Clever Gretel Puns

2021 was a difficult year, but I was lucky enough to try a ton of new games over the course of the year. Here are some brief thoughts on each of them!

##Not for me…

Roll To The Top! (3/10): Take this with a grain of salt, as roll and writes aren’t really my thing. However, this ‘back to basics’ take on the genre was probably the most bored I’ve been with any game I played in 2021. The dice switching mechanic is unnecessarily fiddly and slows the game down, which is a big problem when the best thing the game has going for it is how quickly it finishes.

Godspeed (3/10): I had high hopes for this one, but it fell completely flat. The semi-cooperative element (the ‘High Council’ event cards) just felt like they didn’t work at all. The rest of the game was more functional than this, but it wasn’t any more fun.

An Otter Won (3/10): Two-player trick taking that has some interesting ideas around set collection scoring conditions. Unfortunately, the actual trick-taking is dull and the only interesting decisions are in working out which card you should take as your reward for winning tricks. Some may enjoy it, but this felt far too mathy for us to get any enjoyment from.

Beyond The Sun (4/10): As someone with less-than-great vision, I will always consider games with vast amount of variable small text spread out across a big central board to be bad game design. I can’t remember too much about how it played to give any meaningful critiques, but I certainly found it a slog.

Fort (4/10): I’ve always been someone who enjoys building things in games, whether that’s decks, engines or anything else. Fort seems to actively push against building longer-term strategies, instead encouraging players to make the best of what’s available to them in the shorter term. Nothing wrong with that… but personally I didn’t like it at all. Fort doesn’t really have a ‘game arc’ and it made me realise how much I need that in my games.

Ghost Blitz (4/10): This is pretty much the same game as Dobble. I hate Dobble.

Oh My Goods! (5/10): We played through ‘Expedition to Newdale’ in 2020 and enjoyed it, but felt that a few of the elements added in (notably the map board) felt superfluous. Going back to Oh My Goods, the original card came Newdale was based on, quickly changed our minds. The game that’s left is slow, stodgy and not especially interesting.

##Inoffensive enough

New York Zoo (5.5/10): The polyomino puzzle is fine, and the race i

This is gonna be very looong because I've never played something like this before and I need to get everything out of my chest.

There are very few games with an impactful prologue and Tai x Ali is one of them for me. Right off the bat, we get a glimpse of Yurika's characterization: she's selfish and manipulative. First I dismissed it as a writing flaw, maybe the writers tried to make her look assertive but made her look bad instead. But no, she really is like that. She used strongs words like love to Alice when they barely know each other (maybe people don't agree with this but I think it's a super manipulative thing to do, especially considering they are in a vulnerable state) and semi-forcibly dragged him around with her.

I started with Cinderella's route and I must say I didn't enjoy it as much as I could. It wasn't about Cinderella's behaviour, yes he was an asshole but I didn't really take him seriously at the start - it was funny. The problem was actually Yurika's behaviour. I like assertive heroines, no problem with that. Yurika isn't just assertive, she's very pushy with no sense of boundary. She knows exactly what she's doing, she's extremely smart; you can't blame anything on her naivety and/or ignorance. She does things because she wants to. Her problematic behaviour is covered with "haha funny MC doing funny things" but it's still there. For example, she tried to get into Alice's apartment and clean his room even though he obviously doesn't want her to do it. It's played for laughs but Yurika's pushiness is obvious. Her attitude towards Cinderella's problems is toxic as well. He clearly wants to go and not marry her. Yes, they love each other but he doesn't feel it's right to marry her. He unintentionally uses Yurika as an outlet and he wants to change that. He even says he feels insecure around her which should be the biggest "Hello, I need space from you" sign but Yurika doesn't give a shit. She wants him, so she will get him. Wizard calls Yurika selfish to her face and she's like yea I know. I didn't feel the happy ending was happy at all, it felt forced by Yurika. The route also felt way too long, like it was being dragged around. And technically, it was being dragged around- Yurika chased Cinderella when he was trying to work on himself and run away, dragging this love story around when it should have ended.

(So I took some notes right after I played Cinderella's route and I apparently wrote "She's so pushy that at this point I wouldn'

I've been thinking I would like to talk about one of the most important factors of ANY otome game since they are crucial: the MC. Please share your personal opinion on your preference in character, design, voices etc. What you like/dislike or what you would like to see more (or less) in them. It's also helpful to refer to examples that either prove what you loved or hated in them (which often can save the day/game or ruin it). If you do so please be considerate and use spoiler tags if needed.

So I will make a start with something I've noticed... Just to make it clear I ("usually") don't play games where I absolutely hate the MC or I would stop in the middle of it. But there are cases I have been pushed to my limit. One type of character nobody wants to see is one with a bland personality (or none at all). One huge example of this is Haruka Nanami from Utapri BUT I admit that my mind could be changed about that since I only watched the anime. And at least there I find her character rather boring (is it the same in the game?). Sorry I don't have any other example but if you refuse to play anything with characters you absolutely dislike it's not too easy to find one and I apologize in advance if she's actually more refined in the game (which is highly possible due to the amount of parts these adaptations leave out) but I needed a contrast for an example where I think the "insert yourself" type of character actually works. Which is the MC from Amnesia. I know she receives a lot of criticism for actually being bland but I personally like her very much. She doesn't stand out too much but in some way she's relatable. She also gives off some calm vibes and is rather "normal" compared to others which is refreshing and just goes to show you don't always need a character that stands out from the crowd. Also given the fact >!she loses her memories and what led to it!< I think they did a great job in portraying her. Another contrast example of this would be the MC from Ozmafia which... I can't really hate on her since I don't remember a single trait from her. I might as well played as a tree branch instead. So... Well. I think you should at least be able to remember a character or some of their outstanding features.

Speaking of memory loss and MCs... I'm still currently playing Taisho x Alice (Snow White's route) so I might not be able to form a complete opinion about Yurika yet but what I've seen so far I sadly have to admit I don't really understand why peo

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

The nurse asked the rabbit, “what is your blood type?”

“I am probably a type O” said the rabbit.

Mentos

(I will see myself out)

The doctor says it terminal.

Alot of great jokes get posted here! However just because you have a joke, doesn't mean it's a dad joke.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT NSFW, THIS IS ABOUT LONG JOKES, BLONDE JOKES, SEXUAL JOKES, KNOCK KNOCK JOKES, POLITICAL JOKES, ETC BEING POSTED IN A DAD JOKE SUB

Try telling these sexual jokes that get posted here, to your kid and see how your spouse likes it.. if that goes well, Try telling one of your friends kid about your sex life being like Coca cola, first it was normal, than light and now zero , and see if the parents are OK with you telling their kid the "dad joke"

I'm not even referencing the NSFW, I'm saying Dad jokes are corny, and sometimes painful, not sexual

So check out r/jokes for all types of jokes

r/unclejokes for dirty jokes

r/3amjokes for real weird and alot of OC

r/cleandadjokes If your really sick of seeing not dad jokes in r/dadjokes

Punchline !

Edit: this is not a post about NSFW , This is about jokes, knock knock jokes, blonde jokes, political jokes etc being posted in a dad joke sub

Edit 2: don't touch the thermostat

Do your worst!

How the hell am I suppose to know when it’s raining in Sweden?

Mathematical puns makes me number

We told her she can lean on us for support. Although, we are going to have to change her driver's license, her height is going down by a foot. I don't want to go too far out on a limb here but it better not be a hack job.

Ants don’t even have the concept fathers, let alone a good dad joke. Keep r/ants out of my r/dadjokes.

But no, seriously. I understand rule 7 is great to have intelligent discussion, but sometimes it feels like 1 in 10 posts here is someone getting upset about the jokes on this sub. Let the mods deal with it, they regulate the sub.

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

He lost May

Now that I listen to albums, I hardly ever leave the house.

Said if she ever hosts a gender reveal party, when it comes time to pop the balloon she'll spray everyone with water.

Gender is fluid.

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

But let me give it a shot.

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

He’s the new temp.

And now I’m cannelloni

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

But that’s comparing apples to oranges

And boy are my arms legs.

Amy

Man. fuck DRG sometimes.

It was single-player mission: Point-extraction in the Dense Biozone. Just a scout (me) and BOSCO. We've done this before.

Except it's point-extraction and gunk-seeds. It's going to be a lot of heavy lifting: lugging big lumps to the minehead. Seven aquarqs. Twelve seeds. That's a lot of freight.

I'm a scout. Pockets full of nitra, morkite and gold can be zipped back to the minehead by grapple. Not so with these hefty loads. They have to be walked. I'm skilled with the toss-and-run technique, something I learned getting Doretta back to the pod.

But then this is the Dense Biozone. The layout of the level is confusing. Stacked, tilted levels with plenty of openings that drop to the level below like a giant three-dimensional pinball machine.

And then DRG, in its infinite corporate wisdom drops the minehead at the top level. So when the gunk-seeds drop into the pits, I'm going to be schlepping them by hand. Any toss risks an aquarq or seed rolling back, or worse, dropping to the level below. I toss anyways, often with the results I feared.

I get clever. I use my first aquarqs as stones^† to light the path from the lower level up to the minehead. Why the heck does DRG not make a way to mark a point (or three!) more permanently? This wouldn't be the first time I used gems as light sources before depositing them.

I need to keep shit moving at pace. The waves in point-extraction start small but are ongoing and. I'm not great at navigating corridors, let alone complex caverns. I'm searching the darkness for fallen seeds. I'm gathering loot into collections to toss slowly towards the minehead, losing track of them and finding them again later.

The swarm starts with shocker naedocytes (we call them jellyfish), purple web-spitters and common grunts. Soon guards and slashers appear rarely. Then commonly. The same with praetorians: they start rare. Then they're common. Then there's two or three in a wave.

I'm at six aquarqs and nine gunk-seeds when the bulk detonator shows up. It's a running fight and I never quite have the time to investigate the resulting crater, somewhere in the darkness. I shot it from the other side of the chamber before fleeing again to evade the swarm.

I'm at seven aquarqs (done!) and eleven gunk-seeds when a massive swarm comes in followed by three praetorians and a second bulk detonator moves in. I just run.

From that moment onward, I never stop running. I couple of good sniper shots get the detonator's he

Put it on my bill

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

but then I remembered it was ground this morning.

Edit: Thank you guys for the awards, they're much nicer than the cardboard sleeve I've been using and reassures me that my jokes aren't stale

Edit 2: I have already been made aware that Men In Black 3 has told a version of this joke before. If the joke is not new to you, please enjoy any of the single origin puns in the comments

BamBOO!

They’re on standbi

A play on words.

Calcium, nickel, neon

My daughter, Chewbecca, not so much.

Pilot on me!!