30 years ago, the Angolan government and its Cuban allies agreed on a ceasefire with South Africa after 13 years of fighting in Angola. The warring sides had been supported by the two superpowers U…

Once more, the SPIEL fair at Essen has come to an end. It’s been a few intense days of looking, meeting, and, of course, playing – for me and 200,000+ other attendees. Even though the fair has expa…

I remember the first time I felt doubt. It was the night my little sister was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes. Mom figured it out at the grocery store — we’d been through this once before — an…

This story takes place in the game Architects of the West Kingdom. The letter below was found in a church and was translated by somebody very talented yet also very vindictive. He modernized the la…

This blog started back in March 2017 and has been a going concern (sometimes very concerned!) for over 8 years now. As my mental health has changed and my motivation has lagged sometimes, the post …

One of the great cities of Europe celebrates its 750th birthday this year – Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, famous for tolerance, trade, and tulips. While the earliest settlements in the reg…

Action selection games usually don't have a lot of theme to them, at least as far as the actions you are selecting from. Usually it's like "oh, I select this noble to do this thing, and oh, supposedly I'm building some part of this medieval cathedral by doing that, ho hum." In SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, you are actually choosing actions that would supposedly help achieve the theme's goal.