There’s a lot of rumor and speculation floating on the interwebs tonight that Catalyst Game Labs, makers of the Shadowrun, Battletech and Cthulhutech game lines, is in quite a bit of trouble. We’re not going to speculate on what is actually going on, but here’s what we’ve been able to put together from various freelancers and others associated with Catalyst:

• Adam Jury (confirmed on his blog and Twitter) and Jennifer Harding (confirmed on Dumpshock) have left Catalyst
• Jennifer has stated publicly: “However, I will state that on Monday, March 15th, I resigned from working as CGL’s bookkeeper and office manager, due to a conflict involving my personal ethics. The Operations Manager resigned the week before that, for similar personal reasons.” (we assume that the operations manager referenced is David Stansel-Garner, though this is unconfirmed)
• Some freelancers have indicated that payments are running behind, though others have current accounts (this could be nothing – inconsistency in the timeliness of payments is not uncommon for small businesses that rely on freelancers)
• Conversation on the ClassicBattletech forum seems to be non-existent (some threads on the topic have been removed), but a few of the Catalyst folks are talking on the Dumpshock forums
• As a reminder, ShadowRun and Battletech are both actually owned by Topps, Cthulhutech is owned by Wildfire and Eclipse Phase is owned by Posthuman Studios
• Jason Hardy (line developer for Shadowrun) has indicated that a release from management should be forthcoming shortly and has asked people to avoid speculation

To be clear, there was a fair bit of debate on our internal discussion list as to whether we should even post this item. That said, there’s so much speculation going on and we’re such big fans of the work the company has done (I mean, seriously, have you seen the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition? It’s gorgeous!) that we wanted to be up front and only print what we’ve got from first hand, reliable sources and hopefully bring a bit of calm to the situation (we have also sent a request for comment directly to Catalyst). I for one am hopeful that things are being blown out of proportion and that Catalyst will continue putting out more of the high quality products we’ve seen over the last few years.

Update: Franklin in the comments was the first to post a link to the official CLG response.

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Shanya Almafeta!

That’s right. Shanya has won our awesome Read an RPG in Public prize pack!

We’d like to thank everyone who participated in our largest contest yet. We’d also like to thank all the companies that provided products to go into the prize pack.

Shanya, please let us know your information so we can get those prizes out to you!

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I’ve already taken a look at PowerMage 54, so you know how I feel about it. So the news that it’s coming to the iPhone is kinda exciting!

Ravenous Games will be developing the app using the open-source Cocos2D engine for the iPhone.

PowerMage 54 is fairly light with some good strategy, and I can see it porting nicely over to the platform.

The more board/card games ported to iPhone/Android, the more exposure the hobby gets.  That’s can’t be a bad thing.

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Skirmisher Publishing has thrown its hat in to the ring with Adventures in Wonderland: A Sourcebook for OGL Roleplaying Games. This e-book of monsters, skills, magic items, etc., joins a long history of Wonderland-based RPG products, some of which we listed here.

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The Upper Deck Company recently announced that it has settled the lawsuit brought against it by Major League Baseball. The settlement allows Upper Deck to continue selling baseball cards as long as it doesn’t put team team names or logos on new cards. This, however, is apparently not enough to forestall major changes at the company. ICv2 reports that Upper Deck has instituted significant layoffs, primarily in the entertainment division. Upper Deck explained that the changes are part of a reorganization intended to make the company “more efficient and better positioned going forward.”

After all these events, though, I wonder what impact this might have on Upper Deck’s Marvel trading card and CCG products.

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That’s right! Tonight ends our Read an RPG in Public Contest!

Last chance to get your entries in.  We won’t count anything after 11:59pm EST.  Just post a comment here, on our facebook page, or on twitter with a photo of you reading an RPG in public to enter!

We’ll be picking a winner by the 17th (Wednesday), and there’s a really great prize pack just waiting for the the winner!

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The team at Green Ronin was super-busy this weekend! Rather than break out all of their news into individual items, we’ll go ahead and list ‘em here:

• Family Games: The 100 Best is available for pre-order and even includes a free copy of Walk the Plank; this sequel to the very cool Hobby Games: The 100 Best covers all sorts of games for families to enjoy together, from RPGs to card games
• The Dragon Age: Game Master’s Kit is also available for pre-order, allowing you to pick up the physical book and the PDF for the same price; we covered Dragon Age a while back and don’t mind recommending it to fans of old-school roleplaying
• Speaking of Dragon Age…it’s sold out. They’re working on a second printing, but there’s no estimated time for it to be ready, so if you want a copy, you might want to act quickly…
• Chris Pramas (and one of my favorite RPG authors) and Nicole Lindroos of Green Ronin are on the most recent episode of 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction (the not-so-regular podcast from Chris Hanrahan of Endgame fame and Brian Isikoff)

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Dungeon Crawler is a new fantasy combat CCG from Jay Legarie and sggc Gifted Vision. The first set contains 140 cards in four levels of rarity, and is based on game designs Jay has worked through for a number of years and art contributed by some excellent artists.

There’s a lot of information about the game on the site, and options to buy the game as $25 starters or $3 boosters all the way up to plunking down $780 (special pre-order price) for a big bundle of cards.

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Sign on San Diego pimps a card game group. (source)

Boston.com pimps the designer of Anomia. (source)

Carleston City Paper pimps The Settlers of Catan and a local place to play it. (source)

A trade magazine for McDonald’s Canada pimps Monopoly, Werewolves of Millers Hollow, The Settlers of Catan, and other games. (source, via)

Chatham Daily News pimps family game night by instructing you to go through the games you already own and pick one, after which you try to get the kids on board. (source)

Destructoid pimps Brenda Brathwaite’s talk about her art game about the Holocaust, Train. (source)

Santa Ynez Valley News pimps Karen Palmer, designer of Let’s Save Our Earth. (source)

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Let’s talk about graphic design this week. How important is the actual look of a game and its pieces to you? If a game is solid, do you forgive it cheap components and shoddy art? If a game is just “OK”, but has an amazing look and high quality components, will you be more willing to play it again?

I’m a huge fan of a good looking game, but I’m usually willing to look at mechanics and play over how good something looks. That’s not to say that if a game looks like complete butt that I won’t even give it a second glance.

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