, we talk about out Schitt's creek journey, many similar shows that weren't easy to get into but paid off in the end, and of course the different character arcs that ultimately defined the show. And that's where the show really shined - by figuring out how to get the Rose's to evolve from being selfish and out of touch with the world to people finally open to becoming better and making a difference. 

This was a community-contributed topic originally shared by Andrei! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured in a future video.

Vlog Ep. 322: Reflecting on Canvas

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was all about the beautiful and creative card game that is Canvas. This 1-5 player game was designed by Jeff Chin and Andrew Nerger and published by Road to Infamy Games. The base game first went to Kickstarter and was released in 2021 and the expansion, Canvas: Reflections officially came out this year.

The core mechanics of this game are pretty simple to learn (and equally simple to teach). The individual aspects of the game also seem familiar as we've seen a lot of these ideas in different games. But how everything comes together to create a brilliant game experience is the true genius of the game. Just because it's family-friendly doesn't mean you shouldn't underestimate the game's potential for strategic play or at least very interesting game runs. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 321: King Arthur Pendragon RPG

This episode of #BaduyPride is all about the brilliant RPG system that is King Arthur Pendragon as currently (and originally) published by Chaosium Inc. This game allows players to play the roles of knights back in the age of chivalry (actually a little before it) and really asks the question of whether they have what it takes to live up to the ideals of the period. And this goes beyond just role-playing, but the very system itself was designed in a way to creatively encourage players to be true knights.

This franchise has lasted over the years because of its ability to tell these stories so well. It celebrates those who love the Arthurian myths but it also enables the less familiar to experience these stories in an entirely new way. A friend on the stream mentioned that the game, especially when you play the longer-term Great Pendragon Campaign. becomes a character study of the players. And I totally agree with this sentiment. If you want a deep role-playing game experience that will test your characters on so many levels, then this is truly a game worth exploring. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 320: Wacky Races: The Board Game

Tonight's episode of #BaduyPride is all about a crazy cartoon that got translated into an equally crazy board game. This is Wacky Races: The Board Game, a 2-6 player game based on the 1968 animated TV series of the same name. This game designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Fabio Tola is a fun little romp that has players racing against the other racers while trying to survive the traps set by Dick Dastardly and Muttley. 

This is a great example that a game designed from the ground up with a focus on trying to capture the essence of the source material, even if it's just a cartoon with only 17 episodes. And this is a great example off what you can achieve with what we term as a franchise game that is still family-friendly but still offers a lot of fun for a lot of different people. And we'll never get over how cute the little cars are.

If only we knew how to pain them to be cartoon-accurate.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 319: The Awesome Episode

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was a quick celebration of things we appreciate in line with both International Women's Day and the International Day of Awesomeness. So apart from just talking about many things that we consider to be awesome, we also took some time to show our appreciation towards some awesome women in our lives as well.

And while you could say that it's just another excuse to be grateful for things, we never regret such things. These pandemic times have had more than their share of ups and downs but it's always good to count one's blessings, as it were, instead of just giving in to the darkness. And silly little internet holidays like the Day of Awesomeness have some great thinking at heart that we could all use a bit more of to see us through the challenges of life.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 318: 51st State: Master Set

Today's episode of #BaduyPride was all about the brilliant card game 51st State: Master State. This 1-4 card game was created by Ignacy Trzewiczek and published by Portal Games. We figured it was a great time to feature the game given the closing of the Gamefound campaign for the 51st State Ultimate Edition. Plus it's a really solid game and definitely one of the best parts of the Portal Games family.

I love the setting. Tobie enjoys the gameplay challenge. We both wish we could play the original Neuroshima RPG that this and other Portal Games are set in. And we love how the core engine that drives this game resulted in other amazing games including our much-loved Imperial Settlers, Alien Artifacts, and more recently Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 317: Celebrating Game Masters

Today's #BaduyPride episode is our contribution to celebrating International GM's Day, which is celebrated on 04 March every year. Game Masters are the brave souls who have helped many players (old and new) discover new game worlds and craft some amazing stories together. And given all the work that running tabletop RPGs involve, it's only right that we invested some time in celebrating this essential aspect of the gaming hobby.

Tobie got me into the hobby by including me in his ongoing campaign and has run so many, many games for me since then, so this episode had a bit more of a focus on his experience as a GM and all the adventures in running games. But he has also inspired me to try to run games as well and I was glad to be able to contribute something to the discussion as well. 

Happy International GM's Day!

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 316: Adventures Above and Below

We wanted to feature a more narrative tabletop game for #BaduyPride tonight and we decided to talk about Above and Below created by Ryan Laukat and published by Red Raven Games. This 2-4 player game has players put in charge of different sets of villages who have an opportunity to explore underground caverns, find unique resources, build out the village and find more villages to aid in future explorations.

The exploration action as tied to the book of encounters is a central part of the game as a lot of resources can only be found through such explorations and you won't be able to build underground outposts without earning empty caverns. And this is really where the game shines and most of the fun is to be found. The other systems around it can feel a little complex in the beginning, but they call come together in the end to make for quite the unique game experience. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 315: The Color Yellow

This episode of #BaduyPride was our geeky way of commemorating the EDSA People Power Anniversary, which is celebrated on the 25th of February every year. But this is still Baduy Pride, so it became an episode all about the color yellow itself and the many roles it plays in pop culture.

So beyond discussing some of the established meanings of the color yellow (both positive and negative), we went on to just go through different comic book characters, movies, TV shows, cartoons, and whatever else one could strongly associate with yellow. We could have covered more on yellow food items maybe, but I think we had enough fun with the pop culture stuff.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 314: Brass: Birmingham

Today's episode of #BaduyPride is about the complex strategy game Brass: Birmingham. This 2-4 player game was created by Gavan Brown, Matt Tolman, and Martin Wallace and published by Roxley Games. Games last at least an hour and it is one of the highest-rated games on BoardGameGeek.

We had heard a lot of good things about this game together with its consistently high BGG ratings. And when we finally got a copy of the game for ourselves, it did make for an interesting play experience. And while we sort of explain most of the rules in this video, the main goal was to just explain enough in order to be able to talk about what we like about the game.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 313: The Jurassic Park Franchise

This episode of #BaduyPride was all about the geekily epic Jurassic Park franchise. Most know it mainly for the movies, but we did our best to cover all forms this franchise has taken starting from the novels and even the few games created based on the stories. It was quite a colorful discussion and there's so much to celebrate about these dinosaurs and the people constantly trying to escape from them.

I think the biggest revelation is just how much we love the original movie over pretty much everything else in the franchise. And that says a lot about the visionary work that crafted that movie experience. And while it feels like a no-brainer that a movie about dinosaurs would be popular, the fact that it was done so well is what has helped it become the juggernaut that it is now. And this is a large part of the reason we love Dinosaur Island so much. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 312: Dinosaur Island Rawr 'N Write

Today's #BaduyPride featured board game is a clever adaptation of a game we already love. This is Dinosaur Island: Rawr 'N Write, which obviously shares the same DNA (get it?) as much beloved Dinosaur Island. This 1-4 player roll and write game was created by Brian Lewis, David McGregor, and Marissa Misura and published by Pandasaurus Games.

We love the original Dinosaur Island and it kind of amazed us how much of the original game was still present here. There's no denying this is a fun roll and write experience on its own, but the fact that it captures a lot of the same elements of the core game while still embracing the genre it tried to capture here. It's fun how the developers have adapted the game to different play styles, but this is definitely one of our favorite interpretations of the base game concept.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 311: The Legacy of Romeo and Juliet

To continue our pre-Valentine's Day celebration for #BaduyPride, our episode focused on that classic story of tragic young love - Romeo, and Juliet. We've all encountered this story in one form or another whether it's the original stage production or one of the many adaptations that have used the original text or translated the core story into something else entirely. The structure of this story has become intrinsic pretty much to our global culture at this point and there's a lot to celebrate.

I never imagined that we'd end up talking about the works of Shakespeare on the show, but I really enjoyed it. Maybe we should have more discussions of this nature that go beyond "just" analyzing pop culture alone. This doesn't mean we're going to go full-on edutainment or anything like that, but it does add more variety to our live stream discussions. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 310: Fog of Love

In preparation for Valentine's Day next week, this episode of #BaduyPride was about one of the most "romantic" games in our collection - Fog of Love. This 2-player game was created by Jacob Jaskov with the tagline of being a "Romantic Comedy as a Board Game". And it may live up to that moniker given its clever use of layer game systems to guide the players through the telling of the love story of their characters.

It's not the most brilliant game out there from a pure gaming level, but the way the game translated the push and pull of people figuring out their relationship is where it shines. While the game is very narrative, it still involves a lot of interesting systems that strongly influence your decisions and make it hard to just surrender to the relationship that is forming between you.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 309: The Many Masters of the Universe

This episode of #BaduyPride was all about the many incarnations of the Masters of the Universe line over the years. What started as a clever toy concept with a multi-platform marketing strategy has managed to grow into a whole other media empire on its own. And we did our best to walk through the history of the toys, the cartoons, the comics, and the movies in our own geeky way.

And there was a LOT to cover, admittedly. I figured we could just focus on the cartoons, but that would discount the contributions of everything from the different toylines to the mini-comics that told a completely different story. And people are bound to like different aspects of this franchise, which says a lot about how much effort was put into innovating this franchise to appeal to diverse audiences over the years. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 308: Escape Simulator

For this week's game-related episode of #BaduyPride, we went digital for a chance to talk about Escape Simulator by Pine Studio. We've already established on the show that we love tabletop escape room experiences like Exit: The Game, Unlock!, and Mystery House, but this time we have a digital effort to provide a digital version of such puzzle games. And given how much time we've lost to this game over the weekend, we couldn't wait to talk about it on the show. 

This first-person puzzle game allows 1 or more players to explore different escape-room style levels and puzzle their way to freedom. Very much like in-person escape rooms, you'll find yourself opening drawings, breaking codes, finding hidden keys, and all that good stuff as part of the experience. But on top of providing a solid game, it also comes with a level creator, which has empowered the community to create even more escape rooms for people to try. So the amount of content you get for buying this game is pretty crazy.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!    

Vlog Ep. 307: The Doom Patrol

We're wrapping up this week on #BaduyPride with a discussion of a show we've really come to enjoy in recent years - this being Doom Patrol! And in this discussion, we break down not just the show but the comics that it was based on and some of the quirkiness that first defined the comics and managed to make their way to the small screen.

Today's discussion also made a lot of references to FX's Legion TV show, which is another mind trip that we totally enjoyed. And while we did our best not to go into spoilery details, we hope that we still managed to convey our enthusiasm for the show and get more of you to try it out and explore their crazy adventures whether in the comics or the HBO Max series.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 306: Raiders of the North Sea

This episode of #BaduyPride is all about another clever worker placement game - Raiders of the North Sea. This 2-4 player game was created by Shem Phillips and published by Garphill Games. It's part of a rather expansive franchise of games all focused on this medieval period and they all feature some innovative gameplay styles.

This game's big revelation is the impact the whole place a worker, take a worker mechanic is. The addition of this game mechanic into the mix of things doesn't just solve the challenge of limited action spaces but also adds a whole other layer of strategy as you figure out what moves to make and what moves to risk leaving for your opponents. We really do enjoy this game and we hope our little discussion helps others discover the joys of this game as well. 

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 305: What Did You Eat Yesterday?

This episode of #BaduyPride is all about our love for What Did You Eat Yesterday, which is both a live-action television series and a manga about a middle-aged gay couple in Japan. We stumbled across the show first and fell in love with the characters deeply. Since then I've gotten into the manga, and then we eagerly consumed the limited material from the New Year's special. So our main complaint is the lack of more episodes - at least until we can get a chance to watch the movie.

We tried to avoid spoilers (mostly) but there's a lot to gush about these characters and their stories. We can only hope our fanboying will encourage more folks to support this amazing series or at the very least find some solace ins feel-good, slice-of-life storytelling.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!

Vlog Ep. 304: Deckscape: Test Time Escape Room Game

After a brief hiatus, #BaduyPride is finally back with new geeky content. And for our first episode for the year, our featured tabletop game is another line of escape room-inspired games. We recently got to play Deckscape: Test Time, the first of a line of puzzle games created by Martino Chiacchiera and Silvano Sorrentino and published by dV Giochi.

Unlike other games of this genre, Deckscape does not rely on an app or website to act as a gating mechanism for its puzzle solutions. So you literally only need the 60 cards in the deck to play - it doesn't even include a rulebook! And the simplicity of this game design is where its brilliance really lies and provides a lot of potential as a travel-friendly escape room experience.

While we chose today's topic, we're always open to suggestions! If you have ideas for future video discussions, feel free to fill out this Google Form and your idea may be featured as the focus for an episode!