The TCG Curriculum: Innovation on a Spectrum

It seems I've become a curmudgeon when it comes to expandable card games (TCGs, CCG, LCGs, whatever). I've played these games long enough to be critical of the new games emerging on the market. Recent games like Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited, One Piece, Riftbound, etc. leave me decidedly meh. They are expandable card games, and expandable card games scratch the lizard itch in my brain. But they don't scratch the itch in the same way many older games do. Which got me thinking, why?

The market, experience, economy, IP, —these all seem to factor in. But the more I think about it, the more I realize innovation is the real reason. Most such games released today are risk-averse, i.e. they position themselves around the center of the bell curve of originality. They are afraid of trying something truly groundbreaking for reasons, reasons most likely based on fear of market failure but likely others. Which got me thinking further: what would a hierarchy of expandable games based on innovation look like? A college curriculum seemed the natural structure.

And so, without further ado. Here is the University of Friday Nights course offering in the iterative card-gaming department.

Review of Our Townish by David Marusek

For the past five years I have been casting an occasional eye to the happenings in rural Alaska. It's there that David Marusek has been plugging away on a self-published series, Upon this Rock. Quirky, clever, and relevant, the series drops aliens into the middle of a rationalist versus religion scenario, sprinkles it with jimmies of the apocalypse, and sets it all loose in the Denali. It's been fun, and in 2024 Marusek published the fourth and concluding volume, Our Townish.

Our Townish picks up precisely where Consider Pipnonia left off. In fact, they should be considered one volume published in two pieces. The rogue planet Pipnonia comes crashing into Earth in the opening pages, bringing about a literal apocalypse. But it's not all death and destruction. Dead bodies mysteriously come back to life in the Alaskan bush, and slowly a new society begins to form. But is it really all that new? One by one, the skeletons in humanity's closet begin to emerge among the new residents of Alaska, threatening to take us under once and for all.

Review of Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

Let's face it. Nobody expects fresh material from Thomas Pynchon. If the internets are to be believed, the man—if he is a human—is eighty-eight years old. Well past retirement age, readers have no reason to anticipate a new novel. He already produced a literal trove of some of the best fiction of the 20th century. And yet in 2025 a new Pynchon novel is dropping. Flapper life, the tail-end of prohibition, the American midwest, and the rise of Hitler feature heavily in the noir of Shadow Ticket.

Shadow Ticket kicks off, like any good noir, with a seemingly innocuous crime. A small-time Milwaukee gangster gets himself blown up in a car, and private eye Hicks McTaggart (great name) must find the culprit. His investigation takes him to a local cheese baron, Bruno Airmont, who informs McTaggart of his daughter Daphne's disappearance. Illicit activities are all around, meaning the investigation is not without danger. When a bomb attempt on McTaggart's life cuts a little too close, the private eye heads to New York where he is duped into another journey, one that takes him closer to Daphne and wider happenings in the world of fascism.

Review of Those Below by Daniel Polansky

I opened my review of the first book in this duology, Those Above, with George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. An inspirational series, a generation of writers walk in his footsteps, presenting stories set in fantastical worlds with hard, often brutal morals, including Polansky's Empthy Throne. But three decades and counting, Martin hasn't finished his series. Daniel Polansky has. Wrapping up the Empty Throne duology is Those Below (2016).

Those Below picks up where Those Above left off. Thistle is now Fire, and he roams the lower levels of the Roost, fomenting rebellion against the Eternals. Bas continues to play a new game, court games, in accompanying Eudokia, who herself has her own games to play. Aimed at the highest levels of the Roost, plays a hand of subtle but powerful cards. And Calla, now witness to some of the greatest drama the Eternals have experienced in ages, attempts to adapt her worldview in a way that ensures her survival.

Review of Those Above by Daniel Polansky

It's fair to say George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire was (is?) a watershed moment in fantasy publishing. A large chunk of the genre's titles which have emerged in the aftermath of A Game of Thrones explore his use of more realistic/less archetypal characters and quests for power. High spoken elves, pipe-smoking hobbits, and the immutable honor and glory of kings were put to bed in favor of Machivellian anti-heroes, hard truths, and naked egoism. Embracing this grimdark style and spinning a tale of his own is Daniel Polansky in Those Above (2015).

Those Above is set in a world where humanity's power has been quashed by a group of four-fingered immortals called Eternals whose strength and speed are no match. The four-fingered live at the peak of a tower-city called The Roost while the five-fingered humans in the five levels below slave to provide them food and water, heat and home. They pay no mind to the lands beyond where humans war among themselves, in essence securing the power of the immortals. Little do they know, however, rebellion is forming at the lowest reaches of The Roost.

Cardboard Corner: Review of "The Drowned City" expansions for Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Note: this is a review of both the Campaign and Investigator expansions for “The Drowned City”. There will be zero spoilers save story intro.

No use building up to it. No use trying to quietly lead the reader to it. This is it. The big one. The Big One. The Cthulhu one. I confess this means nothing to me. In some shadowy corner of my brain, a dusty place my conscious tosses useless information, I dimly understand Cthulhu possesses weighty importance in the minds of Lovecraft lore lovers. Or perhaps I'm getting old. Maybe that corner just needs a cleaning. Maybe it's just a leftover teddy bear, aged into misshapen, lumpy, tentacled malevolence... Sorry, don't know what came over me there. Fans of Arkham Horror have been speculating for ages when the giant green squid will finally see screen time. The time is now. Let's get into the review.

“The Drowned City” is classic Arkham Horror in more ways than one. We begin with story. The opening scenario has players doing One Last Job (yes, that one) for a curio shop owner they owe a debt to. He tasks you with finding a lost shipment, presumed stolen by one of Arkham's gangs. You head out onto the nighttime streets—Eastside, Downtown, Miskatonic University, and other districts from the core box—looking to parley with dangerous gangsters. You ultimately find the lost shipment, but it isn't without a cost. Yes, you read the tea leaves correctly: it was not One Last Job. And so into the wild blue yonder (that's the non-spoiler place; the real place has more ominous spires and alien glyphs) you go to fulfill one more One Last Job. It's not an easy job. If you fail, indeed the previous job was the last one. If you succeed you will have experienced a pulp tale of alien exploration and adventure, from the seas to the skies, and won... Play on to find out.

Review of Orbitsville by Bob Shaw

Reading science fiction of old is a surprise package. What reflects as 'well-regarded' in the mirror of history can be highly contextual today. Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity, for example, is lauded over the past 75 years—awards, critics' lists, best ofs, etc., etc. But it's the biggest piece of genre cheese you're likely to encounter. Elementary prose, low reader expectations, juvenile plot, wimpy characterization—it's one of the reasons Margaret Atwood decries sf as 'squids in space'. And then there are books like Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, a book which did and does receive a lot of attention that is still worthwhile today. Suffice to say I was nervous going in to Bob Shaw's 1975 Orbitsville. ”Shaw's best!” “70s British SF at its finest!”

Orbitsville is the dramatic life of Captain Vance Garamond after fate twists it upside down. Vance an interstellar explorer, he is taking a break on Earth when tragedy befalls a meeting with Earth's most powerful leader, Elizabeth Lindstrom. Forced on the run, Vance's wild flight from Earth takes him to humanity's biggest discovery: the biggest and dumbest of Big Dumb Objects. Adventure ensues!

Cardboard Corner: Review of Steampunk Rally

In the Polish language exists the word kombinować. Its meaning can be straightforward, as in the English “to combine”, but it is most often used in the sense “to cleverly manipulate a situation to one's advantage”. , In other words, to use the elements at your disposal in crafty fashion to get something beneficial for yourself or to avoid a bad outcome. The government warns citizens not to “combine” during tax season, and children who generate lengthy excuses for their capers are told “don't combine!”. Steampunk Rally, the 2015 racing game, is the ultimate opportunity for people to kombinować.

Building wonderfully from theme, Steampunk Rally is a racing game for two to eight players. In the course of a game players build and wreck steampunk jalopies, trying to generate movement while somehow staying wired together. Push too hard and you may find yourself in a trash heap aside the track. Push too little and you'll have a big beautiful machine but lag behind. Find the right balance of speed and safety, and you may be among the racers vying for the lead as the finish line comes into view. The player who crosses the finish line furthest, wins.

Review of Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler

A few years ago, a former professor of mine wrote a journal article on the positive power of alternate history. The reference material was a YA series that features Poland's underground resistance in WWII emerging victorious, as opposed to the brave defeat it suffered in reality. For context, Poland is a country that has had historical successes, but few recently. In WWII it survived the invasion of the Germans only to be overrun by the Soviet Union. Congrats! Oh, wait... Maybe the Nazis were better than the Soviets? Regardless, my professor argued that such use of alternate history, by making the Poles victorious, offers readers a form of catharsis, a relief from the historical weight of defeat. Whether you agree or disagree, it's an interesting idea. Spinning this concept into a Clone Trump future is Ray Nayler's Where the Axe Is Buried (2025).

Nayler has another name for him, but I will call him Clone Trump; the novel presents a naked extrapolation on current politics. So yes, the left's worst fears come true. Trump extends his grip on power by perpetually transferring his consciousness into new bodies, all in service of implementing a draconian regime based on limiting personal liberties and censorship. When a new term approaches, propaganda is dispersed, fake elections are staged, a body is made ready, and a new president takes power. But between the ears it's the same person: Clone Trump. Meanwhile, most other countries have chosen to opt out of human leadership and moved to AI prime ministers. These machine minds make the hard decisions—limiting energy usage, food consumption, commercial activities, etc. Beneath all this is an underground group of biohackers and tech wizards looking to “set things right”, which is where the book's rubber (quietly) hits the road.

Altered TCG Is Slipping: What In Tumult Is Going On?

Just over a year ago, Altered TCG took kickstarter by storm. It raised millions and millions of dollars, setting a TCG record at the time. And why not? It looked brilliant, offered a unique and interesting racing mechanism, and seemed to be taking an informed shot at evolving collectibility and trading. More than a year later, however, the game's popularity is fading. In what appears an attempt at rescuing Altered, Equinox has announced it will be moving away from standard distribution to Gamefound, a place some TCGs have gone to eek out another year or two of existence. For fans of the game, including myself, it's not a good sign. They then issued a statement to players, indirectly threatening them that if a certain pledge goal was not hit, the game would fail. Not a good look. In this post I want to take a semi-informed look at why Altered started strong but has not risen to meet the hype.

The following will be covered:

• Themeless-ness-ness-ness

• Fence-Sitting

• Lack of Faction Identity

• Evolving Fiddliness

• Buying, Selling, and Trading

Themeless-ness-ness-ness

It wasn't recognizable at first, but with several games under our belts it became clear Altered has a theme issue. It isn't controversial, or overdone, or annoyingly cutesy, or silly animals, or anime teens—I mean, women—with giant boobs. The issue is that theme is spread thin, at best. Where games like Dixit can thrive in an infinite dreamscape, a TCG cannot. It needs a confined concept which synergizes the game's win condition, phases, and mechanisms, and can then be complemented by art, keywords, symbolism, and card effects. For example, Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn, which presents itself as a duel of wizards, features two players who cast spells and summon creatures in magical combat. Makes sense. There are futuristic hackers versus shady corporations in Android: Netrunner, which means installing programs and anti-virus software, making cyberruns, taking meat damage, and cleverly using PR to sneak an agenda. Makes sense. Altered's theme of... generic fantasy dreamland where players cast spells to influence a race won by counting terrain symbols carried by allies with names like Haven Warrior, because when you're racing you need a warri—wait, what?