PinkFae Archive #39: Bluebeard's Bride: An Interview with Whitney Beltrán

This article is an installment from the PinkFae Archives. It was originally published on 29 October 2016.

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About a week ago, I received an email from Whitney Beltrán, one of the creators of a game called Bluebeard's Bride. I agreed to do an interview with her. We sat down over Skype, and I am pleased to share a condensed version of our conversation. We started with the usual pleasantries, before I described PinkFae's mission.

Whitney Beltrán - That's a pretty fascinating intersectionality. Because Bluebeard's Bride is specifically a feminine experience, whether you are a man or a woman or somewhere in between. It would be really interesting to see what trans men or trans women think of this. Would they react any differently than anyone else? Probably not, but would there be special purviews where they would identify with things more strongly or less strongly? It's a whole separate bag, that I am not super qualified to talk about, because I am not trans. But I would be interested to explore.

PinkFae Archive #38: Board Game Review: Steve Jackson Games Triple Threat

This week's entry is another board game review from the PinkFae archives. It is also an entry in the series of articles on Gen Con 2016. It was originally published on 22 October 2016.

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For my last entry about Gen Con, I'm going to do three board game reviews in one article. Why? Partly because the games are all short and simple. Partly because they're all from Steve Jackson Games. Partly because it's time to finish up the Gen Con posts and get on to something else! So we're going to look at the three games they demoed at their 'Play New Releases' table: Simon's Cat Card Game, I Hate Zombies, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Board Game.

The Ratings

Here are the ratings for all three games.

Board Game Review: Mixed Company

I didn't mention in the article I wrote about Token Con back in October, but one of the things I did was learn about an interesting new game called Mixed Company. As I was walking through the company booths, someone at one of them said, 'Would you like to play a game?'

I responded, 'Is that a trick question?' I sat down and learned how to play. It was a fun little game, and after we played a round and the designers were discussing some of their plans for the development, I asked them, 'Is this game just a way to trick people into learning good discussion and debate skills?'

Their answer was, 'I think that "trick" is a strong word. Maybe "encourage?"'

Being a big fan of rational discourse, I was of course intrigued. Additionally, the game was fun! So I followed their facebook page, and as soon as their kickstarter went live, I immediately backed it.

I've received a reviewer copy, and have played again with some other people, so I think the time has come to review this game so that you can decide if you want to back it.

PinkFae Archive #37: How to GM Part 4: Preparing a Game Session

This entry was part of the 'How to GM' series on PinkFae. It represents a brief break in the entries about Gen Con. It was originally published on 15 October 2016.

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A swan telling a story. Much like the GM tells a story to the players in a game session, often of fantastical tales, such as a swan telling stories.

I have one more post to write on Gen Con. But we've been hearing about Gen Con for months now. Let's take a break before we finish it up. It's been a long time since we've had any installments on the Analysis of GMing series. Let's get another one of those in! This time, we'll talk about planning a game session.

So you've chosen a game, gathered a group of players, and have a design for the overall campaign. It's time to start getting into the nitty-gritty. Before you meet up with your players for that first session, you need to know what's going to happen in that session. So let's take a look at that.

Geekway to the West

My friend John has been trying to get me to go with him to the Geekway to the West convention in St. Louis, MO, for several years now. I wasn't able to go, because work obligations prevented me from being able to take the time off when the convention was happening.

Until this year.

I went to the 2019 Geekway, and boy did I have a great time!

For those who don't know, Geekway to the West is a board game convention that takes place annually in the St. Louis area. Unlike Gen Con, which is dedicated to tabletop gaming of all sorts, and which has tons of panels on all sorts of gaming-related topics, Geekway is focused exclusively on board games. Pretty much everything there is about playing, buying, selling, or trading board games. They have some tournaments, and a few special events (like the 'fancy gaming' event, and the game design contest, and the craft fair), but other than that, it's all board games all day.