I survived battle school

During last Saturday's book club's discussion of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, the pre-discussion activity was quite interesting as it involved a modified form of a board game. Now I love board games, but  was a bit wary of this one, as it involved a huge board, not-so-simple rules, a 9-sided die, and all those bumping and changing directions and strategizing. Ack, it looked like so much work. In fact, I didn't really plan on joining; I was a last-minute addition to a team.

One of the moderators distributed a printout of the rules of the game and my immediate reaction was, "This doesn't look fun at all." At first, I found the game, which was inspired by the battle school at Ender's Game, quite complicated. I couldn't even tell what the objective was. It was really slow going for me. Eventually though, I got the hang of it. And, who would've thought, we actually won! Yay!

The book discussion that followed was very engaging as well. I think everyone was eagerly waiting for the part wherein we talk about the author's homophobia and if one could actually separate an author's stand on some issues from his works. My stand? No, you can't.

Anyway, I managed to get a few pictures during the event, and I'm sharing them with you, dear reader.

The rules of the battle room game
Trajectories! Freeze and grapple! DC Modifiers!
Ayayay, my eyes glazed over.

A closeup of the battle room board game, showing 2 players' tokens
Our group had the red tokens.

The humongous bespoke board game
It probably measured 1.5 m x 1 m.
I think it can also serve as a table top.

Trying out these anti-glare clear glasses
And looking like a total nerd

My game token
Actually, it was the winning token as well!
This little guy sealed our victory.

Bookmarks, stickers, pins
The obligatory book discussion loot