El doctor Mauricio Castaño Ramírez, presidente Junta Directiva de la Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría, reiteró que es un problema que se viene presentando desde el 2023, y podría afectar a niños, adolescentes y otros pacientes con conductas agresivas

Análisis de Juan Carlos Echeverry

En 6AM Hoy por Hoy, Luz María Zapata, directora de Asocapitales, comparte estrategias para abordar los desafíos urbanos prioritarios en Colombia, incluyendo movilidad, gestión de residuos y acceso a servicios básicos.

Luis Francisco Ruíz se refirió en 6AM a los recientes combates entre las disidencias de las FARC en zona rural del departamento amazónico en el que disputan las rutas y rentas ilegales 

Un discurso clave para la recta final de las elecciones en Estados Unidos

El Gerente general de Cifras y Conceptos, César Caballero explicó en 6AM que los colombianos consideran que después de 16 años, se está presentando la peor situación de seguridad del país, pero la mejor en términos ambientales durante el gobierno de Gustavo Petro.

El Gerente general de Cifras y Conceptos, César Caballero, explicó en 6AM que los colombianos consideran que después de 16 años, se está presentando la peor situación de seguridad del país, pero la mejor en términos ambientales durante el gobierno de Gustavo Petro.

Kentish singer’s second crack at a music career may lead to rich rewards.

Football is in Kosta Grozos’ blood. The 15-year-old Kingsgrove footballer has been playing for about two thirds of his life and has no desire to stop any time soon.

"The communities I identify with still struggle with the aftermath of historical events."

Two days after polls closed, the campaigns for Yadira Caraveo and Gabe Evans were waiting Thursday to see if new ballot totals posted by election officials would sway the race in a more definitive direction.

Major talent Minor is one splendid sprinter

Bruno Mars: when talent meets musicianship meets magic!

[Written by Stephen Wright] Bermudian motorcycle racer Jediah Cumbermack is ready to “make my country proud” as he gears up for the opening race of the North America Talent Cup in Austin, Texas, this coming weekend [April 8 to 10]. The 16-year-old is racing overseas for the first time against talented young riders from the United […]

[Written by Stephen Wright] Jediah Cumbermack admits he was surprised by the speed of his North American Talent Cup rivals during his race debut in Washington State last month. Cumbermack missed the first two rounds of the seven-race series after suffering a broken leg in a practice session before the opening race in Austin in April. […]

Jediah Cumbermack competed in the North American Talent Cup in Savannah, Georgia. Round four of the North America Talent Cup [NATC] produced the closest racing of the season so far, with the top eight riders finishing within .5 second of each other in race one. Race two was even closer, with the top four within […]

Six months ago I didn’t even know what a tower defense game was and now I’ve played two of them several times and have some strong opinions on each one. In this post, I want to talk to you about one of them - Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time. The good folks over at Lucky Duck Games sent me a review copy of the game, designed by Helana Hope, Sen-Foong Lim, and Jessey Wright.

Now I mentioned that this is a tower defense game, but what exactly does that mean? In games using this type of mechanic, one of the primary objectives is to continually defend your assigned sector of the board (i.e. your home base) against incoming threats. This is managed through the use of armed towers, which reign down violence and death on any malicious parties approaching. This mechanism got its start in 1980's video games (source: Wikipedia) and is one of the most popular mechanisms in modern game apps on cell phones and tablets. More recently, it's crossed over into the tabletop board game industry, with the earliest tower defense games appearing in 2013.

Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time was funded on Kickstarter in 2019 to the tune of over a million dollars. It's derived from an app (Kingdom Rush) originally published for the browser and iOS by Ironhide Game Studio back in 2011. There are 58+ million users who have downloaded and reviewed the app on Metacritic so the built-in audience for the board game from the existing app users alone could potentially keep the publisher churning out boxes indefinitely (how long does it take to produce millions of copies of a board game?!). With a retail price approaching $60, even with licensing fee expenses, I imagine it's a lucrative project for Lucky Duck. But is it a good purchase decision for board game enthusiasts who've decided they want to add a tower defense game to their collection?

Well, it depends on what kind of board gamer you are.

Let's dig in a little deeper.

Regular readers know theme is very important to me. Is there a good narrative explaining our roles in the game and a plausible backstory to illuminate how we got into the position we are in and why we are doing what we're being asked to do in the game? For Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time, the answer is yes to both. There's a time mage who has opened up a rift in the fabric of time, hell bent on taking down our kingdom and our job is to stop the mage before they can do so. It's simple yet compelling call to heroism.

The artwork, by Mateusz Komada and Katarzyna Kosobucka, is cartoonish and playful. It definitely has that cell phone app flavour to it.

The components are average for the price point or for a mass market game. And here's where we begin to tie things to what kind of board gamer you are. If you've been playing higher end games lately (those typically with a retail price over $100), the components might feel a bit flimsy and look a bit cheap. They're comprised of colorful cardboard tokens and boards, plastic figures, plastic trays, a handful of wooden meeples, and many (thin) cardstock cards.

If your tastes or budget gravitate toward games at a similar price as Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time, I don't think you'll find anything problematic about the components here and on that criteria, this is a good tower defense game for you. Happy bonus: among the components is a campaign progress map and stickers that allow players to mark their accomplishments as they play through the campaign. As a person who likes to check off boxes, I adore this feature. Kudos to the designers for the thoughtful addition.

I also really appreciated the player aides provided - the summary of steps in a round printed on the hero boards, and the helper cards that detail the various enemies.

  The gameplay is simple enough that it doesn't take long to set up or learn the rules. In each round of this cooperative game, players spawn new hordes of enemies marching on the kingdom, play tower and hero cards to attack the hordes, check to see whether any hordes have been destroyed (and remove them if so, reaping the crystal rewards), move the surviving hordes closer to the kingdom, pick up the surviving tower and hero cards played, and spend crystals to buy more tower cards. Rinse, repeat for every round. The individual monsters within a horde have different rules for engagement (for example, some cannot be attacked by heroes and others are self healing) so players will need to vary their tactics when playing tower and hero cards. Also, instead of playing all your tower cards during a round, you can upgrade one or more of them and pass them to a fellow player to use next round. And instead of activating your hero's attack against a horde during a round, you can restore your hero's health if needed. Mixed in among the hordes are portals that the time mage wants to use to reach and breach the kingdom. If one of these portals crosses into the kingdom, the game is lost immediately. Conversely, for most scenarios included with the game (there are 10 in the base game and several expansions already available and each can be played on varying levels of difficulty, providing plenty of replay) all of the portals must be destroyed in order to win the game. You can also lose the game if enough of the regular hordes breech your kingdom, causing you to run out of kingdom hearts (health).

The rulebook, which is well written and illustrated, suggests playing the game on difficulty level 3, while Tom Vasel (respected reviewer) has recommended playing on difficulty level 1. So we took the middle road during all of our games and played on level 2. Even though we lost our first game because we didn't do enough upgrading of towers (the second portal that came out could only be attacked with towers we didn't own), we didn't feel there were any overly complicated nuances to the game that would take several plays just to learn. You can play this game with your teens and tweens and they'll do just fine. The puzzle aspect of figuring out the best place to establish each tower on the board to maximize the damage to the hordes is an excellent logic puzzle for young and old alike. So we return to our discussion of what kind of board gamer you are. Do you want a family friendly game you can play with your kids? If so, then this is a good tower defense game for you. Do you enjoy board games that don't require a steep learning curve when it comes to strategy? If so, then this is a good tower defense game for you.

To recap, Kingdom Rush: Rift in Time  is an accessible, affordable, family friendly tower defense game and board gamers who value those qualities would do well to pick up a copy for themselves. And of course, with the holiday season upon us, it's a smart choice for gifting as well. I'm glad we own a copy, and I plan to pick up the expansions to play with my kids.

For my friends who exclusively prefer complex gameplay that will take you many games to even begin to master and expensive components with a luxury look and feel, stay tuned for my review of Cloudspire, because that's the tower defense game for your cohort.

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Lucky Duck Games Players: 1-4

Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): approx an hour per game

Game type: cooperative, tower defense, tile placement

Rating:

Rating scale:

OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.

OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.

OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.

NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.             

During the early reign of King Charles III (Charles the Simple) in West Francia, the area was besieged by Viking invasions, while the memory of the previous and frequent Saracen incursions was still fresh in the minds of the general populace. The Saracens were Muslim - mostly Berbers from Africa – and had only let up on the Franks because they’d been pushed back by the Vikings. The local nobles were left largely to fend the Vikings off on their own.

In Paladins of the West Kingdom, players assume the role of these unnamed nobles (most likely Dukes), working to keep the region safe and spread their faith (historically: Christianity).  I really enjoy this theme, and in fact, playing the game nurtured my interest in the historical kingdom of West Francia.  That’s why I can tell you that while the rulebook notes that the King lends his Paladins to the nobles to aid them in their quest, I’m giving all the credit for the loan to the designers, Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald.  Paladins are a fictional group of knights in French lore (think of them as similar to the Knights of the Round Table in British lore),  or alternatively, a translation of the Frankish royal title of Palatine Count, which was a noble that focused mostly on judicial and governing matters and was not known as a knight.

I’ve won a few and lost a few games of Paladins. It’s a worker placement game that incorporates card drafting.  At the beginning of every round, players draw the next three Paladin cards in their deck and choose one to play for the round, one to put back on top of their Paladin deck to draw during the next round, and one to put at the bottom of their Paladin deck. Each Paladin boosts faith, influence, or strength (usually more than one of these), and also provides a special benefit. If you’ve got players prone to analysis paralysis, this is where they may get stalled, especially in the first few rounds. After Paladins are selected and put into play, workers for the round are selected by each player and put into their personal resource supply. You have many stations on your player board to place your workers during the round,  and when you do so, your moves are independent and walled off from your opponents (they cannot tamper with your player board or placement of your workers on it). However, there is one area on the general board (the King’s Favour card area) where you can also place your workers and those spots are competitive. Also contributing to player interaction – some of the stations on your player board where you place workers allow you to move resources (monks and outposts) from your player board to the main board, consuming a competitive spot that provides a placement reward. And all the resource cards on display around the main board – the townsfolk you can hire, the walls you can build, the outsiders you can attack or convert, the tavern cards you draw workers from, and the suspicion cards you gain $$$ from, are all lucrative items for which players must compete. So we’ve got a good mix of independent action and player interaction in Paladins.  There are not a lot of opportunities for  “take that” behavior in this game, other than perhaps timing your draw of suspicion cards to trigger an inquisition when you know your opponents will suffer a penalty and be forced to take on more debt.

Giving the game more intellectual weight, worker placement on your board and the actions workers trigger often have additional requirements beyond number and types (i.e., colors) of workers. The actions triggered by worker placement may be constrained by your strength, faith, or influence level. And some spots or actions triggered by placing workers in those spots require money or provisions. All of these prerequisites can be gained as rewards from prior actions triggered by various worker placement, so much of the game is finding the most efficient ways to obtain prerequisites associated with the series of actions you’d like to take as the game progresses. I worried this decision making would be a weak point for analysis paralysis (I’m a pretty good candidate for testing potential AP, as I’m prone to it) and while there can be a bit of that during the game, nothing excessive was logged during our plays.  

The artists (Shem Phillips on graphic design and Mihajlo Dimitrievski on illustrations) have printed helpful indicators next to each placement location on boards and cards to identify any prerequisites as well as rewards. It’s an example of how the designers have worked with the artists to layer meaningful game information into the layers of artwork. In fact, all of the symbols implemented across the game components are really quite helpful. Bonus: once you familiarize yourself with them in one of the West Kingdom games, you’ll have learned them for the entire series as the artists reuse the same symbols in all three titles.

Beyond the iconography, the illustrations and other artwork are lovely. As with the iconography, the same style of artwork is implemented across the entire series and it carries the theme well. There was a good mix of cisgender representation, but not a lot of racial diversity, especially as would be suggested by the historical setting of the game (for example, Berbers in the area had skin tones ranging from light to to dark brown).

The components for Paladins of the West Kingdom are well made.

There are wooden meeples, an assortment of foldable boards constructed from cardboard, and various plastic coated card decks. We found the rulebook to be clear and direct, and there weren’t any items we had to look up online. It would have been nice if the designers included a player aid in the components, but I was able to compensate for the oversight by downloading a detailed player aid another user uploaded to the forums on BoardGameGeek.com.

Paladins of the West Kingdom is my favorite game of the West Kingdom series. All of the worker types and available actions make sense within the context of the theme, the mechanisms (worker placement, card drafting) integrate tightly with the scoring system to provide opportunities for building a victory point engine, and the game is complex and interesting yet still accessible for new players. The game is also a great value at its price point (approx $50) given you’ll get dozens of multiplayer games in before even a hint of same-o same-o creeps in. Many games with comparable replayability and complexity are double the price of Paladins. There’s also a solo play mode, which provides an additional way to explore the game.

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
Players: 1-4 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 2 hours per game
Game type: card drafting, worker placement
Retail Price: $50

Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Shiva Baby [US, Emma Seligman, 4] The ambient social pressures of a post-funeral gathering skyrocket for a directionless college student (Rachel Sennott) when attendees include not only the expected ex-girlfriend (Molly Gordon) but also the sex work client she’s caught feelings for. Knife-edge comedy of emotional suffocation uses a plucky suspense score for that extra frisson of social anxiety.

If you've been missing family events during the pandemic, this film is the cure for that. Polly Draper and Fred Melamed appear as the loving but insufferably intrusive parents.

Night of the Kings [Côte d'Ivoire/France , Philippe Lacôte, 4] When the red moon rises over MACA, the Ivory Coast’s toughest prison, its inmate boss appoints the new arrival as storyteller—a post that results in death if the tale ends before sundown. Prison drama with compelling narrative hook widens out to encompass ancient warfare, contemporary politics, and even a wizard duel.

Spring Blossom [France, Suzanne Lindon, 4] Bored with her classmates, an awkward 16 year old (played by the writer-director) pursues her attraction for a ruggedly handsome stage actor (Arnaud Valois.) Character drama sets aside the sexual aspect of this staple French cinema situation to focus on the emotion, periodically breaking from naturalism to have its characters express their feelings through dance.

This year’s Q&As are Zoom interviews between the programmers and filmmakers, which drop on YouTube when the films become available for online viewing. In the Q&A for this one we discover that the director wrote it when she was 15, a year younger than her character. She’s 20 now. Lindon is the daughter of well-known French actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlain.

Get the Hell Out [Taiwan, I-Fan Wang, 4] Taiwan’s notoriously pugilistic parliament tips into arterial spray when the effluent of a controversial chemical plant triggers a zombie epidemic. Zombie comedy features an eye-searing palette and an onslaught of optical overlays, and is paced like a quarter kilo of crushed Adderall. 

It’s quite an achievement to find the worst hue of every color on the visible spectrum. Fortunately the underlying message, that government officials would respond to a pandemic by idiotically making it worse, has no bearing on anything that comes to mind.

We’ve all seen the quotes from Wells Fargo’s CEO in a June memo in which he blamed the bank’s failure in reaching diversity goals on a lack of qualified minority talent. “While it might sound like an excuse, the unfortunate reality is that there is a very limited pool of black talent to recruit from,” […]

The post What employers can learn from Wells Fargo’s failure to recruit and retain Black talent appeared first on DiversityJobs.com.

Interestingly, 2018 turned out to be a very strong year for folktales, fairy tales, and religious stories. Why? Well, look closely and you'll see that this is nothing so much as a gathering of small publishers. It's like I always say. The more the big guys consolidate, the more cracks and fissures remain for the little folks to sneak through. Here then are the titles published in 2018 that really stood out and shone:

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Twofold the enjoyment with twice as many Brazilians on Tim Tales! Bottom hottie Igor Lucios is ecstatic over Deminho‘s enormously thick dick; he simply enjoys worshiping that large cock. It’s perfectly curved and really thick. And it feels like nirvana within his avaricious culo. Don’t Brazilians just know when they should crank up the temperature?... View Article

The post Tim Tales: Deminho and Igor Lucios appeared first on QueerClick.

The post Abandoned Fairy Tale House appeared first on English Russia.

Daniel Osherson, Princeton’s Henry R. Luce Professor in Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, Emeritus, known for his  creative scientific explorations with collaborators in many disciplines, died at home on Sept. 4. 

Moses Swaibu was one of the brightest prospects in Crystal Palace's youth ranks, but he ended up in a shady world of cash, danger and fixing rather than football's limelight.

England have a "generational" crop of talent that has more potential than the squad that reached the 2019 World Cup final, says Rugby Football Union director of performance Conor O'Shea.

CNN reportedly will be making more cuts in the near future, including to its highly paid on-air personalities, following poor election ratings. The New York Post reported that Fox News […]

The post On-Air Talent Will Not Be Spared as CNN Prepares Mass Layoffs in Wake of Election: Report appeared first on The Western Journal.

OM Ireland proclaims the true meaning of Christmas in a relevant and exciting way for primary school children and through Irish national television.

As OM teams spread out across Pakistan, they witness God’s work in people's lives through encouragement, prayer and God’s Word.

OM Hong Kong extends friendship to the city's vibrant Pakistani community.

On Saturday, October 5, 2024 at 10:30am, the Delaware Public Archives will present a new offering, “Tales from the Vaults,” that will present four unique spooky stories culled from the collections of the Delaware Public Archives. “We’re excited to share this special thematic Saturday event to the public,” said Stephen Marz, State Archivist and Delaware […]

This is the 23rd installment of The Rationalist, my column for the Times of India.

I had a strange dream last night. I dreamt that the government had passed a law that made using laptops illegal. I would have to write this column by hand. I would also have to leave my home in Mumbai to deliver it in person to my editor in Delhi. I woke up trembling and angry – and realised how Indian farmers feel every single day of their lives.

My column today is a tale of two satyagrahas. Both involve farmers, technology and the freedom of choice. One of them began this month – but first, let us go back to the turn of the millennium.

As the 1990s came to an end, cotton farmers across India were in distress. Pests known as bollworms were ravaging crops across the country. Farmers had to use increasing amounts of pesticide to keep them at bay. The costs of the pesticide and the amount of labour involved made it unviable – and often, the crops would fail anyway.

Then, technology came to the rescue. The farmers heard of Bt Cotton, a genetically modified type of cotton that kept these pests away, and was being used around the world. But they were illegal in India, even though no bad effects had ever been recorded. Well, who cares about ‘illegal’ when it is a matter of life and death?

Farmers in Gujarat got hold of Bt Cotton seeds from the black market and planted them. You’ll never guess what happened next. As 2002 began, all cotton crops in Gujarat failed – except the 10,000 hectares that had Bt Cotton. The government did not care about the failed crops. They cared about the ‘illegal’ ones. They ordered all the Bt Cotton crops to be destroyed.

It was time for a satyagraha – and not just in Gujarat. The late Sharad Joshi, leader of the Shetkari Sanghatana in Maharashtra, took around 10,000 farmers to Gujarat to stand with their fellows there. They sat in the fields of Bt Cotton and basically said, ‘Over our dead bodies.’ ¬Joshi’s point was simple: all other citizens of India have access to the latest technology from all over. They are all empowered with choice. Why should farmers be held back?

The satyagraha was successful. The ban on Bt Cotton was lifted.

There are three things I would like to point out here. One, the lifting of the ban transformed cotton farming in India. Over 90% of Indian farmers now use Bt Cotton. India has become the world’s largest producer of cotton, moving ahead of China. According to agriculture expert Ashok Gulati, India has gained US$ 67 billion in the years since from higher exports and import savings because of Bt Cotton. Most importantly, cotton farmers’ incomes have doubled.

Two, GMO crops have become standard across the world. Around 190 million hectares of GMO crops have been planted worldwide, and GMO foods are accepted in 67 countries. The humanitarian benefits have been massive: Golden Rice, a variety of rice packed with minerals and vitamins, has prevented blindness in countless new-born kids since it was introduced in the Philippines.

Three, despite the fear-mongering of some NGOs, whose existence depends on alarmism, the science behind GMO is settled. No harmful side effects have been noted in all these years, and millions of lives impacted positively. A couple of years ago, over 100 Nobel Laureates signed a petition asserting that GMO foods were safe, and blasting anti-science NGOs that stood in the way of progress. There is scientific consensus on this.

The science may be settled, but the politics is not. The government still bans some types of GMO seeds, such as Bt Brinjal, which was developed by an Indian company called Mahyco, and used successfully in Bangladesh. More crucially, a variety called HT Bt Cotton, which fights weeds, is also banned. Weeding takes up to 15% of a farmer’s time, and often makes farming unviable. Farmers across the world use this variant – 60% of global cotton crops are HT Bt. Indian farmers are so desperate for it that they choose to break the law and buy expensive seeds from the black market – but the government is cracking down. A farmer in Haryana had his crop destroyed by the government in May.

On June 10 this year, a farmer named Lalit Bahale in the Akola District of Maharashtra kicked off a satyagraha by planting banned seeds of HT Bt Cotton and Bt Brinjal. He was soon joined by thousands of farmers. Far from our urban eyes, a heroic fight has begun. Our farmers, already victimised and oppressed by a predatory government in countless ways, are fighting for their right to take charge of their lives.

As this brave struggle unfolds, I am left with a troubling question: All those satyagrahas of the past by our great freedom fighters, what were they for, if all they got us was independence and not freedom?

The India Uncut Blog © 2010 Amit Varma. All rights reserved.
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Frankfurt (Oder) is building on the strengths of its university to foster the development of successful start-ups through new co-working spaces and the promotion of sustainable practices and products. 

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

La enseñanza bíblica en profundidad de John MacArthur lleva la verdad transformadora de la Palabra de Dios a millones de personas cada día.

[Dabanga] Amsterdam -- Many Sudanese are mourning the death of the famous poet and dramatist Hashim Siddig, who died in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday morning. He was 77 years old. Siddig is not only famous for his epic poem on the 1964 revolution in Sudan, but also for his radio and television dramas.

Kelly Clarkson filled in for Cowell as he recuperates from back surgery.

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