Cardboard Critique: Black Sonata

February 20, 2019 David Neumann 25

Tabletop Remember those math puzzles your friends would quiz you with when you were a kid? They’d always begin by asking for your birth year, adding the day you were born, subtracting the hour, dividing by the number of eggs you had for breakfast and, viola, the answer would reveal, correctly, how many pet otters you’ve owned since the age of six. Having that answer always pop up correctly, no matter who you tried it with, was like a small miracle. It was like opening a portal to universe where magic existed and everything fit into a specific place. As I grew older and submerged myself in math, the magic was replaced with the cold dissection of numbers and seeing the trick for what it was: a simple math equation. Enter Black Sonata from Side Room Games, which feels like the most complicated math puzzle I’ve ever been dealt. The cool thing is, I can’t see the math and, even if I could, I don’t think I’d be able to suss out how the trick works. The only explanation that makes any sense: Black Sonata is magic. Real magic.

Sherlock Holmes gets Her Story-like mystery in Ink Spotters 1: The Art of Deduction

February 15, 2017 David Neumann 0

iOS Universal • One of the most unique games I’d ever played was Her Story released back in 2015. The “game” consisted of a myriad of video clips that you had to piece together in order to figure out the entire story. There was no winning or losing, just learning more and more about this rather interesting woman who was being questioned by the police for…something. Designer Sam Barlow has said that he’s working on a follow-up, but we haven’t heard of when Her Story 2 might actually find its way to our tablets. Yesterday, Three Story House released a game I wasn’t aware of that brings a lot of that Her Story vibe back to our iPads and adds a healthy dose of Sherlock Holmes along the way. It’s called Ink Spotters 1: The Art of Deduction and, as someone who loved Her Story and also devours anything Sherlockian, color me intrigued.

Ghostly board game, Mysterium, headed to digital

November 9, 2016 David Neumann 1

If you’ve ever played Mysterium I’m sure the last thing on your mind was if a digital version was in development. It’s a great board game, but it involves players all discussing strange images that have been handed to them from another player. Thus, it seems to be most at home around a dining room table or the like. Well, Asmodee Digital is saying whatever to all that and is going forward with a digital version of Mysterium anyway. After reading what they have planned, I have to admit I’m actually excited to see this on my iPad.