Normale Ansicht

Inkwell Game Review

Inkwell, designed by Jasper Beatrix, Lewis Graye, and Joey Palluconi, and published by DVC Games, is a beautiful object. There are a handful of games centered around illuminated manuscripts, an aesthetic for which I will always be a sucker, and this is far and away the most pleasing. The title, in gold foil over a detailed illumination, is a feast for the eyes. The components in the box are no less filling, though I wish I could extend the compliment beyond the aesthetics. Inkwell is, I think, three games all at once, and it doesn’t quite succeed as any of them.

The most obvious reference point, the one I’ve seen repeated the most in BGG reviews and on social media, is Azul. While I understand the point of comparison, the games don’t really have much in common at all. You choose your bits from a public central board and put them in matching slots within your own private sphere, but that’s about it. The specifics are so different that they undermine any meaningful commonality. You could describe the games as similar, but you’d be doing both Inkwell and Azul a disservice.

When choosing ink from an inkwell, you take all the cubes, regardless of color, and add them to accommodating spots on your board. Your choices change what’s…

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Keep the Faith Game Review

In the midst of Suzannah Herbert’s tremendous documentary Natchez, religious fundamentalists stage a Westboro Baptist–style protest outside an LGBTQI+ event. They stand there with their signs, decrying sin and the fate of the wayward souls inside. One man reads scripture into a megaphone, citing chapter and verse to support his belief that the drag queens emceeing will go to hell.

For some reason, it struck me in that moment as particularly absurd that this man was citing documents written over 2,000 years ago to explain his beliefs now. Well, “to explain” is wrong, and I even think “to justify” wouldn’t quite get across what I felt. I believe in and understand the power of citing the Bible as a collection of parables to relay lessons, questions, universal experiences. This man was not doing that. He was quoting the best-selling book of all time as edict. Those dusty old words were why he is presently required to believe that gay people will go to hell.

To that man, and those around him, the text of the faith is the faith. It is the destination, rather than the compass. To him, the scripture can neither change nor can it be changed. It is unyielding, unsparing, unimpeachable. Some words written down over two millennia ago are to be followed to the letter…

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