Game News

iPad Board Gaming, Late 2013 edition

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One of the things I love most about the iPad is how many board games have made it to the iOS platform. Classics like Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Settlers of Catan blazed the trail, but now we’re seeing another wave of releases with games like Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy and Lords of … Read more

Kickstarting a Pathfinder version of Advanced Bestiary

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The kickstarter for Green Ronin’s Advanced Bestiary is in its final hours. The book, a creature compendium for the Pathfinder RPG, is funded with 901 backers and $41,000 (easily beating its goal of $20,000). The book was originally published in the waning days of D&D 3.5 and went on to provide inspiration for Paizo’s monstrous … Read more

New Releases Bolster The Day After Ragnarok

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The apocalypse is back on. Ken Hite’s The Day After Ragnarok is a campaign setting for Savage Worlds and Hero System that in which the Nazis’ managed to summon the Midgard Serpent in the waning days of World War II, only to see the Americans slay it with a nuclear bomb. The original campaign book, … Read more

Delta Green: Eyes Only and Targets of Opportunity available as PDF

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I love Delta Green. I rarely get to run it, but Delta Green and its sequel, Countdown have more than earned their place on my game bookshelf. This is thanks to its modern horror take on the Chtulhu mythos and compelling scenarios like “The Night Floors”, in which a certain play dooms an entire apartment building.

Backing the Numenera Kickstarter

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I backed the Numenera Kickstarter today after I had a moment of panic over breakfast that I’d missed the deadline. The kickstarter for Monte Cook’s far-future science fantasy role-playing game has four days left to go, and has hit the amazing total of $338,450.

That’s just … huge. The kickstarter has broken all of Monte’s stretch goals and yielded an impressive line up of game materials. You can read about them on his web site. Of course, the question now becomes … can he deliver? Given his track record with Dungeons & Dragons, Arcana Unearthed, and Malhavoc Press in general, I’m confident he will. Or at least, I’m confident in the print materials. I’m not so sure about the character creator; that strikes me as being more complicated than he might originally have anticipated (just look at how long for D&D to get a worthwhile character creator).

Monte Cook’s Numenera Kickstarts the Distant Future

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It didn’t take long for Monte Cook to find something to do after his much-discussed departure from the D&D Next design team. He’s launched a Kickstarter to fund Numenera, a rules-light, far future role-playing game Here’s how he describes it: I’m really excited to announce that I’m working on a new game. It’s called Numenera, … Read more

Deep Vistas Map Set at Kickstarter

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Master mapmaker Chris West has launched a kickstarter project to fund “Deep Vistas”, his latest collection of maps. These six maps are focused on underground adventuring and include: Stalactite Gate, Slave Pits, Chapel of Scarabs, Dark Elf Courtyard, Silent Garden and Chasm Bridge. They’re gorgeous looking maps, and although they’re obviously fantasy themed, and have a very “Vault of the Drow” feeling to them, it’d be easy enough to use them in horror or science fiction campaigns as well. There are different funding options but the best is likely the $36 for all three double-sided maps.

Financial Times: Why we still love board games

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The Financial Times is running an article about German/euro-style board games such as Settlers of Catan and Carcassone that covers why the games are so popular in German, how they’ve expanded beyond its borders to the UK and America, and the sustainability of this niche market.

It’s a good read; I think there’s a real concern here that the market is being over-saturated with board games, as the Germans pump out more and more new games. There’s all the makings of a bubble there (and if we’re talking bubbles, then it’s already happened). But while the German market may be coming supersaturated, I think there’s still plenty of room to grow in the United States. Heck, I think they’ve only barely touched on what’s possible here — sure my gaming group has been playing these kinds of board games for years, but the larger population still things board game equals Monopoly or Sorry.