Dean Ray Johnson ⚪

@boardgametextbook

Indie video game, music, and board game nerd. AuDHD. Dedicated rulebook hater. Author of Every Board Game Rulebook is Awful. www.youtube.com/@BoardGameTextbook boardgametextbook.com/EBGRIA.pdf

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Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jul 11

playing monster train 2 late? hyperfocused, but too sleepy to do math? try 3 to 4 apex imps 3 to 4 apex imps: an easy weekend luna hellhorned build stack them directly on the middle floor with your gravity you will certainly not regret stacking 3 to 4 apex imps

A screenshot of the game Monster Train 2. On one floor we have 4 Apex Imps, a Steelworker, the Luna Coven lady boss I forgot her name, and the Luna Coven thing that makes temporary moonshift spells. The back Apex Imp has 500 times 2 attack damage. The final boss of the game is dead in the face.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jun 27

You know what? These green chicken enchiladas from Ernesto's in Sealy, TX? Pretty damned good enchiladas! Seems like they use the chicken that they'd use in any other meal, and the green sauce hits pretty good. It's been a long-ass week. Nice to see a good Mexican shop next to my last delivery.

Chicken enchiladas covered in green sauce, white cheese, and sour cream, with rice and beans.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jun 20

I'm sorry, The Weather Channel, unpredictable and moody out there?

The weather channel hourly forecast showing thunderstorms likely from 10:00 to 12:00. It says: Today's Outlook, scattered storms possible today, high of 84, unpredictable and moody out there.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jun 19

Hanging out at work, paused the unloading while waiting for a strip of heavy rain to pass. Something about this metal bridge in the rain seemed like a nice shot for a still life photo.

A shot from the inside of a semi trailer, wooden floors, black plastic crates around the sides. A series of metal rollers curves into the back of the brick store wall in front of it. A metal fence blocks the edge of the dock. A gray, rainy sky is in the background above a passenger bridge and a parking lot.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jun 12

Huh, saw a black gecko with orange stripes and a blue tail. That's new.

Cement pavement, a small black lizard with three thin orange stripes and a neon blue tail hunting for something

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· May 28

While unloading the truck at the store today, I spotted this box of BLGT+ reading glasses, which I assume are for people who can't see straight

A box of reading glasses labeled BLGT+FOLD DIA 2.00-2.75

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· May 16

And to think they missed the chance to bring back the Hatsune Miku Secret Lair...

A YouTooz collectible figurine of Hatsune Miku wearing orange cat ears, orange mitts, and holding a drawing of Garfield the cat

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· May 7

Gonna hang onto this

Weird furry man in an eye mask asking "But who would do that in 2026?"

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Apr 17

There's something really funny to me about seeing a Hatsune Miku poster for sale at an American dollar store

Picture of a store with $5 posters, the poster rack is opened to an illustration of Hatsune Miku in front of a concert atage

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Apr 9

A post from the slay the spire subreddit by user BlueberryCharming775. Title is "The great part of being an artist is I can draw what I want and nobody can stop me." The art is a chunky round stone figurine based on the oddly smooth stone relic, standing beside a tall pointy metallic figurine based on the vajra relic. The user concludes by saying "yes this is yuri."

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Apr 6

Rolled credits on Slime Rancher 2 after a month or so of tinkering around, decorating a couple branches of the ranch, and getting lost trying to find the last (spoiler) thing. I think I'm going back in to hunt for 100% secrets. I think it's been a while since I wanted to 100% a game.

Screenshot of my cave in the Slime Rancher 2 cave. I've clogged up the cave with stone pillars and coral trees to looks messy and overgrown because I like not knowing where I'm going. I should probably have made a clear path between gardens instead. A couple phosphor-bat largo slimes floating around in the background.

Screenshot of my beach in the Slime Rancher 2 cave. I planted grass around the gardens to make it look like the water was getting out of the garden and getting some plants growing in the sand but I don't think I actually like the effect that much because the weeds are too overgrown. I do like how the ferris wheel and windsocks look on the overhead rocks. I maybe should have more beach lanterns and a row of swingsets instead of just dropping them in a few random locations. A couple pink-crystal slimes are hanging around looking hungry.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Apr 1

"This is not a mechanic. It shouldn't have been on here. It sucks to track. This is on James." @graham.loadingreadyrun.com @coachnelly.bsky.social Please make Nelson and James look at this simultaneously and tell us their reactions.

Nelson and Wheeler of LoadingReadyRun in front of a tier list of Magic mechanics, where they've just put gravestorm in the F tier

A new magic the gathering card called Ominous Harvest, cost 2 black, sorcery, gravestorm (when you cast this spell copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard from the battlefield this turn), target player draws a card and loses 1 life

DOES HE KNOW? meme, as if James knew that Gravestorm was coming back

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 22

@mikerayhawk.bsky.social I'm gonna use this as an Elf on the Shelf

Screenshot of the Lego subreddit with a picture of a Lego statue of Yoda, which has beady piercing eyes. The poster says "Officially announced. The nightmare fuel eyes are real. Thought the post was a joke when I saw it. April release."

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 22

Flying is a rough experience even without the 90-minute line for check-in. But I caught some pretty cloud cover over Houston this morning.

Picture of an airplane wing over a thin layer of puffy clouds covering the entire horizon, and a light blue sky in the background above it

Picture of an airplane wing over a thin layer of puffy clouds covering the entire horizon, and a light blue sky in the background above it, with a lens flare from the rising sun

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 18

A post from the slay the spire subreddit with a satire of the recent Nvidia DLS5 posts. The left side says DLS5 OFF and shows the giant head boss. The right side says DLS5 ON and shows the head of Voldemort. The reddit user says "I think this was funnier in my head lol"

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 17

• Tax prep companies are evil rent-seekers • Corporate pop jingles are cringe • Advertising like a kid's cartoon is manipulative This TurboTax commercial is my archenemy

A YouTube ad showing cartoon pop singers dancing across a red backdrop and singing about how TurboTak helps roughly 37% of filers qualify for free federal tax income filing

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 16

The cat is screaming at me for attention. I lay down in bed, pick her up, set her on my chest, hoping she'll shut up for a while. She walks over to my legs and lays down on exactly one thigh. Number one, cat, what are you doing? Number two, you are chunky and that is all your weight on one leg???

A thick black cat facing away from the camera while loaded up on a single leg in green plaid lounge pants

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 14

One thing that sucks about the low-sodium diet: I can't really get chicken fried steak for comfort food anymore. So I tried making my own. The texture was pretty good, but without salt, it just tasted like flour. Not awful for a first try but needs more flavors. 🧵

Three slices of chicken fried steak on a paper towel on a plastic plate

Chicken fried steak and small white potatoes on a plastic plate

The same chicken fried steak and otatoes with cream gravy

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 9

I'm not sure how I should feel about Universes Beyond, as someone who doesn't actually play much Magic anymore, but I gotta give them credit for making a card with sincerely thrilling artwork that made me immediately think "FUCK YOU" the first time I saw it

A Magic card titled "Electric Seaweed", featuring a ninja turtle simming through a group of pink leaves and reaching for a bomb. This is a reference to the swimming level of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game for the original Nintendo 8-bit system.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Mar 5

I haven't been on tumblr in years but apparently I'm still pretty tumblr-brained because I saw this new Macbook and my brain refused to let me do anything else this morning until I made this photoshop

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Feb 27

"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.

The cast of mystery science theater 3000

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Feb 24

I really should not read reddit in the morning if I don't want to get angry in the morning.

California Governor Gavin Newsom says: No doubt that the Democratic party needs to be, dare I say more culturally normal. I believe that. Less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity politics. More focus on table top issues, things that really matter.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Feb 9

I thought I had finally burned out on Survivors games, but oh no Deep Rock Galactic Survivors is on mobile and is pretty good so far. Something about "Survivors but you need to stand in specific places sometimes" is just enough to get the dopamine flowing again.

A red-haired scout dwarf from deep rock galactic survivors holding a gold hammer

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 30

I usually don't directly comment on this stuff. I'm not the target of right-wing harassment, and there are better, more active voices that you should listen to. But in this moment I do feel like someone needs to ask "what the fuck did you just say"

Sam Healy says: Someone posted on Facebook last night, "How that boot taste, Sam?" My reply is simply, "It tastes like freedom." Ever since I made the decision to step away last night while sitting in church...

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

4. Los Bitchos • Talkie Talkie Surf Rock • Difficulty: Medium 3. Remi Wolf • Big Ideas Pop • Difficulty: Easy 2. potsu • STAR-CROSSED Lo-fi Jazz/Hiphop • Difficulty: Medium 1. Marigan (label compilation) • PSYAZI Psytrance / Hardcore • Difficulty: Niche

4. Los Bitchos • Talkie Talkie
Stop me if you've heard this one... Four women walk into a bar: an Aussie guitarist, a Swedish bassist, a British drummer, and an Uruguayan with a keytar. They decide to make surf rock instrumentals with bits of latin folk music and 80s Bananarama mixed in. This is the kind of band you would invent for a sitcom where a pretentious music snob says "It's Spanish for 'The Bitches,' you wouldn't get it." But it's four musicians playing perfectly off each other, with an unspoken sense of humor and a bit of hipster irony, and it's the coolest shit in the world.

3. Remi Wolf • Big Ideas
I'm not embarassed to love obnoxious hardcore techno. I'm not embarassed to love pretentious jazz and artsy EDM. I'm embarassed that my number 3 album is so HORNY. I don't mean like "We're the hottest people in the club" horny. I mean like a lyric that's literally "You're a bull and I can't help but saying 'Toro! Toro!'" There's a ton of variety here, a tour of different pop styles from funk to fusion to Lilith Fair pop and lots of stuff in between. The rhythm sections are thick and groovy, and the chorus lyrics are earworms. And even when Remi is introspective and worried about the aftermath of her hedonism, it's always goofy and playful. I'm a cynical aromantic, and even I gotta smile at this shit.

2. potsu • STAR-CROSSED
I feel like potsu does lo-fi jazz/hiphop like Caravan Palace does electro swing—like they're the only people in a lazy genre putting any work into it. I first heard potsu in a listener-request music stream, and I was immediately struck by the actual COMPOSITION in the beats, by the lack of static loops. potsu's latest album is a string of jazzy grooves, with jazz fills and solos on multiple instruments, and a few guest rappers that spit low-key rhymes about how they can't keep maturing and improving until they get rid of the toxic people in their lives, saying "fuck you and fuck all that". I'm surprised this album made it to number 2, but I love lyrical hooks, groovy beats, and solos played on actual instruments, and this was the only album that hit everything I wanted this year.

1. Marigan (label compilation) • PSYAZI
As I re-listened to my best-of-year list, I kept moving this album higher up the ranking in disbelief. This nerd shit is my favorite album of the year??? But this was my only 10-out-of-10 album this year (STAR-CROSSED comes close). My other favorite albums had low points or lacked variety. This compilation is nothing but bangers all the way through, with each artist starting from the psytrance groove and adding their own flavors—some tracks have dark distortion, frantic NRG arpeggios, dubstep drops, footwork breaks, or dance club vocals. This album is the reason that I love the far east hardcore scene so much—it's effort, genre-blending, and creativity that I don't find anywhere else. I only apologize for it a little.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

8. Tigran Hamasyan • The Bird Of A Thousand Voices Prog Rock / Fusion • Difficulty: Hard 7. Caravan Palace • Gangbusters Melody Club Electro Swing • Difficulty: Easy 6. Yasmin Williams • Acadia Bluegrass • Difficulty: Medium 5. Floating Points • Cascade Techno / House • Difficulty: Medium

8. Tigran Hamasyan • The Bird Of A Thousand Voices
This instrumental album tries to wordlessly tell a Gilgamesh-like epic of a hero on a quest for a macguffin. Like, the first track is called "The Kingdom" and plays huge, sprawling arpeggios and frantic drumming to demonstrate the grand majesty of the setting. The second track is called "The Curse - Blood Of An Innocent Is Spilled" and starts with a soft, suspenseful piano that builds into a discordant mess of chaos. I only saved about half of the tracks to my favorites lists, but the less exciting tracks seem necessary for the narrative, like how an action movie can't be nothing but fight scenes. It's epic and thrilling and there's nothing else like it.

7. Caravan Palace • Gangbusters Melody Club
The vibes here are like walking through a crowded city, hearing music drifting from apartment and car windows—lonely and wistful but optimistic and energetic. And it has all the flaws of every other Caravan Palace album. "Mirrors", the standout single, buries the vocals underneath a basic snare drum beat—and it's one of the biggest earworms of the year. The lyrics often fail to rhyme or connect to the beat—and they're always fun and accessible. I wish there were more than a couple bangers, as the album keeps drifting into low-key grooves—and most of the low-key grooves are beautiful little dreams. There are good reasons why this album is on no other critic's top 10 list of the year, but I was already in the tank for Caravan Palace, and this album didn't change my mind.

6. Yasmin Williams • Acadia
Williams is a guitar picker with a maxed-out dexterity stat. I first saw her on her Tiny Desk Concert, where I spent the whole time thinking "how is she DOING that." This album is a series of instrumentals with a big cast of guest artists, including tight fiddlers, dreamy vocalists, and a house DJ with a surprising amount of restraint. The vibes are like doing psilocybin on a mountainside, connected to nature while fully mellowed out and drifting off with the melodies. I don't get lost in the pure skill of a musician very often, but this album feels like I'm watching a magic trick.

5. Floating Points • Cascade
I'm gonna call this PDM, short for "pretentious dance music." There's no lyrics here, but something here makes me imagine a DJ who thinks he's better than you because his dance music is """"smart"""". Each track is a progressive collection of ambient and techno synths, constantly building and changing, slipping from jagged to smooth and calming to bouncing and all back again. All of the pretentious indie music critics had good things to say about this album, and yeah, I can be a bit pretentious sometimes, too.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

12. LustSickPuppy • CAROUSEL FROM HELL Rap / Hyperpop / Hardcore • Difficulty: Dark Souls 11. BOLIS PUPIL • Letter To Yu Artpiece Dance • Difficulty: Medium 10. CHAII • Safar Rap / Pop / Dance • Difficulty: Medium 9. Meth Math • Chupetones Hyperpop • Difficulty: Difícil

12. LustSickPuppy • CAROUSEL FROM HELL
Arrogant, too-fast-to-decipher rap lyrics buried underneath obnoxious-on-purpose, hellishly distorted hardcore smash beats, demanding that you lay down and worship the venomous monster seated atop several tiny-length shitposts. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to like this. Maybe NOBODY is supposed to like this. (Wait, did I hear about this from Fantano???) But this is the kind of effort and creativity that I wish existed more in the American hardcore EDM scene. I must've really fucked up my music preferences at some point that I let this album grab me so hard by the collar.

11. BOLIS PUPIL • Letter To Yu
A Belgian musician with Chinese heritage visits China after his mother's death, and he makes an EDM album about the experience. The tracks feel like getting lost in a city, like it's the cheesy jingles of commercials, the thump of kids overloading the subwoofers in their cars, and the random bits of dialogue from the people you pass, all mixed into a bespoke dance track. A few songs have lyrics addressing the feeling of being in a place that you should know by heart despite knowing so little about it. It's touching, thoughtful, and surprisingly easy to dance to.

10. CHAII • Safar
This is the usual sort of "I'm a bad bitch" modern female rap album, except that the singer grew up in Iran and wanted to mix that modern rap sound with Persian beats and melodies. Most of the songs are 12/8 triplet beats stuffed with hand percussion and punctured with lyrics that spit tightly onto the beat while bouncing all over the time signature. Some of the songs have a single verse at the front, then spend the next few minutes just repeating the hook and playing with the beats, and the hooks and beats are so damned good that it works. Please try blasting this out of your car speaker.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

16. Little Simz • Drop 7 (EP) Rap / Techno • Difficulty: Medium 15. Keygen Church • Nel Nome Del Codice Castlevania Prog • Difficulty: Medium 14. Callasoiled • EMTE Techno • Difficulty: Medium 13. Charlotte Wessels • The Obsession Metal • Difficulty: Easy

16. Little Simz • Drop 7 (EP)
This is a garage rapper who's getting a lot of buzz lately, but this short album might lean more into the EDM production than the rap. The verses sometimes fall apart to become vocal samples for the chunky techno, freshened up with Brazilian rhythms and sampled percussion, then naturally swinging back into playful rap verses. The worst I can say is that the album seems to end just when it gets going, but I love what I got so far.

15. Keygen Church • Nel Nome Del Codice
I listed the genre as "Castlevania Prog", because that's what it is. It's haunting pipe organs and latin chorales matched with sampled metal guitars and double-pedal kicks, seemingly created to convince Konami to let the guy produce some video game soundtracks (and since then, he's produced music for a few indie games). The composition can sound a little cheap and samey here. I may have scored this album in the top 10 if it used real guitars, and it was hard for me to pick a favorite moment out of an extended playlist of similar songs. But this is peak nerd nonsense, and I can't help but think FUCK YEAH every time it comes up on shuffle.

14. Callasoiled • EMTE
I found this album from the artist's work on compilations of far east hardcore, but this album is more like something you'd hear on a Pure Moods compilation between Enya and the X-Files theme. It's drifting and ambient, full of reverb and supporting melodies hiding under the surface, but with space-filling bass and kick drums. The tracks are titled after natural phenomena like "cell" and "to sky", suggesting solitude and meditation in dark, unseen spaces, with a lot of effort in the flowing, evolving composition.

13. Charlotte Wessels • The Obsession
This album is led by a siren-voiced woman cooing and howling over haunting tales of longing for connection and the failure of old loves. It's soft and romantic and backed up by thrashing guitars and heavy drums. That's a combo that sounds gimmicky in the wrong hands, but the singer and band know how to play off each other and give each other space. It's usually not my kind of thing, and some of the songs don't land because the lyrics are too generic. But it's less thrash and more accessible, like late-90s Metallica, and some of the lyrical hooks are clever and thrilling. I'm surprised at how much fun I had with most of the album.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

20. No Mana • I Contain Flashing Images House / Techno • Difficulty: Medium 19. Omar Souleyman • Erbil Dance Pop / Dabke • Difficulty: Medium 18. Connexio (compilation) • ARTIFACTS:ATMØSPHERE Fantasy EDM • Difficulty: Niche 17. Ibibio Sound Machine • Pull the Rope Disco / House • Difficulty: Easy

20. No Mana • I Contain Flashing Images
I was listening to a dance compilation from the Canadian label Monstercat, trying to find some American beats that I could get into (is western hardcore all so lazy or do I just not know where the good stuff is?) No Mana stood out on the compilation, and his solo album surprised me. His tracks were formed like standard club dance tracks, with some basic boots-and-pants beats and "I love to dance!" lyrics. But some harmonic lines seem imported from low-res chiptunes, spacy synthpop, and dark oldschool techno. This feels like an album that I could recommend to dance club normies AND rhythm game nerds, and that's a solid accomplishment.

19. Omar Souleyman • Erbil
It's fun to stumble onto a unique EDM sound, only to find out it's some guy with millions of YouTube views who's toured the world and collaborated with multiple popular producers. Souleyman's backstory is that he was a wedding singer in Syria who ended up adding synthesizers to the local acoustic sounds. Imagine a swinging, frantic Middle Eastern flute solo, but quickly tapped out on a squeaky electronic keyboard. I read a review of this album that said the singles are better on their own than together, because the beats and riffs tend to blend together, and I kinda agree with that. But when the album hits, it's a blend of accessible club dance music that's way outside of the American and European mainstream, and it can hit hard as hell.

18. Connexio (label compilation) • ARTIFACTS:ATMØSPHERE
You know when you're watching some cheap isekai anime, where some modern hero has fallen into a fake Tolkein setting and needs to save the universe, and the soundtrack needs to highlight the mix of high fantasy with modern problem solving, so it mixes tender, nostalgic orchestral instruments with dramatic, synthetic beats and arpeggios? Yeah, this is an entire album of that. It's a little more cringe than my usual niche EDM selections, but the artists sometimes add heavier jungle and dubstep beats to counteract some of the cringe, and it's got enough effort and production values to just make it feel good.

17. Ibibio Sound Machine • Pull the Rope
I've seen other house EDM acts that pull beats from old disco and funk, but this album seemed like someone took the classic rap tracks of Grandmaster Flash, pulled out their sampled beats, and then re-engineered the original house music out of them. There's an urban block party vibe to this album, with the vocals doing a sort of call-and-response with a hidden audience, dropping sampled horns and Casio keyboard riffs around it. The beats are a little thin sometimes, but it's all warm and breezy.

Dean Ray Johnson ⚪@boardgametextbook· Jan 11

24. Justice • Hyperdrama House • Difficulty: Medium 23. Ardolf (various artists) • Dungeonbound : Conquest Fantasy EDM • Difficulty: Niche 22. Jamie xx • In Waves House • Difficulty: Easy 21. Teddy & the Rough Riders • Down Home Country • Difficulty: Easy