Now through August 15th, GMT Games is running a truly amazing sale to clear some space in its crowded warehouse. The company is offering 23 individual games at 40-60% off. And on top of that, orders for multiple games qualify for a second level of discounts of 20-40% (up to 50% if you add P500 games at the same time). The multiple-order discounts require use of coupon codes, so make sure to grab those from the web site.

But wait, there’s more! Remember GMT’s game giveaway from last fall. Well, they’re doing it again. So, if you’ve become unemployed since November 30, 2008, GMT will send you two free in-stock games of your choice.

• 0 Comments

About a year ago, Fantasy Flight Games started screening Midnight Chronicles, a movie based on the Midnight roleplaying game. Shortly after that I heard Christian Petersen speak at Gen Con about the company’s hope to broadcast the video as a television show on one of the cable channels. Christian even went so far as to say that Fantasy Flight had already developed plans for additional episodes. Here it is a year later and, unfortunately, it seems that the project is not working out exactly that way. Instead Midnight Chronicles is going straight to DVD, for which the company is now taking preorders. The DVD will be released August 13th (I suspect that was set to coincide with Gen Con). The movie will also be released as an electronic download in two packages, one the film alone and one with the script, the Midnight RPG rulebook, and a new adventure module based on the movie.

At the same time, Fantasy Flight is moving ahead with a couple of projects closer to its established line of business. There will be a new card game based on the Penny Arcade webcomic. Titled Penny Arcade, the game will put players in the positions of Gabe and Tycho as they battle each other with Attacks and Hijinks. Fantasy Flight is also launching a line of game accessories, starting with cards sleeves in 11 sizes and styles to match both board game cards and CCGs.

• 0 Comments

Heroscape figures come with stat cards in funny hexagonal shapes that, though they match the rest of the game, are not so convenient in actual play. User Grithog on the Heroscapers forum has designed alternative cards in the standard rectangular shape for all nine Waves and two Master Sets. These cards, which you can produce with ease on ArtsCow, are easy to store, simple to handle, and are great for drafting armies.

• 0 Comments

Max Finkelstein made a pretty set of chess pieces, each piece influenced by the spirituality of kachinas. What’s a kachina? A spirit being of the western Pueblos (Hopi, Zuni, …)

The Wilmington Woodturners from NC also made a nice wooden set.

These guys found a nifty Kachina set at the Hubbard Museum of the American West.

(Kachina is also an upcoming board game from Bucephalus.)

• 0 Comments

Grass Roots Gamer is a game design collaboration site.  It’s aim is to attract people with half an idea and allow others to take over and complete, playtest, or kick the tires.

All submissions and resulting products are CC licensed.

I’ve called for this type of community in the past (here) (not exactly, I actually called for open source game design); GigaOM did the same thing for video game design (here) (sort of, he actually called for more collaborative game design).

Good luck. Would love to see this integrated with BGDF.

• 0 Comments

Pauline Shum Sui-ping of Resonance Publisher created both “The Great Leader, Moses” and “The Great Teacher, Jesus” because she felt that a greater understanding of the Scriptures would help bring a message of hope to those who apparently had none. (source)

Both are trivia games, in Chinese. Young Moses in the game ad looks pretty Chinese himself.

• 0 Comments

The guy who gave us Rock Paper Scissors in Space is attempting to create the world’s largest board game about his home town of Mississauga, a large Canadian city that he says gets short shrift being located close to a more famous Canadian city, Toronto.

The game will be called In Search of Sauga, and he is trying to get local business to sign up to place their names on the game. More information on his painfully designed web site.

Another notable duo from the same guy: The 30 Greatest People of All Time game and The 30 Most Evil People of All Time game (both here). The former includes Jesus Christ and Florence Nightingale. The latter includes Slobodan Milosovic and Kim Il Sung. Bonus cards let you add Obama to the good deck, and Bush and Cheney to either deck.

• 0 Comments

Malizia is a trivia board game about Monaco, from Art Com Monaco and the Monaco Stamp Issuing Office.

Monaco is Europe’s second smallest autonomous principality (after Vatican City) and is most famous for it’s Monte Carlo casino operations and its reputation as a tax haven. The game is named after Monaco’s conqueror, Francesco Grimaldi (il Malizia, The Malicious One), whose cousin’s descendants rule Monaco even today.

The game appears to only be available in French.

• 3 Comments

Greedy Greedy from sggc High Point Games is a push your luck game with dice and cards.

No rules on the site, but the basic idea is like other push your luck games: keep rolling and decide when to stop. Too much and you lose your points. The cards have various abilities, and score you points.

• 1 Comment

Kingbrick is a dice rolling dexterity game from Oliver Sibthorpe.

Players place their king die inside a square on their side of the board, and their other dice as walls and troops. You flick the dice, trying to knock your opponent’s dice off the board. Your own piece is lost if it lands sad face up while in your opponent’s territory.

And did I mention the assassin and ninja dice?

• 1 Comment