Board Game Review - The Castles of Mad King Ludwig

 A fantastic Eurogame that anyone can enjoy.

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Background

In 1873, King Ludwig II of Bavaria spent his fortune constructing some of the most elaborate and extravagant castles ever built to glorify the Bavarian culture. To this day, his castles are a giant tourist draw. His personal castle, Neuschwanstein was the inspiration behind Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty’s Castle” which remains a Disney icon to this day.

In The Castles of Mad King Ludwig board game, each player plays an aspiring builder; attempting to construct the castle that impresses both the world and the King the most (I.E. get the most points). The castles are built room by room and come into various categories. Rooms earn bonuses or penalties based on their proximities to other types of rooms. For example, putting a bowling alley next to a bedroom is a terrible idea for obvious reasons. Castles of Mad King Ludwig was designed by Ted Alspach, designer of the very well–regarded Suburbia. In fact, the game is quite similar to Suburbia only with much broader appeal and less bookkeeping.

Rooms also give immediate benefits when all of the room’s “doors” are connected to the castle (or closed off by another wall). Completed corridor rooms grant additional corridors, activity rooms grant extra points, gardens extra cash, food rooms give a free turn, and so-on.  There are also additional rewards for building the most of what the King likes, which varies game to game, and additional private rewards from bonus cards (which each player keeps separately).  One game, you might get extra points for every corridor. Another, you may earn points for every 10,000 you have. Finally, at the end of the game you also score points for each “depleted” room type.

Like Suburbia, rooms have variable prices and get cheaper over time. Unlike Suburbia, the base cost of each tile is determined by “The Master Builder” who changes each round. Any money spent to build a room goes to the Master Builder and serves as a major source of income.  This mechanic provides an interesting challenge to the Master Builder. They want other players to buy expensive items so they have to pay them more, but they don’t want to price things so high that the other players simply pass or settle for the cheapest building. 

So, what kind of player is this game for? Just about anyone really. That’s the beauty of the game. Mad King Ludwig is approachable to players who aren’t quite as big into complex, abstract Eurogames. Simultaneously, it contains enough complexity and elegance that the game is still enjoyable to the wooden cube loving eurogame fanatics who got bored of Settlers 15 years ago. 

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For example the mechanics are superficially very similar to Suburbia, only with a lot less pointless bookkeeping. At the end of each turn in Suburbia, your population (score) grows by an amount equal to its reputation. However, as the population grows it crosses various lines which reduce income and reputation, which can go into negative numbers. It’s possible to drive yourself so far into debt that you can’t really play any cards, which isn’t very conducive to game play. Finally, almost every building has its own special rule text, many of which have global affects based on how many of the buildings is in your town. This results in a player having to check every tile they’ve played every time they play a tile to make sure they aren’t missing some affect, and can get quite confusing and discouraging in the late game.

The rooms in Suburbia are clearly marked with points. Most rooms either give or subtract points based on what kind of room is next to them. The strategy for placing them primarily involves the bonus tiles and scoring rules, rather than specific exceptions on the cards. Once a player understands those basic rules, it becomes much easier to figure out how many points a given room is worth and how many points they earn at the end of the turn. It may still take novice players a while to get their score correctly, but usually they can figure it out after 2-3 games.

The theme also makes the game much more palatable to less experienced gamers as well.  “Hey, want to play a board game about a Mad King who builds crazy nonsensical castles?” sounds a lot more appealing than “Hey, do you want to play a board game about the establishment of the German Postal System?” It’s good that designers are starting to realize that, while theme doesn’t make a game good, it is still useful. Not everyone gets excited at the mention of a game with wooden cubes designed by Reiner Knizia.

The theme combines with the mechanics does a surprising job of creating a player-driven narrative. We had almost as much fun trying to justify the weird design of castles as we did actually playing the game. After several games, I noticed a pattern would develop for each player after a few turns. Either the player would develop a particular weird theme (“man, my builder must have weighed a ton! He’s obsessed with food!” or they form into this weird combination of rooms that has the player  creating their own stories to explain how the hell that happened. 

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In one weird game, I had a staircase down, then up and down, the up and down again from my Coach House, which had a horse and buggy  that could move about 2m out of the gate before it ran into a castle wall. Another player had a “guest” bedroom with once exit… leading down into a bottomless pit and a dungeon. Either that guest has VERY weird tastes or is going to have a very unfun stay. Another player had a maze of activity rooms (and nothing else) and said they were building Disneyland. Another player cackled insanely on their turns and proceeded to hunt up all the supervillian themed rooms (the Dungeon, the Secret Lair, the Panic Room and of course the Torture Chamber).

The desire to see the castle get built, regardless of who wins, allows Mad King Ludwig to appeal to a very broad audience. The elegant euro strategy elements are meaty enough to pique the interest of your boardgamegeek.com obsessed uber–gamer snob, while the theme, design and simplified book keeping make it a great opener for the party crowd. It’s a great opener.

Components
The Castles of Mad King Ludwig has a fairly nice, if not exceptional component box. The tiles are pretty enough, with detail that differentiates the individual rooms (while the easily coded color groups are simultaneously easy to identify as well). I particularly liked the castle shaped assemblable board. The box art (shown above) does justice to the famous castle it depicts, in my opinion.

Overall
I am always looking for games that are both fun to play and easy to introduce to novice players, and this one certainly qualifies. I can’t say for sure whether or not I will be playing this continually, but even after I get tired of it, I expect to dust this game off every few months whenever I need to introduce some new players to Eurogames. Highly enjoyable, this belongs in the collection of every serious boardgamer.

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Tips
When choosing initial bonus tiles, don’t keep ones that duplicate an imperial favor. For example, if the emperor is going to reward the person with the most bedrooms, it’s probably a bad idea to take a “bedrooms” bonus tile because everyone else will be going after that one. Pick something else instead.

Function rooms (which give bonus tiles on completion) are EXTREMELY valuable at the start of the game, because they you can adapt your playstyle to get rid of them.

Activity rooms are good to stack together. The penalties never affect each other.

Remember that tiles in demand (that run out during play) are worth 2VP each. If there’s only one staircase left and you already have 4, it might be worth it to build one just to get the 2 VP.

Food tiles give free turns. It can be useful to keep these unfinished until late game, or maybe when you are the master builder so you pay minimal cash to an opponent.

Your first or second turn should probably be spent building a staircase. Underground rooms come up infrequently and are highly sought after. It’s extremely amusing to be a master builder and have the only staircase: unless your opponent completes a food room, you can put the underground room at the lowest cost and grab it easily.

Avoid corridors like the plague, if possible. They are almost never worth it unless you are truly desperate for entrances to the castle.

Keep an eye out for what your opponent is building, particularly if you are the master builder. An inexperienced MB once needed some cash and let me have the Armory Room (+2 per Activity Room). The thing is, I had 6 activity rooms. Worse, I completed the room and chose to score it again as my bonus, soring something like 36 points.

Eurogame – Complex abstract strategy games with low player interaction, lots of complicated multifaceted strategies, and wooden cubes, usually from Germany.

By Marc Thompson
#KeepitNerdy

Tropico 5 Review: No tropical vacation

But still pretty sunny

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Tropico is a strategy nation building game in which you play El Presidente, “elected” leader of the titular vaguely Caribbean island of Tropico. You grow your island any way you want, responding to various nagging concerns of your citizens (they always want things like “food” and “housing” and ‘healthcare”), putting down violent rebellion, making insane amounts of money (and funneling it to your Swiss bank account).

 How you run your island is largely up to you. Tropico can be a vicious dictatorship, a socialist worker’s paradise or a capitalist haven of massive wealth. It is up to you how your island grows. Will your reign will end with an honored retirement at the age of 200 or so, a lost election, or a hurried dash off the island while perused by an angry mob?

And that’s just the sandbox mode. The campaign and scenarios let you go through a truly bizarre series of events involving time travels, llamas, the Illuminati, pirates and a truly distressing amount of Uranium in your quest to not screw up the world any more than it already is.

The game’s tone is (as it has always been) darkly humorous. Your adviser is a raging jackass. Actually, all the characters are raging jackasses as well as being obvious stand-ins for various historical figures.

As the scenarios develop, your president will gain the opportunity to increase his or her skill levels, as well as creating “heirs” with different appearances and abilities. Only one can be president at a time (obviously), but the others provide small global bonuses and can manage buildings to provide specifically limited ones. You don’t actually age in this game and your avatar doesn’t die (Tropican leaders are apparently ridiculously long-lived). But it’s nice to be able to swap out characters for a specific mission.

In Tropico 5 (unlike the previous games) you start in an undisclosed year in the colonial era, where you are a Crown representative of the King. You don’t have to worry about revolutions; however you are under a crown mandate, and if your time runs out before you declare independence; the game ends. You can extend your time in this period (and I recommend you do so) by doing little missions for the king or using the East India Company to import or export goods. Of course, you are strictly limited in options at the start of the game since it’s the 19^th century. 

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In fact, at the very start, you can’t even mine; your researchers haven’t even discovered shovels. Some sciency buildings in Tropico 5 provide research points that work toward technologies, which include new buildings, upgrades, edicts or constitutional changes. You are limited to technologies that make sense for the era – for example, you can’t develop nuclear technology until the cold war (since it wouldn’t make much sense for Tropico to develop nukes before the US)

When your population is ready, and you’ve researched a constitution, you can declare independence from the crown, either by paying cash or fighting an invasion. Once that’s done, you pick what rules your constitution will follow (I like Theocracies where only the Wealthy vote and all citizens are conscripted, myself) and the game advances to 1911, the World Wars era.

At this point, the game feels more like your regular Tropico. You have to get elected every few years, which requires the popular support of most people on the island. Unless you cheat. Of course, you can always declare martial law and cancel elections, but you’d better have the complete support of the military to deal with the inevitable revolt.

And of course, you have to make sure you don’t piss off foreign powers and have to continue to deal with an increasingly complex infrastructure. Managing a crown colony in the 19^th century is easy; trying to keep an island with a population of 1500+ inhabitants running is a nightmare.

And of course, to keep it interesting, there are specific missions and even an entire campaign which provides its own unique challenges. One mission may have you gathering resources to pay off a royal ransom. Another may involve you gathering a huge military force to fight off invaders. Another may involve you accumulating a truly ridiculous pile of money. Each mission can be won by completing specific goals in the missions that regularly appear, which keeps the game fresher than just letting the player control a single island.

The new campaign is, for the most part, pretty good, doing a good job of introducing you to new content and upping the difficulty over time, except maybe for the final mission, which I felt was quite a letdown (it was almost comically easy). One of the interesting changes about the new campaign is that you can be asked to take over previous islands. The practical effect of this is that if you manage to barely stumble into success, it’s possible to take over an island that’s falling apart, starts you with very little cash, and comes with a whole bunch of challenges you have to complete. Alternatively, it is also possible to spend extra time on an island and then have the next mission just sail by.

The problem I had with Tropico 4 was that it didn’t sufficiently change the series to justify a new purchase. It was essentially a prettier version of Tropico 3. Tropico 5, unlike 4, represents a change in the formulae, not making the same mistakes of the previous game, and I support the sentiment.

For one, the game isn’t as easy. Virtually every mission in Tropico 4 could be won with the same optimal strategies (my usual was nuclear test, humanitarian aid, set your farms to cash crops and build a rum factory, importing sugar if you need it). It also introduced experience, which even further reinforced the idea that you should keep doing the same thing.

Tropico 5, however, has the missions take place in different time periods with very strictly limited technology. The earlier the era, the less you have to use, but the less complicated things get.  It’s a whole different set of problems to deal with, and that really extends the life of the game.  It isn’t particularly hard if you’ve finished played a lot of the Tropico games, but it’s a nice change of pace.

The game isn’t without its problems. You no longer have nearly as much fine control over your docks, making importing all but the cheapest goods a nightmare. You might want sugar to go to the dock by your rum factories, but you can’t control that. I can understand WHY they didn’t want importing to be easy, but it feels like a step back in terms of control and design.

There is also a lack of NPC personality and thus faction personality. There’s only a few NPC’s in this one, and they speak less frequently. Also, Tropican citizens are a bit less one dimensional and don’t just pick one faction to follow blindly anymore. This provides far more realistic approval numbers and models support of your faction better, but you lose a lot of witty banter, and the factions don’t have as much importance. I used to hate the notice, for example that I had been branded heretic by the church. If I pissed off the environmentalists, one of them would come on the radio and complain about me, or might protest my mines. I’d know I’d pissed them off, and that’s missing here. 

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Summary 

If you thought Tropico sucks, 5 probably won’t change your mind. If you like the series though or want to give a new strategy game at try, this is worth picking up, at least at discount. It’s not fantastic, and the DLC is horribly overpriced at full cost (seriously.. $5 for a new building and a single mission you’ll do in under an hour?)

Call it a C+. Tropico 5 is an above average strategy game (at least for 2014). It’s not bad, but it’s not great, with a bunch of old problems still not accounted for and new ones introduced by the new features.

A Few Tips

Tropico 5
If you want to start with a better dynasty, try playing the first campaign mission a few times. Accept Kane’s reward as a Swiss Bank contribution, and pop new heirs till you get the ones you like. Finish the mission, save and load. You’ll have a bunch of level 3-4’s in no time!

The best initial skill is probably Cheapskate – getting huge rebates on EVERY building you put together is a huge advantage. Tycoon and Supervisor are both phenomenal. Inventor Environmentalist and Agent are all really useful. Financier, Celebrity, and General are very lackluster.

First thing I like to do on any mission, is build a second construction firm, just to speed things up. For colonial missions, concentrate on getting money and nothing else. Mines, logging camps and pig farms generate quick profits. Sugar farms, tobacco and cotton all translate into free money once you hit world wars with the right factory.

I prefer to pick mandate extension to any other reward. You can do an awful lot of building and population growth in a year.

As you expand, keep an eye on your docks and teamsters. It’s quite possible to wreck your economy by not having enough of these.

My favorite constitutional item, by far, is conscription. You have to use your high school workers to man the factories if you want to make money. The start of the world war era will stretch your educated population as you simultaneously develop factories, a military, and a basic social safety net.

If you get an inventor manager, put it on a farm for easy free early research.
Environmentalists and landlords, deployed on a church or cathedral running a community aid program, can even make shack housing quality acceptable for your first election or two.

Mines dry up, and sometimes even the most stable of economic sources will stagnate due to some labor shortage, traffic jam or whatever. Diversify your economy into different areas, and try and translate to money making that requires minimal traffic later on (offices, pharmaceuticals, tourism).

Have fun ruling your own little slice of paradise!

#keepitnerdy
Written by: Marc Thompson

TURTLES DE-EVOLUTION

                                               Mutated faces have ruined a classic hero

 

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“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, turtles in a half shell, turtle power!” If you were born in the 1980’s chances are as you read those words the song bellowed through your brain instinctively.

We grew up with the green masked turtle shelled hero’s through their television shows, movies and games in the 1990’s. Their appearance was kid friendly; their attitudes were relaxed, cool and suave while still able to kick some ass.

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When the 1990 film was released March 30 of that year, it was distributed by New Line and rated PG so the entire family could enjoy the film. As stated by www.boxofficemojo.com the films domestic total gross was $135,265,915.

If we compare that to the 2014 turtle movie released this past August, which was distributed by Paramount, it was actually rated PG-13, meaning not suitable for all family members yet its domestic total gross was $191,204,754.

So with the boring statistics out of the way, I need to point out how drastically the charming, surfer type turtles that we all knew and loved back in the 1980’s and 1990’s have turned into scary mutants that still fight evil and eat pizza. But their new character design over the past several years keep turning them into actual “mutants” rather than a hero we can bond with even at the age of four. Honestly, if my three year old daughter took a look at the 2014 version of a Ninja Turtle she would run screaming. However, she loves and I mean loves, the classic designed turtles.

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I have the classic set, all four turtles plus Bee-Bop and Rock-Steady, who even aren’t that scary looking and I bought them out of pure spite when I saw what the 2014 movie creatures did to the turtle’s faces! Where did their noses go? A classic feature for them and now they look like they are bulked up on steroids compared to 20 years ago. It just disappoints me on so many levels. Their mutation, so to speak was uncalled for, or so says me at least.

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I have even played the most recent Nickelodeon Nintendo 3DS video game and I enjoyed it, it kind of played out like one of the earlier version games, however, they look kind of square headed to me, but I can live with that. It is the newest movie that has ruined what a true Ninja Turtle means to me.

So I leave you with that thought and these photos as proof of this ridiculous and unnecessary transformation that has occurred. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the turtles, I just will never buy any merchandise because their new faces creep me out too much, but I feel I am not alone in this, am I?

#keepitnerdy

Written by: Leanne Delong

Game Review, Evil Within

evileithinwikia.com

You might be familiar with this game and its content since the same creator of the Resident Evil series-Shinji Mikami supplied his great mind as the game’s director.  The game was developed by Tango Gameworks and released by Bethesda Softworks. The game is available for both PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One consoles.

But that’s enough with the specs, let’s get right into the story base of this game. This puts you in the third person perspective and you take the lead as Detective Castellanos. All you know in the beginning is that you are going to the hospital where all the crazy just explodes into your reality. Without dropping any major plot twists and spoilers, EVERYTHING hits the fan and you are left in a world of despair trying to survive.  

This world gives you little to start with. It’s just one of those things where it leaves you wondering if you should run, hide, or fight while looking and picking up ANYTHING that may help you on your conquest to survive; so you can get the answers to your questions on what the heck is going on?!

 

evilwithinwikia.com

This game is brilliant. The mechanics of it could be very confusing at first until you are used to what is going, but I’m telling you, once you get used to one environment and the way of surviving it almost feels like things changed on you.  The environment, the monsters and the puzzles that just leave you screaming at your tv screen, because you are doing your best to play it “safe”.  

Even some of the boss battles or major events before clearing the stage will surely give you nightmares, or at least wishing you had a unicorn to tell jokes with before bedtime so you are less scaredy cat while lying in bed.  

Now one of the things I enjoy about this game IS the ever changing scenes. It almost feels like you are in a whole new game and if you think 2 chapters prior to where you are now you wouldn't believe it was. 

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Another thing that I liked about this particular survival horror game it does give you room to improve and give you skill sets to modify as you progress.  One of the items you randomly pick up are these green jars of goop or as I like to say “brain juice”, because when you find a mirror it will take you to a spot of the hospital where you are able to upgrade your weapons, ammo and abilities. This is also where you will be saving most of your game play and unlocking items in the morgue…morbid, I know but once you see the setting you will understand.

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Which if I give you any advice on upgrading on any skill set to upgrade first in the beginning it would be your SPRINT. Just trust me on this because there will be a lot of areas where you will rely on this less noticeable skill set and you don’t want to be huffing and puffing after 3 seconds while some big ole baddie comes up behind you and gives you a death hug.

Also while the main reason of going through each chapter is to take care of the big villain(Ruvik) who brought you into the world of Safe head Monsters and Floor Monsters that Death hug you from the floor, this game also allows you to get to know Sebastian Castellanos. Throughout the game you are picking up random notes or case files that give you and insight into his life. Which is such a sad story in itself if you have time to really absorb it in, but I love games that make you feel for the character you are playing as, like what drives him and how or why he is that way.

There is so much more to this game besides throwing bottles at water monsters and disarming loot crates. This game has a bit of depth that some survival horror games lack. The story is a powerful one since it has many tied into one. It leaves you thinking and it pushes the gears in your mind to see how well you react to certain aspects in this type of survival game.

If you want jump scares, brain inducing exercise, and the thrill of what is waiting for you to fight around that corner, then this game is for you.

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Take your time going through something like this. I don’t see this as a nonstop marathon of game play for the next 24 hours because then you will miss so many details for when you reach the end of the game it will leave you shouting at the screen because you won’t “get it”.

This is the type of game that if you do take your time you will be rewarded with a satisfactory end to a fan-frightening story and game. I give this 4 out of 5 Brain Juice jars!

#keepitnerdy

Written by: Sugs DeLeon

Game Review-Risen 3

Release Date: August 12, 2014

Reviewed For: PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Reviewed On: PC

December 8, 2014

google.com

Risen 3 is a game that gives you the liberty to indulge into a vast story. It’s an action based role playing game that allows you different combat experience. Be that magic or melee combat, all are found in Risen 3.

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Story:

In this game, you play the role of a nameless hero who is a pirate. In the search for plunder, he goes into the temple and fall prey to shadow-lord causing him to die. But he gets back to mortal form after a mysterious man named Bones resurrected him. He comes to know his soul has been separated from his body and he soon will become the minion of shadow lords. However, he can merge his soul with the help of factions and their powerful mages.

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Presentation:

This game doesn’t give you great graphical experience. It’s still decent enough to make the environment look gorgeous. The world is huge with different islands for you to visit. You discover many secrets on your way and collect hidden treasure that helps you build your character to face your final challenge. Different mystical and natural beasts roam the world to take you down. On my play-through, I discovered the world of this game to be more dangerous than its previous edition. It’s completely uncertain what awaits you in the next step of your journey. So, you better be prepared to survive.

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There are three different factions for you to join. Later, you lead them to come together as a strong unit. Though you have the liberty to join one faction only, each of their mages can help you cleanse your soul. Even if you don’t join them, the leader of the demon hunter faction teaches a unique spell that will destroy the gate to underworld located at skull cave.

There are many NPCs scattered in the world for you to communicate, sell/purchase, learn skills and magic from, and play side quests and challenges. Engaging in dialogue with them allows you to choose moral options. Choosing the good or bad dialogue will determine how close you are to becoming a minion of the underworld.

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Gameplay:

Risen 3 is an open world game that allows you to explore. Thousands of side quests are there for you to find and play in the order you choose. There is a significant change made in their overall combat system with the inclusion of magic.

 

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Combat:

Melee combat in Risen 3 is fluid enough and enjoyable. You can block, roll and counter your opponents to beat them. You can use a variety of weapons by either finding them from the world or purchasing from blacksmiths or creating one by yourself. If the sword is not your thing then go for shotguns and muskets.

Last but not the least; you also can use a handgun to shoot your opponent weak with a single key when fighting with swords.

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As I mentioned earlier, this game adds magic combat. You can learn many magic spells from mages of different factions. If you are lucky, you might find some spells while roaming the world. From turning into a parrot or to unleashing fire from the sky, all this and more you can use in Risen 3.

Though not in large scale it also has naval combat scenarios in different chapters of the game.

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Stealth:

Stealth skill is a major aspect of this game. It’s your best interest to learn how to pickpocket, crouch and the lock picking skill from this category early in the game.

Should you feel ashamed of stealing items yourself, you have monkey skill at disposal. Spawn a monkey and make it do your dirty work.

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Companion:

You have the privilege to ask one of your crews from the ship to accompany you while exploring. They have different skills, and each of them has a very distinctive way of helping you. For instance, Bones can heal you in combat and Jafar will loot the treasures for you that ensures you wouldn’t miss any of them.

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In addition, each of them will give you a different idea about an island that might help you understand the look of the Island before you anchor.

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Fast travel to Islands and in-islands:

Your ship allows to fast travel to Islands. But travelling to different places in the Islands is different. There are portals scattered in the Islands. You have to insert a crystal plate to activate it. Once activated, you can fast travel to other locations.

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Conclusion:

This game is attractive in its gameplay and vast world. All the features of RPG game are present in Risen 3. If you are a RPG lover, it’s certainly a game for you to choose.

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Breakdown:

4 of 5* Concept: Play as a pirate on a quest to retrieve back your soul and punish the person responsible for your death.

3 of 5* Graphics: Graphics of this game is not particularly enticing. I found the graphics to be average.

4 of 5* Sound: Dialogues in this game are pretty soothing. I loved the way people responded to a particular location differently.

5 of 5* Playability: Numbers of quests, learning skills and magic spells, discovering secrets, combating monsters, you will find them all in Risen 3. You have full freedom to choose your control scheme, and even a beginner can master it easily.

5 of 5* Entertainment: This game is a long adventure that grants you to discover different secrets. All in all this, game is very entertaining.

3 of 5* Replay value: Medium

                                                                         #keepitnerdy 

Written by Mohammed Sadman Shahriar(@MSSK91)

   

Review of Rabindranath Tagor’s short story “Leave”

Written by Mohammed Sadman Hahriar (@MSSK91)

Rabindranath Tagore, pioneer of Bengali short stories, has produced some magnificent work of art throughout his life. He contributed in all kinds of literary branches including poems, novels, and short stories. Among all his creations, his short stories created strong emotional attachment among readers.

This review is all about one of his most heart touching short stories. It is titled “Leave.” Tagore played the part of a narrator to describe the life of a boy who has been mentally tortured until his untimely demise. His name was “Fotik.” He was a fearless, wild, self-respectful rural boy who spent most of his time playing and performing his so-called mischievous deeds. As such, his mother is so worried and concerned about him. In a family without a father, he was supposed to take responsibility of the family (as the eldest of three brothers), but he showed disregard to his duty to the family.

One day, one of his maternal uncles from western Calcutta arrived at his place. His mother took her privilege to share her woes to her brother about her eldest son. Her brother offered to take Fotik away with him to the city. He assured that Fotik would be ensured of a quality educated life there and become a better man. Without a second thought, Fotik’s mother accepted to let her son go. Quite surprisingly, Fotik said yes too.

With a lot of excitement, Fotik reached the city with his uncle. His enthusiasm is soon shattered; his aunt considers him an “undesirable family increment.” His aunt was always disgraceful to him. He was prepared to do more than his aunt asked, yet he was insulted for not being sincere in doing his usual chores.

There was no affection and love for him there. He started missing his mother and the village where he had enough freedom to live like a king. Here, he was like a trapped bird dying to fly away.

Moreover, he was a terrible student at school. He was inattentive towards lessons. As such, he was being embarrassed and beaten mercilessly for not being able to prepare his daily study tasks. The situation got worse and his cousins started ignoring him as their family.

Soon his misery turned into fever. A nerve-wracking fever spread through his body. At that point, he felt he had to see his mother and set out for the village alone in burning condition. It was raining heavily that day.

He failed in his endeavor; he was returned back to his uncle by police, drenched and in poor health. In his broken condition, his aunt spit out inhuman words, “Why care for someone else’s son? Send him back home.”

Without further delay, his uncle summoned his mother. His mother hurried to arrive to her son. She immediately went close to him and started to cry out of motherly love, “My son!” In reply, Fotik faced his front to opposite side and asked, “Can I take my leave?”

At the end of the story, Tagore kept the fate of the boy unclear as he mentioned, “Short stories end with a never-ending result.” This means readers are kept interested and are left to assume with full freedom the fate of the boy.