Girls Screaming in Chinese

We have been preparing for this night for a very long time. Tom has always had an intense interest in Mahjong, especially in the Japanese variant, Riichi Mahjong. He’s got books and books about it. Lots of apps. A vast collection of Vita and Super Famicom versions. Once while I was visiting him when he still lived in Ohio, he pulled out this beautiful, heavy, set, and we sat down and he taught me how to play. It’s just like the card game Rummy, he said, and it is… except that the Japanese, bless their hearts, decided that would be too easy, and so they added a bunch of win conditions you needed to also keep in mind if you wanted to build a winning hand. ...

I was initially a little unsure about playing Banner of the Maid. It has a lot of things in it that I like – deeply tactical gameplay a la Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem Houses. It’s set in a sort of alternate French Revolution era which isn’t all that familiar to me, though I’m pretty sure Napoleon didn’t have a little sister as one of his generals. But why wouldn’t he? She is, after all, a Maid, a hero that, like* *Jeanne d’Arc, the Maid of Orléans, would rise to save France from her martial ambitions. She and her fellow Maids will command the revolutionary forces throughout their European conquest. ...