House of Many Gods by Kiana Davenport was the only book by a Native Hawaiian author I found at my local library. My library did carry a selection of the “top books about or set in Hawaii,” but unfortunately those books are written by White authors or non-Native Hawaiian authors born or living in Hawaii. Kiana Davenport … Continue reading
In the United States, November is Indigenous Peoples Heritage Month / Native American Heritage Month. Although we should be celebrating and honoring all Indigenous Peoples and First Nations year round, this month in particular is an intentional focus on standing with these communities and help to lift Indigenous Peoples voices and experiences. This month on … Continue reading
This book is the #DSFFBookClub pick of the month. I do not usually go out and buy books as soon as they release for a couple of reasons. First, I do not necessarily like hardback books (although I am slowly coming around) and hardbacks at full price are a huge hit on my book budget. … Continue reading
I wrote a post last month about appropriation and amalgamation of indigenous cultures to use as board game themes. A short while after, I saw a new game, being brought to the United States by Cool Mini or Not, designed by Bruno Faidutti, Waka Tanka. This is a small bluffing card game with some sort … Continue reading
One of the most said lines from board game reviewers and board game content creators I hear is: “This game is crazy!” Besides not knowing what the reviewer even means by this statement, ‘crazy’ has very apparent ableist connotation. The same goes for insane, mad, madness, madhouse… you get the point. Crazy is one of … Continue reading
There is a huge glaring gap in the conversation about representation and co-option of culture in the board gaming hobby. I hear a lot about the representation of black, latino, and asian peoples, but I rarely hear about co-opting, stereotyping, and tokenizing of indigenous culture to use as board game themes. To me, it seems so … Continue reading
Designer: Paul Peterson Publisher: AEG Players: 2-4 Weight: Light Play Time: ~45 min Type: tactical card game, area control Smash Up is a tactical card game where players take two factions and “smash them up” to form their draw deck for the game. These factions included in the base set are dinosaurs with lasers, ninjas, … Continue reading
Disclaimer: I got a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. See my review on Goodreads. This review contains spoilers. From the description, I thought Awakening Kali would place me in a fantastical / magical / supernatural story where a young women was cursed by the God Kali and would … Continue reading
At the beginning of this year, I joined a challenge on BoardGameGeek (dot) com. The challenge is called The 100×1 Exploring Diversity Challenge and instructed users to play 100 different unique games throughout the year. Many users also included variants to this challenge, for example, they aspired to play one game with a name starting … Continue reading
Well… we are back again talking about microagressions. Earlier this week, a couple members of the board gaming community posted media imitating a cultural/ethnic/racial accent. Almost instantly, the twiterverse blew up with tweets of anger and offence, calling these folks out in public as racist. Are they racist? Most likely not. Most likely they had … Continue reading
