بلاگ

bidding – Do I need more for a “big double” with a minor than a major suit?

At matchpoints, they’re vulnerable, we’re not. Right hand opponent opens one heart. I would make a (big takeout) double with the following: ♠AKT852 ♡65 ♢AK86 ♣ J. I havd 15 high card points and “distribution” will take me over 16. Over a likely two heart bid from the left hand opponent, I bid two spades.

But suppose my spades and diamonds were reversed sot that I have, ♠AKT8 ♡65 ♢AK8652 ♣ J. Now I would need to go to three diamonds over two hearts if I doubled first.

Should I therefore overcall two diamonds directly? Or do I still have enough to make a “big” double? Or could I possibly have too little to double before bidding spades with the first hand?

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08/08/2025
Marvel Rivals’ gooner ahh ads are giving “desperate”

Image Credit: NetEase

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Published: Aug 7, 2025 03:46 pm

I’m sometimes embarrassed to admit it, but I scroll TikTok when I’m bored. TikTok is definitely full of cringe challenges, scripted couple content, annoying culture-stealing dances… But I can often tolerate most of it — most of it. There is one thing I can’t stand: Marvel Rivals’ gooner ads.

Every so often I’ll be mindlessly scrolling past performative men telling women to stop dating, people “surprising” waiters by speaking a different language… All the horrors of quasi-influencers. But then I’ll get a random animated ad featuring a Marvel superhero in a revealing swimsuit, her butt right in my face, and I’ll see it’s from the official Marvel Rivals account.

Welp, it’s time to stop scrolling.

Marvel Rivals Has Turned Into a Gooner Game

I think Marvel Rivals is getting desperate.

When Marvel Rivals came out last year, everyone immediately retracted their Overwatch 2 comparisons and decided it was the only hero shooter they were gonna play. For a while, it’s all my friends talked about and I even tried the game out myself so I could try to relive the glory days of the original Overwatch.

But I quickly got bored. The game felt sorta stale and repetitive, with many of the heroes not feeling very impactful and many overlapping abilities. It’s still a pretty good shooter game, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a reason that the player base has started to decline (though not by much).

Perhaps trying to get ahead of that inevitable drop in players, NetEase Games released revealing skins (for both sexes at least). At first, it was just a few. Just some cheeky one pieces. But as NetEase saw the response from its most thirsty players, it decided to lean into its characters’ assets and raise the skill ceiling for its gooner skins.

At this point, it’s gone from showing some buns beneath a cape if you stare at a certain angle to full-on bathing suit skins. The Psylocke bathing suit that basically gives her a wedgie in the front and back and the Loki banana hammock that shows all eight of his abs and his bulge… Diabolical.

But what really makes this worse is NetEase’s treatment of the skins. The ads with Psylocke’s butt right in my face are just crazy work. But it’s not only TikTok that gets this treatment from developers. On Reddit, there’s an image of Invisible Woman’s booty in the Malice skin with the caption: “When your teamwork is so tight, even Invisible Woman shows up.” Really NetEase?

I’m not offended that the characters are being sexualized really, although that’s clearly never really that great from a predominantly male community. We have Loki so Marvel Rivals really said, “Let’s just equally sexualize all Marvel heroes.” Rocket Raccoon next? But no, the real issue is how desperate NetEase is pushing it.

It’s just sad to see a game market itself more for its revealing skins rather than its gameplay. If you want to say “the world kept spinning” and “there are bigger problems” I’m not gonna argue. But some of us can care about multiple things just because they’re cringe and show a game’s desperation to be relevant.

I’m rooting for you, Marvel Rivals, but maybe focus more on your repetitive gameplay issue instead of getting sex-deprived teens to pay money to see animated butt cheeks.

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08/08/2025
magic the gathering – Can a Planeswalker be tapped?

Like all permanents, it can become tapped. For instance, if you attack with Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker after using his first ability and he survives, the next turn you will have a tapped planeswalker.

110.5. A permanent’s status is its physical state. There are four status categories, each of which has two possible values: tapped/untapped, flipped/unflipped, face up/face down, and phased in/phased out. Each permanent always has one of these values for each of these categories.

In the previous scenario, Sarkhan will untap during your untap step. However, there are cards that require you to tap a permanent you control, like Gene Pollinator‘s ability, which can be activated during your upkeep, causing your planeswalker to be tapped during your main phase.

But that doesn’t really matter for loyalty abilities; there is no rule preventing activating loyalty abilities on tapped planeswalkers. This is all what the rules say:

306.5d Each planeswalker has a number of loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Loyalty abilities follow special rules: A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent they control any time they have priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of their turn, but only if none of that permanent’s loyalty abilities have been activated that turn. See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”

Rule 606 doesn’t mention anything about being (un)tapped either.

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08/08/2025
Take-Two boss says GTA 6 price will be “fair” but doesn’t rule out $80 cost

Take-Two, the parent company of Rockstar Games, just posted its quarterly financial results – rather good ones, at that. For those of us that aren’t investors, the good news to come out of its latest report is that GTA 6‘s launch date remains unmoved. No delays this time. However, another big question mark looming over GTA 6 is its price tag – will it match or even exceed the new $80 benchmark set by Nintendo? That question was posed to Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick ahead of today’s financial report, and while he didn’t give any specifics on GTA 6’s price, he did assure that it would be “fair.”

The $80 issue has been one of this year’s key gaming talking points. Nintendo was the first to take that step with its biggest Switch 2 titles. Microsoft then followed suit, announcing that The Outer Worlds 2 would retail at $80 – however, just a few weeks later, it backtracked and slashed its price down to $70, confirming that none of this year’s big Xbox first-party releases would make the jump. Battlefield 6 is without a doubt a desirable, triple-A game, and many thought that EA would jump at the chance to make it an $80 game, but it too has held firm. Despite some now infamous comments from Randy Pitchford about increased game prices, Borderlands 4 (published by Take-Two-owned 2K Games) is also sticking with $70.

There’s a hesitancy to follow in Nintendo’s footsteps, and many believe that the GTA 6 release date could be the true catalyst for solidifying that new top level price across the industry. Speaking to Zelnick before the new financial report was released, Variety quizzes him on whether GTA 6 will target an $80 price point.

“So now that announcement will come from Rockstar in due time,” he says. “Our goal always is to deliver more value than what we charge, so we’ve had variable pricing at the company forever. As you know, the approach of the industry is to launch at a premium price, sometimes with special editions, and over time, typically to reduce the price to enhance the overall size of the market. We do the very same thing. I think, probably more than most, we’re highly focused on making sure that the experience is great, not just because the game itself is great, but also because consumers have paid a fair price for it.”

It’s not the most committal answer in the world, and one that certainly doesn’t rule out an $80 price tag. The promise of a “fair” price is encouraging. But the “deliver more value than what we charge” comment could suggest that the sky is the limit – given its scope, and the fact GTA 5 is still going strong more than a decade later, the ‘value’ GTA 6 will deliver is surely gargantuan. Does that also mean a gargantuan price tag? Maybe.

Until Rockstar actually reveals its price and shows us more of what GTA 6 has to offer, find out everything we know so far from our friends at GTA Db. Alternatively, here are some colossal and brilliant open-world games to get lost in before your trip to Leonida.

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08/08/2025
Battlefield 6 server queue – can you beat the first day blues?

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Published: Aug 7, 2025 04:49 am

Well, who would have thought it? Huge server queue problems as Battlefield 6 launches its Early Access Open Beta, and the numbers are only going to get bigger by the time the rest of the world gets to join in in a couple of days.

Hopefully, by then, EA and Battlefield Studios will have added a bit more capacity, and the clamor to be first on board may have waned a little, but right now, for many, Battlefield 6’s first trial run is unplayable.

Images are scattered around X of players having 150,000 plus players ahead of them in line, and even when you get into the game, matchmaking is falling apart due to the volume of players.

Just under an hour ago, the official Battlefield account posted:

“A quick note about queues and Early Access / Open Beta.

Since this is Battlefield’s biggest Open Beta ever, we’re putting in the work to ensure that players have the best possible experience and servers remain stable.

To support this, we will use queues to protect the player experience but expect this impact to be minimal.

You may encounter this during high peak moments, such as the start of servers going live. The team is working constantly to reduce any queue that takes place.

Thank you for your continued excitement and patience. We’ll see you on the Battlefield!!

That last line may be a little hopeful for many, and it will be minutes away before the self-righteous start demanding that the beta time be extended, but this is a good first sign for the revamped Battlefield.

Better this in many ways than being able to jump right in and squad up with a load of bots.

How to beat the Battlefield 6 queues

For now, all you can do is wait it out. EA will doubtless be pushing extra resources in the direction of the game, and, much like trying to buy tickets for any big gig these days, people will soon get bored of waiting and drop out of the queue, causing it to drop more quickly.

We are confident that when you do eventually get in, it will be worth the wait.

We’ll see you on the Battlefield – probably.

Battlefield 6 open beta details

If you want to find out more about when Battlefield 6 will be running its beta tests, all the information you need is right here.

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07/08/2025
I’m a little confused about the Chapter 6 setup in LOTR Trick Taking game

Ok, so here’s the card that’s giving me some trouble:

I’m pretty sure there’s a few typos in here, because at first glance is seemed like it wanted me to deal 5 cards per each of the 4 players into a “barrow deck”, then shuffle the Ring cards back in and deal another 8 to each player. Which is a problem, because that would require 53 cards and there’s only 37 :P.

After much study and prayer I have determined that it’s wants me to deal 5 cards, if you are using 4 players, in to the “barrow deck” and then deal the 8 cards out. The math checks out now. But, the last line says that Tom Bombadil puts those 5 cards into his hand. So after all that I could have just dealt Tom 5 extra cards?

Am I missing something? It just seems a little underwhelming to have this whole spooky “Fog on the Barrow-downs Event”, and all it is is that you give some extra cards to ol’ Tom.

I might be tripping, but am I missing something?

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07/08/2025
Townspire Preview – One Board Family

Radek Ignatów is a designer who has impressed me over the past few years. I backed his Knight and Roll&Meow campaigns, so when I saw his post asking for people to preview his latest title, I knew I had to check it out.

While I would classify those other two titles as medium weight games, Townspire is lighter fare, with its theme and artwork both complementing this simpler approach. It seemed that Radek was going for a more family-friendly title this time around, but I was a bit concerned that the game might get too complicated.

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, thanks to some wonderful innovations, this is one of the most approachable print-and-play games I’ve seen in recent years.

Rebuilding the Kingdom

In Townspire, you take on the role of a Medieval architect, charged by your king to reconstruct a destroyed town according to some very specific instructions. You need to be sure that you provide plenty of housing, businesses, and protection for the new settlers before they arrive.

The game is played over 10 rounds, each of which starts off with an action card. These cards feature a top and bottom field with different conditions that you’ll fulfill for that turn. First, you’ll draw a new building on your map according to specific criteria – maybe on the edge of the map, or a certain number of spaces from another map object. There are several buildings, most of which allow you to convert your resources so that they have a higher value. There are also cottages that you’ll build for the residents you’ll need to run your businesses, and towers that can be used with walls to help protect your new city.

Next, you’ll activate the resources listed in that section of the card. There are several items that might be included. You might extend your walls. Maybe you’ll plant crops (wheat or tomatoes) or grow livestock (sheep and chickens). You might also gain work actions or be able to use them, which will allow you to grow or raise more, or use your buildings to do those advantageous resource conversions – like turning tomatoes into soup. You can also employ guards that will protect your land from the invading dangers.

Yeah, those dangers come next. Bandits will try to mess with your buildings, insects will attack your crops, and wolves will try to snatch your livestock. They must be placed according to special rules, similar to your buildings. You’ve got options to protect against these threats (like the aforementioned guards), but if you don’t, they’ll cause you to lose points at the end of the game.

Eye on the Prize

As you add more and more to your map, you’ll be working to accomplish two goals that are set for you at the beginning of the game. You might have to defeat a certain number of villains, or maybe create a certain number of loaves of bread and bowls of soup. These goals are specific to each map, and they are randomly assigned for you each game, so you’ll have to adjust your strategy each time you play. If you don’t manage to accomplish your goals by the end of the game, you lose.

However, if you reach those goals, you’ll add up all the points you’ve earned (mostly from your resources). If you’re playing with others, then the person with the most points is the winner. If you’re flying solo, you’ll compare your score to the suggested score thresholds to see how you did.

After playing this game a few times, I must say that it’s one of the more challenging print-and-play solo games I’ve seen. It might just be me, but I had a really hard time with keeping all the different placement rules straight and ensuring that I didn’t just plan for that turn, but looked ahead to future turns and challenges. For example, insect infestations can only be stopped by chickens, and chickens can only be placed by trees. So, I should only put them near trees, right? Yeah, my brain struggled with that, for some reason. However, I can definitely see how playing the game more and more will help out with that.

That being said, when the strategy works well, things can fall into place. It’s nice when you’re able to place that knight just right to take out the bandits. Lining up several turns to accomplish one of your two goals is quite satisfying, while having your best laid plans destroyed by a bad card pull is heartbreaking. If you can handle a little bit of luck, you should be fine. Plus, that luck is necessary to ensure that you don’t “figure out” the game and make it so that the same strategy would work every single time.

Oh, and while it’s a solo game, it can be played with other people. Just know that there’s not any interaction between players, so you’ll essentially be playing a solo game… with other people.

Medieval Innovation

But there’s one part of the game that I must report on, and I personally think it could have a HUGE impact on how print-and-play games work moving forward, at least for players like me. I personally love playing games on my iPad – it’s so much easier to get the game started, to store everything, to not have to worry about a bunch of little pieces. With a bunch of games, I can easily pull this off while using a dice app on my phone. However, when cards get thrown into the mix, things get a bit more complicated, and I’m less likely to play.

In this game, each map features a QR code that you can scan that brings up action cards for that map in website form. From there, the website will randomly select your goals, and then randomly produce the action cards for you. This might sound simple, but it’s SUCH a benefit for gamers like me.

In the past, I might have spent far too much time making sure the cards look decent (yet I’d still be disappointed with the outcome), and then I would need to find a place to keep those cards where I would remember whenever I want to play again. Now, I just have to scan, and boom! I can play. No printing, no cutting, no storage. While some might not see this as a big deal, it’s game-changing for me. I’ve already asked the designer if he would consider a similar functionality for his previous titles.

Final Thoughts

As it stands, Townspire is a solid addition to the print-and-play world that is worth your time and consideration. If this is a genre you’ll enjoy, then you’re going to like Townspire and the variability that it provides. Plus, if you approach your print-and-play games like I do – that is, with no printing – the approach to cards is a HUGE bonus and something you won’t want to miss out on.

You can find Townspire on Kickstarter now through August 21, 2025.

A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.

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07/08/2025
Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader fixes Yrliet romance and other, less important stuff

When players hear the words ‘Owlcat RPG,’ many immediately think of one word: romance. In fact, developers have told me in the past that no game they produced would be a true Owlcat RPG if romance wasn’t involved. Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader is no different. Despite the inability to romance our mechadendrite-endowed friend Pasqal, players have thrown themselves at nearly every other companion possible. However, there was a pretty major bug with Yrliet’s romance, and thankfully it’s now been squashed. Beware, as major spoilers for romancing the Aeldari ranger follow.

Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader patch 1.4.1.229 fixes plenty of bugs, softlocks, and other issues with the game, as well as expanding the Overseer with 20 new talents. There are a couple of new dialogue options and exploits are no longer consumed by dodged, parried, or blocked attacks. However, the biggest change is the fix to Yrliet’s romance, a story arc that is very popular within the community. This is your last chance to turn back if you don’t want spoilers. I mean it.

Despite being one of the best Warhammer 40k games in recent memory, Rogue Trader has had its fair share of issues. Before now, players were encountering a “widely reported bug” with Yrliet’s romance. As you near the consummation of your relationship with the xenos sniper—non-traditional though that consummation may be—she offers to share her mind with you. It’s an incredibly intimate offer from the standoffish warrior, and your Rogue Trader needs to have held back their impulses on numerous occasions in order to get there.

However, the bug in question teleported you to the maze that is Quetza Temer instead of into Yrliet’s mind. This area is annoying enough simply exploring it, but when you were reaching the climax of your relationship with Yrliet? It’s nothing short of infuriating.

The good news is that should be fixed now, so all players can mind-meld with Yrliet should they, and she, so wish. In other romance news, there’s a new dialogue option when continuing the romance with new companion Solomorne, which feels less like an order.

There are also plenty of other minor updates to pieces of dialogue, including heretical options. Plenty of pet-based inconsistencies have been fixed, including the ability to select and control other players’ pets in multiplayer.

Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader Patch 1.4.1.229 is available now on Steam, and will arrive on console within the next 24-48 hours. You can see the full patch notes here.

This is the perfect excuse to jump back in for another run, so long as you have the best Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Officer build to go the distance. I also suggest steering clear of heresy if you want to experience Yrliet’s romance. If you want a different flavour of Imperial doctrine, why not check out our list of the best Warhammer games?

You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.

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07/08/2025
pokemon – How does the Veevee ‘Volve ability work?

The Veevee ‘Volve ability says:

This Pokémon can evolve into any Pokémon that evolves from Eevee if you play it from your hand onto this Pokémon. (This Pokémon can’t evolve during your first turn or the turn you play it.)

This just sounds like how evolution works in the card game?

Looking up how it works on Go Hub:

We begin with the poster Pokémon of this set: Eevee EX. Thematically, it headlines the expansion but when it comes to battle, it is probably the weakest EX card until now. Its only flavor is its ridiculously named ability, Veevee ‘volve, by virtue of which Eevee EX can be evolved into any Eeveelution, EX card or not.

It sounds like the card being an ex card changes how evolution works, but I tried to look into it and all I could find was this:

A Pokemon ex card can be played in the same way as Pokemon cards. Basic Pokemon ex cards can be played right away without evolving them, while Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokemon ex cards require sending their previous forms in the field before they can be played.

— pokecardhq

So what is the point of that ability?

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07/08/2025
Diablo: The Roleplaying Game launching soon on Kickstarter

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Published: Aug 6, 2025 08:56 am

With the world of Diablo being around so long, it’s amazing we haven’t had more attempts to bring the game to the tabletop. But as TTRPGs continue to flourish, a new Kickstarter has popped up for Diablo: The Roleplaying Game, a new officially licensed RPG from Glass Cannon Unplugged.

With the campaign not having launched yet, it has already garnered some 3,000 followers, eagerly awaiting it to go live. So what do we know at this stage?

Well, there will be a tasty 300-page book of rules and art, we know that much, along with an anthology of one-shot adventures written by some big names in the business.

The game will run on a custom D6 system, similar to the Blade Runner RPG (which is excellent), and that is no major surprise as Joe LeFavi from that game is also involved here.

But standard RPG stuff aside, the minis, oh, the minis are so good, but at this pre-launch stage, we don’t exactly know what we are going to need to do or pay to get our hands on them. Hopefully, everything will become much clearer in the very near future.

The Kickstarter launch page does say we can expect the game in Q4, which is just around the corner, so it does look like we will be digging out he old Army Painter gear in the following weeks.

Diablo: The Roleplaying Game Classes

We don’t know what era Diablo the RPG is set in. Still, we do know some of the classes that will be available are Barbarians, Druids, Necros, Rgies, and Sorcerers, and that Diablo staples such as Legendary gear will be available. With no mention of the Paladin class, which is also missing in Diablo IV, we are assuming that this visit to tabletop Sanctuary could also be themed around D4.

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06/08/2025