Do, Pilgrims of the Flying Temple by Daniel Solis
“A cooperative storytelling game about helping people and getting into trouble.”
3-5 players, Age 12 & up, 1-2 hours, Retail $25
After defining your pilgrim by how they get into trouble & how they help people, you and your pilgrims leave the flying temple with a desire to respond to a letter requesting help. Pilgrims are abandoned children left with the monks at their flying temple. Do is an open ended story telling games that encourage creative writing. It does not require a guide or master gamer to lead the adventure, but each pilgrim begins their turn by randomly drawing 3 black or white stones that sets the course of their turn; either helping others or getting into trouble. The game ends when any player has eight stones or when the key words from the letter have been used in the course of the story.
Readability; Do is a clever read that was edited by Ryan Macklin, and Lillian Cohen-Moore. Once I began to read, I could not put the book down. It is well referenced throughout the book by examples and page numbers.
Art; Do is illustrated by Liz Radtke, Kristin Rakochy, Jake Richmond, and Dale Horstman. Who can resist flying air whales?
Value; The book contains 15 varied stories that make this a very re-playable game. At only $25, run don’t walk to your friendly local game story and purchase this gem before it disappears.
Overall; While I am a lifelong gamer, I am not a role player by nature. So it is difficult for this gamer to compare it to other story telling games, but on a scale of 1-10, (10 is the highest,) I rate this game a 10.
Sunday, August 21, 2011 Game Night at Pulp Fiction Comics & Games in Lees Summit, MO
Pilgrims;
Quicksilver Lionheart
True Face
Dismissive Chronicler
Boisterous Cape
Our letter is requesting help from a girl whose world has been eaten by a whale.
Pilgrim Quicksilver Lionheart calls her pilgrim friends to help the little girl named Melanie. Pilgrim True Face listens to Melanie talk about her cat. Putting pen to parchment, Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler jots down a love poem from Melanie to her adorable cat, Buttons. The whale is enamored by the poem, and swallows Dismissive Chronicler. Pilgrim Boisterous Cape flies above the whale to drop a rope down the blow hole to Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler.
The rescue rope tickles the whale’s nose and he sneezes, causing Pilgrim Boisterous Cape to get tangled. Wanting to help her friends get out of the whale, Pilgrim Quicksilver Lionheart breaks off a tree branch, and tickles the whale stomach. While laughing, Pilgrim True Face catches the house as it falls out of the whale’s mouth. Underestimating the size of the house, Pilgrim True Face is squished by it’s weight. With an exit apparent, Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler bounds out of the whale’s mouth, but not before grabbing Melanie’s plate of cookies.
Using his thunderous roar, Pilgrim Boisterous Cape yells to a passing bird to come and peck the rope off of him. Pilgrim Quicksilver Lionheart enticed by the aroma of the cookies, fails to see the whale flick his fluke in her direction thus sending her flying. After bumping into Melanie’s house, Quicksilver flies to the fluke flicking whale to apologize and offer him her own cookie.
Pilgrim True Face declares as he crawls out from under the house “boy that was heavier than I thought, but it looks okay Melanie.” All four pilgrims enjoyed Melanie’s delicious cookies but Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler ate too many cookies, resulting in a nasty tummy ache!
Melanie thanks all of the pilgrims for their hard work. Pilgrim Quicksilver Lionheart holds Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler’s hand as the sun falls behind the flying temple. Pilgrim True Face accepts another plate of cookies as he ponders the fate of his family. Inconspicuously, Pilgrim Dismissive Chronicler slips one last cookie in his robe as he and Pilgrim Quicksilver fly off. As the other pilgrims take off, Boisterous Cape steals a smooch from Melanie and flutters off.
Epilogue;
Pilgrim True Face continues to get into trouble by being honest some of the time thus his pilgrims banner changed to from “True to Selective.” Subsequently, he leaves the temple to discover the fate of his family.
