READ & REVIEWED: Tacklebox & Better Strangers

By Sharang Biswas

To anyone with more than a passing interest in games, the term “game mechanic” is likely a familiar one. Chances are their internal definition of the term falls somewhere along the lines of “it’s something the rules let you do in the game”.

Since the very beginnings of the field of game studies, scholars have been trying to define the game mechanic. What it is you do is not as clear-cut as one might think. In his 2022 book THE WORLD IS BORN FROM ZERO, games scholar Cameron Kunzelman spends a significant chunk of time interrogating the various definitions of game mechanics. Is Hunicke, Leblanc, and Zubek’s take, “the various actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context”—from their influential 2004 paper “MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Games Research”—too broad? Do Zimmerman and Tekinbaş differentiate too strongly between a verb a player engages in, and the thought that goes into the verb? 

Ultimately, Kunzelman makes his position very clear about what he considers to be a game mechanic: “If we reduce these interactions to mere verbs or the rote physical tasks that allow them to take place,” he writes, “we lose the actual description of what is happening in the intentional interaction.” The strategic thoughts a player makes before making a move, the outcomes that they predict might occur, the fiction that an action represents in the mind of a player—to Kunzelman, these can all constitute a game mechanic.

I start with this background discussion because the two subjects of this review, TACKLEBOX by J. Walton and BETTER STRANGER by Tyler Crumrine arguably employ speculation as their core game mechanics. There’s no random number generation, no resource management, no map drawing. Yes, there are cards, but the act of drawing them feels wholly peripheral to the experience. In both games, the most exciting and dynamic things happening during the game take place entirely in the privacy of your own head.

Tacklebox

“This is the truth,” begins the introductory text to two-player, card-based larp TACKLEBOX, “you are just a pair of friends, lovers, or family members out in a small boat together fishing.” 

To an outside observer, the game is just that. They’ll see two players sitting side-by side or back-to-back, chatting about the weather or the landscape, occasionally venturing into more personal matters. Sometimes (“whenever you like it or when it seems appropriate”, according to the rules) a player might voice that they need to get something from the tacklebox. They will then draw a card, take a minute to read and internalize it, and then get back to chatting. Or not: “It’s also okay to have long stretches of silence,” the game reminds players. “Fishing often involves being quiet and meditative, even when other people are there.” If conversations ever get dramatic, it tends to be the small, personal dramas of ordinary folk.

From my perspective as a player, though. Something quite different is occurring. The rules end with this mysterious instruction in bold typeface: “Whatever doubts or concerns you might have internally, try to continue acting as if you are just two people fishing.” Because each card drawn changes the world of the game for the player who drew it.

It might be a subtle change. The card titled “Irregardless”, for instance, states, “You hate to admit it, but you really think your companion is messing up their life…How will you try to convince your companion to get their life back on the right track?” The card “Ossify” reads, “You betrayed your companion in a small but meaningful way…how has this small betrayal changed your relationship?”

The change might also be quite dramatic: “You are a world-famous Belgian detective…and you have good reason to believe that your companion was involved with a terrible crime,” reads the card “Cozy”. Or world-shaking: “You and your companions are not distinct beings but are aspects of the same cybernetic consciousness,” states the card “Elixir”. Some cards are even stranger: “While you hold this card, answer everything your companion asks truthfully for yourself as the player, not the character,” instructs the card “Pellucid”.

What results is some of the most complex acts of roleplaying I have ever encountered. Remember, I, as a player, must attempt to maintain the veneer of golden truth: we are just two buddies out fishing. So I, Sharang, might be roleplaying a priest of a forgotten cult engaging in an esoteric, lake-based ritual, who is himself roleplaying an ordinary dude named Robin out fishing with his friend. Every action I take, every word I utter, must simultaneously maintain the fishing truth while furthering the cult-truth.

And all I get from my friend are responses completely appropriate to a simple fishing trip. When he says, “I really like it here!”, I have to parse this through layers of meaning in order to simultaneously continue the conversation as two friends and as partners in our cult-ritual (which is of course, the only deeper truth that I know, with no access to my friend’s cards). 

Ultimately, the core of the game resides in the strange narrative knots and loops within my own head, my co-player merely acting as a foil for my thoughts. It’s a weirdly non-solo game where the essential play is solo. It’s heady, mind-bendy stuff, perfect for people who are interested in experimental roleplaying games, or fans of Game Studies scholarship (Gary Alan Fine, would, I feel, squeal with excitement at this game).

For casual players, or those looking for more concrete experiences, TACKLEBOX might fall flat. Some of the prompts are quite mundane, for instance, and you might go through a whole game never seeing something more exciting than the fact that you once lost an important object near the lake. The card about catching a weird fish is a little lackluster, for instance, lacking the complexity and punch delivered by some of its sister-cards.

And then there’s the question of what you do once you draw your second, or third card. Does your new card replace the first? Or are both now true? The rules take a laissez-faire approach; for a player seeking a structured experience, they might be maddeningly wishy-washy: “There’s no right or wrong way to let the cards influence you…”

Ultimately, TACKLEBOX is the quintessential experimental game—rough edges and all—which questions the nature of roleplay, challenges our capacity to speculate, and perhaps even explores deeper ideas of identity and social performance. For those willing to go on a strange, introspective ride, it’s a wild time. But it might not be for everyone.

Better Strangers

BETTER STRANGERS pairs well with TACKLEBOX in that the latter is also a game about altering truths about the world, but again, entirely within the confines of your own imagination. A solo RPG, (without no journalling or even writing of any kind involved, I must add) BETTER STRANGERS is about people-watching. Essentially, the game codifies and adds pre-written prompts to those moments we’ve all spent on park benches, bus stops, or subway cars, imagining the lives and adventures of strangers we spy. 

“All you need is a figure in view…and this deck of cards,” the rules instruct. From there, you draw a card, pick a stranger, and answer a prompt on your card about them. Each card holds two prompts. Those in bold apply to new strangers, those you haven’t already developed with stories. Prompts in italics are meant for repeat strangers, those about whom you’ve already answered a prompt. “How do the italic prompt’s new details expand the narrative or identity you’ve invented for them?” the game asks you to keep in mind.

The two types of prompts adds an interesting layer to a classic folk game, but one that BETTER STRANGERS could have made fuller use of. Often, the choice between which prompt is bold and which one is italicized feels arbitrary. For instance, one card holds the two prompts “This person will talk your ear off about a specific passion of theirs—what is it?” and “This person is very tired of being asked about something—what is it?” There’s no real reason one of these should apply to a new stranger, and one should not. 

Most of the prompts themselves also felt a little staid, a little tentative. One affordance of a game played entirely on your own is the wild journey you can let your imagination take you, without fear of judgement. Prompts such as “This person owns a pet—what does their choice in per say about them?” or “This person is here thanks to a strong recommendation—whose opinion do they trust?” invite simple, sometimes one-word responses, easily answered, easily forgotten. 

In her landmark book HAMLET ON THE HOLODECK, scholar Janet Murray differentiates between “additive” and “expressive” ways of working with media forms. The latter, she argues, considers the particular affordances of a medium and tries to stretch the storytelling potential of the form using them, while the former, while still capable of producing good work, simply goes along with it.

Games like DREAD and STARCROSSED, for instance, take Jenga (or “tumbling block towers”, to use a copyright-free name) down fascinating, compelling avenues. XENOLANGUAGE does wild things with the concept of Ouija-board. Upcoming game VIOLENT DELIGHTS promises to add new layers of Shakespearean narrative to a chess board, while LET THESE MERMAIDS TOUCH YOUR DICK MAYBE repurposes those floppy jelly-hands from our childhood towards delicious intents. Expressive forms of media. 

BETTER STRANGERS, takes a cool premise—what if we made a game about people-watching?—and though providing a perfectly playable, enjoyable game, does little to add to the experience, to provide a truly memorable play session. The expressive, speculative potential of quietly observing strangers and crafting intriguing stories for them is largely ignored. Murray might call this an “additive” way of doing design. Nothing terrible—but nothing exciting either.

The premise of BETTER STRANGERS brings to mind lazy, sun-dappled afternoons, or quiet, interstitial moments between journeys. It’s core idea invites us to paint the world with rich undertones and add background music that might delight and startle. Much of the colour however, will have to come from the player themself. The game—cute, functional and pleasant while it may be—struggles to inspire the imagination via its own merits alone. 

Get Tacklebox and Better Strangers together in the our exclusive Tacklebox & Better Strangers Bundle

Sharang Biswas has won two IGDN awards, four Ennie Awards, an IndieCade award, and a Golden Cobra award for roleplaying games, as well as the Brave New Weird Award for fiction. He has showcased interactive works at institutions such as The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, the Toronto Reference Library, and The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. He has worked on games such as Avatar: Legends, Pathfinder, Vampire: The Masquerade, Spire: The City Must Fall, Moonlight on Roseville Beach, Jiangshi: Blood on the Banquet Hall, and Dungeons & Dragons Live, as well as boardgames including Holi: Festival of Color, Mad Science Foundation, and Sea of Legends.  His fiction and poetry has appeared in Lightspeed, Nightmare, Augur, Strange Horizons, Baffling, and more. He is the co-editor of Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games (Pelgrane Press) and the author of science-fiction novella The Iron Below Remembers (Neon Hemlock Press). Sharang currently teaches games at the NYU Game Center and Fordham University.

© 2025 Tabletop Bookshelf