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The Bird is the Word: Sophisticated Schoolyard Shenanigans

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These Songs are Actually Pretty Good

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By James Zheng, a surprise music critic blogger

Music, as a part of our daily life, has always accompanied us whenever we need it. And, according to what I have seen so far about what people usually listen to around me, it’s normally either rap music or pop music. I’ve included plenty of unknown songs worth recommending in this post; you might recognize them; maybe not. Let’s find out.

Overall, I categorized them by genre to give you a brief preview of each.

Rock Music

  • Simple Plan the band. Recommendation for their songs: Holding On and Take My Hand. Simple Plan is from Canada. I would consider them as derived from punk rock. I have listened to each of their albums; I am obsessed with their unique style; this style is second to none. They do not generate the conventional idea of rock that makes a very noisy track. They don’t do much heavy metal sound; instead, they have a very cheerful track style. And, before they put the sound of electric guitar in, they usually have a fantastic melody mixed with piano and bass. All of their songs are amazing.
  • Daughtry the band. Recommendation for their songs: It’s Not Over and Over You. Daughtry is from America, and they are more popular than Simple Plan. Their style is a little bit hard to define because they keep changing it in each album. The unique thing about Daughtry is probably the lead vocalist’s–Chris Daughtry’s–wild singing style. You feel like he is yelling, but in fact he is not. He just puts his emotion fully into the song as few people do.

Instrumental Music

  • String For a Queen by ELYZA/Xan. Speaking of instrumental music, String For a Queen is my favorite ever song. The beat keeps rising and falling, it is really unpredictable. In another words, you don’t know what’s coming next, but you are expecting something more, and eventually the better thing than the expectation comes. The String For a Queen has a really dreamlike beat which more sounds like a fantasy motif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OK075fzsDCM
  • Blue by Xeuphoria. Blue has a very tranquil beat. When you are nervous or restless, try to listen to this song and it could help a lot to calm your mind down and make you fall into the enjoyment of this quiet melody.

Electronic Music

  • Demons (Original Mix) by Paris Blohm.
  • Wolves by Selena Gomez, Marshmello.
  • I am not sure if electronic music is popular in America. I think that it is a huge improvement from traditional instrumental music. Initially electronic music was played without lyrics, but to further innovate and make it more exceptional, a DJ (Disc Jockey) decides to add the singing part in to make it better.

Popular Music

  • What Are Words by Chris Medina. This song has a touching story behind it. The incentive for Chris to write this song is due to an accident that happened to his wife. His wife got severely injured and needed a large amount of money to pay for the therapy bill. Chris decided to participate in the show American Idol and strove to get the reward so that he could pay for his wife’s medical bill. Although he was eliminated, the song left an intense impression. The track consists of piano and violin, which is a simple combination of sounds. But he has a great voice and captivating emotion in the song.
  • Color Blind by Matt B. Matt remixed an instrumental song called River Flows in You, and then made Color Blind. Matt has an unexpectedly unique voice; his singing style is quite natural and casual. And the whole rhythm of the song is really relaxing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BInjDfGMUlM

Anime Theme Music

  • Call of Silence by Gemie. Call of Silence is a interlude song within the anime called Attack On Titan 2nd Season. It is more likely to be a character song. The whole song is in English without a singing accent; you can understand the lyrics clearly.  
  • Red Swan by YOSHIKI/HYDE. Red Swan is the theme song for Attack On Titan 3rd Season, and most of the lyrics are in English. It is a light rock song fused with the sound of piano.

If you listen to music a lot and have not yet known these songs, I strongly suggest you to get know them. You might step into a new musical realm.

A philosophical paradox–Are there truths?

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James, when he took his turn as the weekly editor, assigned everyone the task of writing to the theme Philosophy. Now, it’s his turn to weigh in.

By James Zheng

Generally, during our everyday life, the following questions of “really?” or “is that true?” appear in a usual conversation in response to crazy facts. People always  respond to those questions with something like, “I just know…,” or “Yeah, because I heard it from….” When you ask these questions, you normally accept the ideas given by others or online sources. But, should you believe these ideas? Are they true?

Regarding philosophy, some people say that the nature of philosophy is making a simple fact sound ridiculously complex. I would not disagree with that because philosophical questions make things sound entirely different and new. In my mind, philosophy is a way of comprehending our lives better and extracting the essence of everything.

But, as the study and discussion around philosophy develops, more questions arrive that are nearly impossible to answer. “Are there truths?” is one of these questions. Well, what is a truth? Going by the explanation from Google, truth is “the quality or state of being true.” Before going into this too deeply, there is one important factor I must mention called common knowledge. This type of knowledge is that of the majority and can be anything. Common knowledge can be things like humans need oxygen to be alive or Washington D.C. is the capital of the United States. Most of what we call common knowledge has also been verified as much as possible, like the idea that there are seven days in a week. We often define that kind of stuff as the truth. But, in philosophy, truth is not just simply a fact authorized by the public or a widespread claim. On the contrary, truth is more of a correct understanding of objective things and their laws. Currently, I think science is probably one of the most essential displays of truth.

In my mind, there must be more truths. Our thought and cognition is constituted by truths. The way that we can think is based on vast amounts of truth. If there is no truth, our ideas and thoughts would collapse because truth is the basis of our thinking. In other words, our thoughts are based on cardinal truths. Here is one example: when you are saying, “I want to eat something,” you are realizing the truth that you are hungry and you have the aspiration to eat, which sounds more like logic, but they are quite similar. Critically speaking, even in the circumstance that I say there is no truth, I have already accepted the truth that “there is no truth.” And, what are some examples of a truth? I would say that nature itself is a representation of truth. Nature represents two of the most reasonable phenomena, time and life. I cannot question the authenticity of these two things. It is not because I do not want to. I simply could not.

Still, in the philosophical region, I ask myself why philosophers bring up incomprehensible questions. It may due to the conflicts they had with their religious beliefs or they feel questionable about the world. Perhaps they were suddenly inspired by something. To not make this post too tedious, I found some interesting responses from a forum in regards to the question “Is there truth?”

  • “Absolute truth is incognizable in terms of a human being’s low compelling perspective. At most, human beings can only exclude a handful of things that are absolutely not truths.” – Blogger Liu Yang
  • “The truth is that I know that I know nothing at all.” – Blogger Passenger
  • “The truth that is said by my girlfriend is the only truth I know.” – Blogger YIIYG
  • “Dongfeng Ballistic Missile, Julang Submarine-Launched Missile, Tsar Bomba” – Blogger Xiang Long Deng Dai ing
  • “Love” – Blogger I Think You Lost Your Mind
  • “Truth is a described fact that is not contrary to objective facts such as the following things:

People will die if they don’t eat.

Nothing lasts forever.

Even the universe will perish. All things existing in the universe will naturally disappear.” – Blogger Ye Ban You Ren

  • “The world is always changing, changing is always definite, eternity is relative.” – Blogger Guang Ming Lei Luo

I still insist on my opinion of saying there must be truth. But, this post is not telling you to follow my idea or make some simple things sound really complicated. I personally just think that this question is interesting to explore. Is there such a thing as truth? If you are interested, please show me what you think about this question/paradox in the comments!

Editor: Luke Langlois

Undercover–Another recommendation for a party game.

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By James Zheng, with Expert Party Advice

When Editor Holden asked for submissions that “spice up everyday life,” James went back to party games and how to spice up your party life, or how to be the life of the party. (This joke was made by Ms. Zachik, not Holden, for the record).

I did a post about the Werewolves game, and, then, soon after I found more excellent recommendations for party games. The game I am going to introduce in this post is less difficult to learn and more entertaining to play.

Undercover, which is also called Who is the Spy, was generated from a game that appeared in a Chinese variety show consisting of guest interviews and gaming interaction. It became a really popular party board game, and then a game developer created the online version Undercover.

The recommended amount of players is five to eight with one moderator. The most significant part of this game is that the moderator needs to decide on a “major” word and a “minor” word and write them on the paper to hand out later to participants. The “major” word and “minor” word represent the identities of the players. The player who holds the major word is the “civilian”; the player who holds the minor card is the “undercover.” And, to decide what the major word and minor word will be, the moderator needs to find two words that have similar meaning. The words can be anything as long as they are similar. If the amount of civilians is no more than five, the amount of undercover will just be one.

The gameplay of Undercover has the same feature as the Werewolves game–players need to talk during the game process. The players’ ability to express themselves is an important factor in deciding the result of the game. At the beginning of the game, each participant is given a pre-written paper as their identity–civilian or undercover. Then, each of them has to describe what their word is or means. After everyone finishes the description, everyone has to vote for one person who they think is the undercover. When the person is out, the moderator needs to check if that person holds the major word or minor word to decide if the game is still on or finished. The winning precondition for the undercover is when the amount of undercovers is the same as the civilians.

Basic Gaming Rules and Hints:

  • The person who holds the minor word does not know that they are the undercover, so the only way to find out is to listen to everyone’s description to see if they are holding the same or different word, then to guess what the major word is to mask themselves.
  • You CANNOT put the word that you are holding into your description. A person’s description cannot be too short or abstract, but it could be long if the person wants to speak more.
  • If you are playing as a civilian, of course you don’t want to spoil your word too much for the undercover. But, at the same time, your description cannot be too short or abstract; you can be just a little bit specific or try to find the characteristic that the word has. Try to organize your language at a perfect length to let other civilians trust you.       

Depending on what words the moderator comes up with, the game can be played at different levels. Undercover is really easy to learn; the preparation is also pretty simple. Play with your friends and enjoy it!

Editor: Holden Hartle

The Lotus Flower

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Editor Makena challenged her fellow bloggers to consider Plants and/or Opinions. In James’s opinion, lotus flowers are the best plants.

By James Zheng, plant dude

Lotus flowers are a widespread plant around tropical and temperate zones in Asia. It is said that there were records of lotus flowers planted during the period of ancient China. Nowadays, some of the species are imported to America. The lotus flower is famous for its colorful appearance and a large diversity of species. In India and Vietnam, the lotus flower is the national flower, and it is recognized as a holy symbol within Buddhism.

Lotus flowers are categorized as an aquatic plant with the root under the water. Every part of a lotus flower can be really valuable. Its seed and root are abundantly nutritious as food, and the leaf can be used for making herbs. It is both edible and ornamental.

Lotus flowers have adapted to environments like shallow water, lakes, marshes and ponds. If there is enough water, the lotus flower could even grow in a tiny basin. Most lotus flowers have a strong reliance on sunshine, so full sunshine is needed during the growth period. They cannot tolerate growing under the shade. The artificially cultivated varieties are mostly used in parks and courtyards for ornamental purposes. I have pictures below of some showy species of the lotus flower in China, and they are given some unique nicknames.

  • “Icy tenderness.”
  • “The princesse dancer.”
  • “Haierfura”

All the above species are my favorite, yet there are still hundreds of species of lotus flowers you can find in the world. If you are interested, find the one that you like, and take care of it. Most of the lotus flowers have a really strong capability of adapting to the environment; you just need enough water and sunshine to raise it!

Plant and Opinions Editor: Makena Behnke

A Review of “This War of Mine”–Those Behind the War

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By James Zheng, Blogger & Gaming Critic

Are games just games? Are games just for entertainment? That’s what I used to think. But now I have a completely different answer ever since I found This War of Mine. People say that you can see the nature of yourself when you are playing games because your mind is fully involved in the gaming. This War of Mine (TWOM) is a reflection of yourself.

TWOM was developed and published by 11 Bit Studios, a game company located in Poland. It’s not a commonly known gaming company, and currently they have just reached about 100 employees, but this game was released five years ago. It was quickly nominated as the Game of the Year on Steam. I was impressed by this small but growing company.

Game critic Johnny Durn writes, “For soldiers, war is about victory. For us, war is about getting through.” TWOM is a realistic survival game. In this game, the background is set during a period of war, and you get to select a group of people to control in order to survive as long as you can in a shelter. Depending on the group, each character will have different abilities or professions–such as runner, scavenger, chief, etc., which determines their advantages and disadvantages. There are two time periods in the game. During the daytime, you get to organize everything in your shelter and make some useful tools. The most necessary thing to prepare is food for everyone, as well as making sure everyone has enough rest. During the night, characters have three actions to take: scavenge, sleep, or guard.

So, that’s a brief description of the gameplay. But why do I say TWOM is a reflection of yourself? Well… this game is really close to reality. Everything that could happen during a time of war in real life could happen in this game, but since most of us have never experienced a life in war, TWOM will give you a fresh taste of that.

More like a test of morality and humanity, this game exposes everything about war and tries its best to make the player become a part of it. In the game, your psychological state becomes the essential element. Many factors could lead to the collapse of your character’s psychological state; for example, they could become sad. When a player does not deal with this emotion properly, it will lead to negative actions and obstacles. For example, if a survivor steals private items from other shelters or kills someone, it could greatly affect their psychological state. But, here is something that could happen: food and medicines are important in this game, and they are extremely rare, so a player has to use them scrupulously. If the player is in a difficult survival situation and facing the choice to steal in order to save a teammate or kill someone in order to rob their shelter to keep your own shelter running, will you still adhere to your morality and humanity? Whether you choose to or not, your teammates will blame you for many reasons (survivors could start a quarrel or fight), and suddenly this builds pressure on you. However, there is never a right choice in this game since it’s a war after all, and you are either doing this for yourself or your team and you have to take the ultimate risk and pray for a good result.

The difficulty of this game is intermediate. Most of the time it depends on how many survivors you’re managing. Different from the common survival game, This War of Mine can really stress the player out because resources are so limited. A situation could become destitute any time, and there is always a dilemma in making decisions.

I STRONGLY suggest that you do not look at any walk-through to help you conquer this game. I want you to feel this game by yourself, completely. In the whole process of the game, you will learn many things that you could never learn from other games. It’s going to be a crucible for any player. The game borrows the words of Ernest Hemingway as its theme:

In the modern war, you will just die like a dog for no good reason.

Editor: AJ Patencio

Sources Reference: https://www.zhihu.com/question/26834036/answer/34292120

Review of Anime Charlotte

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By James Zheng

Charlotte was an anime that was first planned by two Japanese companies, Key and ANIPLEX, and finally released by P. A. Work. The script and characters were designed by a well-known writer named Maeda Jun. He already had plenty of outstanding works which are usually categorized as “moving” and “affecting.”

Within Charlotte’s story, in a fictional world where superpower holders exist, the hero thought he was the only superpower possessor and abused his power for his own purpose. When he encounters the heroine, his fate was changed.

(This paragraph may contain some spoilers.) Charlotte is absolutely one of the best animes, and  I strongly recommend it, but I want to give it a fair review. The initial part is very interesting and novel; the first episode attracts a lot of audience attention due to the superpower motif. However, I can say that the setting is just okay. The figure of the hero is too “conventional” and too much like the characters you can see in every anime. There seems to be no creativity in the hero’s personality, value, appearance, etc. In addition, the type of anime that sets school as a stage is too common. To make it particular or special, a writer and director has to put extra effort into designing characters and script. Plus, those early episodes give the audience a sense that it is going to be a story about daily life and then suddenly it jumps to a completely different topic; then, people are confused. I am not criticizing its quality, but I am sure that the director is rushing the story, which does crucial damage to Charlotte. Officials also announced that Maeda Jun’s scripts are too massive and need to be cut down a lot, which could explain why the storyline has such problems. It actually took them a long time to make thirteen episodes. What I’ve always believed is that it will be better to split a season into two seasons rather than to rush the plot.

Let me sum it up.

The storyline in later episodes feels scrawled; Maeda Jun puts the focus on the end rather than at the beginning; he was expecting to make a “boom” to the audience. But, he failed at this attempt. He puts his own affection into it, but the audience does not feel it. Well… even though he failed at this attempt, that does not mean the anime is awful or he is a terrible writer. My recommendation remains for Charlotte: see it. The only flaw that Charlotte has is the unreasonably rushed storyline. The characterization, for the most part, is extraordinary, and Charlotte creates a compelling story due to the efforts from character voice actors. There are transformations of plot in the later story which may seem too sudden and unnecessary, but without those details, the whole story would be completely flat.     

Watching anime has the same property as admiring artwork. I would not just see how the surface is bright and ignore connotation inside the story. I was quite upset to see how anime critics throw negative comments at Charlotte. At the same time, I was also glad that I was one of the few people who could really understand Charlotte.

The story of Charlotte is not ordinary.

Editor: AJ Patencio

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Installment #2 in our Aquatic Theme: What can be found in the deep blue sea? I don’t know. But, James does. –Aquatic Theme Editor Luke

By James Zheng

The ocean is probably one of the most mysterious places on the Earth since it’s a place humans still have not entirely explored. There are hundreds of examples of the mysteries of the ocean. And, some of them have a reasonable explanation, but some ocean mysteries remain elusive. In this post, I am going to introduce three of the strangest mysteries within the ocean.

No.1 Devil’s Sea:

This is also known as the Dragon’s Triangle. Like the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic Ocean, this is a similar triangular area in the Western Pacific Ocean off of the east coast of southern Tokyo in Japan. To get here, go south along the southeast of the Pacific Ocean at about 145 degrees east, then turn west-southwest; pass through the Ogasawara Islands, and then return to the Tokyo Bay of Japan along the northeast, which forms this triangle. There are many mysterious disappearances of ships and planes here. They left without a trace. What happens is that all radio contacts are abruptly interrupted when vessels approach this triangular area, and the ships that are lost have no wreckage that can be found afterwards. There is even more news that spreads that horrifies people: one marine radio center received the message from a ship saying, “The sky is open!” right before they lost radio contact. Over-exaggerated? Who knows?

No.2 Atlantis:

There are still so many myths related to Atlantis, one of the most mysterious ancient civilizations. It was said that the ancient Greek God Poseidon created this civilization. Some scientists say that Atlantis does exist, and that it was a real civilization thousands of years ago. Modern science has found that before the great floods (an unprecedented and destructive global flood happened a long time ago) there may have been a continent that was the most highly developed civilization on the Earth. In this global disaster, the continent sank into the Atlantic Ocean. Following this catastrophe, a large-scale earthquake and tsunami caused further damage. As a result, vestigial volcanic ashes covered the entire Mediterranean region in darkness for weeks. The earthquake is rumored to have been more powerful than 4,000 atomic bombs. For nearly a century, archaeologists have also claimed that they have found relics of this prehistoric civilization on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, which seems to confirm the hypothesis of Atlantis. So, where did the name come from? The name was initially given by Plato, and it is the name still used nowadays for this unknown civilization. In 2011, an archaeological team claimed that they had located Atlantis beneath the mudbank of southern Spain. In December 2013, a submerged pyramid of Atlantis was discovered in the western sea area of Portugal. It was possibly recognized as a relic of Atlantis. But, nevertheless, the existence of Atlantis is still a question mark.


No.3 The depth of the ocean

There is never an accurate answer given to say how deep the ocean is. It is way more complicated than you probably think. Humans may think that they have explored the ocean enough to know the Earth deeply, but among the vast Pacific Ocean, we might have just explored five percent of the deepest part. There is an estimation taken by scientists that the ocean might be ninety thousand meters deep; however, nobody has ever reached that deep and it is just an assumption after all. The maximum depth that humans have reached is 10,916 meters. Unfortunately, we have trouble going deeper. The water pressure will get more and more intense as you reach the bottom. Unless we have diving suits or a submarine that has an extremely strong endurance to the water pressure, the diver would certainly be killed by the overwhelming water pressure. One last thing: sunlight cannot reach the deep ocean. Human eyes cannot see anything and the creatures around there may be dreadfully unforgiving…

Sites Referenced

https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%AD%94%E6%B5%B7%E9%BE%99%E4%B8%89%E8%A7%92/15795153?fr=aladdin
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%BA%9A%E7%89%B9%E5%85%B0%E8%92%82%E6%96%AF/6238?fr=aladdin
https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1576299103450316638&wfr=spider&for=pc

Editor: Luke Langlois

https://www.thebirdonfire.org/2019/03/14/3383/

Werewolf–One of the Best Modern Party Games

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By James Zheng, Master Game Player & Blogger

What games do you usually play for entertaining a party? Normal answers will come out: Uno, Cards Against Humanity, Mario Kart, Blackjack, etc. We’ve played those games a thousand times. All of them are really popular but common, so common they bore you as you play them over and over again. There is an amazing game which would definitely bring up the atmosphere in a party.

The Werewolf game is really similar to a classic party game called the Mafia (Werewolf is actually generated from the Mafia game). They have the exact same setting on some points; however, the Werewolf game is more fun than the Mafia! Originally, when you look up the Werewolf game online, there is only the American style, which is also the initial version of Werewolf. When it spread to China, this game became truly popular and players added more contents to it. So, please notice that all the things I show you are partially generated from the Chinese-style Werewolf game.

Required factors to play the game include six to fifteen players and role cards. Ten or twelve is the best amount. This game must have a moderator during the whole game to direct the procedure. The role cards are decided by players according to the number of participants.

Gameplay part 1–There are two teams in the Werewolf game; humans and werewolves (which also applies to the innocent and the mafia in The Mafia). The Werewolf team has to kill all the humans while all the humans need to banish the werewolves. To achieve their goal, werewolves have to pretend to be the humans to avoid being banished so that they can eliminate as many humans as they can. In the same way, the humans have to find all the werewolves based on the flaws in their statements or any other factors.

Game setting–Everyone should get a role card before they start, and the moderator must be ready, then the game will begin on the first night. There are two rounds in the game, which refer to the night and the morning. Night is always before morning; it will keep rotating until the game is finished. An essential part of the game, during the night, is that the moderator has to tell everyone to close their eyes and remain absolutely quiet. The Lord card (a card which gives players special skills) and the werewolves’ card holders will be called by the moderator to take their action. Werewolves have to decide to slay a player every night. When it comes to the morning, the player who is killed during the night will be out of the game. Then, each of the players need to speak their thoughts individually. The time limit for speaking (30 seconds, 60 seconds, etc.) should be decided before the game begins. After everyone finishes their statement, they have to vote to eliminate a player. Then the player who gets the most votes will be out of the game as well; this movement is called banish.   

Role cards

  • Villager, belongs to the human team. They do not have special abilities, but they have to listen to everyone’s words, find the werewolves, and be active in voting to banish them in the morning.
  • Werewolf, belongs to the werewolf team. They will be called by the moderator, “Werewolves, please open/close your eyes” before/after they take action. Werewolves usually have 20 seconds to point at their target. During the morning, they need to act like humans and mislead them to banish other players beside themselves.
  • Seer, the Lord card belongs to the human team. When Seer is called by the moderator, he can see one person’s role (he can only identify whether that person is a human or a werewolf, so he does not know if that person is holding a Lord card or not).
  • Witch, this Lord card belongs to the human team. Witch is holding a cure and a poison. When called by moderator, he can only take one action each night. He can use a cure to revive a player who was slain by a werewolf or use poison to kill one player. Witch only has one cure and one poison.
  • Guardian, this Lord card belongs to the human team. When called by the moderator, Guardian can protect a player (including himself) from being killed by a werewolf. But, he cannot protect the same player twice in a row. By the way, the poison used by the Witch can penetrate the Guardian’s shield.
  • Hunter, this Lord card belongs to the human team. The Hunter can eliminate one player after he is dead. The only moment he cannot use his skill is when he is eliminated by poison from the Witch. When called by the moderator, the moderator will tell him if he can use his skill or not–based on whether he was poisoned or not.

Further tips and details

  • The player who is banished or out of the game in the first night will still have a chance to speak.
  • Only the werewolves know who their teammates are. Humans don’t know who their teammates are. And werewolves can say that they are human, and normally mask as villagers (since there are at least two or four villagers, it is hard to know which one is fraud).
  • To find the werewolf or to suspect someone, try to treat this game as a psychological game. If you find someone too nervous or too feeble, they might hold a werewolf card. Or, if you find someone who is speaking too much or too little, they will be questionable. You can always take a guess at everyone’s card according to their statement.
  • The core of this game is the Seer because nobody knows who other players are except the Seer. Only the Seer and werewolves have the ability to lead the teams. And the Seer has to share his or her information on the first day.
  • Each player has to be brave to speak out their opinion and tell others their identity, and be active in voting.

The Werewolf game is my best recommendation ever. It’s a very social game because you have to speak and communicate with each other to collaborate during the whole game. It’s also a really casual game to play with friends!

Editor: Makena Behnke

The Rise of Modern Esports

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By Esports Specialist James Zheng

Esports is the abbreviation of electronic sports. “Electronic sports” generally refers to the mode in which the competitor utilizes electronic devices to play against other competitors based on experience. And, the common manifestation of electronic sports is in gaming sports, where players play against others with a team or individually. Esports was nevertheless really unknown and thought to be meaningless back in the day. But, is it a waste of time?

The reason that I decided to write this post is due to the things I found out a few days ago that made me realize how the realm of esports is actually pretty fascinating. I was browsing on a live-stream website, and then I saw these different game league matches. There were games held on two platforms: mobile and computer. And, when I observed those matches, they were conducted decently and scrupulously. It made me feel like a game was not just a “game.” With millions of fans watching games’ live streams and watching conversations about the players, it gave me a sense that esports are cooler than I thought. These games included League of Legends (a multiplayer game released by Riot Games), Warcraft III, Overwatch, and Dota 2 (all released by Blizzard Entertainment), etc. It shocked me that the development of esports could be this successful and popular. Esports is an industry.

The abundance of esports is definite. Earlier in 2000, a South Korean company directed the first worldwide event in esport history–the World Cyber Game, which included more than twenty games in the competition. It was held worldwide until 2013 (it revived in 2019 again); it was given the title “Esports Olympics.” Around America and Europe, the Overwatch League is taking place. Cities can compete against other cities–just like the NBA. In like manner, The League of Legends World Championship annual tournament is probably the biggest event in the realm of esports. Once The League playoffs start, there will be more than thirty countries playing live stream matches. After seeing these examples of esport play, I completely changed my view towards gaming, professional game players, and esports!

However, is playing esports professionally a realistic dream for everyone? The first thing we know is that we normally just play video games for entertainment, and before I had that amazing discovery on live stream, I never thought that playing a game could ever be a goal. Sometimes I just thought it too impractical. In contrast, the occurring of esports had begun a few years ago. I have seen cases in which a teenager live streams and plays video games every day instead of accepting education in school to pursue their goal. There are circumstances that some of them succeed in the end, but very few. The vast majority of players eventually abandon the idea of earning money at esports. If you are a pro player, you do not know when there will be a new, better player to take your position. Likewise, you also need to worry about the future of your team. There are still so many experienced teams who have already played for several years. When your team encounters them, it will be extremely hard to survive. And the result is only going to be the dissolution of your team.

The undeniable fact is that esports has sustainable support from billions of fans. And, as far as I can see, there is indeed a tremendous potential possibility within esports and the love dedicated by fans and players to play, to develop, to earn, to win.

Editor: Holden Hartle

Review of Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne—An Old Game That Will Never Fade Away

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By James Zheng

Blizzard, which is known as one of the most famous game-producing companies in the United States, has always striven to design the best games out there. But, the major game I am going to introduce in this post was from sixteen years ago. Unlike an anime or a movie, a majority of games tend to easily become old-fashioned or hackneyed. They last for at most ten years since games are always being published incessantly; this process is like an elimination system. You pay for the new, and drop the old. Some games survive, though. And, one of the survivors is Warcraft 3.

First of all, let me give you a basic description of this game. Warcraft is a real-time strategy game. The purpose is just as simple as this: you engage in a war to conquer your enemy by rallying an army. And, when it comes to strategic games, you might think that they are usually complex or difficult because you have to play it smart and pay attention to a lot of details. But, the fascinating thing is that you can come up with at least a thousand tactics, simple or complicated, to play based on the diversity of units. Units, also known as minions, are the main force of your army. They all have different capabilities. Warcraft 3 also has a simple game structure. To start a game, you choose one of the four races (Human, orc, etc.) to bring into battle. Every race has their unique advantage. If you want to build more advanced buildings or recruit more powerful troops, the game would explicitly indicate what you need to do. The most attractive feature has to be the hero system, or champion system. You get to select a champion you like to lead with. All of these factors are essential to reinforce the replayability, and are the reason that the game has survived so long.


The love for Warcraft 3 seems to hardly decay, and it may just keep growing. Recently, Blizzard has decided to make a “reforged” version of Warcraft 3, which, ironically is the game they had already given up on ten years ago. There is only one factor, the most important element, that keeps this game alive–the creative choices of the individual player. It is very easy to use mods in Warcraft. In addition, players have designed massive amounts of maps and new modes to keep this old game running. You can play with your friends, or endlessly compete with online players. In the end, Warcraft 3 is a game that is much more deep than a simple strategy game.

You might think that this game is too old to play, but, as I’ve said, it is a game that will never fade away. Check out the new reforged version!

Editor: Luke Langlois