Character Creation: 9 Lives to Valhalla

MEOW.

The Game: 9 Lives to Valhalla
The Publisher: Gem Room Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, but it ain't complex
Books Required: Just the one

9 Lives to Valhalla is a post-apocalyptic sort of game in which you play cats...but Death Metal Viking Cats. The game fully commits to its premise. If the dice come out, something dies. If you roll well, your opponent dies. If you don't, you die. If you tie, you both die. 

But, of course, cats have 9 lives, so if you die you go to Valhalla and get a new blessing from the gods. The game is meant to be cheerfully ultraviolent, and the art style fully embraces that. Oh, and the GM is called DEATH. 

So let's make a pussycat. I am taking as inspiration a cat I once knew named Inky. Inky was a fucking demon. We were cat-sitting ("we" here meaning my father and I) for Inky, we walked into the kitchen, I saw a blur of blackness and suddenly my leg was bleeding. 

Do note: Inky was declawed. He not only bit me open, he did it so fast I didn't see it happen. Little bastard. 

So anyway, we start off with a name, description, and full color. I'll keep Inky as the name. Inky has black fur and strikes from the dark with blinding ferocity. 

Inky gets a nemesis, someone who has crossed paths with him before but has neither fallen nor felled him. Inky's nemesis is a giant, a skeleton of a long-dead man who would dare to try and "care for" the Beast from the Blackness. It is dressed in torn rags and carries with it a wooden club. If it catches Inky it will imprison him rather than kill him. This cannot stand. 

Favored God! My choice of one of the gods of Panthera also determines my attribute spread. I think Inky is a devotee of Onca, the Jaguar. That means I get d4, d6, d6, d12 to put into my four attributes (which are Brutality, Viciousness, Cunning, and Ferocity). I'll put the d12 into Ferocity, the d4 into Viciousness, and the other two get a d6. 

Mastered Weapon! I think Fang and Claw is the only logical choice here. Inky's claws are stubby and blunt, but his teeth are sharp and swift.

Blessings of Valhalla! I get one and then more as I die. I shall take Blessing of Leg and Fang, which increases my Brutality to a d8. 

And that's it! Inky's ready to go fangs out on some fuckers. 

Movie #736: Spider-Man

Spider-Man is, of course, the first big-budget feature film about the titular superhero, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, Willem Dafoe, Kirsten Dunst, J.K. Simmons, Rosemary Harris, Cliff Robertson, and James Franco, with fun "oh, hey!" moments featuring Joe Manganiello, Octavia Spencer, and Elizabeth Banks.

It's Spidey's origin story, so you know the drill: Peter Parker (Maguire) is a dorky high school student, in love with his neighbor Mary Jane Watson (Dunst) and dodging bullies like Flash Thompson (Manganiello). And then he gets bitten by a radioactive genetically engineered spider and winds up with superpowers, tries amateur wrestling to get money to buy a car to impress MJ, and winds up letting a robber (Michael Papajohn) run right by him. Said robber winds up carjacking and shooting his Uncle Ben (Robertson), and Parker learns the important lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility." 

And that's just the first act! Meanwhile, his best friend Harry;s (James Franco) father Norman Osborn (Dafoe) has undergone a Jekyll-and-Hyde kind of transformation into the Green Goblin, taking advantage of his company's performance-enhancing drugs and very weird goblin-masked flight suit and glider. Goblin becomes obsessed with Spider-Man, and we wind up with a showdown on the Queensboro Bridge, after which Norman gets impaled on his glider (in accordance with the prophecy) and Peter decides it's too dangerous to be with Mary Jane.

Man, superhero movies have changed so much and yet not at all. The dialog, the action, the storyline, it all seems so basic in this movie. We were two years past X-Men and more than a decade past Batman at this point, and yet we still got a basic-ass origin story. The relationship between Goblin and Spidey also doesn't make a great deal of sense, though you can lay a lot of that at the feet of Osborn being nuts (and Dafoe sells it, so that's fine). 

Not everything in the movie holds up. Maguire isn't really up to the task of showing us Spidey's physicality (but we're spoiled by Tom Holland for that), and the Green Goblin suit is just weird. Spidey's homophobic dig at Bonesaw McGraw (Randy Savage) is a little problematic these days, and Norman leering creepily at MJ doesn't really vibe with how Norman's been portrayed, but like, he's the villain, so OK. 

But as with a lot of the superhero movies of the naughties, this was really helping pave the way for Iron Man and thus the MCU, which would give us the best cinematic version of Spider-Man. And it's perfectly watchable, it's just that since we've had better versions since (including Amazing Spider-Man, and I'll die on that hill), it kinda throws some of the dumber stuff into sharper relief.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Medium-High

Next up: Spider-Man 2

Movie #735: Spellbound

Spellbound is a thriller kind of thing directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, John Emery, Rhona Fleming, and Norman Lloyd. 

Dr. Constance Petersen (Bergman) is a psychiatrist working in the comparatively new field of psychoanalysis. We start off seeing her working with one Ms. Carmichael (Fleming), but she's something of a red herring because the important case is Mr. Garmes (Lloyd), a man with a "guilt complex" who's convinced he killed his father. The real juicy drama at the psych hospital, though, is that the old admin Dr. Murchison (Carroll) is being forced into retirement following a breakdown, and replaced by Dr. Edwardes (Peck).

Everyone is surprised when Edwardes turns up - he's much younger and more Peck-ish than anyone thought - and Constance, who's been kind of disinterestedly involved with her colleague Dr. Fleurot (Emery) takes an immediate shine to him. Trouble is, he's not Dr. Edwardes, he's a patient of Edwardes who, he's convinced, murdered him and took his place. (This obviously would only be possible a long-ass time ago, and even then it's remarked upon that this only happened because no one happened to have ever met the real Edwards.)

Constance is convinced, based on no evidence whatsoever, that "Edwardes" - now only knowing his initials, "J.B." -  is innocent, and flees with him when the truth comes out. Her old colleague Dr. Brulov (Chekhov), easily the most interesting character in the movie, doesn't buy the imposter's innocence either, but he's willing to help out out of love for Constance. And with his help, they analyze J.B.'s dreams (dream sequence designed by Salvador goddamn Dali), and discover that he witnessed Edwardes die on a ski slope and, owing to childhood and wartime trauma, blocked it out and took his place. But then the police discover that Edwardes died with a bullet in his back and arrest J.B., because doy.

Now, me personally, we could have ended the movie there, but it ain't that kind of party. Turns out Edwardes was indeed murdered by (spoilers) Murchison, Constance figures it out, J.B. goes free and marries Constance. Happily ever etc.

Supposedly this all came about because David O. Selznick wanted a movie about psychoanalysis, but gotta be honest, it's not really about that. It's a pretty bog-standard murder thriller with some handwringing about analysis thrown in, made much more interesting by the fact that it's got Peck, Bergman, Chekhov, Carroll, Hitchcock, and Dali involved. It comes across as pretty basic nowadays, in the way that a lot of older thrillers do (this was made in 1945 so any twist that shows up here is one we've seen many times by now), and of course it's hard not to read characters like Fleurot as malevolent when they're really just dudes with no understand of things like "boundaries" and "sexual harassment." But then there's moments like Bergman very clearly drawing a vulva on the tablecloth, Brulov's queer-coding ("any husband of Constance is a husband of mine, so to speak"), and the whole razor-blade-glass-of-milk scene, and once again we find that filmmakers will always find a way to infuse everything with meaning. Which, in a movie about psychoanalysis made in the 40s, is really pretty appropriate. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: Spider-Man

Character Creation: Age Past: The Inician Sphere

I figure I can do this in 30 minutes before the soup is done (chicken and barley, if you're interested).

The Game: Age Past: The Incian Sphere
The Publisher: Strange Machine Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, which is a little odd
Books Required: Just the one

Age Past was a mainstay of IGDN for a while. Every year at GenCon I tried to find people to run it, and every year I had trouble, because it's just a fantasy game. It's not particularly difficult, I don't think, but the book is 400 goddamn pages and it's not much fun to read - lots of passive voice. I think it was on my list to run and review (man, I miss doing that, but not enough to come up with a pseudonym and disguise my writing, and not enough to deal with the inevitable tide of shit that would come with me reviewing games under my real name. Or maybe not, maybe no one would care, but I ain't willing to roll those dice). 

ANYWAY. Age Past is a D&D clone, what with elves and dwarves and so forth. It's got a great big elaborate history that starts with a god ("One") creating the world and moving on from there. There one interesting idea is that is you're playing history, so that the character you're playing in the game is destined to be written about in the future. I don't know if there's any particular mechanical attention to that idea; it didn't look like it, but I admit I stopped reading after chargen because I didn't love the game enough to devote multiple days to reading it. 

I usually like to summarize the game a little, but like, it's a fantasy world. There's war and different civilizations and there's a magical threat on the horizon that stems from magical mad sciences making monsters, only it's called "Werking," which is a) a stupidly unnecessary misspelling and b) one letter away from "twerking" and I just can't get my brain to stop rolling its eyes at it. Anyway, the first thing in chargen I'm meant to do is come up with a "Design," which is an overarching goal, or a way that the character wants to impact the world. But it doesn't have to be a specific goal, because a couple of the examples are more like beliefs or ideals. It's the kind of thing that really should be grounded in the world, and in my humble opinion would have been a good way to tie in the whole "you'll be remembered in history books." (Side note: Atlantis: The Second Age does something like this with Destiny and Fate.)

All of this to say I don't have a strong idea for Design. Let's go a little more metaphysical and say that my character wants to amass magical power and speak with the gods as an equal. That's hubristic as fuck. 

Right, next I need an Archetype. This whole section makes my head hurt. You make up an archetype, though there is a list of examples. The only mechanical effect seems to be that when your archetype applies, you get a bonus to non-opposed checks. "Scholar" would seem to be the simplest way to express what I want, but "philosopher" is probably closer to the truth. How about Deiologist, one who studies deities? 

Next up, Heroic Traits. There are 4 (Reaction, Brawn, Charisma, Intellect), but I only get 2 points and they have to be split up. I'll put one in Intellect and one in Charisma, obvs. 

And now...oh lort. Talents. Lookit this.

I see what they're saying, but jesus. I think I'll pick the narrow array, letting me put 3 points in 4 different Talents, and giving me 9 points to spread around the other 12. That'll give me some with 0, which I'm not encouraged to do, but it's possible and one third of the options here require it, so it can't be that big a problem. 

I'll put my 3s into Mind, Insight, Awareness, and Spirit, how bout. For the other ones, I'll put 2 into Initiative, Agility, Subterfuge, and Etiquette, and the remaining 1 into Guile.

(And now it's tomorrow, so no, I wasn't able to do this before finishing the soup. Soup's really good, though.)

OK, so, moving on! Next up we choose race. Dwarves, orks, goblins, sure. Ooh, also some fish-people that are kind of cool. But there's also the Machari, mechanical people who, legend has it, descend from a sect of people who used to commune with the gods. I think that's actually pretty appropriate for my character concept, so beep boop, motherfucker.

That means I belong to a Machari Clan. I'll go with Truthwork, since they deal with magical items. I also get Clockwork, which means I get Bloodline: Clockwork at level 1, whatever the hell that means. Also, this stuff:

Professions! I get 2 + (Mind + Intellect)/2, which is 4 total. I will take Mythologist, Theologian, Spellcrafter, and Scribe. Oh, wait, I get 3 more from my race. Let's do Mechanist, Strategist, and Politician. 

I get 3 points of Dominion and 3 actions, whatever that means, and 7 Toughness because I'm Machari. 

Right, now I get 25 points to spend on Powers or more Professions. If I want to be a magic-user, I need to take Apprentice Spellcaster. Which I do. Which means I need to suss out the magic system.

OK, it looks like what happens here is that I pay at least 3 points and up to 12, and I get between 1 and 4 schools of magic (each one costs) and a skill score of 3 within that school. I can then cast spells within that school, up to my score (meaning I can cast spells up to level 3 in each school I buy? That seems high. Nope, that's right!). 

Well, cool. I'll definitely take Apprentice: Spellcaster, but I'll wait to decide how much until I look through the other Powers. 

Ooh, I want Augur. Seems appropriate to have this character have a little Cassandra going on. That's 4 points. I'll take Concentrate, which allows me to cast a spell within melee range without penalty, since any combat my robot is in will definitely be involving magic. I feel like Diplomat is in-theme, too. That's 11 points spent, need to watch my totals. 

Ugh, there are too goddamn many of these, and a lot of them should be spells. "Mana Bolt." I mean, it's cool that a fighter character might be able to throw a magic bolt, but there's so many mundane fighty things, too, and how would you ever keep track of all this?

(I mean, I know, people keep track of all the Feats or whatever in D&D, but it takes a certain kind of person to remember all the details and that kind of player isn't easily found I tell you what.)

Anyway, I'll take Nullifier, seems like dispelling magic is a good idea. I'll also take Physical Integrity, letting me downgrade a critical hit to a normal hit once per day. What's my total? 18 spent, meaning I have 7 more. OK. I'll spent 3 right now to buy a school of magic, and I'll spend my last 4 on Ward of Protection. 

So what school do I want? Ooh, I think I want Limbo. Not much in the way of offense, but some really dope effects, and I think it's in keeping with my Machari. Oh, wait, I get bonus points at the end. Murflefurlfle. OK, let's just bear that in mind. 

BECAUSE NEXT IS DERIVED TRAITS WHICH SHOULD GO AFTER YOU CAN BUY THINGS BUT WHATEVER. 

Wounds: (Brawn x 2) + END + 5, or, um, 5, since Brawn and END are both 0. 

Mana = (INF + SPR + Intellect) x 2 + 8. Side note: It is driving me nuts that some of these traits stats aspects characteristics wafflehumps are abbreviated and some aren't. If there's any rhyme or reason I can't see it. Anyway, that's 16. 

Morality and Torment. Oy. OK, I get a Core Morality, a Drive, and a Demeanor, and also one Torment. Core is Heroic, Selfish, or Malevolent. I think Selfish, please. Drive is a subset of that, and Observant makes the most sense for my guy. Demeanor is "how my drive is conveyed to the world." Well, not to lean into the machine thing too much, but I think Analyst is probably about right.

And then one Torment. I'll take Dying. Every session I'd roll d%, and on a 3 or less, next session is my last. Knowing me I'd roll 01 first time out of the gate, but life's like that. 

Next step: Gear points and equip the character blrurrrrgh. OK. I get 25 Gear Points. And...no. I'm not gonna do it. My guy has stuff. Moving on.

Bonus points! Woo! I get 10. I'll spend 3 and buy another school of magic; I want air. I'll spend 4 and buy up END and INF to 1. That makes 7, 3 left. I'll spend 'em on the Sure Footed power, I'm hard to knock down. 

Anyway, those increases change my wounds to 6, and my mana to 18. 

GOOD GRIEF. That's very long. Let's finish it up! OMG there's a name generator. 10/10, no notes. Let's see. 

I like Mata as a first name. Let's roll for a complex surname, why not. "Suunwork." I'm game. 

Mata is Machari, which means he's pretty obviously mechanical. Every so often, though, you'll get a smell of acid or corrosion from him, and he'll go quiet as he tries to cope with the pain. His body is breaking down, and before that happens, he wants to converse with the gods as an equal, and ask them why that happens. It's so inefficient, and there must be something he's not seeing - lifespans make sense, because when people don't die they become evil like the blood drinkers, but why suffering? Why the death spiral that almost all races experience? 

Mata knows that he might not have time to answer these questions, but that just means we should start now. 

Slipstream: Near-Death

So last time, our heroes got their shit wrecked by a trio of Handmaidens. King Boolar, Craw, and Gruff circle back to the Anathraxan warship to try and help, and behold a terrifying sight.

Princess Zeenia is dead! Her body's been lashed to the front of the Warship, and is really only held together by her suit. Iris Blue and Abbas are dying, both of them having been run through. A squad of Primals, having done the grisly work of making Zeenia into a hood ornament, are standing around kicking the bodies and making jokes.

The heroes waste no time. Boolar and Craw fly up to a building behind two of the Primals and push a big container of grain over onto them, crushing them. The other Primals fire on the characters, but Gruff charges out and guts one. One of them fires at the king, but Craw leaps in the way and takes the blast. Boolar flies around him and slices up a Primal with his sword, and Boolar fells the last with his ray gun. 

Gruff rushes to aid the fallen heroes, stabilizing them so they can be moved back to the Darkwing, and just manages it. Boolar and Craw fly up to the Warship to take Zeenia's body down, and Craw notices a golden object in her suit pocket. He pulls it out - a Lazarus injector! He jabs her in the tentacle and watches as the golden liquid suffuses her tissues, rebuilding her body and bringing her back to life. 

Craw and Gruff take the others back to the Darkwing on the rocket sled, while Boolar and Zeenia check the Warship. They discover a really heavy rifle hanging over an ornamented seat; Zeenia takes it (the rifle, not the seat). They also find that this ship has some kind of Weird Science device hooked into it. Zeenia leans out of the ship and fires this new rifle at the radiophone tower, blowing off the transmitter. The three Handmaidens pour out of a hatch, and the Royals decide to steal the ship, and Zeenia takes off. Zeenia can pilot, but she's not especially good at it.  

They lift off and the Handmaidens start brandishing weapons. They probably have enough firepower to destroy the ship, but the Zeenia tells Boolar to activate the weird device. He does...and the ship disappears. A cloaking device!

They head back to the Darkwing (and radiophone ahead). Just as they land, the onboard radiophone crackles to life. The Anathraxan army is falling back to Quan for a "secret mission." Whatever that is, it doesn't sound good.

The heroes decide to follow in the Warship, and swing by Simba and drop off the Darkwing. Gruff works on the heroes wounds on the way, and this ship is fast - only a few short hours go by before they approach Quan. 

Quan is an icy world, and as they approach they see an armada of War Rockets around it. Three of them fall into formation and demand their commander and code. Iris tries to bluff their way past with the old squelchy radio trick, but they aren't falling for it and demand to board. "Wait, what are we doing? We have a cloaking device!" says Zeenia, and activates it. 

Iris pilots the ship past the armada and towards the fragment's surface. More specifically, towards the two-mile-high metal pyramid. Outside the pyramid, two Warships are being stripped of parts. The heroes see a squad of Primals, two Earthlings in winter coats, two Walking Bombs...and a Handmaiden. 

They decide they're going to win this fight. Still cloaked, they lower the ship enough that Iris can fire the rifle that Zeenia found (it's an atomic rifle! It's very atomic). She blasts the Handmaiden, while the crew mans the ship's side-mounted weapons and destroys one of the Walking Bombs. The heroes disembark (mostly), while Hwoot flies the ship and XK27 and Chirrp stay on board to shoot. 

One more shot destroys the other Walking Bomb, and then Hwoot brings the ship around and fires its rocket. The rocket destroys the noses of the two grounded ships and shakes up the Handmaiden, but her armor is far too tough to be destroyed. She fires her atomic repeater at the heroes, stunning or wounding them, and then charges it and meets Iris in mid-air for battle. She slices Iris up with her laser sword, but Zeenia and Abbas are right below.

Zeenia strikes with her tentacle knives, and Abbas shoots at her with his rifle and then tries to disarm her with his claws. It doesn't work, but it does distract the Handmaiden enough that Iris can run her through. "You barely survived my attack," hisses the Handmaiden. "You think you'll survive my death?"

Zeenia throws herself back away from the blast. Abbas wrenches the laser sword away from the Handmaiden, but is wounded in the explosion. Iris utterly fails to get clear and is throw backwards into the snow. Gruff rushes over to help her and manages to stabilize her...and now the pyramid's entrance lies before them.

The heroes sense some sort of malevolent intelligence within. Next time, we'll go straight on through the chompers!

Wait, what?

Character Creation: Free Spacer

Last character of June! YES I KNOW IT'S JULY WHATEVER.

Anyway. 

The Game: Free Spacer
The Publisher: Random Alien Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Fun little sci-fi game, this - in the aftermath of Colonial War with multiple factions (that the book names but the players define), you're "free spacers," basically privateers (IN SPACE!). You get anti-aging tech as reward for your piracy, something that not everyone thinks is OK and not everyone can afford anyway. 

I love games that require table collaboration, though I admit Free Spacer made my eyes glaze over a little as character creation ("commissioning") went on. That may just be because I was tired and the air has been toxic of late. 

SO ANYWAY let's make a crew member. 

So, step one, we pick departments. Rather, I pick two stations and get a package for each (huh-huh). Stations don't have to be from the same department, so we don't pick departments so much as pick stations and the department choices are made for you (now I remember why my eyes were glazing over). I don't have any real concept, so I'll roll a d3 to pick a department (Communications) and then d% to pick a station (Linguist). Well, sure, I dig that.

Let's see. All skills start out with a dot (untrained). I then get my expertise die, my trained die, and two specialties in Culture. Let's take History and Linguistics. And then for my trained Skill (Sophontology), I get my trained die and one specialty; I shall take Insight. I think get a free pick in Comms skill (trained and one specialty). I shall take Politic with a specialty in Group Dynamics. And then I get to add mods to my Link, Scanner, and/or Shield tools. I shall add a Comm Browser to my Link, a Firewall to my Link, and a Holoprojector to my Shield.

Any number of ways my guy could go here, but I'm getting inklings of counter-intelligence during the way, which would imply at least some martial training. I'll take Marine as my second station. Same deal here; I get Fitness as my expertise and I'll take specialty in Martial Arts and Endurance. My trained is Pulse Projection, and I'll take Away Weaponry and Artillery. And then for my free pick I'll take Perception (Alertness and Analytics). 

I get to upgrade my Multitool, Shield, and/or EVA here. I'll take a Disruptor Targeter for the Multitool, an Energy Dissipater for the Shield, and the Utility Manipulator for the Multitool. 

Wartime history! I want my guy to have been counter-intelligence, I know that much. Probably that means whichever faction did the most spying, but since faction creation is a group thing, I'm gonna keep it vague. Let's say he worked for "the Outreach Bureau," supposedly facilitating communication and understanding between species and factions.

For wartime background, I'll pick...hmm. Not soldier, but how about Streamer? (Kinda like Youtuber, god help me.) I get trained and specialty in Culture, Economy, and Politic...oh, wait, already trained in two of those, so I just get specialties. C'est la vie. I'll take Anthropology, Trade, and Administration, respectively. And then I get one more gear mod. I'll throw a point into Development Kit for my Link.

Species! Human's fine, thanks. I get a language; I'll pick English to keep things simple. 

Oh, shit, I just realized I'm dangerously close to making Howard Campbell Jr. from Mother Night. Better watch that, don't want to be a space Nazi. 

Recruitment is next, or rather, why am I doing this? I don't want to be indentured, I know that. Let's say Professional. This is just where he ended up after the war. 

Next up, Drive - why I keep flyin'. I'll roll for it. Greed! Perfect. "Can't seem to top 50 mil." 

Special training! I get a bunch of extra skills. First I need to pick two dots in trained skills to bring me up to 9. I'll take Interface and Athletics. Now I pick three more trained skills to take me to 12. I'll take Pilot, Inscription, and Field Dynamics. 

And now we take specialties to take me up to 20. Can I take multiple dots in a given one? Doesn't look like it. OK, so I'll take Comms, Research, Sneak, Melee, Parkour, Hack, and Trace. That makes 20. 

Then I get 5 more tool upgrades. Let's see now. I can take extra dots in this, so I'll put one into Comm Browser, one each into Disruptor Targeter, Damage Boost (under Multitool), and Utility Manipulator, and one in Kinetic Deflector. I get one Contact, so let's say that Henrik Maarten, a colleague from my days with the Bureau. Henrik is still a Streamer, so he's got a good thumb on the pulse of the dataflow. 

Everything else is details, so! We'll say my guy's name is Camric Binnell. Camric is slim and careful, usually at rest but never relaxed, and he has a very dry sense of humor. When he was a streamer, he always introduced himself as "your bestie," so now "Bestie" is what he goes by. 

Camric has shades of Jayne Cobb to me, except, like, not as dumb. I think he'd be likely to weigh the decision to betray his crew carefully and decide that the money wasn't good enough (even if it was), but he definitely thinks in terms of rep and capital instead of ethics and morality. 

And I believe that's it!

Board (Card) Game: Lemonade Stand

Lemonade, that cool refreshing drink...

The Game: Lemonade Stand
The Publisher: Mayday Games, but it doesn't seem to be on their site anymore
Time: 10 minutes-ish
Players: Me, Gus, Michelle, Megan

 

Game Play: Everyone gets a set of stand cards and a few coin cards. Every turn, you draw a weather card (which actually points to the weather card on the left, showing what the weather is, the weather that's on the current card is the forecast for tomorrow), and then decide how much of your current coinage you wish to devote to buying supplies for the day.

The weather for the day determines both your base number of customers and the most they're willing to pay for lemonade. So if the max price is 10c a glass and you've set your price at 15 (the max you can set it), you're SOL. If it's 10c and you've set your price at 5c, you're probably leaving money on the table. You can use some coin cards to get yourself extra customers based on particular weather (+6 customers if it's sunny or whatever), and you can use dollar cards to do various special things - lower other people's prices, play extra coin cards, and so forth. At the end of the seventh day, total up coinage, the richest kid wins!

Capitalism!

Opinions: I mean, it's fine. There's a little more math than I'd like, and the formula for figuring out how much you make could be a little better explained (it's how many customers you get times what you're charging or whatever they're paying, less any penalties if you overcharge). It's all pretty simplistic, and honestly I feel like we're all under the bootheel of capitalism anyway so I don't know how much fun I derive from this particular business simulator.

A row of weather (top)

Keep? Probably not