Players: Caroline, Martin, Terry, and Mike
When: July 7, 2012

After playing some dismal and depressing Coyote, we decided to try something lighter! Another game none of us has played, Kaleidoscope, was put on the docket.

For all you normal people who don’t know what that nonsense is, it is a terribly hilarious bastardization of Microscope in which you recount a poorly translated foreign film. Bookends are the beginning and end of the film, you have a palate that is mostly nonsense, and you create periods, events, and scenes just as in regular Microscope. Light or dark is assigned as usual, as are legacies.

It was utter and complete hilarity. Our game was mostly about shoes and ghosts, at least that’s what I got from the film—really I have no idea.

Game time was about an hour and a half, which was perfect. I saw it played with 8-10 people and just with dictated scenes, but I liked keeping it small and actually role-playing scenes. It was fun to play with roles. The ‘time’ role inspired things like ‘the budget,’ the voice of the artistic direct, and the ratings agency.

Highly recommend.

I think the shoes symbolized the clash between traditional culture and industrialization in postwar South Korea. But why did all the guns keep talking? Such a complicated film.

This was fun. I think it would have gotten really tedious if played at the length of a standard Microscope game, but it was good in a small slot. I'm also glad we played out the scenes. It brought the movie to life a lot more, even if it was really silly life.