Fantasy Flight’s acclaimed mini-d20 setting Grimm from last year is getting the standalone treatment next month (supposedly next month, at least), with its own system and a greatly expanded page count. Grimm was one of the better-realized entries in the ooohh-childhood-is-scary RPG boomlet we had a while back, so it’s
Author: Mike Sugarbaker
Oh, hey: this year's GAMES 100 is out
Sid Sackson’s is the Game of the Year (but, curiously, not Best Word Game) according to GAMES Magazine. Also notable is Memoir ’44 in the Historical Simulation category I didn’t know they had, and a tie for Best Abstract Strategy Game. Our men at Funagain have the whole, absurdly long
Beat cheeks, Stimpy! It’s M:tG Unhinged!
Yes, the only Magic expansion I ever bought more than five boosters from is getting its sequel, and it streets next week. Here is a preview of the chaos that results from an average card, and here’s that logo to look for again. Since the only Magic play I’m interested
Agyris: because no one should have to settle for a full-color book
I’ve held the belief for a while now that the future of tabletop roleplaying – and really, its whole future – lies not just in online distribution, but in distribution for free in open formats. I have a lot of reasons for believing this, but what I didn’t have until
HeroScape plans boosters, possibly less hobby-channel screwage
This ICv2 report taught me a couple of things I didn’t know: 1) that Hasbro had planned to ship its new gamers’ Milton Bradley game HeroScape to small game retailers a month or two ahead of the mass market, but shipping snafus forced them to go straight to the big
Warhammer RPG release schedule set
In a sort of publisher-developer deal thingie, Games Workshop’s new roleplaying imprint Black Industries will release Green Ronin’s new edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in February of ’05, at a price point of roughly 15 cents a page. No, I don’t think you’ll be able to buy pages a la
Blue Rose opens the kimono, so to speak
(That’s a tech-business expression. Seriously, it is.) Up until today, Green Ronin’s website for the upcoming “romantic fantasy” RPG Blue Rose was a little frustrating, unless you like game fiction. This column from developer Steve Kenson, however, brings some details: an even more stripped-down d20 system than Mutants and Masterminds,
An exciting advance in the “make things fight each other” field
The VsTank Micro IR Battle series is a line of small remote-control tanks, about two and a half inches long, the sort that you plug into the controller to recharge. They have a few features you might not be expecting, though – such as infrared sensors on top that detect
Betrayal at House on the Hill reviewed; millions tremble
When I first got a draft of this review from our freshman staffer Dave Chalker, I had just gotten back home from watching Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back on Chris’ big screen, and I thought up this brilliant announcement post that had Dave as the young Padawan and
Dear current players of our remaining hit game: we’re smart. Dear everyone else: we’re still dumb
Or perhaps I should be kinder to WizKids and characterize their “Open Letter to HeroClix Players Worldwide” as merely mysterious. I mean, they must know that a focus on collectors and the most hardcore of hardcore fans is what almost destroyed the comics industry, right? And that you have to
That’s a no-Go
I forgot to mention something else I noticed yesterday during my sojourn into the world of mainstream children’s retail. I idly picked up a copy of manga warhorse Shonen Jump and it fell open to what looked like a page of tips on playing Go. It turns out that Hikaru
LEGO made a game that you need
So, they were out of HeroScape at Toys’R’Us, but they did have the X-Pod Collector’s Pack, which is exactly the box I wished they would make back when I first noticed the X-Pod Play-Off web page. Another thing I didn’t mention is that X-Pod Play-Off is designed by gamelab, the
My current mood is always challenging
Allen Varney, who recently administered an exemplary game of Lexicon, presents a new spin on that concept, called Noteworthy. It has a GM and seems intended for LiveJournal communities (but adaptable to other forms of the weblog medium). Most LiveJournal RPGs I know of do fine without rules of any
HeroScape: you can also hit burglars on the head with the loaded box
I’ve been wondering when this year’s successor to Epic Duels and BattleBall – that is, this year’s cheap, silly WotC game with a Milton Bradley logo on it instead – would come out. Turns out it came out in June and I just missed it. Oh, and it’s $50. Heroscape
Your executive decision to kill time
I guess that if I spend the bulk of three days playing a web game, I should probably post about it. Nothing special about it, it’s just addictive like whoa. Or woe.