If/Then

Idina Menzel plays Elizabeth, a 38-year-old who comes to NYC after a divorce to pursue either love or career, and we see to parallel timelines in which a fateful choice defines how her life turns out. Definitely aimed at the aging RENT and tick…tick…BOOM! fan base, this show features pleasantly normalized lgbt relationships and isn’t afraid to work blue. If that sounds good to you, or you just like hearing Menzel belt out some rock opera, go see it.

( And now, SPOILERS! )

Get Lucky!

A card game based on the classic Cheapass Game Kill Doctor Lucky, which I got via participating in the Kickstarter. It’s…okay.

I mean, the flavor text is great, and I think a lot of the fun we had with the game was in reading it all. But the gameplay isn’t quite as strategic as the board game it’s based on, and it’s definitely a game in two parts, owing to the fact that the draw pile is never reshuffled: You spend the first segment trying to draw lots of cards, get the best equipment on each of your characters, and get a pair of characters you can work strategy around. Then the second part (after the cards run out) is a strategic race to try to be the last one to attempt to kill Lucky when the failure cards run out.

I suspect there are variants that would smooth out the gameplay better—the two-phase thing is a problem that Munchkin tends to have, also; I don’t think it’s a game-killer—but straight out of the box, it’s not as good as the original.