JohnnyBGamer

For the Love of Strategy Games

I blame my Grandpa Ayers for my love of strategy games. How he taught my siblings and I how to move Chess pieces around the board. Which then translated to late night Chess matches while on camping trips with him. There is something nostalgic about playing Chess while eating prunes, graham crackers, and M&M’s. It is no wonder my stomach was usually so upset on those trips into the mountains.

Note: I’m the kid in the far back with the mop hair.

I have tried to share my love of strategy games with my son Wyatt. Teaching him how to move the knight, the rook, and the bishop in Chess. Also sharing with him the other game my Grandpa loved, Stratego. All the while branching out into Hall family favorites Carcassonne and Catan Jr. (I’ll note here: Never play Catan Jr. with Wyatt. He will win. Kid quickly figured out how to game the game.)

This past December, I decided to go deeper into the strategy game depths. Having read reviews, I intentionally asked for My Little Scythe for Christmas.

My Little Scythe has been perfect at teaching us how to see the bigger game picture amidst all the smaller moving pieces. I love it.

Wyatt recently came home from a homeschool park day with a deck of Magic: The Gathering (MTG) cards. He said that the other homeschool kids had been playing and had taught him how to play. Now I know that MTG can be an expensive hobby, due to having to buy new cards blindly in order to build powerful decks. I wanted to push past the expense AND further our strategy horizons, so I picked up a box of Dice Throne: Season 2 – Gunslinger v. Samurai.

My wife, Tabitha, is amazing at analyzing instructions and then teaching them to a group. (I think this has something to do with her teaching third grade for eight years. 🙂 ) But after looking over the Dice Throne instructions, she proclaimed, “This is a rule book, not an instruction book that describes how to play the game.”

A few hours of mowing the backyard later…

We decided to consult Watch It Played with Rodney Smith:

Which we found more helpful than the official Dice Throne video. But we still wanted to see the game played out. So we watched a bit of a Game the Game episode:

That was all on Sunday. Due to how crazy our week has been, we have yet to play ourselves. But I wanted to ask you…

Have you ever bought a game and thought, this is overwhelming!

Tell me about it in the comments below.

From Across the Net – “Why Men and Women Can—and Must—Work Together”

Even though this article seems specific to a church/ministry organization, I have struggled with this at work. Especially when I am in the office alone, working through lunch, and a female co-worker decides to eat her lunch at work and wants to talk. There is a fine line between being professional and alienation.

It’s important—especially as seemingly more and more Christian leaders are caught in a scandal—to make sure the right boundaries are in place to protect your marriage, your ministry, and your soul.

But in doing so, it’s easy to put up so many boundaries you alienate yourself or stifle the giftedness and friendship of the opposite gender.

You can read more here

Designing Easter – 2019

My church asked me to design a banner/slide for our Easter service. So, I swung for the fences!

Here is my first attempt:

Feedback on the above image = “looks like a beach towel”. I then decided to go with more pastel colors and swap out the background.

Second attempt:

With this image, I noticed that I was having issues with the times at the bottom not standing out. So I swapped out some colors and added more shadowing.

The final product:

I love how colorful the final product turned out. If there was a contest, in Longview, for most colorful Easter banner, I think I’d win.

Stinky April for PlayStation Plus

Not too impressed with the PlayStation Plus offerings this month. Maybe I’ll end up surprised?

From Across the Net – “8 Reasons Why Pastors Need to Serve in the Nursery or Preschool for a Sunday”

I can’t agree with Chuck Lawless enough here, speaking to pastors:

You need to model for your church’s parents the importance of serving in the nursery and preschool departments. Too many parents receive the benefits of childcare for their little ones, but they don’t give back by serving themselves. Perhaps seeing their pastor serve would encourage them to make a commitment.

Read more here