labyrinth

Happy Wednesday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here, and today, our writers share what they’ve been watching over the past month. Feel free to share what you’ve been watching over the past month because we’re all part of the Geekly Gang. I’ll get the post started with what I’ve been watching over the last month.

Kyra’s Movies

Netflix has some true crime documentaries that are wild, and then there’s Maternal Instinct. This may be the most bizarre true crime doc on the streaming giant. Maternal Instinct follows the actions of Taylor Parker. Before the events of this documentary and Parker’s crimes, Parker had two prior children. She wanted a third. Fun fact: Parker had a hysterectomy. She couldn’t get pregnant, but that didn’t stop her from catfishing her fiancé.

Yeah. Maternal Instinct gets strange. Throughout the documentary, I thought she must have had a mental illness. The doc briefly explained she has frontal lobe dysfunction, frontal lobe syndrome, which can cause cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms. But like I said, Maternal Instinct glosses over this fact. Parker would get caught and go to trial. Her legal team didn’t use the not guilty by means of insanity plea. That makes sense. Most insanity pleas get denied. To date, only two people in the United States have ever received a not guilty verdict by means of insanity: one of them is Ed Gein. And in terms of how over-the-top it gets, Taylor Parker’s story sounds a lot like Gein’s.

So, Parker catfishes her fiancé, making him think she’s pregnant. She orders pregnant belly bumps from Amazon. She even springs for one that simulates a baby kicking. But at some point, she’s going to have to “produce” a baby. Months before she “became pregnant,” Parker served as a photographer at Reagan Simmons Hancock’s wedding. The two formed a bond and hung out every month or two after the wedding. Parker knew Hancock was pregnant soon after her wedding. Hancock’s pregnancy coincided with Parker’s fictitious due date. Well, Parker missed her “due date” by a couple of weeks. So, Parker YouTubed how to perform a C-section, drove to Hancock’s house, killed her, and took the baby still inside her womb.

Yikes! Parker’s case is bizarre. I don’t know if I’ve seen a more upsetting Netflix true crime documentary than Maternal Instinct. It’s up there with the most disturbing. But that makes me wonder. If Parker’s defense team chose to plead not guilty by means of insanity, would she have been the third person in United States history to do so? But Maternal Instinct glosses over Parker’s mental impairment. It didn’t factor into the trial. But I say that Parker’s case reminds me of Gein’s because she did things out in the open, in broad daylight. She pretended she “miscarried” the baby she cut from Hancock’s womb. She had to know a doctor would examine her. Her hysterectomy would be in her medical chart. Yikes! Just yikes.

I’m a sucker for small-market professional sports teams, so I follow the Portland Trail Blazers quite a bit. The “Jail Blazers” of the early 2000s were one of the most intriguing teams of that era. They came dangerously close to winning an NBA championship, challenging the Shaq and Kobe-led Lakers. I put the name “Jail Blazers” in quotes because the few members of the team who got in trouble with the law got caught with marijuana possession, which is now legal in Portland. “Jail Blazer” is a harsh term. Even at the time, I wondered if one of Bonzi Wells, Rasheed Wallace, or Damon Stoudemire had done anything worse than getting caught with weed. I did like how Untold: Jail Blazers showed the Dave Chappelle clip lampooning Wallace and Stoudemire getting pulled over by the cops. That clip is iconic.

Untold: Jail Blazers was eye-opening. I had no idea what happened to Damon Stoudemire after his encounter with the police that night. Afterwards, they raided Stoudemire’s house. Stoudemire is from the area, and still, Portland treated him like an outsider. Portland was unkind to the trio of players who brought excitement to the Pacific Northwest. They all but chased them out of town, not in small part because the young basketball stars had houses in predominantly white neighborhoods. Untold: Jail Blazers shows these young Trail Blazers as young. They made mistakes because they were young. Some of those “mistakes” of the early 2000s wouldn’t be mistakes today. And yet, the name “Jail Blazer” persists.

Before watching Untold: Jail Blazers, I used to refer to the early 2000s Portland Trail Blazers by that moniker: “Jail Blazers.” I did so out of affection. I never thought they were “Jail Blazers.” The term was a shorthand for remembering a stellar young team that had all the tools to win an NBA championship but fell just short. After watching Untold: Jail Blazers, I won’t refer to the early 2000’s Portland Trail Blazers by that moniker. Stoudemire, Wells, Wallace, and Zach Randolph deserve better. Fortunately, Portland has celebrated its early 2000s team. I don’t blame Rasheed Wallace for refusing an offer to return.

X-Men 97 Season 2 A Force to Be Reckoned With Jubilee

Kyra’s Show

I won’t go into too much detail with X-Men ’97. Season and I have been reviewing the series as it airs. I will say that X-Men ’97 is the definitive X-Men adaptation. While I liked the first season, X-Men ’97’s second season is stellar. Some of the best storytelling in animation. It’s a love letter to the original X-Men: Animated Series. Whenever Geekly does another Top 10 Animated Shows based on Comic Books List, X-Men ’97 will be near the top. I’m calling it now.

Those are the shows and movies I’ve seen this past month. Let’s see what Skye has been watching.

Skye’s Movies

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure has been on my radar for a while. Recently, I inherited a hefty chunk of time to watch whatever I wanted, so I finally took initiative and watched Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Overall, I’d call Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure “lovably goofy.” It’s a nice combination of creative, wacky, sentimental, and mysterious that you don’t find in most other kid’s films. Only once the credits started rolling did I notice I had never stopped smiling, and that’s a sign the movie’s doing something right. While it’s not a film that’ll blow your mind, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is still a fun way to spend an hour and a half.

I’ve had my eye on the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Long Walk. Put simply: every year, 50 young men from all 50 U.S. states are selected to participate in a challenge where they’re forced to walk or die. Setting aside the physical impossibility of being forced to walk nonstop for days on end, I found myself invested in the relationships that formed among the walkers onscreen. While some participants were more competitive, others tried forming bonds with their fellow man and make the most of the situation they were forced into. I’m still hung up on the technicalities of The Long Walk, but the film itself portrays brotherhood and companionship in a special way.

I’ve seen Labyrinth several times, but during my time in surgery recovery I was feeling nostalgic. Luckily, I had films like Labyrinth to scratch that itch. Specifically, an itch for something familiar, creative, and odd. It also helped that I ate peaches when I decided to watch it. If you’ve seen Labyrinth, you know what I mean. Even if many of the details about the film don’t add up, Labyrinth is still a movie that offers children an endless supply of food for their imaginations, classic Jim Henson puppetry, unique scenarios, and David Bowie. That last one is very important. If you haven’t seen Labyrinth in a while, pop it in again to relive those memories; and if you haven’t seen it at all, then you’ve got some homework for this weekend.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here again. Those are the movies and shows our writers have been watching this past month. Let us know what you’ve been watching, Geekly Gang. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Back with another Top 5 Tabletop Games. 1986 and 1987 have a lot more games for us to choose from. These two years may have too many games to talk about. Why couldn’t some of these games be released over the previous two years? Ugh! This is a good problem to have. I may have at least one honorable mention this year. Let’s talk board games.

But first, in case you’ve forgotten our criteria for the Top 5 Tabletop Games, let’s reiterate the ground rules again before we get started.

1: Cultural relevance plays as much of a factor as overall quality. A game might make a list that doesn’t hold up to others of its type, but you must admit the game is everywhere.

2: Only one game from a franchise makes the list. This will become more of an issue the closer we get to games with expansions.

3: Longevity plays a role, too. A game doesn’t have to fly off the shelves today, but it had to have some widespread appeal for a decent time.

**5: Outburst (1986)**

Outburst plays a bit like Family Feud. Two teams compete over multiple rounds to reach 60 points by guessing items listed on a Topic Card within a time limit. Outburst’s simple concept puts it firmly in the party game category, and games like this bring people into the hobby of tabletop games. And they can just be fun.

Outburst was featured in Games magazine’s Best Games of 1988. Scott Marley praised Outburst for its clever topics and team-based gameplay. Marley concluded that “Though Outburst is easy to learn, many topics are too hard—and occasionally too spicy—for children.” This may have prompted 1989’s Outburst Junior.

**4: Fireball Island (1986)**

I remember getting the original Fireball Island for Christmas in 1986. The box is ginormous. The plastic game board had undulating paths where the titular fireballs (marbles) would travel down and knock players down, causing the player to lose any items. The object of Fireball Island is to escape the island with the jewel, which players must steal from the top of the Vul-Kar’s mountain. Fireball Island only has one jewel, so once a player grabs it, they become the target of others. And boy, do they become a target.

Players are incentivized to knock the jewel out of the hands of the player who possesses it. The reimagining of Fireball Island by Restoration Games in 2018 doesn’t place as much emphasis on the jewel. Players can win by other means. Unsponsored quick plug: Restoration Games does great work. They’ve brought back many games on this list and even a couple of honorable mentions like Dark Tower (from the 1980-1981 list) and Thunder Road (which just missed this list).

**3: The Fury of Dracula (1987)**

I mentioned a few lists ago (1983-1984) that Scotland Yard inspired many asymmetric games with hidden movement; The Fury of Dracula is one of the most prominent. I like the theme, but the name “Fury” is a bit of a misnomer. Dracula travels on a hidden board while the hunters move across the game board openly and try to deduce where Dracula is, all the while collecting the means with which to slay Dracula (stakes, garlic, and holy water). The Fury of Dracula ends with an epic showdown.

The Fury of Dracula has been updated multiple times. The second edition changes a lot of the gameplay, while the third edition streamlines the rules to make it easier to play and get into. 2019’s Fourth Edition of The Fury of Dracula gave the game a facelift; it didn’t change much in the way of gameplay. I recommend either the third or fourth editions.

**2: Labyrinth (1986)**

Not to be confused with the 1946 marble game, Labyrinth, which was originally stylized as THE aMAZEing LABYRINTH, uses a 7×7 grid where tiles get placed on one end of a column or row and displaces the tile on the opposite side of the column or row, hence the German name for the game Das verrückte Labyrinth, which is a pun on the German words “ errücken” (displace) and “verrückt” (crazy).

Players move their pieces along the ever-shifting path. Many of the tiles will have treasures printed on them. These treasures will match the cards dealt to players at the beginning of the game. The first player to obtain all the treasures in their deck wins. Labyrinth looks simple at first, but it gets puzzlely real fast. It’s a great problem-solving game for children, but when played by adults, the game can become more strategic and cutthroat. Labyrinth’s shifting tiles is one of the most unique game mechanisms from this era.

Returning to the naming, I wonder if Labyrinth avoided calling itself that in 1986 to avoid a lawsuit or confusion with Jim Henson’s Labyrinth movie that was released the same year. I remember a Labyrinth marble game variant tying into the movie that year.

**1: Arkham Horror (1987)**

I didn’t realize how old Arkham Horror was until I started compiling this list. Designer Richard Launius originally submitted the concept as Call of Cthulhu: The Board Game. This won’t be the first time Launius will make a game based on H.P. Lovecraft. He made a faster-pace, dice version of Arkham Horror in Elder Sign. Launius may be the person most responsible for making H.P. Lovecraft so popular in tabletop gaming. Arkham Horror is an early, thematic cooperative board game. Before Arkham Horror, I don’t recall seeing too many popular cooperative board games.

Because of this, Arkham Horror introduced a lot of staple cooperative board game concepts. Not the least of which is a “Doom Track.” Players work against the clock before the Ancient One breaks through its plane and into Arkham. Come to think of it, a game clock—of one persuasion or another—exists in most cooperative board games. Launius reinvented Arkham Horror into a Living Card Game in 2005.

Did we get the list right, for the most part? I didn’t mention Blood Bowl (1987); I’ll mention it here as another honorable mention. Let us know which games you’d add in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Check out the other lists in this series:
Top 5 Tabletop Games Prior to the 1930s
Top 5 Tabletop Games of the 1930s
Top 5 Tabletop Games of the 1940s-50s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Early 1960s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Late 1960s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Early 1970s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1980-1981
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1982-1983
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1984-1985
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1988-1989
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1990-1991

Tag: labyrinth

Whatcha Watching: August 2026