WotC has a page up with information about the upcoming 2010 core set, including a 48 card visual spoiler.

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Dart Flip Cards creates trading cards in dozens of licenses for card-flipping purposes (I used to call that “card scaling”). Licenses include Pepsi and Coke, Battlestar Galactica, Crocodile Hunter, Gilligan’s Island, The Munsters, Sailor Moon, and many more.

The cards are not simple squares but aerodynamically designed for flipping. They also sell the Flipzz screen (above), and a series of trading cards that come with actual gemstones.

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GOLD, our favorite internet drama about competitive roleplaying, concludes its first season with Episode 6: And the Gods Will Have Their Way. From the American team captain to the British captain:

This sentence right here is the longest I’ve thought about your training. You could be training with [expletive] St. Cuthbert himself and it wouldn’t stop my guys from crushing you like a glass golem at a stone elemental convention!

And because a series of self-referential satirical videos isn’t enough, we should soon be seeing the release of a GOLD CCG!

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The Rulebook for Legend of the Five Rings Celestial Edition is now available for download here.  Here are some highlights of changes:

• Legacy holdings appear to be no more.  Now, each player starts with one or two specific holdings (the number dependant upon whether you go first).
• Action cards are now called ‘Strategy Cards’.
• Rings are now Unique.  (They were before, they just didn’t have the keyword.)
• Daigotsu is on the cover of the rulebook.  As noted in previous posts, he will own your face.

The table is yours,

Phil

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Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers have been morphin’ to games for over 15 years, none too successfully. To continue that tradition, Bandai released Power Rangers CCG last year to no particular fanfare or notice.

The artwork comes from the somewhat more successful Rangers Strike TCG, which is only in Japanese.

The game: each player has exactly 20 cards, which require you to discard cards to use and which deal damage in making your opp discard cards. First player to run out of cards loses. Play simultaneous: count to three and play a card. Higher power wins. You can bluff by not playing a card on three, in which case you simply lose.

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Upper Deck canceled the Vs System superhero TCG in January, citing its inability to “move forward with the original version of the game”. The Vs System included superheroes from both Marvel and DC universes.

So now I’m a tad confused as to the “big news” that Upper Deck has just secured a multi-year licensing partnership with Marvel. I understand that the world needs superhero TCGs to be marketed simultaneously with those upcoming superhero movies, but will these TCGs be compatible with Vs System?

And what does this fortell for Heroclix?

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Day two of Origins opened with a bang on Thursday, with the show starting up in full steam (word to GAMA – I like having the conference open a day longer, but make Wed. more worth our while!). All of the major events started today, including the TerrorWerks event (check out our coverage later for an overview of this Origins staple). With the exhibition hall open, Origins has a ton going on today, including:

• Medieval combat tutorials (using bopper LARP weapons of course)
• The Exhibit Hall itself – home to move vendors than you can shake a stick at, selling everything from new releases to old classics (I tool a pretty serious look at some early 80’s Games Workshop games I’d never heard of before…)
• New game releases, including
• • Dominion: Intrique – the standalone expansion to last year’s hit release (and current Spiel de Jahres nominee
  • Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs. Imperium – the long awaited expansion to to RtfG that brings direct player conflict to the game
  • Formula D: Map Pack 2 – Bringing the streets of Valencia and the famed Hockenheim Ring tracks to the game
  • Steam – Martin Wallace’s sequel to Age of Steam
  • Starblazers the RPG – the massive epic RPG from Mongoose based on the classic British scifi property [edit for my own Japanimation bias!]
  • Tales of the Arabian Nights – Z Man Games’ massive storytelling game
  • Battletech Strategic Operations – the newest extension of the retooled Battletech rules
• The Dice Tower Dinner – Tom Vasel’s annual trip to Max & Erma’s open to boardgamers near and far
• The Board Room Wits & Wagers Tournament – a massive team game of Wits & Wagers held in the Board Room

All of this is of course in addition to open gaming with board games, miniature games, CCGs, CMGs, RPGs and LARPs!

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I had a chance to sit down with the folks from Bandai to talk about their new CCG, Battle Spirits and play out a demo game. Bandai starts out by explaining that Battle Spirits is a lot like Magic the Gathering – and they’re right, it really is a lot like Magic including familiar concepts like summoning sickness and tapping creatures for combat. Player begin with a small amount of core (mana) that they can use to cast spells and five life points. Spells come in two forms – basic spells that impact the game board and creature spells that remain on the field of play and do battle. Each creature has a single combat value used to determine the results of combat. On a player’s turn, they gain one core from their reserve, recover any reserve they spent last turn and may cast spells. Spells have a printed cost that can be paid, though this cost is reduced by one for each card of the same color the player currently has in play (down to a cost of zero). If the spell is creature, an extra core is required that is placed on the creature. Each creature has multiple levels that are attained when the creature gains a specific amount of core, with each level conferring different combat abilities and combat strength. After spells have been played, one core can be moved from the current pool to one or more creatures currently in play. Then, the current player nominate creatures to fight – the defender assigns blockers (who must be untapped at the start of combat). Combat values are compared with the highest value surviving and the losers going to the graveyard – one added bonus: winners of a combat get an extra core as a reward for winning combat.   

The game plays in about 30 minutes and has some interesting elements that really differentiate it from other CCGs on the market. In some ways, the depth of play may be a disadvantage, as I can see more finely tuned decks resulting in some very intense and long play times (those five hit points last quite a while even with the demo decks). The artwork on the game is gorgeous and the cards themselves are well laid out and easy to read. The colored factions in the game have very distinct styles of play (I seem to gravitate towards the purple Darkling faction which specializes in manipulating the battlefield) and are pretty different from what we’ve seen in other CCGs. I’ll be curious to see how the market reacts to this newest entry into the overcrowded CCG marketplace. Battle Spirits will be available nationwide in the US on August 14th and the first major tournament will take place at GenCon 2009.

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If you live near Amherst, MA, you might consider joining the Pioneer Valley Gamer Collective.

The Collective is a non-profit that operates a game store called Worlds Apart Games. WAG is like any other game store, with games, dice, etc, as well as place to play games, but it’s worker managed and worker owned. They also make themselves available to do game outreach, non-profit fund raising, education, and so on.

Anyone can join to get discounts and a say in what goes on.

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Wargods is a MMORPG for Facebook and Myspace from Enigma Games.

And is now planned to have a CCG expansion of 48 cards in both digital and print format. That’s the first leap from social-app game to CCG, as far as I know.

(source)

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