2005 FebruaryAt DunDraCon this past weekend, Issaries announced QuestWorlds, a new “poly-genre” roleplaying system built on top of Robin Laws’ system for HeroQuest. Here’s the closest thing I can find to an official online announcement. The authors have done some work before for HeroQuest and All Flesh Must Be Eaten; at least the latter gives them a little multi-genre cred. Can the market support another system of this kind right now… even if it’s a Robin Laws system?
Archive for February, 2005
Invisible City Plays Hide and Seek
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005Invisible City has just announced their free game of the month for February. In Navigator, two to four players explore a map, trying to track down each other’s hideouts. On a related note, the Invisible City site has a new comment system in place, so it’s now possible to suggest your own variants, speak your mind, and generally give something back to this entertaining resource.
Between the headgear and the rotting tongue, “arrr!” just comes out sounding like a broken telephone
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005Privateer has figured out how to improve on the now-hackneyed idea of the undead pirate crew: put a diving bell on one of their heads. AWESOME
Seriously, these are great sculpts. I was a little let down not to see the actual ship, but I guess Privateer is still run by mere mortals with mere mortal bank balances. And, um, we have some (unrelated) news from DunDraCon but we are still putting it together for ya. Sit tight.
OgreCave reviews: Argonauts and Campers
Friday, February 18th, 2005Let’s get our reviews rolling ahead again with a d20 PDF and a card game. Justin gives us the details on The New Argonauts by Sean K. Reynolds Games, but even after reading his review, it’s all Greek to me. And I regret saying that last bit so much, I’m hoping Summer Camp by Dead Ant Games might be able to cheer me up. Demian provides his insight on the humorous card game.
Tom Jolly’s Camelot rules up for Valentine’s Day
Monday, February 14th, 2005Just in time for the lovers out there (huh?), Wingnut Games has posted a PDF of the full rules to Tom Jolly’s Camelot. Fellow Cave Dweller Steve and I first experienced Tom’s Lightning system, which powers the Camelot boardgame, in an early form at GenCon SoCal ’03, and even then, the turnless system glowed with potential. Once the game ended up at Wingnut (reportedly, FFG was interested as well), Tom refined and retuned it, and it was given the “multiple Arthurs” theme I’m so fond of. Now being printed overseas, we’ll see how Tom Jolly’s Camelot turned out when it arrives this May.
U.S.A.! U.S.A! Arrr! Arrr!
Thursday, February 10th, 2005So Pirates of the Revolution will be standalone, which takes care of the slight no-core-set-in-print problem that Pirates of the Spanish Main is about to have. “New Events and Fire effects add depth to the game.” Setting ships on fire is awesome. There was this old PlayStation game called Shipwreckers where… eh, skip it. This hits in June.
Arkham Horror details loose at Yog-Sothoth
Saturday, February 5th, 2005Yog-Sothoth.com, the haven of all things Cthulhu, has new details on the second edition of Arkham Horror coming in May from Fantasy Flight. According to Y-S, the classic boardgame has been reworked by Kevin Wilson and original designer Richard Launius; has new art for the gameboard, cards, and other pieces (largely from the CCG); 16 investigator characters, with a new skill system that allows for customization; and uses a non-dice-based movement system. There’s even a big picture of the board and components, and other details man was not meant to know! Get ready for a sanity check, and go have a look.
The grotesquely enormous hand of Chewbacca presents: ATTACKTIX!!
Friday, February 4th, 2005Hasbro is probably the only company that still has any chance at all of bringing off an action-figure combat game. Which is what they’ve just announced, even if they’re only half size. “Launching with Star Wars: Episode III toys, ATTACKTIX is a battle figure game that combines great action figures with kinetic battling features.” That means actually shooting actual little things, from what I can see. Nostalgiariffic! Hopefully this will quickly move past Episode III theming, so we can evaluate it without having to suppress our gag reflexes, but still: interesting.
Duel Masters Trade Day: Beefy card swapping
Friday, February 4th, 2005The latest promo event announced for the Duel Masters TCG, the game with some of the most entertaining (and longest) expansion set titles, is the Duel Masters Trade Day on March 5th. Yes, this means Duel Masters fans will gather at participating stores to swap cards, and undoubtedly engage in some card slinging. Yes, the 15 exclusive cards that will be found in McDonald’s Happy Meals are sure to be exchanged numerous times, as the Trade Day seems designed to draw attention to them. No, you can’t have fries with that, as the Trade Day is taking place at game stores, not the restaurant chain. That would’ve been quite a promo event, though rather greasy.
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WizKids announces standalone family game – no, seriously this time
Friday, February 4th, 2005Despite how it frequently appears, we at OgreCave actually want WizKids to succeed – we just want them to do it by making successful games, not successful lines of collectible plastic posing as games. The latter only does violence to the industry’s ecosystem, and it must be admitted even by the most partisan that WizKids could stand to do more of the former. So here comes Tsuro, a standalone board game that’s either abstract or has a theme the PR department just didn’t feel like talking about right now. I’d say from the “families” remark that it’s 2 to 4 players. We’ll see it in the fall. This certainly augurs well, although I am still firmly in the wait-and-see (and hope nothing egregiously wack happens with Crimson Coast) camp.
Great pics of Monsters Menace America
Tuesday, February 1st, 2005Release isn’t scheduled ’til tax day, but for now, peep out those stompy token things. This game looks lavish but not ridiculously so, which seems very appropriate and like a positive sign about AH’s general health. I hope the new RoboRally looks like this.
New Arborell Gamebook Arrives
Tuesday, February 1st, 2005Although the elusive Earth and Stone is still under development, a new interactive mini-gamebook has been added to the online Chronicles of Arborell series. In Shards of Moonlight, a prequel to the main series, the reader takes on the role of Tansen’Delving, a character who figures into the later Chronicles. This is just the beginning, though — more adventure will be coming soon in a second story, A Murder of Crows.