The Integers, PhD

@theintegers.bsky.social

Math and games, games and math

You GOTTA play A Message from Deep Space. It's like if you took the part of Project Hail Mary where the protagonist starts to talk to an alien for the first time and fleshes it out as a playable game. It's a slow, methodical math puzzle, but grows into some truly satisfying stuff

We are hosting the inaugural Columbus Community Cube Fest on July 25th at The Warp Gate! $25 for 2 drafts with a cut to top 8. Cube submissions will be open until July 1st. Cube lineup will be announced shortly after. Links for tickets cube submission in the comments. Hope to see you there!

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Happy trans day of visibility. It's my first year teaching ata school where my students will be openly homophobic and transphobic (mostly ina learned, unthinking way) and I'm expected to stay "politically neutral" which is tough. Trying to find the right ways to do it still.

Played a bunch of board games this weekend, most good (Atiwa was a joy), but I'm appalled that Botany exists as a published game from 2024. A really pretty game, but it basically amounts to playing an event deck that asks you to roll dice to determine if you win or lose. Core systems barely worked.

Aside from the obvious cruelty and uselessness of it, the Kansas anti-trans license bill is going to end the way this shit always does- transvestigating random women with prominent jawlines. We will see a cis woman arrested within the month.

Finally got a full game of seti in last night. Most of my reservations about the game still hold- it's long, not very interactive, and a little clunky- but I was impressed by how much the "gimmicks" of the game (the secret aliens and the rotating solar system) actually worked for gameplay.

Pros: Arena powered cube is back Cons: I will be grinding cube drafts for 2 weeks straight Pros: I can draft on my phone so I can do it while doing other things Cons: sometimes you spill soup on your phone and accidentally pass a mox