Asteroids is a 2D, vector-display-based arcade game developed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg and released by Atari in November 1979. The gameplay revolves around a single spacecraft trapped in an asteroid field that attempts to survive for as long as possible by destroying any space rocks that get close. The Atari 2600 version came … Read more
The Ready Player One Replay is an exploration of the games that inspired the novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Source Gunfire wasn’t uncommon in the stacks, but it still shook me up. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, so I decided to kill the remaining hours until dawn by … Read more
Galaga is a 1981 game programmed by Tetsu Ogawa and released by Namco. It features a single starship fending off endless waves of insectoid starships. In Ready Player One, it appears twice: first as one of the games that Wade Watt plays in his home in the Stacks; the second as part of a virtual playthrough of … Read more
Adventure, written by Warren Robinett and released by Atari in 1980, is a fantasy adventure game for the Atari 2600. Using basic graphics, the game allows a player to navigate a series of castles and mazes to recover keys, collect treasures, and slay dragons. The game plays a pivotal role in Ready Player One, not so much because … Read more
The collaborative card game Sentinels of the Multiverse is a fantastic mashup of the comic book genre. It can also be fantastically complicated, something the digital version of the game deftly manages. The result is a fun, fast-moving game that riffs on the best ideas from Marvel, DC, and other publishers. Created by Handelabra Games … Read more
My extended family started playing Ticket to Ride years ago. It’s one of our go-to games after holiday dinners, and we’re all comfortable with the mechanics, the strategy, and the map. We’ve mixed it up a bit by adding in the 1910 expansion, but for the most part, the game’s been the same for years. … Read more
Every hero’s path to glory to starts somewhere. In The Crypt of the Everflame, a 32-page, 1st-level adventure for the Pathfinder RPG, that path begins with a centuries-old crypt and an initiation ceremony gone horribly wrong.
Zombie Dice is Steve Jackson’s fast playing, push-your-luck dice game in which players take on the role of zombies hunting human prey.
The mechanics are straightforward. The game’s namesake dice represent the not-so-helpless humans and have three possible faces: brains, feet, and shotgun.
Scavenger’s Guide to Droids is the definitive droid source book for Star Wars: Saga Edition, introducing a new chassis-based system for creating droids, a new streamlined “protocol” format that lets players run droids as equipment rather than NPCs, new droid manufacturing traits and personality quirks and a 96 page codex containing dozens of droids.
Basing a source book on a video game can be a risky business, particularly when that game is an uneven, occasionally gimmicky shooter like The Force Unleashed video game. You run the risk of alienating diehard Star Wars fans who scoff at the idea of Vader having a hidden student, while at the same time running out of content because of the game’s lack of depth. Fortunately The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide avoids all of this.