power, love and trouble

"Have you ever secretly wanted to be best friends with a magical unicorn? His name would be Dewdrop, and he would talk to you with his thoughts, and he would carry you on his back away from all the bullies and parents and kids who don't get you, and you'd have such wonderful adventures. This game is pretty much like that. Except if you drew Dewdrop on your Trapper Keeper, they would send you to the principal's office, then to the school counsellor, and then probably to a place with a name like Morning Meadows Home for Disturbed and Psychotic Youth." I just think I've found another game I want to play. In Monsters and Other Childish Things, by Benjamin Baugh, you get to play kids. Kids whose Best Friend happens to be a Huge Scary Monster that no one else really seems to notice (or at least, not notice Until It's Too Late). It uses a stripped down version of the One Roll Engine (Godlike, Reign) to great effect in order to recreate both the simplicity and complexity of childhood. The monster design system, as an example of this, is elegant, simple, and above all else, childish. In other words, perfect for this game. Now where did I put my copies of Stanley and His Monster... "If your best friend Typhon is a fallen Titan able to forge stars into javelins and chew titanium like bubblegum, and the gym teacher says, 'Take a lap, Nancy-Sue. It's time for real men to shoot some hoops!', it's pretty hard to not let Typhon to drag the gym teacher through seventeen lower dimensional manifolds until his sanity curdles like lunchroom beef Stroganoff. Because Typhon really wants to do that."