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Jonathan H. Liu

@jonathanhliu.bsky.social

1.6K followers 590 following 2K posts

Stay-at-home dad, reader, board gamer, GeekDad Senior Editor, Etch-a-Sketch artist. https://geekdad.com/author/jonathanhliu/ https://www.instagram.com/jonathanhliu/ (he/him) Portland, Oregon

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 12d

If you want to get in on the Etchtober fun and give me a prompt to draw, my Kickstarter campaign is taking late pledges and I've still got about 7 slots left!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/jhl...

Etchtober: A Month of Etch-a-Sketch Drawings

31 prompt-driven Etch-a-Sketch drawings

www.kickstarter.com

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 4h

#Etchtober Day 14

Today's prompt: "3 creatures in a trench coat who are DEFINITELY not up to something," requested by @spazzyhilo.bsky.social

www.kickstarter.com/projects/jhl...

Pocket Etch-a-Sketch drawing: A tall, leaning figure wearing a trench coat with a cat's head at the top, floppy sleeves, a snout poking out in the center, and a pig on all fours visible at the bottom, stands at the corner of a bar with a bottle and a tumbler.

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 4h

Shout-out to @flatoutgames.bsky.social @rf-seattle.bsky.social @bethsobel.bsky.social @alderaceg.bsky.social for another great entry in the Cascadia line. This one has a lot of depth to it—you'll need to work your way up to the more complex scoring cards.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 4h

Cascadia: Alpine Lakes is a standalone game—some similarities to the base game but the biggest difference is that you can stack up the terrain, and elevation can make a big difference in scoring!

geekdad.com/2025/10/kick...

Kickstarter Tabletop Alert: Reach New Heights in 'Cascadia: Alpine Lakes'

Cascadia: Alpine Lakes raises Cascadia to new heights—literally—by adding another dimension to this tile-laying puzzle.What Is Cascadia: Alpine Lakes?

geekdad.com

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 4h

Gold Heist is a little press-your-luck dice game. Cash out with your gold, or wait to see if you can get a bigger stash before the dynamite blows it all up?

geekdad.com/2025/10/kick...

Kickstarter Tabletop Alert: 'Gold Heist'

Will you stick it out for a bigger payout, or bank your stash to keep it safe?What Is Gold Heist?Gold Heist is a press-your-luck dice game for 2 to 8 players, ages 5 and up, and takes about 45 minutes...

geekdad.com

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

"Do you believe in other people?"

Watching Mountainhead, about tech billionaires at a little buddy retreat while the world falls apart in the wake of the tech they developed. Oof.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you! I've had a LOT of practice. :D

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Can't wait!

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

#Etchtober Day 13

Today's prompt: "A dog in a firefighter costume trick-or-treating for dog treats," requested by Tyler.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/jhl...

Pocket Etch-a-Sketch drawing of a dog wearing a firefighter coat and hat, holding a pumpkin candy basket, sitting at a doorway; a hand extends toward the basket holding a bone-shaped biscuit.

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

I still remember my elementary school friend's home phone number even though his parents moved away after high school and haven't had that number in over 20 years or something.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Turns out the answer was to pick none of the boxes, and MacGyver would notice a keypad on the wall and leave. A really disappointing non-puzzle to wrap up a weird little escape room game.
At least it did include one paper clip. Though I didn't find it in the envelope until after solving the puzzle.🤷‍♂️

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

The final puzzle to escape Murdoc was a logic puzzle--find the key in one of these four boxes, using these four statements, but one is a lie.
I looked at the statements and there was no way to solve the puzzle. So I tried each of the four answers in the app, losing a minute for each wrong answer.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

I felt like Zoolander.

a couple of men are standing next to each other in a room holding a piece of paper .

Alt: Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) inspect and tap on an orange iMac with confusion. "The files are inside the computer"

media.tenor.com

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Friends, this game is from 2018 so I think the statute of limitations on spoilers has expired. The solution for this puzzle was to literally pull apart the disk drive where it was glued (or cut it?) and find the password written on the floppy disk inside.

Opened up "disk drive" card showing a floppy disk with the label Silo8292

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

One notable puzzle involved finding a password, which we were told was "in the disk drive," which was this little cardstock thing.

Cardstock image of a 5.25" floppy disk drive

Cardstock image of the back of a floppy disk drive

Card unfolded to show interior of a floppy disk drive

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

The 1-hour missions took me around 15-20 minutes so I played through the whole thing. MacGyver fixed and landed a malfunctioning plane, stopped a condiment factory from making explosives, foiled a missile attack, and then escaped from the wild and crazy Murdoc.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

The first mission was ... ok. I had to look up help for the first puzzle because I found the what looked like keyword but some letters were turned sideways and I didn't figure that out 🤷‍♂️
Another puzzle involved buying chocolate from the vending machine and was just ... arithmetic?

Excerpt from back of box: lt is recommended to have handy a piece of paper, a writing utensil, a player who passed third grade math, and scissors.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Sometimes the puzzle was on the card itself but a lot of the time it was just a snippet of story and the website was where you'd get the actual instructions for the puzzle.
The first mission involved sealing an acid leak with chocolate, from an episode I remember as a kid.

Small square envelope with a flask icon on it, next to several polyomino tiles that look like chocolate bars

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

The game mostly worked using these fold-out things that were sealed with stickers. You'd be told to remove the next sticker and when to open envelopes, and then you could open the flap for the next part of the story.

A partially unfolded card, depicting MacGyver contemplating a vending machine with a list of chocolate prices to the side.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

The game includes "5 individual one-hour missions," packaged in these large envelopes. It also requires a website, now defunct but fortunately web archive had it.

5 large square colorful envelopes labeled 01 through 05, plus one folder labeled "MacGyver Utility Bag"

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Anyway, we'd never tried this one in part because I'd heard pretty early on that it wasn't that great, and in part because my kids don't know MacGyver anyway. I figured it was time to clear it off the shelf.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

I have a bunch of escape room games that I'd hoped to play with the kids because they enjoyed them but timing was always tricky or people weren't in the mood or whatever, so now I have this big backlog.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Since I'm isolating down in the basement with COVID, I decided I'd finally play this MacGyver escape room game from 2018.

Box for MacGyver: The Escape Room Game with a photo of MacGyver backed by flames. "Use your mind as the ultimate weapon!"

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 1d

Today's stack: a whole bunch of murder mysteries.

geekdad.com/2025/10/stac...

Stack Overflow: Murder Mysteries

Today's stack is a big collection of murder stories: comics, puzzle books, and even jigsaw puzzles.

geekdad.com

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Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 2d

#Etchtober Day 12 (part 2)

And here's the rest of the drawing!

Two Pocket Etch-a-Sketches, arranged so that the bottom shows a man gaping up next to two robot legs, and the one on top has the head, shoulders, and torso of a giant robot looking down at the man.

Jonathan H. Liu @jonathanhliu.bsky.social · 2d

#Etchtober Day 12:

Today's prompt: "Big g*d* robot," requested by Julian.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/jhl...

Pocket Etch-a-Sketch drawing: a man stands, gaping upward, next to two giant robot legs that extend up off the top of the drawing.

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