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https://blackgirlnerds.com/building-an-ecosystem-bgn-plays-ecosystem-coral-reef/
A past secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” Genius Games continues to make education fun with their newest game, Ecosystem: Coral Reef.
This is a great game for just about any age, but is recommended for 8 and over. It can be played by up to six players, but has slightly different rules for playing with less than three. For those of you who game a bit, the mechanics are similar to Mesozooic. There is placement of cards into a matrix, but scoring is slightly more complex and without the time constraints that bring so much joy.
The setup is very simple. Each player is dealt 10 organism cards. There are eleven different cards, with nine of them grouped into three different food webs — producer, prey, and predators. The remaining two organism cards, turtle and the octopus, “group” alone. Each player picks a card from their hand, places it face down on the table and passes their hand to the left. At the same time the players flip their card and place it in front of them.
Each card is used to build your own coral reef, which is composed of a 4×5 matrix of cards. Each card has a different rule for placement, which supports scoring. So, for example, a shark will score two points for each card from the prey food group in the same row or column. The whale accumulates points by adding points for each krill in your ecosystem, but an adjacent card must be flipped over before scoring, resulting in the loss of points.
After the first round, players are again dealt 10 more cards. In this second round, the players pass to the right. The conclusion of the second round completes your reef and then the scoring begins.
The scoring can be a bit challenging, which is most likely the basis for the age recommendation. The understanding of the relationship between the different food webs to each other and life within a food web is essential. There are player aid cards that outline the relationship of each organism within its food web and to other organism cards.
My gaming crew has played this a few times. The general consensus has been a white knuckling of the player aid as each card placed has implications for your overall score and you really don’t know the scope of the cards for the round until you have passed enough times to see all the cards available. Of course with larger groups, there are very few cards left, once you finally see the hand of the player to both your left and right.
The small size of the organism cards was strange at first, until you see them arranged into the matrix that you use to build your coral reef. One of the biggest challenges was the octopus organism card. It is worth three points and allows the player to move one card or swap two cards. Invariably, I didn’t realize I need to swap or move until the next to the last pass and the card is not available. However, it can really help order your coral reef to maximize your scoring.
The educational value may not be evident, but there is an elegance to this game as it is obvious that the proposed value for correct placement of different organisms was done intentionally to emphasize the interconnectedness of the organisms on the structure and survival of a coral reef.
When we played, the player who typically won was the one who was best with the placement of the predators in balance with the other food webs. I, of course, spent all my time focused on the producer — the coral, krill, or plankton. This strategy kept me in striking range of a win, but I was always edged out by the multiplying effect of the predators. This reflects the fundamental fact that the key to the coral reef as with this game is balance of all the food webs and organisms.
The pure beauty of the organism cards and the easy game mechanics of pick-and-place make this ideal for playing with kids. If playing predominantly with smaller kids you may want to consider varying how to score to not let the complexity of scoring outweigh the fun of the game. On the other hand, it is a good exercise in addition and multiplication, so there is another benefit. Regardless, Ecosystem: Coral Reef is a great game, with next to no setup required, and relatively easy gameplay.
Ecosystem: Coral Reef is available from Genius Games directly and other various online platforms.
A past secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” Genius Games continues to make education fun with their newest game, Ecosystem: Coral Reef.
This is a great game for just about any age, but is recommended for 8 and over. It can be played by up to six players, but has slightly different rules for playing with less than three. For those of you who game a bit, the mechanics are similar to Mesozooic. There is placement of cards into a matrix, but scoring is slightly more complex and without the time constraints that bring so much joy.
The setup is very simple. Each player is dealt 10 organism cards. There are eleven different cards, with nine of them grouped into three different food webs — producer, prey, and predators. The remaining two organism cards, turtle and the octopus, “group” alone. Each player picks a card from their hand, places it face down on the table and passes their hand to the left. At the same time the players flip their card and place it in front of them.
Each card is used to build your own coral reef, which is composed of a 4×5 matrix of cards. Each card has a different rule for placement, which supports scoring. So, for example, a shark will score two points for each card from the prey food group in the same row or column. The whale accumulates points by adding points for each krill in your ecosystem, but an adjacent card must be flipped over before scoring, resulting in the loss of points.
After the first round, players are again dealt 10 more cards. In this second round, the players pass to the right. The conclusion of the second round completes your reef and then the scoring begins.
The scoring can be a bit challenging, which is most likely the basis for the age recommendation. The understanding of the relationship between the different food webs to each other and life within a food web is essential. There are player aid cards that outline the relationship of each organism within its food web and to other organism cards.
My gaming crew has played this a few times. The general consensus has been a white knuckling of the player aid as each card placed has implications for your overall score and you really don’t know the scope of the cards for the round until you have passed enough times to see all the cards available. Of course with larger groups, there are very few cards left, once you finally see the hand of the player to both your left and right.
The small size of the organism cards was strange at first, until you see them arranged into the matrix that you use to build your coral reef. One of the biggest challenges was the octopus organism card. It is worth three points and allows the player to move one card or swap two cards. Invariably, I didn’t realize I need to swap or move until the next to the last pass and the card is not available. However, it can really help order your coral reef to maximize your scoring.
The educational value may not be evident, but there is an elegance to this game as it is obvious that the proposed value for correct placement of different organisms was done intentionally to emphasize the interconnectedness of the organisms on the structure and survival of a coral reef.
When we played, the player who typically won was the one who was best with the placement of the predators in balance with the other food webs. I, of course, spent all my time focused on the producer — the coral, krill, or plankton. This strategy kept me in striking range of a win, but I was always edged out by the multiplying effect of the predators. This reflects the fundamental fact that the key to the coral reef as with this game is balance of all the food webs and organisms.
The pure beauty of the organism cards and the easy game mechanics of pick-and-place make this ideal for playing with kids. If playing predominantly with smaller kids you may want to consider varying how to score to not let the complexity of scoring outweigh the fun of the game. On the other hand, it is a good exercise in addition and multiplication, so there is another benefit. Regardless, Ecosystem: Coral Reef is a great game, with next to no setup required, and relatively easy gameplay.
Ecosystem: Coral Reef is available from Genius Games directly and other various online platforms.
The Aberdeen Gardens 158: Built By Us, For Us, co-produced by The Historical Foundation of Aberdeen Gardens and The Unity Cornerstone Foundation, will soon be seen across America. Award-winning director and writer Tomeka M. Winborne, together with award-winning playwright/screenwriter David Barr III and Terrena Smith, have worked for more than two years preparing their highly anticipated feature documentary for national distribution. The moment has arrived!
On June 1, 2020, The Historical Foundation of Aberdeen Gardens received an unprecedented grant from the 400 Years of African American History Commission (Under the auspices of The National Park Service) to develop a documentary based on the Aberdeen Gardens neighborhood in Hampton Roads, Virginia. After two years, The Unity Cornerstone Foundation completed The Aberdeen Gardens 158: Built By Us, For Us.
Hampton’s Aberdeen Gardens is the result of a planned community proposal initiated by administrators from Hampton Institute, one of the earliest HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) in America. In 1934, school President Dr. Arthur C. Howe appealed directly to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Home Sustinence Program to subsidize a ‘resettlement community’ for African American railroad, dockyard, and shipyard workers across southeastern Virginia. Upon approval of the grant, Aberdeen Gardens became the first federally funded housing project created exclusively for Blacks in the United States.
It not only is the last community of its kind to remain completely in tact, but Aberdeen Gardens has the distinction of being the only ‘resttlement development’ designed by a Black architect, overseen by a Black engineer and supervisor, and constructed completely by African American laborers; hence their motto “Built By Blacks, For Blacks.” Sixty years after its inception, the neighborhood officially became a United States Historic District. (In addition, Aberdeen Gardens is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Virginia State Landmarks Register, and was named “National Neighborhood of The Year” twice by the NUSA.)
Aberdeen Gardens is unlike any other community in this country. It is a 440-acre greenbelt subdivision that features 158 Colonial Revival and Queen Anne vernacular, double brick single-family homes with contributing buildings. But the validated roots of this modest community stretch much further back, to the first documented enslaved Africans who arrived in the English colonies over 400 years ago. Despite it’s landmark status, however, the community still faces debilitating modern challenges that continually threaten its historic sovereignty.
The Aberdeen Gardens 158: Built By Us, For Us received its public premiere screening on September 16, 2022 at the American Theatre in the Phoebus section of Hampton, Virginia. A few months later, the 400 Years of African American History Commission kickstarted their 2023 broadcast schedule by revealing a trailer of the movie on the bi-monthly news program “The 400 Hour: Episode 3 — Justice Sunday” that can be seen on their streaming channel, SmogoTV.com. The film, in its entirety, has been added to their website, www.400YAAHC.gov, where it can be viewed On Demand.
The Aberdeen Gardens 158: Built By Us, For Us is the first documentary ever produced by surviving original members of this proud community. To purchase a DVD copy of the film please call (757) 722-2345. To arrange an in-person tour of The Aberdeen Gardens History Museum or to obtain more information about Historic Aberdeen Gardens please visit www.aberdeengardensfoundation.org To screen the film publicly for your festival or organization, contact Unity Cornerstone Foundation.
If you find yourself saying kids “die all the time” and saving them is “f***ing with fate” so you can justify murdering children you are no longer a person. At that point you’ve become a monster indistinguishable from The Last of Us‘ Infected. That’s a moniker Melanie Lynskey’s Kathleen certainly earned by the end of her time on the show. There’s no defending or equivocating any of her actions. But just because we can’t defend her doesn’t mean we can’t empathize with how she got to that point. Because Kathleen’s failings—which were also her greatest strengths—aren’t monstrous. They’re all too human.
Kathleen’s total loss of humanity began long before we met her. She lived in Kansas City’s Quarantine Zone, an area dubbed Killer City because of FEDRA’s brutal regime. The fascist group’s crimes were so notorious Joel had heard about them in Boston, a city also suffocating under FEDRA. But Kansas City’s sect was especially heinous. Henry said for 20 years that FEDRA outpost “raped and tortured and murdered people.” That inevitability led to an uprising spearheaded by Kathleen’s brother Michael, the man Henry and others once believed in.
We never met Michael, but we know Kathleen’s protector was everything she was not. “He was so beautiful,” Kathleen said. “I’m not. I never was. He would be horrified by the things I’ve done.” The things she did included merciless executions of friends and neighbors who collaborated with FEDRA. She also allowed the bloodbath her people exacted on soldiers. The crimes of Kathleen’s “free people” were as terrible and inexcusable as anything the military organization ever did.
Michael never saw FEDRA’s collapse because Henry betrayed him to save Sam. The cost of leukemia drugs was the resistance leader’s life. Henry paid it despite thinking his decision was indefensible. Unlike Kathleen’s insatiable desire to kill both Henry and Sam, we can not only understand what Henry did, we might even agree with his choice even if he couldn’t. Henry, a good man with a good heart, carried the guilt of his leader’s death with him for the rest of his short life. Michael didn’t want that. He didn’t even want his sister to seek revenge. His dying wish was for her to forgive Henry.
Joel, a man who has also done unforgivable things, is fulfilling Tess’s dying wish by taking Ellie to safety. The best of Tess is bringing out the best in Joel, who has a purpose bigger than himself. But Kathleen couldn’t fulfill her brother’s. She didn’t want to even if she could. “The last time I saw [Michael] alive, in jail, he told me to forgive,” she said. “And what did he get for that? Where is the justice in that? What is the point of that?”
Because she didn’t have the same good heart as her brother, Kathleen couldn’t understand what Michael did in his final moments. He knew Henry was put in an impossible spot. Michael also knew his life was no more valuable than Sam’s. And he knew forgiveness is one of the most humane things we can do, while seeking vengeance sends us down a dark path that rots the soul.
Michael was the type of person we should want to be. But his kind heart was also responsible for his failures. Sometimes you need a vengeful, hyper-focused asshole to get things done. When fighting a war against an amoral enemy—of which Kansas City’s FEDRA qualified—you need a general to lead the way. And everything that made Michael a good person stopped him from doing what needed to be done. As Perry said to Kathleen, “Your brother was a great man. We all loved him. But he didn’t change anything. You did. We’re with you.”
Kathleen freed her people, not Michael. She used her rage to organize them and lead their cause. As Orlando Jones’ Mr. Nancy said on American Gods, “Angry is good. Angry gets shit done.” But just like Michael couldn’t stop being kind, Kathleen couldn’t stop being angry even when she won. And without her brother, her guiding light and moral compass, she had no one to pull her back from the darkness. Her closest friend Perry took every step down that road with her. He, along with the rest of those “free people,” couldn’t overcome the scars and pain accrued over 20 unimaginably painful years.
Can we blame them? Especially when Kathleen showed them what embracing their anger could accomplish? How many of us would be willing to show our enemies mercy under those circumstances? And how many of us, even under the best of circumstances, could truly forgive a man responsible for the death of the person we loved most? Life conspired against Kathleen to make her a monster. It gave her and everyone around her too much grief and anger and sadness to handle. Then it took away the anchor that kept her moored to her humanity. That’s how you end up at the point of wanting to kill innocent children.
By the time Infected rose from the ground and that Cordyceps child attacked Kathleen, she was no longer a human. She was a monster, same as them, a monster who doomed the very people she saved. All the good she did died with her and caused so many more needless deaths. And that happened because she couldn’t forgive one single person, a man who loved his brother, too.
What could Kathleen and Michael have accomplished together if she had used her own skills while he was still alive? Once the general won the war what kind of world could a kind, merciful, beloved leader have created for the victors? They needed each other to do great things. Like everyone living in a shattered world they needed to find purpose in another. Once there was no one for Kathleen to find purpose in—and no one to find purpose in her and not just her cause—she lost her humanity. Once her brother died it seemed like she never had a chance to keep it.
No one can defend Kathleen or what she did. She’s no hero and no one who was “with her” is even left to mourn her death. But unlike the Infected, controlled by a fungus, she became a monster for a far scarier reason: she was all too human.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
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