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Frenzy is a card game of real-time strategy. Two players choose from four different factions and then pit their forces against each other in a fast and furious confrontation. The game revolves around drawing cards from your deck and then placing them on one of seven piles which represents the distribution of your forces across the battlefield. You have to watch your opponent's moves and react to them quickly in order to stay ahead.
Each of the four factions in Frenzy is represented by a deck of cards, each of which comes in its own little tuckbox. But as with the Yomi card game, I decided it might be nice to have another box to keep the four decks together in, so I decided to build one. This was a fun little project. Lately I've been really frustrated because I've had a hard time doing anything creative. I sit down to write and I find that I just can't write. I sit down to draw and I find that I just can't draw. But, I can measure and cut! So that's what I've done. Here are some pictures of the process and the final product.
Yomi is a competitive card game for two players that captures the strategy elements of a fighting video game like Street Fighter or Tekken. The game consists of ten decks of cards, each deck representing a different character and requiring varied strategies when playing against different other characters. You can read more about the game here if you're interested.
I just recently purchased the four remaining decks to make my Yomi collection complete. While each deck comes in a nice tuckbox of its own, I decided I would like a nice box to keep all of the decks together in. Feeling a little bit "crafty", I decided to make a box that would be just the right size, and hopefully a little appealing to the eyes as well. I hadn't really done anything craft-wise since I made my Bat Mobile, so I figured I would take some photos of the project and share them here.
Check out this TED talk about a really cool game a public school teacher created to teach students about world politics and global community. This looks like an awesome activity for kids, and I have to admit I wouldn't mind playing it myself.
Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo is one of my favorite manga series. The title can be literally translated as "His and Her Circumstances", but is generally shortened to "Kare Kano" in both it's Japanese and English publications. The series ran 21 volumes in its American publication, and I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. There is a slow section in the middle of the series where the story gets sort of derailed as it explores the lives of various side-characters, but these side stories are also enjoyable in themselves, so it isn't a big deal to me. The main plot revolves around two high-school freshmen, a girl named Yukino Miyazawa and a boy named Arima Soichiro, who are both academic over-achievers. Their relationship starts out as a rivalry wherein the two of them compete for the highest grades in their school, but quickly turns into a budding romance.
I'll admit that this isn't a proper review of the manga, and it isn't meant to be. (If it were, I would have to mention that - while the art is beautiful - it is dreadfully dificult to tell certain characters apart at times. -_-;) I'm writing about the series for more personal reasons. To me one of the most powerful scenes in the series comes at the end of volume 9, when "Dark Arima" makes his dramatic and disturbing appearance. This is a personafication of Arima's doubt and self-loathing that gradually lures him into depression and a self-destructive frame of mind. The scene really struck a cord with me when I first read the series as a teen, and in the last few weeks I think I've had a few encounters with my own "Dark Arima". It's comforting (and not too much of a spoiler) to know that Arima eventually overcomes these feelings with the help of loving friends and family and grows up to have a happy life as a husband and a father - even if he does end up getting shot and killed during the series' only action scene. (Again, not really a spoiler - and an intentionally misleading one at that. ^_^)
Saturday, March 26th, we had the spring cleaning of our Kingdom Hall. I didn't get any sleep the night before, so I was super tired by the time the work was wrapping up, but I did manage to keep going most of the day. Here are some photos I snapped throughout the day.
