Holiday Gift Guide: Games (of all types!)

Winter is the perfect time for gaming. It's cold and wet outside. You've got time off for the holidays. Friends and family are around. So get together and enjoy some games of all types! We've got some of the very best here in our Games gift guide. Check them all out, and share the love!


Mike: for the battling wizard in your life

Harry Potter: Battle of Hogwarts
USAOpoly

I had a chance to watch other people play this title at Gen Con this year and it immediately jumped to the top of my most wanted games.  One thing my family enjoys greatly is playing cooperative games.  It is easier for the kids to lose together and it is extremely satisfying to win a game together.  My kids (ages 9 and 6) just finished the fourth book so this game is timely for us. Having said that, I wanted to make sure that I didn't spoil anything for them playing this game.  One thing that is brilliant about this game, is that it is divided up into 7 games, with the cards from those games lining up with the corresponding book. This system also allows the players to decide on what difficulty level to choose.  Much like the books, the game starts off simple and then really ramps up after he who must not be named comes to power.  The game is a deck builder, and games 1-3 almost serve as a tutorial for those who may not be familiar with this style.  More experienced players will want to start at least in game 3, but the way the game is organized it is easy to revert to any previous game depending on who you are playing with.  The components for this game are phenomenal (my son mimics the motions on the spell casting cards) and this is a must buy game for the whole family.

brian: for the demon slayer in your life

Doom
Bethesda Softworks

Doom was my favorite game this year. There were plenty of opportunities for it to go wrong, but it succeeded magnificently in making a new game with respect for the original's legacy. This may be a new game with new mechanics but it's still fast paced action focused on movement and utter demon destruction. The gameplay loop of shooting and executing demons to get health promotes the kind of in-your-face action that was so prevalent in the first two games and has since been discarded by much of the FPS genre. There is no cover in Doom. You will not wait for your health to recharge. You will not pop and stop. You will kill demons. You will make them fear you. You're going to fight like hell.

Shana: for the nostalgic gamer in your life

The Oregon Trail Card Game
Pressman Toy

Okay, full disclosure, I don't actually own The Oregon Trail Card Game but a friend of mine received it for his secret santa and has been sharing how much he is loving it. Now I'm obsessed with getting it for myself and thought others might like to know about it as well. It is for 2-6 players and a full play through will take about 30-45 minutes, allowing for multiple attempts to blaze The Oregon Trail successfully in an evening. I adored this game in the computer lab of yesteryear, and I can't wait to enjoy it once again!

Joe: for the person in your life who wants to stab everything

Dishonored 2

Bethesda Softworks

I'll be upfront with this: I neither have played Dishonored 2 nor do I own a PS4. So, why recommend the game for this gift guide? Simply put, playing the original Dishonored earlier this year was one of the most sublime gaming experiences I have had in some time and finding out there was a sequel was almost enough to cause me to buy the next Playstation just to play Dishonored 2. The original is nearly perfect, offering multiple ways to achieve your objectives and I highly recommend you play that, too, but Dishonored offers so much promise and is so good that regardless of whether or not you choose to play the original, Dishonored 2 is an essential game. 

Mike: for the competitive stargazer in your life

Starfall

IDW/Pandasaurus Games

This game had quite a bit of buzz leading up to its release and I am happy to report that the early praise was well deserved.  The mechanics of Starfall are very simple and easy to learn, but the decision making process each turn will hurt your brain in a good way.  Players assume to role of astronomers who are competing over who can identify the most elaborate formations in the night sky.  On your turn you have three options.  You can either add a new sky tile to the board (if there is room), bump the price of a sky tile down, or purchase a sky tile to add to your collection.  You earn various multipliers depending on what is on your sky tile, so it becomes a difficult choice in terms of when to buy.  Players have a fixed amount of money in which to spend and once it is gone it is gone. One of the players who I played with at a launch event described the game as "elegant" and I couldn't agree more.  Easily one of the more mechanically sound games I have ever played and one that is sure to spend a lot of time at the table at my house.

brian: for the adult you want to introduce to games in your life

INSIDE

Playdead

If Doom is the game you get for adults who used to play action-y video games, INSIDE is the game you get for adults who've never played video games. INSIDE's simple controls allow the player to pay attention to the beautifully crafted game world. It's a grim game, but it's impossible to put down once you've started. INSIDE makes one of the best cases for games as art. It tells a story without uttering a single word, and does so in a way that wouldn't have worked as well as a simple movie. What makes it work is that you're a part of it. It's a short experience, but it's powerful and grim and should be played by everyone.

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POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Holiday Gift Guide: Gadgets, Electronics, and Apps

It's that time of year again, where we struggle to buy the perfect gift for that special [fill in the blank] in your life. This year, the Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together crew is teaming up to bring you their favorite books, toys, entertainment, and gadgets, etc. to help make the process easier.

Stop by each day this week to see our suggestions.

Today...Gadgets, Electronics, and Apps!

The G: "For the solitaire lover in your life"

Card Crawl 

For me to play a game on my phone, it needs to essentially be some form of solitaire--the kind of thing you can play in 5-10 minute sessions, doesn't require much concentration and, as such, lends itself to endless replay while waiting for person X to arrive or event Y to start. But I also want something more than just solitaire, and that's exactly what Card Crawl provides. It's fantasy-based with addictive gameplay and a reward system that lets you trade in points (accrued by success and not by in-app purchases) for special cards. And the game itself is both simple and deep. Basically, there are five kinds of cards: monsters, which hurt you; swords and shields, which hurt monsters; potions, which heal you; coins, which give you points; and special cards, which can do all sorts of fun things. The trick is trading in as many swords, shields and potions as possible for coins, but so many that you can't survive a hand full of monsters. It's a lot of fun. And free! (Available for iOS and Android.)

Tia: "For the not really a morning person in your life"

Philips Wake-Up Light with Sunrise Simulation

Chances are you've stayed up way too late reading or playing video games (or maybe even doing something responsible like homework or caring for a child) and have struggled to get out of bed the next morning, hitting the snooze button numerous times. Or, perhaps you're one of the unfortunate souls that must rise in the dark, before the sun has reared it's beautiful head. Personally, I used to have 6 alarms set on my phone in various increments and would often sleep through many of them and then awake startled at one of the awful sounds. Welp, that dragon has officially been slayed and my magic weapon is the Phillips Wake Up Light. It's not a miracle worker mind you, but I no longer need alarms on my phone and I now often awake before the soft subtle beep that this golden egg exudes. The reason is the sunrise simulation the device offers. Around half an hour before the alarm is set to go off, the Wake Up Light starts gradually brightening to prepare your body for waking up the natural way (triggering your circadian rhythm), and by the time the beep sounds you are already almost fully awake. Now, I don't wake up singing and am still tired in the morning, but it is no longer the vicious battle of slapping my hand around my night stand to silence whatever evil demon is screaming in my ear. There are many different models to choose from but I just went with the bottom of the barrel and it was the best money I spent in a really long time. I purchased this as a gift for my brother this year (who also inherited the 10 phone alarm gene) and I recommend you get one for yourself and any other non-morning person in your life.


Brian: "for the too-connected homeowner in your life"

Gogogate2 by Gogogate

I got a Gogogate 2 to solve a dumb problem, but it turned out to be really neat. It allows you to control and monitor your garage door (among other types of outdoor gates) via your smartphone. It connects directly to your garage door opener and wifi network. With some setup, you connect it to an app on your smartphone, slap a sensor on your garage door, and now you can see on your smartphone whether it's open or close, and then open or close it. Big deal, but you can also allow remote access (using strong passwords, obvs), and now you can check on your garage door, open, or close it from your smartphone anywhere. No more sharing your garage door code with family or friends, you can just open and close it for them from your phone! It can be configured to send you alerts when your garage door is open for more than 10 minutes, or whenever it opens or closes. You can also do neat (dumb) things like tie it in a roundabout way to an Amazon Echo and now you can open and close your garage door using just your voice! I wouldn't necessarily call this a "fun" device, but it does useful things and I never fail to enjoy opening my garage door from a block away with my phone.


Joe: "For lovers of calm and beautiful games"

Monument Valley

After recommending Prune last year, I'd like to recommend another mobile game. Originally released in 2014, Monument Valley is a beautiful and quiet game filled with puzzles featuring optical illusions and manipulation for the player to find their way through the paths blocked by weirdly creepy crow people. Monument Valley is a touch on the short side and it's not the most difficult of games, but it is a fun and calming piece of art.

Holiday Gift Guide: Books and Comics

Welcome to our annual Holiday Gift Guide where the flock takes a break from talking about all the awesome and not so awesome things to, well, talk about some more of the awesome things that you might want to consider for your Holiday shopping this year. Today we'll talk about books and comics, but throughout the week you'll have any number of things to consider (games, apps, movies, and more). 

And, as you can see from the first item on this list, you still can't avoid hearing about Hamilton. I'm not sorry.


Joe: for the Hamilton obsessed in your life

Hamilton: The Revolution

by Jeremy McCarter and Lin Manuel-Miranda

I'm not sure there is anything so ingrained in nerd culture (for whatever that means today) as Hamilton. It's a musical, it's a soundtrack that has become the soundtrack of our lives, there's a star studded mixtape out now, and there's also this book. It is stunningly good. Hamilton: The Revolution is two things. First, it is a behind the scenes making of the show from inspiration all the way through making it big on Broadway and turning into the phenomenon it became. The second part of the book, and just as good is  Lin-Manuel Miranda annotated his lyrics. He writes about some of the things he was trying to accomplish, hip hop references, and more. My only wish is that Miranda would have gone full on genius annotating every line and small detail of the show - but that's a small and selfish quibble. This is a can't miss book for fans of the show and also for those still trying to figure out what's going on with this Hamilton thing.


The G: For the Vikings fan in your life

The Long Ships (New York Review Books Classics)

by Frans G. Bengtsson (trans. Michael Meyer)

I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with History Channel's series Vikings, namely because it isn't nearly as historical as I want it to be. But I do appreciate that it is making more people interested in actual Viking history and culture. Now, granted--The Long Ships is neither history nor Saga, but it's a gateway to reading the Sagas, as it captures their feel, relativistic worldview and dark humor quite well. Only, The Long Ships also gives you modern prose with narrative structure. In other words, this is the closest you're going to get to the Sagas without actually reading the Sagas. And you should really read the Sagas, but The Long Ships is a good way to see if you're up for that. Plus it's just a very good story, told well.


Tia: For the Harry Potter Fan in your life

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2)

by J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay (Illustrator)

The Harry Potter Illustrated series is a must have for any Harry Potter fan. The Chamber of Secrets doesn't feel quite as heavily illustrated as the first in the series, probably because the text is a bit longer, but that doesn't detract from the magnitude of the beauty of the book. You can catch a preview of some of the illustrations from Book 2 on Pottermore. The books themselves are almost coffee-table size, the construction is sturdy and the pages are heavy and glossed. The plan is to release one illustrated book per year, starting last year, so it is not too late to make this a holiday giving tradition.


Vance: for lover of the best science fiction has to offer

The Big Book of Science Fiction

by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors)

I kid you not, the introduction alone is worth the price of this book. Written by the editors, the intro lays out the entire evolution of science fiction, from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells through today. But it doesn't just tell the story of Western science fiction, which is almost exclusively what I'm familiar with, it also explores how sci-fi developed in other parts of the world, too, often cut off from the Western tradition, and how it matured in response to the social conditions present in those countries and cultures. The stories collected in the book, collected methodically and purposefully, then demonstrate that history and evolution. I love vintage sci-fi -- in my gift guide entry last year, I highlighted the Fantagraphics EC Comics collections, and I have been known to wander into my local used books shop and buy sci-fi anthologies from the 50s and 60s pretty much at random. In most of those cases and with the EC collections, there are standout gems, and a bunch of junk that gets skipped, or after I scratch the pulp sci-fi or horror itch, I put the books aside until next time. But this is not to be the fate of The Big Book of Science Fiction. It's long, and I have not made my way through it fully yet, but the variety and consistently stellar (see that?) quality of the stories really do set this apart as, in my mind, *the* premier anthology of short science fiction. A must-have.



Mike: For the nostalgic comic book lover in your life

Paper Girls Volume 1

by Brian K. Vaughan

As I contemplate what an amazing year of comics it has been, I struggled to find one book that was truly a must read.  In my opinion, a lot of the titles that have come out this year are not to be missed, but as I pondered my stack of comics I reached the conclusion that that one title in 2016 was Paper Girls.  Brian K. Vaughan is no stranger to writing amazing books (Saga, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina) and Paper Girls is as good as any of them.  In a similar vein to Stranger Things, Paper Girls had an 80's nostalgia to it that was expertly crafted.  It didn't feel forced, and reminded me of The Goonies, Stand By Me, and others.  It brings me visions of riding my bike around the neighborhood ready for anything the world could throw at me.  In the case of the characters in this title, the paper girls are confronted with mysterious aliens and mayhem and never miss a beat.  Featuring a cast of strong female characters, Paper Girls is just the title for someone on your list looking for a bit of nostalgia and fun.


Shana: for the lover of the best short fiction being written today

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

by Ken Liu

In Ken Liu's first short story collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, the reader is met with some of Ken's most awarded and award-nominated short stories with one never before published, 15 in all. This speculative fiction collection is one of the most moving and awe-inspiring I've ever read with many of the stories centering around themes such as family, identity, and politics. Liu's ability to strike the reader to the core with his poetic prose is unparalleled and any recipient of this collection will be rewarded with a gut-punch of a read.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.