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Monday, November 23, 2009
Taste the donut: FreeMarket RPG beta available
There’s still some capacity in the “Colony Program,” a.k.a. beta-PDF giveaway, for FreeMarket, the transhumanist RPG by Luke Crane of Burning Wheel and Jared Sorenson of inSpectres, Action Castle and many others. The beta is capped at 1000 copies, just like the lavish print edition planned for next year.
Me, I think everyone who’s interested in the technology of roleplaying should have a look at this. It’s the first game I know of that truly reverses “kill them and take their stuff” – all the way into “no one can die and you want to give them all presents.” And yes, it makes that work, turning it into a tense, motivating, probably hilarious saga of social climbing and idealisms of all sorts. It’s the most developed, wide-ranging and at times gleefully evil take on the concept “all combat is social combat” that I’ve yet seen. I’m surprised it isn’t catching more hate from the usual Internet suspects, because it is a direct and vicious frontal assault on roleplaying’s indulgence of the Geek Social Fallacies.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Bella Sara now has flocked pastel-colored collectible minis
For all your Warhammer 40K proxying needs!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Windhammer Prize Gamebook Entries Ready for Votes
The second year of the Windhammer Prize has reached the voting phase. This time around, there are seven mini-gamebooks available for your consideration. Take a look and cast your vote — there’s a cash prize at stake here! If the experience inspires you to write your own entry, you’ve got a whole year until the next contest….
Monday, September 21, 2009
Privateer previews Warmachine MkII rules in full
Wow, it managed to get by me that Warmachine was getting its rules completely rebooted. The reboot doesn’t go to press for a bit but Privateer has released a layout-incomplete version as a free PDF. “Layout-incomplete” means the rules won’t be changing, but the backgrounds and art aren’t in place, which on the main rules text is actually mostly rather nice but is a bit of a pain on unit cards. I’m not anywhere near enough of a WM geek to be able to say what’s changed in the rules exactly, but I’ve always had a fondness for the game; if you’re curious to look beyond the quick-start rules, this isn’t a bad way to do it.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Game Chef changes hands, faces, channels
The DJA-nominated Game Chef mini-RPG competition is on for 2009, and it’s now being operated by Push editor Jonathan Walton, who’s given it a great look, a rules overhaul, and a very clever and well-executed new means of communication. Whereas the last several Game Chefs have had dedicated web forums, Walton is encouraging competitors to start free weblogs and is aggregating the results through several feeds. It’s a new approach to community that I think will be a good fit for the contest, and new approaches to community are certainly needed in the RPG world. Also, the tight time restriction of GC is now optional amidst the new achievement-badge-style contest schema; if you’re long on ideas but short on free time, take a look at those.
Disney to Buy Marvel
After escaping the Green Goblin and the Sandman for years, Spider-Man will soon be caught by a mere mouse — Mickey Mouse. In a $4 billion deal, Disney is acquiring 5,000 Marvel-branded characters and other associated properties. For the gaming industry, this might make Marvel licensing available only to the “big boys”, because Disney’s licensing division is notoriously harder for small companies to navigate without a Disney-vetted licensing agent or a stable of other successfully managed licenses in the game company’s portfolio. Still, as Marvel’s value as a licensor has gone up in recent years, the licensing fees may have already put Marvel out of the reach of many game companies anyway. The guys at Upper Deck renewed their license at just the right time. Feel free to comment with additional details or speculations. The full story is here.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thinking outside the box and the envelope
Small Box Games has, ironically enough, no games in small boxes: they do cloth bags, custom printed with cover info and such. Games are around the $20 mark, seem to have decent components, look kinda interesting, and catch some love on BoardGameGeek here and there.
That’s good, internet. Now bring me some more.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
New edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay announced
Yeah, whole new edition… and it looks fascinating. Possibly fascinating in the car-wreck sense, but it’s a bit early to know for sure. Also, it’s a box set at a planned MSRP of $99 – which people will see as a bold step, even though it looks like a better deal than the D&D core books plus dice and power cards. No announced release date that I can see, and it’s an FFG production, so caveat anticipator.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Reaper to produce Pathfinder RPG miniatures
Paizo Publishing announced an agreement today that Reaper Miniatures will produce monthly metal miniatures to support Paizo’s Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Paizo has had excellent miniatures through Crocodile Games in the past, but now we’ll get to see what Reaper does with the line. No word yet on whether any preview figures are at Gen Con this week – a Fall release is expected for the start of the line. The full press release is below.
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Fascinating details on LEGO’s board game line
BrettSpiel has a good-sized interview with freshman designer Cephas Howard, who was on the cusp of getting a couple of board games published when he landed what I think we can all agree is a pretty sweet job: lead designer for the entire LEGO Games line. (Although apparently Herr Knizia is credited on a couple of them, and consulted on many of the rest.) Check the hot piece-prototyping action on the dice there. Howard also confirms that game hacking – with good recommended methodology, even! – is an explicit part of the products. These things are gonna be hot, hot fun.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
There is crying in Elfball, as long as it’s noble, immortal crying
Just a quick right-on to Impact! Miniatures, who are doing some much-needed exploration of the Blood Bowl gamespace with their appealingly lo-fi Elfball sets. Check the rules PDF here if you care to. They’ve also acquired a fantasy-themed basketball game and, well, if you’ve ever wished for some white-metal hockey sticks on a sprue, they’ve got the hookup.
(While we’re talking Blood Bowl, I can’t remember if I gave a review of the PC version or not. I will tell you that I’ve played the DS version a bit and it’s actually better. The isometric view is unfortunate, though; I prefer nice, square grids, Advance Wars-style.)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Two RPG events that should be happening regularly in every town
First, the Tucson Gamemasters’ Conference. More or less speaks for itself.
Then, the weekly Dungeons and Divas game at Guardian Games here in Portland. An article ran on this in one of the local alternative weeklies, and that on its own is interesting both as a barometer of perceptions of D&D as well as of what is perceived as cultural progress for it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Richard Garfield Announces Next Game
Gamasutra reports that Mind Control Software is joining with Magic: The Gathering’s creator Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias to produce a new game called Mind Twist. The game will be playable on iPhones and as a Flash application on Facebook. Apparently this will be a wargame playable in 10 minutes or so. A free army will be offered to beginners, with more armies being made available for purchase as time goes on.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Big Things in Store for Midnight RPG Setting
The folks at Gamer Dome noticed recently that Fantasy Flight Games has pulled materials from its award-winning Midnight RPG series from its website. This probably has something to do with the upcoming U.S. DVD debut of the Midnight Chronicles, a film set in the dark world of the Midnight RPG setting. The Midnight Chronicles blog reported the release of the French version of the DVD on June 10, 2009. ICv2 reports that the U.S. version of the DVD will be available in September with an MSRP of $14.95.
Gamebook Competition Warming Up
In case you’re looking for something to do this holiday weekend, you might be interested to know that the second year of the Windhammer Prize was announced last month and will be accepting entries this fall. The contest is designed to encourage creativity within the realm of solo gamebook writing, and there is a cash prize. To check out some of last year’s entries and get a better idea of what this is all about, visit this link.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
This is the tweetfest we promised you, and this is the slideshow it turned into
So it turns out that the sort of person who both uses Twitter and goes to gaming cons apparently forgets all about the former once they’re playing things at the latter. I am as guilty of this as everyone else. Fortunately for us board game fans who missed Origins, this dude Ted Cheatham took some photos, taped some audio, and put the one over the other. The result is a bit richer than a straight podcast but not so demanding-feeling as video interviews. Right on!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Blood Bowl Now Available for the PC
The Games Workshop Ltd. miniatures game Blood Bowl is now available for the PC, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP. Wikipedia reports that the portable versions of this game are missing career league play and other functionality that is available in the PC release. For those who can’t wait for their local store to carry this product, a downloadable version is available for purchase for $49.99.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Mutant Chronicles Movie on Sci Fi Channel
The Mutant Chronicles movie is coming to the small screen on the Sci Fi Channel (soon to be the SyFy channel). For those who blinked and missed it, Mutant Chronicles premiered in theaters in April 2009 and its already coming to TV. That’s gotta be one of the shortest turnarounds from big screen to small screen on record for anything other than an independent film. The hobby game-inspired movie stars Thomas Jane and co-stars Ron Perlman, John Malkovich, and Devon Aoki. Its first Sci Fi showing is Saturday, June 27 at 9 p.m., followed by a planned repeat on Sunday, June 28 at 6:30 p.m.
The movie’s official site (with trailer) is here.
Matt Forbeck gives a Mutant Chronicles author’s perspective on the film here.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Toys ‘R’ Us Buys F.A.O. Schwarz
Toys ‘R’ Us just announced that it has acquired financially ailing toy store icon F.A.O. Schwarz. While it has only a couple of locations (at Fifth Avenue in New York City and at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas), F.A.O. Schwarz is 145 years old and its flagship Manhattan store draws in millions of visitors each year. This makes F.A.O. Schwarz an historical gem in the Toys ‘R’ Us crown. During the fourth quarter of last year, cost cutting measures gave Toys ‘R’ Us an 11% rise in profits even as sales declined.
For the detailed story follow this link.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
New Multiplayer MTG format starting September
Wizards of the Coast has announced a new set of products called Planechase for Magic the Gathering which will focus on multiplayer gameplay. Planechase game packs will include 70 cards, a special die (yes dice in MTG), and a strategy insert with multiplayer rules. While MTG has long had multiplayer formats such as “five color magic”, “two headed giant”, and “emperor”, this release is noteworthy in that the Planechase products include “plane cards” specifically designed for playing just this format. Planechase release events will be held September 4-6, 2009.
Monday, March 30, 2009
I went to GameStorm and some stuff happened
First, The Free RPG Blog is rad. Just had to get that off my mind.
Now: GameStorm! The best thing about Portland’s largest game convention is that it’s smaller than anything in Seattle. This makes all the industry heavyweights who live in Seattle feel all relaxed when they come here. I’d tell you everything I gleaned in conversation as a result, but that’d end the relaxation pretty quickly.
Andrew and Kristin Looney of Looney Labs were guests of the con and waaaay overshared on their plans for the rest of the year – they told their secret Christmas gift, for crying out loud! But one thing I doubt they will mind me telling you about is Are You The Traitor?, a card game which, as you might guess from the title, plays in the are-you-a-werewolf? gamespace. It’s similar to Covert Action in some ways, but I found it easier to grasp – basically it’s a Werewolf/Mafia-ish experience for fewer players in less time. They’ll have it out for Origins, and even the haters are going to have to admit that it is freaking gorgeous.
Bucephalus Games was showing a whole lot of stuff coming out soon. I liked the look of Bill of Rights by Mike Selinker along with Teeuwynn Woodruff of D&D fame, and a Mr. Dan Tibbles. It’s kind of like Nomic Lite, but lots of games are like Nomic Lite… but Bill of Rights is more so. Also showing, not from Bucephalus but perhaps in a similar vein to Bill of Rights, was T.P.O.C. (The Politics Of Cannibals) by Stractical Concepts (not kidding about that name). Didn’t get a chance to play it, but any political game where you can throw swing voters into a cauldron of stew has something going for it.
I saw a game called Space Alert getting a good measure of play; apparently it’s from the designer of Galaxy Trucker and is along the same lines – build a spaceship, hope it doesn’t get torn to hell by stuff – but it’s co-op, way crazier, and timed by means of an included audio CD. It doesn’t have a US publication date yet.
On the RPG front, new releases were largely of the ashcan-and-leaflet variety. Be on the lookout for Advanced Sea Dracula Second Edition, though. And should you find yourself in one of those normal-people bookstores, check the humor section for Michael Fiegel’s Ninja Burger Employee Handbook, which he was showing alongside HELLAS but which doesn’t have hobby-channel distribution.
Lastly: Mutant Chronicles movie trailer. Certainly looks… like a movie.
Friday, January 30, 2009
OgreCave reviews – Trail of Cthulhu Screen & Resource Book
Lee chimes in today with a review of the Trail of Cthulhu Keeper’s Screen & Resource Book from Pelgrane Press. A worthy addition to any Trail of Cthulhu Keeper’s arsenal, Lee maps the Trail product’s good and not-so-good points for us in great detail. If that isn’t enough, a number of other terror-inspiring Cthulhu goodies are described in our review section.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Get to know a few old favorites from the random-encounter tables
The incomparable Lore Sjoberg brings us Monster Manual Comix.
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Day of the Ninja is upon you
Watch yourself today – you never know when they’ll strike. We’ll have a little something to honor the sneaky fellows later today (they’ve already begun their assault, as you can see), but in the meantime, stay on your toes. The Day of the Ninja is nigh!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
More WotC layoffs
Just like back in August, Wizards of the Coast has laid off employees today. Rumors are still swirling about the number of employees affected, though around 24 seems the prevailing estimate. According to a post at ENWorld by Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens, today’s layoffs include the following:
- Randy Buehler (VP of digital gaming)
- Andrew Finch (director of digital games)
- Stacy Longstreet (senior art director)
- Julia Martin (editor)
- William Meyers (creative manager, digital design)
- Dave Noonan (game designer, D&D podcast cohost)
- Jennifer Paige (online community manager)
- Jennifer Powers (marketing)
- Jonathan Tweet (game designer)
With today’s staff cuts, WotC joins Upper Deck in having a pair of layoff rounds this year alone. While this has some gamers wondering if the layoffs are caused by D&D 4e being less successful than expected, others mention similar cuts made shortly after the release of 3.0 and 3.5.
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