Cross stitch pattern of a bulldog. Thanks to PessimistPoodle for the sprite. There’s a link to support the original artist at the bottom of PessimistPoodle’s page. My Patron, Emily Crocket, requested this one. Download the PDF here: Bulldog Pattern

Grid Size: 46W x 47H
Design Area: 3.14″ x 3.21″ (44 x 45 stitches)
Colors: 9

Did you know my Patron, Emily Crocket, is a private investigator in the big city. Well, that’s the goal anyway. They’ve still got their part time day job, but it turns out that no one pays attention to electricians so it makes snooping on people a lot easier. Mild mannered worker by day, stealthy sluther by night, Emily Crocket is on the case!

I went to the first ever Protocon last weekend. It’s a gathering of people who want to test unreleased board games and right up my alley. We had a really good turn out and it was hard to decide which games to play in the few time slots we had. It was only one day! Maybe they didn’t think it would be as popular as it was?

I got to play Burgle Bros 2, which is probably the most high profile game I tested. It expands on the first game by adding a second level which makes the board instantly more distinct and engaging. I loved the coop aspect, but that kind of dissolves after you play all your abilities. It has a lot of kinks to iron out as we didn’t make any mistakes and still lost without getting to play out the finale.

Next one closest to completion is Four Keys. It’s a pretty fun exploration strategy game where you use dice to fight monsters. I didn’t get to finish, but the core gameplay seemed compelling. Best part was rotating tiles to screw over other players and this cool thing where your progress towards completing a quest card makes it easier for your opponents to move around the board. I think this is to stop any one player from getting too far ahead and I’d like to see more of that.

Deckonomics was a pretty early prototype but the game play is fantastic so far. It’s a deck building game centered around the awesome feeling you get when you trash an unwanted card from your deck. It’s themed around shipping boats. You pass one of your shipment cards to your opponent and then when it comes back around to you, you get money from that shipment. It’s a fun core gameplay loop and the best part is seeing that hopefulness in your opponent’s eyes when you hand them a shipment card only for that hope to shatter because it’s actually not one of their shipments. Good times.

My favorite game of the day was Fairies Journey, a cooperative kids game in early development. You know that thing in Monopoly where you pick a player to be the Banker and then they’re responsible for that one core aspect of gameplay on top of normal roles? This is that but better. There are four characters and each has special abilities that range from highly situational, like getting more gold when handing in a quest, to really mundane, like pulling new tiles out of the bag and putting them face down on the board after every round. I love this idea of giving a player agency over small things. Knowing that you can only touch the bag if you play as the dragon can be really engaging even if it doesn’t add much gameplay wise. I felt more attached to my character because of my role, and I know that’s nothing new, but it is really hard to make every character feel unique and compelling while maintaining balance. Honestly, I had the most fun with Fairies Journey even if I’m not exactly the target audience.