Links: Tentacle Bento Boxed by Kickstarter, Guess the 2012 Spiel des Jahres Nominees & More on The Wheaton Effect

The style is a cute, lighthearted, pastel-colored look at the wonderful world of forcing your way inside a female against her will. There are, to my mind, a lot of things wrong with this....

Tentacle Bento's Kickstarter success is the product of a society that doesn't take sexual assault against women seriously enough. It shows that enough people think it's "not a big deal". The argument comparing a game about rape to games about violence is limited by the fact that murder is almost universally penalized in our culture, meaning there is a clear line between fantasy and reality there. With rape and molestation, that line is not so clearly drawn, and it results in "cute" games like Tentacle Bento.

I have been told the game isn't overt about its scenarios, and is more about innuendo than obscenity. But there is no doubt where it comes from, and what it's drawing on. And molesting girls "just a bit" or through innuendo does not make the game much better.

The "tentacle" genre is a well known cliché in the anime/manga fan circles. This product is one of many products we have designed, or are designing to touch on interesting or odd clichés or themes in popular Asian and Japanese sub cultures that have found their way over to the US. They simple "are", and we wanted to give a snapshot that was true to the weirdness of the subgenre. A tip of the hat to one of the weirdest things I have ever seen come out of Japan, and one of the most "unspoken" of inside jokes within the US anime subculture.

Back to our previous response, it is something that "is". The project was an interesting premise, and we test marketed that premise with our target audience with great feedback, we overcame whatever our personal misgivings were and gave it a shot. We felt we dealt with the subject in a funny way to play up the relational iconic images of aliens snatching up humans for nefarious purposes, if those purposes were for eating them up... we wouldn't be having this conversation, the natural inclination of sexualized imagery in some Japanese manga and anime lends to a more lascivious bend, and in the culture, it simply "is".

Here are a couple of interesting quotes from his demo that seem to negate the clean image of the game he is trying to propose. At the 1:15 mark, he says, "In this case we grab poor sidney, drag her to the classroom, and we have ourselves a 'cram session'." After saying this, he suggestively bites his lip. At 1:53, he says you can "take a sexy student to the headmaster's office, and then get slippery when wet". Does this not imply sexual contact, in his own words?

I've played (relatively) few new titles since the middle of 2011, so I'm blending personal knowledge, crowd observation, and wild-eyed guesses in order to make my choices.

Josh [Miller, whose picks preceded mine in the list,] has a decent list of qualifications for SdJ nominees – visually attractive, easy to learn, smooth play out of the box, and vast sales/expansion potential. Africana and Kingdom Builder have all of this in spades. (I’ve yet to play Takenoko, but Antoine Bauza won the first Kennerspiel with 7 Wonders, the components are gloriously appealing, and the game has widespread German distribution, so it seems like a solid third choice.) One element he didn’t mention, but which seems important when viewing previous SdJ winners, is that the nominees tend to straddle the family/gamer line – that is, casual gamers can play them, have fun and do reasonably well while gamers will look deeper, discover more and play better. Again, Africana and Kingdom Builder fit this qualification well. Why choose Africana over Kingdom Builder? Partly due to its contrast with 2011 SdJ winner Qwirkle in that Africana has a realistic thematic setting, and partly due to the German love of travel.

All three of my Kennerspiel nominees – Glory to Rome, Hawaii, and Village – are excellent designs, and all fit the Kennerspiel category of games for connoisseurs as they're more involved that your average game, yet not off the charts in terms of complexity or opaqueness, although GtR might have one foot across that line. Still, I think GtR is an incredible design that goes beyond what you normally think is possible in a card game, and with Lookout Games having released an attractive version in German in 2011, I think it could get the nod.

As for Hawaii and Village, both are straight-up Eurogame designs that present gamers with interesting-to-explore game systems in an inviting setting. They're not too difficult to learn and play, making them ideal for those who have played the basics and want something more. I prefer Hawaii over Village as the money management and tight competition for goods among players makes the game tougher than Village, while also providing a wider range of set-up variability, which kicks your brain in new directions each game. Village gets my vote, however, as it has the homey thematic edge, just as Thurn & Taxis had the home-turf advantage over Blue Moon City in 2006. Yes, your villagers die and sure, that could be morbid for some, but that aspect of the game also encapsulates the broader cultural outlook in Europe, with people viewing themselves as part of history-in-the-making rather than above it, as seems to be more common in the U.S.

Who knows? I could just be blowing smoke...